Week In Review - 05.13.12

Sunday 5/6 - The last leg of Amazing Race, I kind of didn't care who won so it was a bit anti-climatic this season. I would have loved to been an eliminated racer and sequestered in Hawaii! That sounds pretty darn fantastic.

Monday 5/7 - Finally I realized it was the night the Costume Institute Gala at the Met the night of the Gala and not the morning after the event. I went over there to see the red carpet arrivals and had a great time. I was in a decent viewing area and was surrounded by really nice people. Unfortunately Michael had to work late, but that worked out OK for dinner. I just cooked when I got home and dinner was ready just a few minutes after he walked in the door. Chicken tenders with asparagus and spinach over brown rice and a side salad of tomato and red onion. 

Tuesday 5/8 - Mom's Day cookies round 1. I made lemon cream sandwich cookies edged in sanding sugar for Mel and her family using my new favorite recipe.It was a pretty quiet day and we just had a quick and easy dinner of chili (KO made leftover, pulled it out of the freezer) and FD cornbread. We had another day of clouds and rain - it was a gray week here in NYC!

Wednesday 5/9 - Mom's Day cookies round 2 - a Snickerdoodle, adapted from my new favorite cookie recipe (no, I'm not sharing that recipe...yet).

I had an unplanned and fun shopping trip when I was coming back from my walk to the Central Pack Conservatory Garden. (The garden was absolutely beautiful - it had rained in the morning and the plants and flowers had drops of water on them. There was a squirrel drinking out of a puddle, a bright orange butterfly sitting perfectly on a white flower, a brilliant red bird flying through the trees, and dark burgundy leaves with drops of water on them. Michael would have loved to take photos, lots of good material.)

Now, back to my shopping trip - on my way back from the garden there were signs for a Sr. ceramics sale at the Y, just May 9th and 10th. I stopped in and there were about three banquet tables of really nice ceramic pots, bowls, and plates and about 75 seniors sitting at tables and chatting. I started to look at what was available for sale and almost immediately I was approached by a very nice woman who told me the ceramics were lead free, could be used in microwave, and depending on what I bought I might be able to meet the artist. She left and about 2 minutes later another very nice woman came up and let me know the same thing. The ceramics were all made by members of the senior ceramics class at the 92nd St Y and they put them on sale once a year. I selected a nice pot with shades of green glaze for MomW, because her kitchen has lots of green. Next I picked a pot with an earthy brown/green glaze and one big spot of red for MomO. I could imagine it with a plant sitting in her yard. And finally I selected a bowl with a blue glaze for myself. Without knowing it, I selected three pieces from the same artist! And as it turns out not only was she one of the women who talked to me initially but she was also the cashier. She was just thrilled I was purchasing three of her pieces and she liked hearing who was getting what and why. She was just delightful, and her work was beautiful.

We had a tasty dinner, home made sandwiches with whole grain bread, guacamole, soy bacon (facon), pepperjack cheese, and spiced turkey. A pretty quiet night, I just wrapped up the Mom's Day gifts and got the packages ready for shipping.

Thursday 5/10 -

MW had dinner with some guys from work at an "expense account" type steakhouse called Maloney & Porcelli. They had a multi-tier seafood tower as a starter (yum!) and of course steak and bourbon for dinner. I went with a simple dinner of chips, salsa, and guac!

Friday 5/11 -

A pretty quiet night. I wasn't feeling 100% and MW wasn't quite at full speed either. We had an easy dinner in the neighborhood at KO Sushi. We haven't been there in a while and it was nice to go back to one of our favorites. I had to finish up the birthday gifts I was making for my niece so they could get shipped in Saturday. I embroidered 2 onesies - I dubbed one the 'Taco Bell dog' and the other 'Foxy Roxy'.

I also made a scrapbook for her - it was a great kit that looks like I spent a ton of time and effort, but really all I did was add the photos and one or two embellishments on each page. The best kind of crafting, maximum reward for minimum effort! As an example, on the double page spread below I added the three photos, the word 'Enjoy', and the two butterflies on the right side - everything else is already on the page and the embellishments are layered, the ribbon is actual ribbon, and the buttons are really buttons.  



Saturday 5/12 -

We had a full day for one major errand so I got up pretty early to wrap up the birthday presents. Her party is Hello Kitty themed and I had some Uniqlo shopping bags with Hello Kitty I cut up to wrap her gifts. I love that I could re-use the bags for something so cute.

  

We took a New Jersey transit train an hour and a half to Morristown, NJ. And while Morristown had a lovely park we were there for a very specific reason.



