If I don’t post today my fiance might just leave me

That might be a tad melodramatic but he does ask EVERY DAY.

My sister is also on my case.

So here I am – with tales of where I’ve been.

The truth is saying that my life is hectic is a severe understatement.  There is pretty much NOTHING in my life that has not changed in the past year.

I’m not complaining about all of it – but it’s just…a lot.

I need time to process.

Luckily in the last few weeks I’ve had some time to relax.  I went to Orlando.  Or Hogsmeade.  Or both.

 

Three Broomsticks  Butterbeer anyone?  Tastes like vanilla cream soda.  Get the frozen version.           Hogwarts.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is very cool.  It’s tiny but you really feel like you are stepping on the movie set.  My advice if you want to visit is to stay at a Universal property.  We did and got in as soon as the park opened.  About an hour later the wait time for the ride was over an hour.

Craziness.

PS:  People LOVE Harry Potter a little too much.  Teenagers galore dressed in capes and Hogwarts school uniforms.

Here’s some food I ate.  Or Annie ate.  Or Dave ate.  I cannot even remember where these were from.  They were yummy though. Come to think of it – the above (and the below) was dinner with Dave at The Station.I went for an early dinner with Patti upstairs at Bryant Park Grill 

I had a solo lunch at Lillie’s on Friday.  It was a burger.  I don’t know where it went. This I remember.  Dave and I went to the Hester Street Fair.

And had tacos.   Then we went to dinner at The Mermaid Inn East Village location.

Lobster truffle mac and cheese.  Nothing wrong with that.

I think part of the problem is that my blog is experiencing an identity crisis.  I am no longer single.  I no longer cook for 1 person.

Today I made a chicken casserole with Campbell’s Cream of Broccoli soup. 

I’ve become June Cleaver.

Things, the Friday Edition

I don’t have a real post for you today.  I am conflicted in general as to what I want to do with this little space of mine.  There are so many places I can go.  Most of them, however, seem quite finite.

I could blog more about the wedding – but that’ll be done with in about 3.5 months.

Seriously.  I’m getting married in 3.5 months. (!!!!!!)

I like writing about food but cooking and taking pictures as you go is really difficult to do alone.  Plus I am almost always ravenous by the time I am done.

I could write about losing this weight but I just slid back a little so I have now lost 6.5 lbs instead of 8.  I think my biggest culprits for weight loss sabotage are the following:

Wine

Cheese

Chocolate

Not that I eat massive amounts of any of them.  Okay.  I might have had a lot of wine last Thursday at Diane’s house.  And then more wine on Saturday at Cortney’s party.  And then champagne w/my Mom at brunch on Sunday.

But still.

I’m in a celebratory mood.  And to me – good friends and good wine go together.  Like – peanut butter and jelly.

Except I don’t like jelly with my peanut butter.  I don’t like jelly at all.

Dave asked me today how I felt about the new trend in restaurants – where you order off a touch screen.  I told him I’m too picky to trust a computer to get my order right.  Will they have a million options like “I’d like the cheeseburger but with mozzarella cheese instead of American,  no bacon, no mushrooms but sautéed onions instead of raw.  I’d like the salad with no olives and the dressing on the side and I’d like balsamic not Caesar.”

Just call me Sally Albright.

Anyway – I’m vowing to eat more salad in the coming weeks.  My goal is 20 lbs before the wedding.  More than that would be lovely but 20 would be perfectly fine with me.

Here’s a lovely salad I made the other day for lunch.  Spinach with 2 chicken tenders (whole grain baked Perdue) with sautéed pepper and onion, goat cheese and Light Honey Dijon dressing.

 

 

The other night Dave and I ate outside.  I made turkey chili.  I ate the leftovers last night in honor of Cinco de Mayo.

What else???   Someone took my box of tissues off my desk at work but also left me $3 under a post-it.  That’s pretty nice.  At least they didn’t steal them outright. 

For Mother’s Day Dave and I are heading out to Long Island to help my mother clean the basement.  That’s what she wants to do so that’s what we’re doing.  We’re also going to Fork & Vine for dinner where I am not going to get the goat cheese mashed potatoes again.

Things I have noticed lately:

My TV viewing is rapidly declining.  Turns out when you are living in a house with 3 kids and 1 TV you don’t watch as much as you used to.  Also – when your fiancé tells you his children are not allowed to watch The Millionaire Matchmaker (he has a point) you sort of have to respect his wishes.

If you want ice cream just eat ice cream – don’t get these bars from Breyer’s that promise they are less fat and calories and look like someone took a Dove bar and put it in that shrinky TV thing from Willy Wonka and handed it back to you.  Just eat a scoop of good ice cream and be done with it.

People in NYC can’t take the change of seasons.  When the weather starts to get warm you either have people still wearing hats and winter coats and other people wearing shorts and tank tops.

Here’s something else.  Today on the PATH train (because I commute from NJ now.  I mean…what is going on???) a woman got on.  A man 2 seats away from me offered her his seat and she replied.

“No thanks.  I’m not pregnant – I’m just overweight.”

Now – I will admit – the day over the winter when I decided it was a fabulous idea to wear one of Dave’s flannel shirts and my Dad’s old jacket and the check out woman at Shop Rite asked me when I was due was not one of my finer moments but I gotta say – as much as I might be mortified at the thought I would have probably taken that seat.

Seats are a premium on the PATH train.

Really I just felt so bad for both of them – for the woman who clearly must be tired of people making that assumption and the guy – who was doing the chivalrous thing and got smacked back for it.

On that note I shall get going.  Have a lovely weekend one and all.  Be back with tales from the basement and other exciting stories.

