Five Things – Weekly Wrap Up

by Emily

five things i ate last week

{1} Really great breakfasts.

I killed it on the breakfast front this week. Two different days I managed to bring in yogurt (TJ’s strawberry and then 2% plain Fage) with tons of pomegranate and blackberries for topping.

Plus I had cold-brew coffee with soy nog for the train.

Another day I did toast, followed by a juicy apple, and caramel hot chocolate to spruce up my coffee at work.

{2} Party food!

My lunches were a bit ridiculous this week, lots of work parties to attend. First, the Dietitian party.

My profession always has the best food. Salad, fruit salad, glass noodles with shrimp, and chicken Pad Thai.

Plus lots of dessert.

And later in the week there was a hospital wide celebration.

Salad, green beans, jerk chicken, eggroll, macaroni. Plus a chocolate fountain.

{3} Sandwiches, still.

The days without parties, I was still loving the cafeteria sandwiches. Jerk sliced chicken with mayo, mustard, provolone, and lettuce.

Plus a similar ‘wich with seaweed and a tangerine from home on the side.

{4} Dinner at Whole Foods.

We went on the first night of Hannukah hoping to find lattkes on the hot bar. No such luck, but we did make super tasty giant salad bowls. P.S. That seltzer was so good that I went back and bought a case of them!

Salad base with yummy chipotle almond dressing, tons of shredded veggies, roasted veggies, and a big scoop of mac and cheese.

And we stopped at Ample Hills to check out the seasonal flavor on the way home.

Did not disappoint.

{5} Super thick hot chocolate.

I made my own (super thick) hot chocolate. But I messed up the proportion of things a bit so the recipe is still not ready to share.

It looked good though!

five things i read/watched/listened to

{1} “Take Me to Church” from Hozier. I am still obsessed.

{2} “Snowfall” from Ingrid Michelson. This is my all-time favorite “Christmas song.”

{3} Blood, Bones, & Butter, Chef Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune’s memoir. <– do not recommend. Parts of the story were great, but I wasn’t a fan over her writing style and by the end I wasn’t a fan of her either.

{4} The mid-season finale of “Brooklyn-99.” Loooove.

{5} “Rick and Morty,” an amazingly smart and funny cartoon that we just discovered.

five things from instagram

{1} My new favorite top ever, a sweater my parents sent me with a giant icebear.

{2} I’m super proud of this wrapping job I did on my in-laws’ Christmas present… working a toy store over the holiday season in Buffalo definitely taught me a few things.

{3} Another shot of that tasty marshmallow I ate in the Bryant Park Winter Village.

{4} I like this drawing, but I took this photo back in November, before Thanksgiving! Slow down!

{5} Puppy love. His fat little arms slay me.

Have a great weekend!

15Dec2014

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas! Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

It’s only 10 days ’til Christmas! And Hannukah starts tomorrow! And it was Adam’s 29th birthday on Thursday! We had a lot to celebrate this weekend. The last three days have been fabulous. Lots of great meals, several at fancy restaurants, and they were usually followed by dessert!

Friday

Friday was a regular work day for me, but I had the excitement of knowing that the husband was coming to pick me up at the end of the day. The switch to an electronic medical record system has gone fairly well, by the way; fingers are still crossed.

I ran out the door late in a flurry so breakfast came from Starbucks.

Iced latte and a fruit pouch that was not great.

Lunch was pretty much the same thing, since I didn’t pack anything and made it down to the cafeteria late in the day.

Iced coffee + chocolate milk, an apple, and a Gingerbread Larabar.

Plus some of the RDs came up to visit me – they liked my tiny office! – and brought me candy.

I don’t know where my Russian coworker gets those caramels but they are great.

Adam met me after work and we spent the evening in the city. Our dinner reservations weren’t until 8:00 so we did dessert first on a visit to the Winter Village at Bryant – Brrrryant! – Park.

We got a dulce de leche cookie,

then warmed up with a lusciously thick drinking chocolate – and a marshmallow! – from the from the Max Brenner stand.

OMG. We have been buying and hating hot chocolate since San Francisco but this liquid gold was exactly what we’ve been searching for. Super thick and rich but not sickeningly sweet.

We had a mile-ish walk to dinner and I’m terribly sad that it was too cold for my camera because I was basically dying at the gorgeous lights along the way.

Tavern on the Green, Adam’s pick for his belated birthday dinner, was seasonally stunning as well.

I got a Queens cocktail – Bootlegger vodka, Velvet Falernum, sorrel hibiscus liquor, pomegranate molasses, and lemon juice. Yummy, and perfectly balanced.

We shared the scallops with citrus butter, capers, and fried shallots to start. I’ve been having a love affair with fried shallots lately.

None of the entrees jumped out at me so I ordered two veggie sides, crimini mushrooms with blue cheese and basil and broccoli rabe with lemon, garlic, and sea salt.

