Hopefully it's no secret that I love food, the making and the eating of it.

Alice Waters' "The Art of Simple Food" is one of my favorite cookbooks. It begins with her philosophies about food (here's a list of them) and contains beautiful illustrations throughout of ingredients in their natural (freshly picked) state with information about using those ingredients and recipes of all sorts for each.

One idea she writes about is that of allowing our ingredients determine what we make, rather than the other way around (i.e., picking a recipe then selecting ingredients based on what is called for in that recipe). I love this idea, especially when considering seasonality. I always have and always will love browsing through recipes and keeping tabs on those I want to try, but I've been trying to branch out with this more intuitive style of cooking, letting my ingredients and personal creativity combined determine what shows up on my plate.

I bought peas and cherries from a farm stand while running errands on my day off last week, with no specific plans for them. I got home and with my leisurely afternoon flipped through a couple cookbooks for ideas. Then one hit—pesto! I love pesto, and it has many common ingredients that I usually have stocked in my cupboards/windowsill herb garden—substitute the pine nuts with peas, et voilà! Alas I do not own a mortar and pestle as recommended, but I made do with an ice cream scoop and bowl—the lack of proper tools made the successful outcome even more satisfying.

It has been so hot lately, but I just keep reminding myself about all the great food that is coming with the hot weather... namely tomatoes, berries, watermelon, PEACHES, and lots of other delicious things. Here's to a summer of good food, and if you have any recent or favorite recipes or ingredients of note, please share!

The above photos are from a Saturday morning of rock climbing in Rock Canyon a number of weeks ago—my first successful/complete ascent while climbing in the wild! I'm posting these now because this week I took the plunge and invested in rock climbing gear and a membership at a local climbing gym! Tonight was my inaugural climbing session as a new member and it was really great; no buyer's remorse here.

I am still getting the hang of things (puns for Lauren, always) and still working through my characteristic, continual anxieties but I am better learning to keep calm under pressure and keep on going—good lessons for me to reinforce time after time. There is something so cathartic and satisfying in overcoming challenges while doing something you enjoy. I love hobbies that come easily and naturally to me, like reading and photography, but this (similar to running) is becoming one that I love too, because I have to work harder for it.

Also, those mountains. I really love being in the mountains.

The Ragnar Relay: 200 miles split between 12 team members, each running 3 legs of various mileage.

If you had asked me a couple years ago about the Ragnar Relay, I would have thrown the words "crazy" and "never" somewhere into the conversation. Somewhere something changed and I now find myself to be someone who loves running. When Jesster was putting a team together I jumped at the opportunity and recruited some friends to join, too. Training for Ragnar reminded me of the reasons I love running, primarily that it puts me outside in beautiful places and noticing things that I would not notice if I were going by at higher speeds (i.e., driving). I love the familiar feeling of my early alarms going off, pulling on running clothes, and slipping outside to a cool, beautiful morning. I formed habitual routes as well as explored new ones and this became a favorite part of my routine during the last few months.

This is what a 4AM wake-up call looks like.

A couple weeks before the race, I started having problems with my IT band. Long story short, it was incredibly painful and made running a bit of a misery. But I finished! On Friday night after leg 2 of 3, I was a tear-stained mess, completely miserable, and not quite certain that I would make it through my last, longest, most difficult leg the following morning. But rest, ice, a miracle-worker at the first aid booth, 3 hours of quality sleep (due to our exhausted state), and encouraging teammates saw me through it all.

This was the sight I woke up to at 6am on Saturday morning of the race. We crawled into our sleeping bags in the wet field at 3am with a sky of beautiful stars above us. Even with no glasses on, I could see the cloudy milky way above—so incredible.

We ran through some really beautiful parts of Utah and I had a blast with these team members and friends in van 1 (my stomach hurt from laughing so hard all weekend). What an experience it was and I am so grateful.

And a few photos from the Ragnar photographers... (race photos are always so awkward and we had some gems, ha). We used a slap bracelet in place of a baton to pass to our runners and I was taking it off to have in hand to pass off to Vanessa; good thing I am a well-practiced child of the 90s. Below is our entire team after running into the finish together!

I found out today that I have been accepted for my internship in Italy this summer!! (multiply those '!!' by 11724982375981273. that is how excited I am. Infinitamente. [extremely])

I already have a passport, but naturally we had to recreate the un-passport photo for me.

Ah, yes. Blurry, sunglasses, weird facial expression, and not one, but two Italy calendars as the background. (I have my roommate Rachel and sister Lauren to thank for those.)

I feel like dancing right now, I'm so happy! It is utterly satisfying to see this dream start to come true that I have worked so hard to achieve.