 

Michael had to give Alexander Hamilton a $10 bill - just kidding! (The statues were very similar to the Signer statues at the Constitution Museum in Philadelphia - life size replicas of our Founding Fathers.)

  

We were there to pick up a '55 Chevy pink pedal car - also for the niece. MomO won the car on eBay, but didn't realize it was 'local pick up only'. There are some items on eBay that the seller won't ship and they put this in the item description when you bid. Well MomO didn't realize this and lucky for her the car was relatively easy for us to go and pick it up. After we got off the train we picked up a Zip Car and had about a 15 minute drive to the seller's home. The car was waiting out front and they had washed it for us, it was shined up and ready to go. We got to meet the car's first (and only owner) - she is 6 now and seemed OK that it was going to another little girl. The car is really cute and was in great shape, I'm sure it must have been hard for the original owner to give up something so special. It is all metal and was pretty heavy, weighing in at almost 40 pounds.

 

We loaded it in the Zip Car and headed back to Morristown where it was promptly dropped off at a UPS store for shipping. By next week it should be in CA and ready for it's second owner. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant in Morristown. Not related to NJ (well maybe, but I can't say for sure), I was under the weather Saturday night and MW was on his own for dinner.

Sunday 5/13 - Happy Mother's Day! We spent the day outside as much as possible. The weather here was just perfect sunny and in the mid 70's with just a little bit of a breeze and low humidity. After brunch at Mole (like the sauce not the animal, and yes, I will probably say that every time) we headed to Central Park. On the way to the model boat pond we got a preview of the Met Roof Top art installation opening next week: 

  

I looked on the website and they are big modules that are connected and they are made with transparent and reflective materials. According to the website you can walk through them. The roof deck opens on the 15th - if all goes well, we will be up there Friday night! Dinner was at our local diner, The Mansion. It was getting late and we just wanted something easy. It was diner food, so it was fine but nothing special.

That is a full lid for this week, we'll see if we can make next week more exciting!

Met Gala 2012

Monday night the Met held their big Costume Institute Gala. Every year I seem to miss the red carpet and see the photos of the fabulous gowns and celebrities the next day.

This year I actually made it over to the Met and had a great spot across the street from the red carpet entrance.

It was really had to see who was who and I saw the back of a lot of amazing dresses. The photo is the main red carpet and it was filled with photographers yelling at the celebs and snapping photos like crazy. The flash bulbs when big celebrities hit the red carpet was blinding.

I was by a really nice group of people and we had fun guessing each celebrity and wondering if we were going to see Beyonce or JLo! The girl next to me was so excited when SJP arrived she grabbed me by the shoulders and turned my body so I could see her too. It was really cute.

This photo is Tom Brady and Giselle posing for photographers. They are both just stunning.



And this was my view of where the celebs were getting out of their cars. The woman in white is Florence Welch. She had on quite an outfit, but it was fitting for her personality and the event. We were able to see more celebrities getting out of their cars than we could see on the red carpet.


Later that night I was looking through photos of the event on the Huffington Post - it was fun to see who was wearing what dress as the dresses were easier and remember than the faces.


My favorite photo was of Elizabeth Banks in a Mary Katrantzou dress, not only does it look very Hunger Games but I'm in the background!

Image from Getty Photo

Week in Review - 05.06.12

The week in review:


Sunday 4/29 – goodbye Team Bopper. Bopper and Mark ran a great race but they just couldn’t make up all of that time. And Once Upon A Time – what happened to the shows I had saved on the DVR? I had two episodes and now they are both gone. Stupid DVR. We really need to look in to FIOS. Fresh Direct grocery delivery, another week of meals and another week of Delivery Pass.

Monday 4/30 – Relatively quiet day at work for both of us. Dinner was sautéed shrimp with spring vegetables (asparagus, red onion, and grape tomatoes) over a little bit of whole wheat pasta. I ended up with major stomach issues and maybe that was due to my snack of ‘pocket almonds’ – I was out buying my Star Wars cookie cutters and was starving, so I ate the two almonds in my coat pocket. Apparently that was a bad choice!

Tuesday 5/1 – I made my cookie dough and cookies, with the intention of shipping them out on Wednesday for a Friday, May 4th delivery. Easy dinner of a Fresh Direct Caesar salad and Fresh Direct thin crust artichoke pizza.

Wednesday 5/2 – Busy day for me at work but I was focused crossing things off of my to-do list. Attempted to decorate my Star Wars cookies, epic failure! Made my to-do list shorter as there were no packages to make up and label and no trip to the post office. Returned Star Wars cookie cutters to Williams and Sonoma! Dinner was over roasted cauliflower mixed with whole wheat pasta and topped with sautéed Hen of the Woods mushrooms and Fresh Direct chicken sausages.