It was a great night.

Saturday

We had errands to run in SoHo on Saturday, so we parked in Brooklyn and took the train in and spent the day in the city.

There might have been booze in my coffee.

I bought a snickerdoodle lattee from Dunkin and added a healthy pour of Rumchata (aka the snickerdoodle shot) and it was damn good.

While we were in Brooklyn, we split a sardine Bahn Mi from Bahnmigos.

It was great! The little me who grew up in the Caribbean shunning seafood (whyyyy??) can’t believe I eat things like sardines and scallops now.

We did linner (super late lunch) at Freemans Restaurant.

Blue Ridge Fizz = apple brandy, maple, allspice, and champagne. Freemans is our favorite brunch spot in the city and their cocktails are always magnificent.

I got poached eggs with tomato stewed kale, crispy shallots(!!), and hollandaise on sourdough toast.

My eggs ended up being overdone but I forgave them because the kale was so good.

We went next door to Morganstern’s for dessert.

We shared a cup of American egg custard and durian banana ice cream. Soo creamy! And the flavors were very true to life.

After a bit more exploring, we did round 2 at Sugar Sweet Sunshine.

I got a shot of The Nog – pumpkin cake layered with eggnog pudding and whipped cream.

SSS never disappoints.

Sunday

Sunday was all about hanging out at home. We would have stayed in our pajamas all day, had my dinner plans gone better. We cuddled, watched tv, and got up some holiday decorations.

I woke up starving from our early dinner the night before so I made a big plate of eggs for breakfast.

Scrambled with chopped jalapeno, corn, sliced turkey, sour cream, and goat’s milk cheddar.

Plus Silk soy nog on the side.

Instead of toast, I snacked on a bag of salted caramel popcorn.

The plan for dinner was pasta with sun-dried tomato pesto but something went horribly wrong and my pesto was pretty much inedible.

Instead, we salvaged our veggie side,

and ventured out for Thai, stopping for mint chocolate froyo along the way.

Much better. Enjoyed in front of Scrubs – which we are rewatching for the millionth time – it was a great end to a great weekend.

12Dec2014

This Week I Loved…

by Emily

*Silk Soy Nog*

I adore eggnog, and this (vegan, 80 calories per half cup) stuff is at least 90% as good as the real thing. Enjoyed in both overnight oats and cold brewed coffee.

*Sandwiches from the cafeteria*

I didn’t pack lunch for most of the week because I bought a sandwich on Tuesday and got hooked. Turkey and provolone on an onion roll with mustard, mayo, and spicy banana peppers.

*Chips*

I had tortilla chips – with cheese and fresh salsa – with my sandwich one day and became a woman obsessed. I ended up making Adam a separate, grown-up person dinner and then eating chips and cheese several nights.

*Cola-flavored candies*

So good! Extra fizzy cherry cola Pop Rocks and cola float hard candies with a creamy center.

*A new book obsession*

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

I finished Cutting for Stone this week and thought it was absolutely wonderful. Author Abraham Verghese is a doctor as well as a writer and he did a skillful job of portraying the medical scenes in the story in clear and approachable way (most of the main characters are doctors so this came up a lot). The characters are all flawed but beautiful, and I fell head over heals in love with Ghosh.

What books have you loved lately?

6Dec2014

Cookie Monster

by Emily

An old-school full-day wrap-up post? Why not! I felt the urge.

I cannot even tell y’all how excited I was this morning that today was Friday. Adam has the weekend off and even though he has studying to do I’ll get to sit next to him on the couch! I still needed coffee to help me face the day though.

Non-fat iced latte (always iced!) and an apple.

I clearly wasn’t getting up early enough to pack a lunch, so I got food from the cafeteria today.

A half sandwich – love that my caf. offers that – of tuna salad, provolone, lettuce, red onions, and honey mustard, on whole-wheat.

Plus baked onion rings.

Dessert was candy that my co-worker sweetly brought me.

A thank you for the gift I brought to her baby shower on Tuesday. I am excited for her, but also a little bummed because she’ll be out on maternity leave soon and she’s one of my favorite people at work.

We have tons of leftovers from our take-out streak the past week so we kept thing simple for dinner.

Buffalo chicken pizza.

And green papaya salad from a new Thai place in Great Neck.

The salad was flavorless and disappointing but it was my only shot at produce so I ate it anyway.

And cooooookies while we watched “Bones.” The last caramel chip plus cookie creamer in my (half-caf) iced coffee.

Both good, obviously.

My weekend plans include a long overdue visit to the gym, Christmas shopping, grocery shopping, and a doughnut spree in Manhattan if the rain holds off.

Have a happy weekend!

5Dec2014

A Weak Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

I don’t have much to say or show, taking pictures was beyond me this week. Having to be a grown-up again after two weeks of vacation pretty much kicked my butt. I don’t have a single dinner shot but it’s no big deal because we ate Chipotle and/or pizza every night!