Love means never having to say you’re hungry

As part of my job I’ve been able to go to a lot of really really really good restaurants in many different cities.  Living in NYC I have been able to attend events at the NYC Wine and Food Festival for the past two years.   In New York you can pay a lot for your dinner and it can end up being mediocre.  But sometimes you (or your sweet boyfriend) could pay a pretty penny and find every bite worth it.*

Last night was one of those nights.

I didn’t take pictures at all while we were there – mostly because I didn’t want to be ‘that girl’ as my sister is fond of saying.  I wanted to relax and just enjoy every morsel.  And I did.  I really did.

When you arrive at craft you are greeted warmly.  The hostess offers to take your coat to an undisclosed location.  When you meet your dining companion at the bar and he gives you flowers someone else walks by and asks if they can store them in a cold place for you until you are done with dinner.  The smiling bartender pours you a delicious glass of Cabernet Franc (we had the Beatrice et Pascal Lambert, Cuvée Danaé, 2006.  I can’t tell you what all that means except it was light and luscious) which a server carries for you when you move to your table.

We ordered a bottle of the same wine, ate a delicious slice of bread and butter and then ordered our meal.  I started with the Ricotta Cavatelli
& Guanciale.   Have you ever had guanciale?  I know I’ve heard of it but had to Google to make sure it wasn’t something like Scrapple.    I’ve never had scrapple but I’m going to bet guanciale blows it out of the water.

Dave had a salad of Beets and Tarragon.

They serve ‘family style’ so there was plenty for each of us to have a taste.  The cavatelli had a runny egg on top and the yolk made it taste almost buttery.

I had Beef Short Ribs for my entree and Dave had Braised Halibut.  I had short ribs at Fork & Vine the other night and they were really good.

These were ridiculous.

(translation: Ridiculous = amazing.  See also – something I’m going to obsess over and order multiple times – sort of like crab cakes).

On the side we had Duck Risotto (with crispy pieces of duck skin on top) and the creamiest butternut squash puree I ever tasted.   We had three types of ice cream for dessert – caramel (this was the BEST), vanilla bean and chocolate peanut crunch.  Dave had an itty bitty coffee and I had a yummy hot chocolate.

In addition to the most lovely card and the sweetest smelling flowers my true love also gave to me…the leftovers.

 

(which are also taken from you in return for a claim check that you can turn in at the hostess stand upon leaving.    No doggie bags on the table at Tom’s place.)

I just had lunch.

That’s (clockwise) the leftover butternut squash, risotto, cavatelli and short rib.

My love for Tom Colicchio and Top Chef shows no signs of waning after this meal I’ll tell you what.   I want to say hi to him and buy his cookbook and have my friend tell him personally how much she adores his restaurant while tipsy after a 5 course meal.

Oh wait.   That actually happened. :)

However you chose to spend it - whether you were like me a few years ago an hosted a ‘Cupid Can Kiss My Ass' party for all your single friends serving Rachael Ray’s You Won’t Be Single for Long Vodka Cream Pasta (the bitch lies btw) or like the girl in front of me at CVS wearing sweats and buying a pregnancy test or at a delicious dinner with a wonderful person you adore – I hope you had a lovely Valentine’s day.

* I have to say I by far got the better end of the deal.  My Valentine’s gift to Dave included…an Applebee’s gift card. :) It's a long story but...still!

Almost all before – no after

My apartment smells out of control.

I can’t tell you what I’m making because Dave reads this and I told him dinner is a surprise but you will see tomorrow the deliciousness that is what I’m making right now.

I am definitely out of blogging practice my friends.

This weekend – I took pictures.  I took a lot of pictures.  But I always stopped taking pictures at the most pivotal point.  You’ll see what I mean in a bit.

Friday night Dave and I went to the opera.  Yeah.  That’s how we roll.

We went to the Met and saw Tosca.  

We went to dinner first at Vince and Eddie’s which I found completely charming.   I cannot wait to go back.

We split a salad – the picture came out blurry.  :(

I had the tilapia.

 

Dave had the Seafood Fra Diablo.

The next morning I made delicious breakfast sandwiches with the following ingredients.

Homemade bread. Cheddar that I got in my Hickory Farms box from the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program. Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit’s BACON! And eggs. And a spread of this good stuff. What you will not see is the finished sandwich as I neglected to take a picture.

I also made potatoes.  I do have a picture of them.  Well.  The leftovers anyway.

Then we went out and walked a lot.

I mean….A LOT.

We walked to the Whitney Museum to see the Edward Hopper Exhibit.   You probably know this painting – which wasn’t actually part of the exhibit.  Here’s a link to one that we saw.

Half way there we stopped for lunch.

I had a Diet Coke. 

I also did not have a burger.  I had a baked potato with broccoli and cheese. 

I did not take a picture of that or of Dave’s salad.

After the museum we went to see The King’s Speech which was awesome.

Question:  Do you think Dave looks like Colin Firth?

 

Then we went for pizza.

This is all I have for you from dinner.

Then I took Dave to Rolf’s for a drink because the Christmas decorations are not to be believed.

No.

Really.

 

And that is just a minor sampling.

The next day I made French Toast for breakfast.   

That’s as good as it’s gonna get.

We met my mom and Jen for brunch at a place I’m going to go with the girls so I will save my thoughts on that for a later time.

And also because I didn’t take any pictures.

And that brings you up to speed.  We were all feeling a little blue because the best baby dog that ever was is no longer here but just like everything else this past year we’re taking a deep breath and going forward.

It’s the only thing you can really do.

Be back tomorrow with something scrumptious.