Thursday 5/3 – I had the ballet. It was a mix of 4 ballets. The opening piece was interesting. The 8 members of the corps de ballet danced to the orchestra and the soloists danced to just the piano. Sometimes it was just one or the other and sometimes it was a mix of both. It was almost like two separate dances competing on stage. This piece was followed by an Italian inspired ‘Tarantella’. The dancing was lively and fun with tambourines! The third dance was a lovely modern orchestra piece with big sweeping movements. It was written for the dedication of a train and the music and dance depicted travel. The conductor for this piece was one of my favorites, this little tiny woman with so much spunk; she is as much of a delight to watch as the dancers. We had Fresh Direct turkey meatballs in red sauce over the leftover cauliflower and whole wheat pasta from Wednesday night. All week the weather was gray and drizzly, I’m looking forward to some sunshine over the weekend.



Friday 5/4 – I ended up busier at work than I planned and didn’t get out to exercise until after 5pm. The weather was warm and even a little humid; I walked to the park and did a lap around the Reservoir. We decided on dinner at our local Indian favorite, Mumtaz. We had a great table by the window. Unfortunately, it was Michael’s turn to have stomach issues. We wrapped up dinner and headed home for the night. Michael was pleased (not really) to find out we might be headed to New Jersey to pick up something MomO purchased on eBay.



Saturday 5/5 – Cinco de Mayo and the Kentucky Derby! We had breakfast at the Mansion and then headed to the Met. We saw the baseball card collection on display and then split up. I stayed in the American Wing and took my time going through a cool cabinet display by a local master craftsman, Duncan Phyfe. He made furniture in the 1800’s and his work was beautiful. Simple yet elegant and functional. After the furniture I stayed in the American Wing to see one of my favorites, the Frank Lloyd Wright living room. Behind that area was a very nice display of Tiffany glass and a library table made for Cornelius Vanderbilt. It had mother of pearl stars inlaid across the top of the table, the pattern represented the night sky the day Vanderbilt was born. I finished up with the Japanese collection and a look at one of my other favorites, the water fountain. Michael went thru the American Wind art and then on to the photography. We met up and I thought I wanted a glass of wine at the Wine Bar in the Met, we decided to go to Swig (where we met Chris after he ran the NYC marathon). We stayed there for the Kentucky Derby and then decided on dinner at Cavatappo (the Italian restaurant we ate at after the NYC marathon).



Sunday 5/6 – Brunch at our new favorite, Mole (like the sauce not the animal, but I can’t get the accent mark). The food was great but the service was really slow. It’s funny because Taco Taco had really slow service and the new place has changed for the better in just about every aspect except the service! After brunch we headed up to Harlem to go to Costco and Target. Dinner at Brother Jimmy’s (but not the location we used to go to all the time, unfortunately just that location has a ‘C’ food rating – we’ll stick with the other locations that have an ‘A’ rating). The service again was really slow, just one of those days for us and restaurants! Now we’re ready to see who wins The Amazing Race! And no trip to Jersey this weekend, looks like it will be next Saturday.

May the 4th Be With You!

Alternate title: Star Wars cupcake stencils 1, KO 0

I didn't come up with the title on my own. Lego is doing a promotion today with Star Wars kits and they sent out an e-mail last week with the same subject line. It made me laugh and also made me think I should do something to celebrate May 4th.

Williams and Sonoma has great Star Wars cookies cutters and cupcake stencils so I bought a set of each and got to baking cookies.

I made my dough and it was really dry. I didn't want to over work it, so I added a bit more liquid but I knew it wasn't going to be good for the cut out cookies. I had the same problem with the shoe cookies. When I made those cookies I ended up making a third batch of dough and it was much better. Because this was one of those "fun" projects I didn't want to make a second batch of dough so I decided to just make round cookies and use the stencils to decorate the flat round cookies.

Sounds easy enough, right? Not so much! I frosted the cookies with royal icing and waited for it to dry. I think I should have tried to stencil when the icing was still a bit wet, but I thought my luster dust would stick to the icing the same way it works on sugar flowers - again, not so much!

I tried liquid color, luster dust, cocoa powder, adding more icing to the cookies so they would be a little tacky. The powders and dusts just smeared everywhere or didn't stick to the icing at all.

It was a total decorating fail.

Luckily I figured it wasn't going to work in about 15 minutes and scrapped the project. No packages were mailed and Jose and Shorty were happy to receive lots of undecorated cookies (Michael was nice enough to help me eat the rest.) And thank goodness I didn't commit to making these for someone, I would have gone crazy trying to make it work. Lesson learned, no more cupcake stencils and add the last bit of flour to my cookie dough very slowly.



