Tag Archives: cheese

The 24 Hour Post

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In order to tell today’s tale I have to start with last night’s.  Adam went out to play poker with the boys until all hours of the night and I stayed at home and watched the first half of several tv shows (seriously, how can “Chuck” be so bad?!?).  I sent him with cookies and everyone raved about them, by the way.

Around 1 o’clock in the morning I sidled up to another bowl of pasta, with some chopped up sharp cheddar and turkey pepperoni added into the mix.

Delicious, and serendipitous because we woke up too late for breakfast.  A middle of the night meal can count as the morning’s breakfast, can it not?

Today, in the day time, I did make myself an orange julius, but other than that I wasn’t quite able to get a handle on at home food.

Tangy and creamy all at once makes me a happy sipper.

Around 3 we headed to the mall on a whim, and took in a showing of “The Dilemma.”  Not ground-breaking, but certainly a cute movie.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more jazzed about my movie snack than the actual picture though.

A glorious mix of gummi cola bottles, sour gummi cola bottles, and cherry sour gummi cola bottles.  The gummi cola bottle genre is my very favorite kind of candy; probably why I was able to take down a 1/2 pound’s worth 😉

While we were out we called some friends on another whim, and ended up with a big group dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  It was great to catch up with people, particularly since I haven’t really been leaving the house the last week!

I had a slice of sourdough. (Why is CF always so darn dark?)

And my favorite salad of all time for dinner.

The fresh vegetable salad – asparagus, green beans, tomato, cucumber, roasted beets, apple, edamame, radicchio, romaine, and white cheddar – with a side of spicy peanut vinaigrette.

It’s insane to me that this monster is an appetizer salad, I’ve got more than half of it left, sitting in the fridge for tomorrow!  I did help myself to many (unphotographed) bites of the husbands spicy cashew chicken as well.

Ok movie, good food, great friends; what more could a girl want?

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Updated to add – yeah, I totally finished off that salad!

Sleep Deprived Sandwich Delight

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Ugh; last night was not pretty!  I don’t know what my problem was, but I just could not go to sleep.  And by ‘I don’t know what my problem was’ I mean there were so many problems – the dishwasher was running extra loudly, I didn’t leave the house all day, I was riled up from fighting with the husband, the husband sometimes snores like a water buffalo – that I’m not sure which one to blame.  It wasn’t pretty.

You know what was pretty?  Breakfast.

Gorgeous in fact.  Ok, so it’s more of an inner beauty situation.

I toasted a Van’s Berry Waffle, topped it with a banana mashed with cinnamon sugar, followed by some reduced fat sharp cheddar, sandwiched, and gave it a quick spin in the oven.

If you are still scared of the banana + cheese combo, don’t be!

Today’s agenda includes errands at school, a long overdue trip to the gym, and the baking and cooking from yesterday.

Have you tried the banana + cheese combo yet?  Where’s the strangest place you put banana?

Three Out Of Five

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Let’s go back and look at that agenda.

Stack of magazines, cookbook reading, crafting, home cooked dinner, baking.

Check, check, check.  Three out of five isn’t so bad.

Now the highlights.

My whilst-cookbook-reading snack was pretty great.

I toasted up a serving of Van’s Mini Waffles, topped with marinara, 50% reduced sharp cheddar, and turkey pepperoni, then baked at 400* until melty and crunchy.

My reading was pretty great too.

Baked is a fantasmic shop in Red Hook, Brooklyn.  The first time we trekked there was right after I finished reading Black, White, and Jewish, and the whole trip felt magical.  My mom gave me the cookbook for Christmas and I can’t wait to recreate the Baked brownies.

Dinner was not so great.  We should have stuck with the plan.  Instead we strayed from the agenda and had big heaping plates of Screaming At Each Other Like Crazy People.  Too spicy and wholly unsatisfying.

Three out of five isn’t so bad.

P.S. We’ve since made up.  And the husband delivered me a glass of skim milk with a chocolate milk straw.

