View from my favorite breakfast spot. A good morning starts with my cat Cocijo climbing up on my stomach after the alarm goes off. He lies there staring at me until I get up to make breakfast. We have our breakfast on the verandah steps on warm days, where we watch the sun glittering in the dew drops. 
I was quite upset when we got back from a friend's wedding last weekend and there was no Cocijo there to greet us. He never strays far from home, and he's always the first to come and greet us when we come home. Like any cat he hates rain, and on this Sunday it was pouring. We asked the nearest neighbours (they're 200 m away, and he never walks that far) but no one had seen him. After a few days we decided we'd better get used to being without him. It was not pleasant thinking of him as fox food or injured in the bushes somewhere. So when one of our "far away neighbours" from out by the road pulled up in front of our house Chris sat down and I held my breath, both of us expecting the worst. And then we find out that Cocijo has been happily living on their porch since Sunday evening! 
Speaking of weddings, three weeks ago my older brother married his wonderful girlfriend in our hometown. I'm not a religious person and not very sentimental, but I couldn't keep my tears back during the ceremony in the church, or during the speeches at the reception for that matter. Seeing the two of them, so happy and in love, and all the people who care for them so genuinely, wishing them well... I'm very glad I was there to share their day. 
The week before my brother's wedding we did a house swap with Chris' parents. His father is amazing at tracking down great mushroom spots. He had barely gotten out of the car before he had picked a bucket full of mushrooms. And when he told me he found plenty of chanterelles just outside our house I had to go exploring. I didn't find any in the spot he suggested but it turns out there are a few good spots around the horse paddocks. I managed to pick a kilo. Some of them I turned into delicious chanterelle pie, the rest I stuck in the freezer. Now the only thing I want to do on my free time is scan the woods for more orange gold! 
Chanterelle pie Pie crust of your choice
(I'm not good at pie crusts, recipe suggestions are more than welcome)
1,5 tbsp butter
300 g chanterelles
2,5 dl /1 cup mature cheese, grated
(I used the Swedish cheese Västerbotten, but I think parmesan or a mature gruyère would also be nice)
0,5 dl cream
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
Set the oven to 225 C (approximately 400 F). Brush off any dirt from the chanterelles and cut them into manageable pieces. Sauté them in the butter. Lightly beat the eggs and mix with the cream, cheese, salt and chanterelles. Pour into the pie crust and bake for 45 minutes. Top off with fresh herbs for instance thyme or parsley.
I also made o-nigiri a while ago, inspired by my japanese food adventures. I used a recipe from Just Hungry. In japan I had them filled with barbequed or warm smoked salmon. I only found cold smoked salmon at my grocery store, so I decided to steam it. The o-nigiri turned out pretty well but I need to tweak the cooking time for the rice, it was slightly too hard. It takes some planning to cook the rice, but it wasn't as much of a hassle as I thought it would be. And the o-nigiri are perfect for lunches and snacks to bring with you. Two of them fills me up perfectly, three of them leaves me stuffed. 
