We did not plan on stopping. The plan was simple: catch the new Spider-Man, drive home, maybe eat something if the timing worked out. But the road back runs through the west side of Seneca Lake, and the Finger Lakes have a way of talking you out of a plan you were not that attached to anyway.
So we finally stopped for a tasting. A name we have had on a few bottles , just a small tasting room with a gravel lot. The kind of place where the pour is generous because nobody is counting.
There is something funny about going straight from a movie theater into a vineyard. Two hours of a kid in a mask swinging between buildings, and then twenty minutes later you are standing at a wooden bar holding a glass of Riesling, listening to someone explain what the cold nights do to the acid. Both are escapism. One is just quieter about it.
We worked our way through the list. The dry Riesling was the one that stuck, sharp and a little green, tasting exactly like the weather outside. The reds were softer than I expected. We bought two bottles we did not need and stood outside for a while looking at the rows before getting back in the car.
That is the whole story. No big revelation. Just a good movie, a good glass of wine, and the reminder that the drive home is allowed to be part of the day too. Next time, we will build the stop into the plan on purpose. Hermm J. Wiemer Vinyard
🍷🚤🐟 We drove out to Living Roots for a wine lunch with exactly one goal: finally sign up for the wine club. That’s it. We’d been meaning to do it for a while and kept not doing it.
What we didn’t know is that @lido_fingerlakes has taken over the kitchen for a summer popup. Chef Chris Cullen is running a seafood pop-up Thursday through Sunday, and it caught us completely off guard.
The plating looks like French Laundry, but it’s local ingredients. The florals and seasonal picks feel like a New York City restaurant. And the flavor profiles land right on top of our favorite Japanese meals. That’s a strange combination to describe, and it’s still the most accurate one we’ve got.
We started with a couple of dishes. Then we ordered a couple more. By the end we’d worked through most of the menu and not one plate let us down.
Wine in hand, Keuka Lake out the window, food coming out one course at a time. We came for the wine club and left with a new favorite meal.
If you’re near Keuka this summer, go before the pop-up ends.
🦆🥩🌱 There’s a certain magic to slowing down over a meal someone else is cooking.
This particular evening called for something a little more indulgent, a little more romantic, so we walked over to Le Café Cent-Dix on Aurora Street, just off the Commons. No reservations there, which means you show up early and wait with everyone else who had the same idea. Worth it.
The plates came out the way the best evenings do: unhurried, generous, one thing after another. Duck took center stage, its skin crisped to a deep golden brown, rich and tender beneath. Alongside it, a well-seared steak, charred at the edges and pink in the middle, the kind of thing that makes you slow down and pay attention. A handful of greens rounded everything out, a fresh counterpoint to all that richness.
A night like this isn’t really about the menu. It’s about the ritual. The way a small room fills with warmth and noise, the way conversation drifts easily between courses, the way an ordinary Tuesday quietly turns into something worth remembering.
You don’t need a special occasion to eat well. Sometimes the finest table is the one a few blocks away, and all it takes is showing up hungry with someone you love. Good ingredients, treated simply and honestly, letting the flavors speak for themselves.
By the time the last plate was cleared, the evening had already earned its keep. A French date night, no passport required. Just a good table, a bit of patience in line, and the good sense to savor it.
🫐🌱👌🏼 We picked blueberries at Joe’s parents’ place today. Me, my husband Angel, and Joe, a couple of buckets, most of the afternoon.
It’s easy work and it’s slow, which is the appeal. It doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. The ripe ones come off easy, and the ones that fight you aren’t ready yet. Joe kept finding the fullest branches and pointing them out. Angel worked the low bushes, the ones you have to crouch for, where the fruit sits in the shade and stays sweeter. Between the three of us the buckets filled faster than the conversation ever slowed.
Joe’s mom was out there too with the dogs, who had a system. Anything that hit the dirt was theirs. They ran the rows like a cleanup crew and I don’t think one dropped berry made it out of that patch.
Joe’s usually the one taking care of us, so it was good to spend an afternoon on his family’s land, picking from bushes his parents have been tending for years.
We came home with way more blueberries than three people should reasonably eat. Scones first, then muffins, then syrup with whatever’s left. Purple fingers for a day or two.