NYC: Day 2 and 3

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I wish I had been able to blog more in the city because squashing the recaps of these two days together just can’t do them justice.  To say the weekend was fabulous is an understatement; although every trip to the New York is fabulous. 

Saturday and Sunday were spent pretty much exclusively eating and walking.  My two favorite things.  And the walking was through our favorite areas and the eating included some of the best meals I’ve ever tasted.  Fabulous.

Saturday started with a trip to Soho to our favorite brunch spot.

We discovered Freemans on a whim one weekend and it has never disappointed us.  The boys (and my friend Lana who lives in the city and joined us for the day) were duly impressed.

I ordered the Fall Vegetable Hash, which came with two pan-fried eggs and herbed creme fraiche.

This was savory breakfast perfection, I didn’t know that brussels sprouts in the morning could taste so good. 

I knew our next stop required a hungry belly though, so I managed to leave one egg on the plate.

I’ve you’ve ever previously read my blog when I had visitors in the city then you know where we headed next.

Sugar Sweet Sunshine has the best (and cheapest) cupcakes in the city.  They are sweet without being too sweet, spongy and light, gorgeous, and innovative.  Plus the cake is so good that this former frosting-licking-then-tosser devours the entire cupcake, cake and all!

I went with pistachio.

Be still my heart.

Then we hopped on the train and headed to DUMBO.

The neighborhood Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass is one of our favorite areas in the city.

In addition to being gorgeous, you can walk straight from the park to the Brooklyn Bridge for a walk into the city.

Fabulous.

A subway trip later, and we were back in Park Slope.  I know hitting up the same area during a three-day trip to the city is a little silly, but we just love it there so much!  Plus, it was the first time Gordy and Ian got to visit our old ‘hood.

Those photos are from Bierkraft, an exciting little craft beer spot on 5th avenue.

Bierkraft has an area with benches, a tap selection, and then walls and walls of beer coolers for you to peruse.  So I of course ordered an apple cider.

This was the only underwhelming thing I put in my mouth all day (TWSS).  I usually drink Woodchuck ciders and this guy from Harpoon had a slightly lower alcohol content and a much lower flavor punch.  I passed him off halfway through.

We continued the carbo-loading by splitting this bag of chips.

It had been a long time since brunch but I wanted to be hungry for dinner and these spuds fit the bill perfectly.

For dinner we took everyone to Sotto Voce, the best Italian food in Brooklyn.  The wait staff was totally accommodating about seating six without a reservation, nice as hell, and they brought us great bread.

The lighting was a little dim, so these pictures – with lighting engineered by Lana with an i-phone flashlight app – don’t even begin to do the food justice.

I ordered the special and it quickly found its way onto my “Top Five Best Meals Ever” list.

Sacatini pasta stuffed with spinach and gorgonzola in four cheese sauce with walnuts and poached pears.

Holy god.  I am not a good enough writer to adequately describe how amazing this was.  The fresh pasta had a totally unique texture.  The sauce was pure cheese ecstasy.  The poached pears would have been exciting all on their own and then they were perched atop this masterpiece.  I ate about 2/3 and shared the rest and everyone agreed that it was divine.

The rest of the night took us bar-hopping in Williamsburg, but frankly I was just plain too tired for booze so I have no pictures of that.

Sunday morning we slept in late, Ian set off to his train, and Adam, Gordy, and I wandered down to Lexington Avenue in search of brunch.  We had been very excited to try one particular location but I’m glad that it fell through because that disappointment led us to Rare.

Rare is the restaurant attached to the Affinia Shellburne Hotel but don’t let that fool you; it is so not a hotel restaurant.

For starters, they took pride in their complimentary Bloody Marys.

I ordered mine extra spicy and was in horseradish heaven.

Did I say that Saturday’s dinner was a best meal ever?  Because Sunday’s brunch was the best breakfast of all time.  Seriously.

This is how Rare does french toast.  Thick slices of challah, real Vermont maple syrup, and sautéed bananas.

They were ridiculous good.  I ate exactly half, pretty much only stopping because I couldn’t shut up about how good they were and I was starting to annoy the other patrons.

I also took a few bites of Adam’s parmesan and truffle fries.

