We moved from Buffalo to Long Island almost 10 months ago now and we felt overdue for a visit!  Adam is on Spring Break this week so I took a personal day on Friday and we made the 8 hour drive back “home.”

It was a great weekend.  I’m still pretty sick so we kept things low-key and it ended up being a wonderfully relaxing trip.  And we still had time to cross off all of the must-do’s on our list.  We ate all of the food we were missing, walked down Elmwood, visited my old job to get all nostalgic and purchase some terrific toys, attended a baby shower for two dear friends, went out drinking with the whole crowd, and took a long walk around the park to look at the buffalo.

Here were the food highlights…

Bubble tea from Gin Gin.

I got vanilla-almond milk tea with tapioca and popping boba.

Thai Orchid for the best Thai food ever.

My tofu Pad See Ew did not disappoint.  So chewy!

SPoT for breakfast.

Iced coffee and a Mike’s sandwich on an everything bagel.

Juice at Ashker’s.  A blend of kale, spinach, cucumber, and carrot.

We split a duck feast at Blue Monk.  Duck Reuben and Duck Poutine.

And on the way out-of-town Danielle took us to Aroma for a brunch that would have been a weekly tradition had we known about it while we still lived in Buffalo.

That Buffalo Bloody Mary had gorgonzola and Frank’s in it!  And my salad came topped with artichoke hearts, calamata olives, fried leeks, tomatoes, shaved parmigiano-reggiano, balsamic vinaigrette and a poached Oles Farm free-range egg.

It was a fantastic, delicious visit.

The long car rides weren’t even that bad – honestly they were sort of fabulous – thanks to the audiobook I was sent to review.  Doing Harm by Kelly Parsons is an exciting debut novel about medicine and moral dilemmas in which a surgeon must confront, outwit, and overcome deadly threats to his patients and himself.  The audiobook is voiced by Robert Petkoff, who has voiced countless thrillers, including those of Michael Palmer.

This was our first time listening to an audiobook and I think we are officially hooked.  It made the time fly by.  Time for a book review…

cons –

1. Some of the medical terms were mispronounced – fascia, parenteral nutrition, rhabdomyolysis – and it was distracting.
2. The author was weirdly obsessed with hairdos; there was only one lone character, out of every single other character both big or small, whose hair we didn’t get a description of.

pros –

1. The story completely sucked us in, we would sit in the car for at least five additional minutes whenever we reached a destination!
2. The experience of being a surgical resident was very accurately captured, Adam couldn’t believe how spot-on the author managed to be.
3. Most of the medical plot was fairly accurate as well.

Overall I’d recommend reading, or listening to, Doing Harm.

Do you ever listen to audiobooks?