☀️🌱⛱️ There’s a particular kind of magic in the way summer hands you something delicate and asks you to be gentle with it. Squash flowers are exactly that. They arrive soft and golden, the color of late afternoon light, and they carry the promise of a garden still busy with sun.
The idea here is simple, though it feels like a small ceremony. You take the flowers, still faintly warm from the day, and fill them with ricotta. The cheese settles in like it belongs there, cool and creamy against those bright petals. Then comes the tempura, that whisper-thin batter that fries up into something between a crackle and a sigh.
When they come out of the oil, they’re impossibly light. You bite in and the shell shatters, and underneath is the ricotta, soft and quiet, and the flower itself, tasting faintly of the vine it grew on. It’s the kind of thing you eat standing over the stove, not waiting for anyone.
Summer cooking is like this. It doesn’t ask for much. A little patience, a hot pan, and a willingness to let good ingredients be what they already are. These stuffed squash flowers are a reminder that the best dishes are often the ones that hold the season in their hands and don’t try too hard to change it.
Make them once and you’ll understand. Sunshine, a garden, a warm afternoon, all folded into a few golden bites.
First, the batter. We dropped the usual flour-and-cornstarch mix and went with rice flour only, no egg, kept ice cold. It’s just rice flour and enough cold club soda (or beer, if you want that flavor) to make a slurry that’s thick but still loose enough to coat. Dust the flowers in dry rice flour first, dip them in the slurry, and straight into the hot oil. That’s the whole batter station. The dusting gives the slurry something to grab, and the rice flour is what fries into that thin, glassy shell instead of a heavy crust.
Second, the filling. Ours is ricotta with fresh mint and basil, and a spoon of honey to sweeten it. We used a raw goldenrod honey from Bright Raven Farm & Apiary, just up the road in the Finger Lakes, sold at their Honeybee Embassy. Goldenrod honey crystallizes fast, so it comes thick and a little pasty, and that’s exactly what you want here. It sweetens the ricotta without turning it into soup. Use whatever good local honey you can find, and if yours is loose and runny, use a little less so the filling stays dry enough to hold.
Everything else is fast. The flowers come from the garden, the frying takes about a minute a batch, and you’re eating them warm before the plate ever makes it to the table.
Ricotta Stuffed Squash Flowers, Tempura Fried
Squash flowers stuffed with ricotta, mint, and basil, sweetened with local goldenrod honey, and fried in a light rice-flour tempura slurry.
Prep: 15 min | Cook: 15 min | Total: 30 min | Serves: 6
Ingredients
Filling
10 to 12 squash flowers
1/2 cup ricotta
1 tablespoon fresh mint, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh basil, finely chopped
1 tablespoon thick raw goldenrod honey (we used Bright Raven Farm’s)
Salt and pepper to taste
Tempura batter
1 cup rice flour, plus a little extra for dusting
About 3/4 cup ice-cold club soda or beer, enough for a thick but pourable slurry
Pinch of salt
tip: keep the batter sitting on top of icy water to keep it cool
For frying
2 cups neutral oil (vegetable or peanut)
OR in a deep frying pan where the oil is 1.5 to 2 inches deep so the flowers can float without touching the bottom.
Instructions
Prep the flowers. Brush off any dirt. If you rinsed them, dry them well. Trim the stem to about half an inch and pinch out the stamen inside if it’s large.
Make the filling. Stir together the ricotta, mint, basil, honey, and a little salt and pepper. Keep it thick. The honey should sweeten it without loosening it, so if yours is runny, use less.
Stuff gently. Spoon or pipe about a teaspoon of filling into each flower. Don’t overfill or they’ll split in the oil. Twist the petal tips to close.
Heat the oil to 350°F.
Make the slurry last. Right before frying, stir the rice flour, a pinch of salt, and enough ice-cold club soda (or beer) together until it’s thick but still pourable, loose enough to coat. Keep it cold and don’t overwork it.
Dust and dip. Lightly dust each stuffed flower in dry rice flour, then dip it in the slurry to coat.
Fry a few at a time for about a minute, until pale gold and crisp. They cook fast, so don’t walk away.
Drain and serve. Drain on paper towels, season with a pinch of salt, and eat warm.
📷🎞️🦓
There is a particular kind of quiet that settles in when you finally sit down to gather the pieces of something you made. This week I found myself doing exactly that, pulling my university photography class work into the portfolio section of my website.
