Well, food-lovin-friends, June flewwww by!  Thank goodness for that because even better things are comin’ for the rest of this summer!

Since June ended up flying by so quickly, I can’t say I did much that was necessarily super exciting, but I did get to test out some new summer recipes as promised.  Such as…

strawberry pie

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mini cheesecake

And a fresh green bean dish that still needs perfecting.

We’ve had a major heat wave going on here in the N.C., so I’ve spent most of my weekends at the beach with this new book.  I’m loving it so far!

reading on beach

June also meant seven –SEVEN– shark attacks + more shark sightings in NC.  One attack + more sightings WHERE I LIVE.  Scary!  Needless to say I won’t be going in the water anytime soon…

At least there’s this: Heat = desire for ice cream X 8 = Dairy Queen + Selfie

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For those of you who may not be located in the midwest (which I know I’m not currently, but in my experience those outside of the midwest just don’t obsess over understand DQ like us good ol’ midwesterners) and/or therefore didn’t grow up with an affinity for Dairy Queen, and/or maybe haven’t ever heard of or had DQ, you should know it’s just got that something about it.  Can’t say it wins any ice cream contests, but sometimes you just need to have a taste of that unique DQ soft serve ice cream with candies mixed inside.  AKA: a blizzard.  My favs are Oreo and Butterfinger, by the way.

I did have a rather unfortunate event in June.

My current house has a lot of “quirks” to it, one being the fridge has a slight tilt.  A few weeks back I decided to put an entire 1.5 liter bottle of wine on top of it.  Well, over the weeks it slid back bit by bit until I shut the door one evening and BAM.

Wine. Was. Everywhere.

Including in my dinner pictured there.  I’m not exaggerating either – every crack, every crevice.  And the shards of glass… Everywhere.  Every. Where.  Lesson learned, my friends! (side note: sorry about the overpowering red-tinted photo, but that’s what happens when you take a pic of red wine that’s EVERYWHERE)

wine explosion

This happened after a day full of mishaps, including my door handle falling out as I headed out to work.  Please don’t judge the shoe problem I may or may not have…

broken door

But you know, we all have those days where you ask yourself why you even got out of bed.  All I could do that day was stand there and laugh.  I literally just stood and laughed in disbelief that day.

Cause really, what else can you do when life throws you a fork in the road (get it? ;))?  Laugh and continue movin’ forward, that’s what.

July starts off with lots of hugs, delicious cheese plates, and wine that is not out of a box, because my mama is coming to visit tomorrow!!!  Don’t worry Grandma, I promise we won’t have wine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (can’t promise we won’t for 2 out of the 3 though ;)).

Happy early 4th, everyone!

*FYI – All photos in this post were taken using an iPhone, and if you follow along over on Instagram you might have even recognized a few.

*FYI2 – I’ve had a lot of questions about my recipe pictures (the non-iPhone photos) lately and wanted to clear up some confusion.  All photos on Fork in the Kitchen are taken by myself, unless otherwise noted.  Please note all content and photography is ©Fork in the Kitchen.  All rights reserved.  Please do not reproduce any text or photographs without my prior written consent.  THANK YOU! 🙂

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