Farmshares and baby burritos

I just finished creating a marvelous pear & potato soup from our farmshare. It is deceptively creamy despite being (accidentally) vegan! My girl Yamileth will love that!

And, to top it off, tonight my husband revealed something he'd been hiding for years: he can cook! He pulled together a delicious roma tomato reduction-of-sorts over crispy polenta rounds with asiago. Who knew?

I gladly did the dishes.

Perhaps only slightly more important than the discovery of my husband's cooking skills was THE BIRTH OF MY BABY NEPHEW, BLAKE! He is tres cute. (Photo below, masquerating as a baby burrito)

After a speedy labor (4.5 hours or so), Sarah and Ryan welcomed their 7lb 11oz boy (+ a lot of dark hair) into the world at 3:37 a.m. on October 16. They were rather secretive about the name (understandable). Blake Hawk is a perfect reflection of who they are, what they value, and how much of an awesome quarterback he'll be.

Blake is a name they both like a lot. Sarah even remembered an old crush of mine from junior high (I had hormones in my brain but none working on my body) named Blake. He WAS rather cute when we were 12. I'm sure my Blake will be even more adorable. I've been trying to friend Blake T. on Facebook but he's not into it. Perhaps a message to the likes of this will bring him around?

Hawk stems from various things. An image of the West. The freedom of flight. A threatened and sometimes fragile species. A creature Sarah sees often in her line of work. And the name of our favorite cowhorse when we were growing up: Hawkeye. It made us all so happy to hear homage to that lovely horse!

As luck would have it, the entire Lozano clan + Gato were in San Diego when he came into the world. I think that he was just waiting for us all to show up in order to make an entrance. I'll ask him that when he's 10.

Perhaps one of the most mystical things about his birth was a story his Grandfather, Eric Larson, told us at dinner on Friday. He was sitting in his office in Phoenix, and a "thunk" interrupted his thoughts. A huge hawk had flown into the window and was trying to come to its senses while it perched on a tower outside. Hawks rarely make it to the city center like that, and Eric was incredibly surprised to see it. After a while it flew away.

And the next day our little guy was born.

Harbinger? Oui.