It felt less like housekeeping and more like looking back through a window at a version of myself still learning to see. Each frame carried a small memory, the light I chased, the mistakes I kept, the shots I almost deleted and now cannot imagine losing.
Photography has always been about noticing. The class taught me the mechanics, aperture, shutter, the patience of waiting for a moment to arrive, but the real lesson was slower. It was learning to trust what caught my eye and to give those images a place to live once the semester ended.
So the portfolio grows a little today. These photographs are no longer scattered across old drives and forgotten folders. They have a home now, arranged in a way that feels honest to who I was when I took them.
If you wander through the new additions, I hope you see something of what I saw. A striped shadow, a strip of film, a stubborn attempt to hold onto the ordinary. Archiving is really just remembering with better organization, and I am grateful for the chance to do a little of both.
I like a plain slice. Always have. But somewhere along the way I started wanting it to taste a little more like me — and the two things I reach for more than anything else in my kitchen are mayo and Old Bay.
So one day I put them on the pizza. Together. 🍕🦀🥚
I call it May Bay, and it’s less a recipe than a habit I’ve stopped apologizing for. You take a plain cheese slice — hot, fresh, nothing fancy — drizzle mayo across the top, and dust it with Old Bay until it looks right to you. The mayo adds a creamy richness the slice didn’t know it was missing, and the Old Bay brings that salty, celery-and-paprika bite that makes everything it touches taste a little like summer near the water.
It sounds like it shouldn’t work. It does. That gap between “shouldn’t” and “does” is where most of my favorite food lives.
The May Bay “Recipe”
Ingredients (yes, all two of them):
Mayonnaise
Old Bay seasoning
Instructions:
Start with a plain cheese pizza slice, hot out of the oven.
Drizzle mayo across the top in thin lines.
Dust with Old Bay to taste. Start light — you can always add more.
Eat immediately. Repeat as needed.
That’s it. No crab, no tricks, no special equipment. Just a plain slice with a little extra pizzazz, exactly the way I like it. If you try it, I’d love to hear whether it converts you — and if it doesn’t, more Old Bay for me.
🥒🥕🥗 End of June, when the heat loosens its grip and the yard goes quiet. The raised beds hold their shape against the day’s sprawl, cedar edges warm to the touch, soil still breathing from the sun. Vines find what they’re looking for, small tendrils hooking into the trellis like a steady handshake. Carrot tops feather the paths; the salad patch keeps its cool, a low green tide.
I water slow and let the light do its last work. Beads gather on leaves, then vanish. A bee drifts past my shoulder, unbothered. Somewhere a neighbor closes a door. Here, it’s only the soft scrape of a trowel, the faint sweetness of tomato stems on my hands, the small proof of planning made real: a cucumber with a pale bloom, the hint of orange shouldering up through soil, a bowl’s worth of crisp leaves.
These beds aren’t grand, just honest. A rhythm you can feel under your ribs—seed, care, wait, return. At the end of June, the garden answers in its careful language: not yet everything, but enough tonight. I set the hose down, look once more, and let the day close around it.
🍷🍇🏳️🌈
“Wine day with bae” felt like permission to slow down. Late June light, the kind that softens edges, found its way through the glass and warmed our hands. We didn’t plan much beyond getting here. That was the plan—let the Finger Lakes decide the rest.
The first pour was bright and easy, like a door opening. We took our time, letting the berry and stone settle on the tongue, listening for the quiet notes a busy week drowns out. Clink. Smile. A small joke that landed just right. The kind of conversation that doesn’t need to prove anything, just breathe alongside us.
Out beyond the patio, rows of vines kept their own careful rhythm, green upon green, patient and sure. A breeze lifted the edge of the afternoon, and with it, the sense that we were exactly where we were meant to be—two chairs, one table, the lake not far, the world briefly uncomplicated.
June carries its flags and its histories. We carried ours in the open, in the easy way our shoulders touched, in the quiet pride of being ordinary together. There was no grand lesson, only the soft relief of time well-spent.
We left a little lighter, lips stained, palms warm, promising to come back before the summer tilts away.
I’ve been waiting for this one. Given THE Best finally landed on my doorstep, and the box is heavier than I expected. Four LPs, the muffler towel folded crisp, the shirt soft and a little oversized (it’s an L). And the cover. Kizu Natsuki drew something new for this, and in person it almost glows.