This week took so much coffee.

This non-fat eggnog iced latte was the best.

LÄRABAR sent me some of their new seasonal flavor, Gingerbread! It was yummy, and I loved how smooth the texture was.

A lunch.

That’s Wildwood Royal Thai Tofu with pumpkin butter and Sriracha mayo.

Apple, olives, cola float hard candies.

Bears.

I made caramel chip cookies.

Another lunch: 2% Fage with pumpkin butter and cookies, plus an apple.

I had to share this strawberry water because it was ridiculously delicious.

I hope everyone else had a good week!

26Nov2014

The Girl In Sonoma {San Francisco}

by Emily

Our last two days were spent enjoying the beauty of California wine country. And eating. So much eating! We were trying to pack in as much fun as possible on our last full day and we went a little crazy ordering food. We definitely didn’t finish everything shown, but we did eat quite a lot.

We started Friday with coffee,

and fruit and bread.

We split a Satsuma, an unpictured banana, and a rosemary roll from ACME Bread Company.

We saved the sourdough roll for an amazing lunch of bread, cheese, and chocolate.

Plus earl grey panna cotta for dessert.

We had the Cowgirl Creamery Mount Tam fresh from the source because we were there for a history lesson and cheese tasting.

Best tour of the trip!

After cheese, it was time for wine, with a tasting at Matanzas Creek.

The grounds were gorgeous and the wine was de-lish! We liked it so much we even bought a few bottles to bring to Thanksgiving.

Next up was beer (and more cheese!) at Lagunitas Brewing Company. Brown Shugga was my favorite, unsurprisingly.

They had pretzels out for palate cleansing between tastes,

but we also got a big plate of cheesy nachos.

This was the point in the day where I was getting a little too full!

But we forged ahead with a trip to Bouchon Bakery for a butterscotch éclair.

And finally settled in at The Girl and the Fig for an outstanding dinner.

Those light green olives were shockingly good.

I had to get a lavender mojito, it was made with Cruzan rum!

We started with a cheese plate with apple, house-made fig cake, spiced nuts and baguette.

We choose a P’tit Basque sheep’s milk, Bohemian Creamery’s The Bomb goat’s milk, and a Bleeting Heart Moolicious Blue. Because we had to fit cheese into every single meal that day.

Adam and I shared for dinner. Local mushroom raviolo with sunchoke purée, truffle pesto, local mushrooms, and chicories.

And the house-smoked trout sandwich with farm egg salad, caper aioli, pickled red onion and dill.

Both were absolutely amazing. The sauce under the pasta and the pickled red onions on the trout totally made the dishes.

We got an after-dinner drink with Firelit coffee liquor and Sailor Jerry rum.

And had dessert that was my favorite dish of the entire trip. Chocolate and salted fig caramel trifle with cocoa nibs and Italian meringue.

Adam was amazed by the nibs and I was obsessed with the marshmallowy meringue. Plus we came home with a jar of their salted fig caramel.

We had such a wonderful dinner at The Girl and the Fig that we ended up going back for brunch on Saturday! We met up with a medical school friend who is doing his residency in Fresno and he said The Girl was his favorite Sonoma spot.

Fig Fashioned.

Mussels and frites for the table, which I was totally brave about and ended up loving.

And the best grilled cheese sandwich of my life.

We left completely stuffed; the three of us were barely able to get coffee, hours later.

Our flight was a red-eye and it didn’t leave until after 10 pm so we were able to spend the whole day catching up. Our friend chose to spend his one day off for the week with us so we were thrilled to make the most of it.

A perfect end to a perfect vacation!

24Nov2014

San Francisco Recap, Day 1 & 2

by Emily

If you follow me on instagram you’ve already figured this out, but {surprise!} I’ve been in San Francisco for the past week. Adam had the last two weeks of November for vacation again this year so I took the time off as well. We spent week 1 on the West coast and now we are headed off to Ohio for Thanksgiving family time. So far it’s been great!

I have a ton to share from SF – we basically walked and ate all day, every day – so I’m going to try to keep myself from being too wordy, but I’ll still need to split this up into three posts…

We had non-stop flights each way which was awesome. Monday we flew out around noon so we had a little time at home in the morning and then with the time change a full afternoon of vacation. Plus there was free television and movies on the plane which was basically the most exciting thing ever.

Plane food. Coffee, plus a white cheddar and pumpkin butter sandwich and tasty pretzel sticks.

The time flew by and before we knew it we were struggling up super steep hills on our way to dinner.

We had a late reservation so we stopped for bubble tea first. Brown sugar ice milk with egg pudding and grass jelly. Apparently I love egg pudding. And grass jelly.

And we got to keep our cool bottles.