I wasn’t the only one moaning at the table.

A quick walk to drop Gordy at his train, a stop at Barnes and Nobel for a coffee with skim milk, and we were back on the road.

As you might have divined from yesterday’s post, dinner on the road sort of sucked, but every minute in the city was perfection.

I’ve lived a lot of (neat) places – St. Thomas to Miami to Brooklyn to Buffalo – but the city has felt like home since before I even moved there.  When we vacation my homesickness is always for our studio in Park Slope, even though we now live somewhere new.  After two years away it still feels like home, my true home.

Where is your home, your true home?

Just the Facts

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This needs to be a quick post, just the facts.  Adam and I got hooked (way hooked!) on Firefly today and the sooner I post the sooner I watch  🙂

This morning = Sabrina the Teenage Witch and a huge bowl of popcorn.

Bringing ‘corn back into this house was a bad idea, and that’s a fact.

Plus real lunch.

Sandwich Thin with cheese spread and turkey,

Bartlett pear.

Dinner a la mother-in-law; turkey quesadilla casserole.

End.

All Around

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January 2nd was not quite as productive as the 1st.  The day’s agenda went something like this –

Wake up super early, excited about all I’m going to accomplish.

Realize that our fifty degree weather has dropped to below twenty.

Spend the entire day bundled, most of it in bed.

Watch TiMer (high point here) with the husband.  <– very funny and sweet

Eat a bunch of crap during the movie (crackers with cheese spread/cake ball/gigantic slice of buffalo chicken pizza).

Get a massive tummyache.

Go back to bed.  With periods of pacing and clutching, moaning, and dodging the husband’s disapproving stares.

But I’ve spent the day looking pitiful enough that I did guilt him into agreeing to go get me ice cream since it’s the only food I can currently stomach.  A productive day all around.

End of Vacation, End of 2010

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Keeping this quick, I’d like to finish before 2011, thank you!

Yesterday afternoon we took a long walk downtown, admiring the scenery,

And relishing johnny-cake with cheese.

The evening brought a trip to XO with my parents, for a belated anniversary dinner.

So.Much.Good.Food. Adam and I split the crabcake appetizer.

And I stole bites of my parents scallops,

and lobster.

For our main meal the husband and I did some sharing. Bruschetta pizza,

Spicy Thai salad,

Baked goat cheese salad.

For dessert I stole a few bites of Adam’s chocolate peanut butter deal,

but I was mostly saving myself for German chocolate cake.

We ended our vacation today with a final morning run.  About a mile, with some additional walking. I am so freaking proud of us for working out every day we were here!

My dad made me a small fried egg sandwich for breakfast,

I had a final piece of cake,

and then we were off.

We bought chicken pates for flight number 1.

Plus a few handfuls of mint m&ms.

And Chick Fil-A for dinner on flight number 2.

Boo for crappy airport food; I’m ending the year with a tummy ache.

Goodbye 2010!

STT; Tuesday Night – Wednesday Afternoon

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One by one, all of our fancy anniversary plans fell through. In the end, we got takeout and played board games with my parents. It was perfect.

Tofu pad thai, cashew chicken, and crab Rangoon.

I did some snacking earlier in the afternoon as well; half a sandwich for lunch was not cutting it.

Apple slices, beer bread with cheese,

and a brownie.

And during board games I showed the husband how much I love him by letting him share my favorite thing on earth –

This candy is basically just a cake of sugar soaked in peppermint oil, it’s fantastic. Minty and crunchy, it reminds you of getting your teeth brushed at the dentist in the best possible way.

Breakfast this morning was 0% Fage with half a sliced banana and a piece of coffee cake.

I also took some gingerbread coffee with skim milk to go while running errands with my dad.

For lunch I toasted a huge chunk of beer bread and topped it with hot pepper raspberry jam and melted swiss.

Yum!

The rest of the day brings a swim (we’ve gotten in a small workout every single vacation day, I’ll be darned if I miss today!), a movie, and dinner.  I can’t believe that tomorrow is our last day here!

What do you do to celebrate anniversaries?