This is the analog version of the best album that dropped back in October 2024, every theme and insert song from the anime pulled onto vinyl. Limited box, ESJL-3170. The kind of thing you don’t expect to actually get your hands on.
I put on KIZUATO, lower the needle, and wait through that first crackle. It’s the same song I’ve carried around in earbuds and late-night tabs for years. But on vinyl the air gets involved. The quiet between notes sits heavier. I feel it in my chest, the old ache that taught me how music can hold a hand you can’t reach.
Four discs is a long conversation, so I’m in no hurry. I flip through the sleeves and let the art lean against the turntable. The shirt catches the afternoon light. All of it says the same thing: you were here for this once, and you still are.
There’s a quiet joy in making room for something you love, in letting it take up space without apology. 🏳️🌈👨🏻❤️👨🏽 And when Side A ends, I’m already reaching for the next one, grateful for the memories, the room fills back into sound and asks me to stay longer.
Given THE Best (ギヴン THE BEST), catalog ESJL-3170 is the vinyl box set version of the best album collecting the theme songs and insert songs from the anime series Given. The original best album came out October 2024, and this analog edition released May 14, 2025. It’s a fully production-limited release, and it’s already sold out at CDJapan.
The details:
4 LPs (12 inch) in a box set
Newly drawn cover illustration by the original manga creator, Kizu Natsuki
Bundled merch: an album-exclusive T-shirt (size L), a muffler towel, and a rubber band
Artists: given / syh and CENTIMILLIMENTAL (V.A. compilation)
Price was 20,000 yen (22,000 yen tax incl. in Japan), roughly US$125
JAN/barcode: 4547366723212
The first song, opening LP1 Side A, is “KIZUATO” (キヅアト).
This year we got to celebrate it twice over, as husbands and as a team. On Thursday we were at Schuyler Pride, and on Saturday Angel and I had lunch at the Corning Museum of Glass and then walked over to the SoFLX Pride Street Festival. Flags moving in the wind, music threading through a street full of people who felt, for an afternoon, like neighbors.
We’ve been husbands in a thousand quiet ways (coffee, errands, brushing shoulders in the kitchen). Pride is when we get to bring that out into the sunlight and let it glow. Hand in hand, heart to heart. #husbandswhopride
To the ones who paved this road, the ones dancing on it now, and the ones still finding their way: we’re here, we’re us, and we’re not going anywhere. Happy #PrideMonth. 🌈
Zamartz is Proud to have sponsored Southern Finger Lakes Pride 2026, handing out 50 free flags at Schuyler Pride alongside Goldenrod Preserve and Flags for Good. 🏳️🌈
2025 wasn’t a great year for many people. For us, I’d call it an “okay” year—and honestly, okay still carried plenty of warmth. When I look back, what stands out most are the wholesome, silly moments: hosting our first friends’ dinner, and Joy and Dyson splashing around in a tiny kiddie pool like it was the best day on earth.
As the years pass, remembering a specific point in time gets harder. That’s why I’ve learned to **keep a few key moments—little anchors—**that can bring you back instantly. Photos help. Objects help. And for me, art helps most.
A Visual Time Capsule: Our Growing A to Z Art Collection
I’m a visual person, so this growing collection of A to Z illustrations has become my way of holding onto the moments that matter. It’s also a gift I love giving Angel—something meaningful, personal, and tied to the life we’re building together.
This year’s piece symbolizes:
The hope I have for our growth in Montour Falls
The love of our puppy babies (Joy and Dyson)
Building our next chapter with the Goldenrod Inn
And yes—there’s an Easter egg in the illustration: can you spot the goldenrod in the artwork?
Why This Matters to Me
It’s easy to let time blur. But I don’t want these years to disappear into a vague “back then.” I want to remember the tiny, ridiculous details—the laughter, the chaos, the small wins, the ordinary days that turn out to be the important ones.
This artwork is one of the ways I’m choosing to remember.
What I’m Looking Forward To
Montour Falls continues to feel like possibility. The Goldenrod Inn feels like a dream that’s turning into something real—step by step. If 2025 was “okay,” my hope is that the next chapter is steadier, brighter, and built with intention.
If you’re building something too—whether it’s a home, a family, a business, or just a better year—I’m rooting for you. 👨🏻❤️👨🏽🏳️🌈🐶