Dinner was Waterbar, a sustainable seafood spot right near the Bay Bridge.

I got a cocktail with Buffalo Trace bourbon, Heering cherry liqueur, Benedictine, and orange zest.

We split a leek and parsnip soup with smoked trout that was very yummy (I had lots of good trout this trip).

And for dinner I did pan-roasted sablefish – caught in Fort Bragg, CA – with globe artichokes, butterball potato, grapefruit, nicoise olives, and chervil.

I adored the artichokes, but sadly didn’t like my fish at all. This was the only meal that I didn’t love on the trip. My food was practically floating in a watery sauce and I hate that. Adam, on the other hand, thought my dish was great and basically licked his plate clean. He enjoyed his ono with uni butter so much that I still definitely consider the meal a win.

And we did have brown sugar brioche bread pudding, with butterscotch pecan ice cream, for a fabulous dessert.

’twas a great first night.

Tuesday morning we headed out for a run in the neighborhood around our hotel. We ended up happening on the Palace of Fine Arts. It was beyond gorgeous.

I am so glad we got to see it.

We had a beautiful morning exploring Fisherman’s Wharf.

Including a stop for a fresh bowl of crab chowder.

We took the ferry for a tour of Alcatraz.

Then we spent the afternoon at the Ferry Building Marketplace.

We loved it there and went back almost every subsequent day. I was crazy jealous of people buying fancy mushrooms.

We shared a greens 2 juice from Pressed.

An iced coffee with milk and sugar from Blue Bottle.

And a Duck Yeah sundae – vanilla ice cream on duck fat pecan pie – from Humphry Slocombe.

I thought the ice cream was great, but not as good as Ample Hills. Adam looooooved it.

We also hit up Slanted Door’s Out the Door for Vietnamese iced coffee and buns.

Chicken bun for me.

We had dinner reservations at SD later in the week and this first taste got us very amped up.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the piers and staring at the sea lions.

Snacks included salt water taffy,

chunks torn off a loaf of sourdough from Boudin,

and a very lackluster drinking chocolate from Ghiradelli.

The chocolate was literally the only dish that didn’t knock our socks off all week, a pretty good track record if you ask me.

We were exhausted from walking around all day so we did Mexican take-out and hotel room cable tv for dinner.

Mushroom nachos for me.

It was a great first two days!!

Wednesday and Thursday coming tomorrow…

14Nov2014

Weekly Wrap Up

by Emily

As of this morning, the cold of winter is finally here. Ugh. But I had a good final week of thin hoodies and no gloves. Good eats too! I did a lot of train eating – bars for breakfast, guava cheese empanadas… – but the LIRR was too packed for stealthy photography. Here’s what I did capture…

breakfast {coffee, coffee, coffee}

Never hot, I don’t care if it drops below zero, you can pry my iced coffee out of my cold, dead hands.

Chameleon cold brew with the last of the honey almond milk, which I loved.

Espresso! With milk and sugar.

I tried the chestnut praline latte from Starbucks. I really liked it.

Marshmallow cold brew.

lunch

Turkey, sharp cheddar, and pumpkin butter sandwich on a pumpkin spice English muffin. With an apple and bbq chips.

Plus the last cookie.

Maple raisin oatmeal with a red pear.

And an afternoon treat of Turkish coffee that a coworker brought in.

Dannon Creamery cherry cheesecake (yum, much better than the strawberry!) with chopped strawberries and blueberries. TJ’s kale chips. I passed the kale around the breakroom and my coworkers all said they might buy some themselves.

Dannon Creamery vanilla pudding with strawberries, plus the last of the kale chips and bbq chips. This was the best store-bought pudding I’ve ever tasted. And Adam stole the milk chocolate pudding and loved it.

I tried, and did not love, the new Coke.

dinner

When I got home on Monday, dinner was waiting in the crockpot for me.

Chicken with bbq sauce, smoked brown sugar, and fresh cranberries. I ate mine on a big bed of spinach.

We had salted caramel cheesecake and a yummy pumpkin beer for dessert.

Pizza and salad.

A giant bbq chicken slice from Pinos. The crust on these is amazing, super fluffy and light but still crunchy.

Plus Whole Foods hot bar – garlic broccoli, pickled cucumber, and salad with veggies on top.

We also got hot chocolate that we’d been excited about all week – supposedly it was made with ganache – that ended up being a big cup of hot milk.

You cant win ’em all.

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: sandwich

Five Things – Weekly Wrap Up

five things i ate last week

five things i read/watched/listened to

five things from instagram

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas! Weekend Wrap-Up

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

This Week I Loved…

Cookie Monster

A Weak Weekly Wrap-Up

The Girl In Sonoma {San Francisco}

San Francisco Recap, Day 1 & 2

Weekly Wrap Up

breakfast {coffee, coffee, coffee}

lunch

dinner