What a long and exciting day it has been!  I’ll start from the begining…..we were up too late after the semi-formal and I was not feeling it this morning.  I felt so gross I almost called in from volunteering, but I knew it was more about being tired than being contagious.  I told myself that I would suck it up and go and planned a reward/major sugar and caffeine rush for breakfast.  I ate a Cliff Mojo Trail Mix Bar on the walk to the hospital.

Adam had been driving me but it’s only about a half a mile a way.  I should have walked further though, because when I got to the hospital I ordered this –

cookies and cream javalanche (i.e. frozen coffee).  Oh man, I felt like a 24year old and not a college kid because this made me so sick!  I got about 3/4 through before I threw in the towel but I spent the first hour or so of volunteering wishing I had somewhere quiet to puke!

Volunteeringwas much better today than it had been, because I finally had a bit more to do.  I spent several hours making catheter packs and the repetition was very cathartic.  There was some sadness and hubbub because a DNRpatient coded but getting to see all the UB med students rush in the room got me so excited about my husband 🙂

For lunch I let my uber unhealthy breakfast guide me away from pizza and toward the sandwich counter.

Sliced turkey with spring mix lettuce, sun dried tomatoes, and chipotle sauce on pumpernickel bread.

When I got home I found a very exciting package, and a review is to come.

I also had to go to the post office to pick up more excitement from my parents.

(Among other things) they were in San Francisco last weekend and they sent me all of these goodies they bought along the way.  I also got an Amazon order with two books my mom had bought me for my birthday that were on hold.

Right now my “to read” bookshelf is packed 🙂

As soon as we got home from the post office we had visitors!  Adam’s mom and dad came up for his white coat ceremony tomorrow and they are staying with their friend Peg in Warsaw.  The three of them drove over tonight to meet us for dinner.  We hung out and showed them our new digs before we walked across the street for dinner here –

We tried Tempo, and Italian spot on our block, and looooooved it.  We sat on the patio which was gorgeous.

It came up that I had a food blogand we ended up gettingto meet the chef!  If that wasn’t exciting enough he sent out an extra course for us to sample.  All in all the service was impeccableand the experience was amazing.

I nused a glass of riesling, Richter Porter, Germany, throughout dinner that I adored.

Soon after we were seated we were delivered an antipasto plate – eggplant tapenade, fresh feta, olives – and some fresh homemade foccacia.

Here was my plate –

For my first course I ordered the eggplant antipasto fried eggplant/goat cheese/olive tapenade/sun dried tomato vinaigrette/baby greens.

How gorgeous is that?!?

The eggplant was unbelievably fresh and the tanginess of the sauce complimented the dish wonderfully.  I ate it all except for a few shared bites.

After the appetizers the chef sent out three plates for our table to try.

Respectively they were: a. gnocchi in a favabean sauce, beef carpaccio, and a zucchini stuffed with bacon risotto.

Since I don’t eat mammals there were parts I couldn’t eat, but I had small tastes of each –

The gnocchi was a-maze-ing.  It was the best texture ever, chewy and airy all at the same time.  I realize the bacon was cooked into the the risotto but I said screw it and just sort of ate around it, it was creamy and smokey and great.  And my husband said the beef reminded him slightly of salmon and was delicious.  We just couldn’t get over how fresh everything tasted.

For my entree I ordered the Gnocchi Pomodoro housemade gnocchi/pomodoro sauce/fresh mozzarella.

I couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful all of the dishes were.

The gnocchiwas amazing, as before, and the best way to describe the pomodoro sauce is that it tasted made from scratch.  We were getting stuffed at this point and I still managed to eat all but a few bites, though I did peel away most of the cheese.

Stuffed, however, does not mean too stuffed for dessert!  My mother in law ordered a trio of sorbets, best she’d ever had she said, and Peg raved about the cannolli but I was too busy swooning to taste anybody else’s!

Butter Pecan Gelato with biscotti and housemade fudge sauce.  Adam and I split this but if I hadn’t been so stuffed I probably would not have let him have any!  The gelato was great (again, it was just so clearly homemade) but nothing on this Earth is as good as that frickin’ fudge sauce.  The very best comparison I can make, which doesn’t even begin to do it justice, is that it reminded me of baking chocolate squares, if they were somehow the most amazing thing on Earth.

Adam actually commented after dinner how much he enjoyed watching me enjoy my food 🙂

We walked our guests to their car and since I was too close to exploding to sit back down we spent 20minutes taking a nice walk around our neighborhood.  I called my parents to thank them for the gifts and swooned about dinner all over again.  Now Adam is studying and I am going to do some blog business and then aim for a 10pm deadline.  Sweet dreams.

When was the last great meal you had?  Other than tonight’s amazingness, and the world’s best sandwiches at Serendipity, I would say this meal.