The Week In Review - 4.30.12

Alternate Title - MomW's Update

A good week to be in NYC.

• Sunday 4/23 - at home with Amazing Race - go team Bopper! And grocery delivery for the week from Fresh Direct. We've been using the free delivery promos and keep extending our 'delivery pass'. Usually Fresh Direct has a $6 delivery fee, you can pre-purchase a delivery pass, $99 for one year. Last year we bought the pass and have saved over $150 on delivery fees. Recently they have been sending out free delivery promo codes just about every week. If you already have 'delivery pass' they extend the end date by a week. So far we've been able to extend our 'delivery pass' end day by 8 weeks!
• Monday 4/24 - turned out to be laundry night. The laundry room was empty and we were able to get everything including 3 sets of sheets washed.
• Tuesday 4/25 - Counting Crows! Great show! It was general admission and we stood pretty close to the stage the entire time. The opening act was interesting. Young, passionate, and full of angst. The Counting Crows did a really nice set list with plenty of favorites.
• Wednesday 4/26 - MW had a work function and KO went to the Tribeca Film Festival to see 'Knife Fight'. It is a political thriller staring Rob Lowe! I saw him promoting the movie on the Today Show and even though tickets were sold out, I was able to get a seat thru the reseller market (scalper). About 10 of the actors from the film were there for the wold premier of the movie. I enjoyed the movie but not sure if I would recommend it. And if you are wondering, Rob was looking pretty darn fantastic on the big screen and from the brief glimpses I got in person.
• Thursday 4/27 - late night after the party and movie, kind of dragging today....pushed through and had dinner at home.
• Friday 4/28 - we started the day with space shuttle Enterprise flying over the city. I was able to get photos from our roof deck and MW caught it from work. It was an awesome sight and very exciting to see in person.  We enjoyed dinner at a new place in the neighborhood 'Seahorse Tavern'. Good food but very slow service. It took 2 hours for dinner and we started with a plate of oysters and had one entree each. Michael had one of the fish specials, grouper with asparagus and something else that was tasty but we can't remember what it was! I had a grilled shrimp salad that was wonderfully grilled shrimp over romaine with soy crisps and a sesame dressing.
• Saturday 4/29 - kind of a lazy day. We had to get cat food, we were down to one can and I'm always surprised there isn't cat mutiny when the supplies get so low. We started the day with breakfast at the Mansion and finished with dinner at somewhere new - 'Mole' (as in the Mexican sauce, not the little critter, I can't type the accent on the 'e' correctly). For dinner, we decided to eat dinner at 'Taco Taco', a Mexican food place in the neighborhood that is acceptable and relatively easy. We went to 'Taco Taco' and they were closed! And just down the street one of our favorite Thai food spots 'Sala Thai' was also closed!! (MomW, this is where we ate and had the wonderful mango sticky rice.) What is happening to the neighborhood....we noticed across the street from 'Taco Taco' there was a new Mexican food place that was busy. We decided to look at the menu - it looked pretty tasty so we got a table and ordered. As it turns out the owner was walking around the restaurant and chatting with customers. The new 'Mole' was the old 'Taco Taco' but in a nicer space and a spiffed up menu. The setting was much more vibrant and the food was delicious, a great improvement over 'Taco Taco'. The service needs some help, it is the kind of place where lots of people are trying to look busy but no one is really doing anything other than run around but the good food definitely wins over the slow service.
• Sunday 4/30 - what a nice day. Breezy, but bright and sunny with no clouds in the sky. We grabbed egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches from OK deli and headed to the Carl Schurz park (we call this Peanuts Park - because Schurz sort of sounds like Charles Schultz and he penned the Peanuts comic strip). We ate and watched the East River for a while and then decided to head to Central Park, the Sheep's Meadow. Central Park was packed! After hanging out in the Sheep's Meadow enjoying the fresh air we made our way to Fish down on Bleecker. We started off with oysters and clams and then MW had the chopped salad with lettuce, tomato, blue cheese crumbles and blue cheese dressing. The salad kind of wants to be a wedge salad but it is chopped - this time it needed more dressing and even though we asked for more our server forgot to bring it to the table ( wuh wuhhhh). MW had the crab cake for his main and I had the fish market stew  (a spicy tomato based broth with pieces of shrimp and white fish) with lobster mashed potatoes (regular mashed potatoes topped with a big scoop of lobster bisque and lobster meat). The potatoes were on the cool side and not my favorite, I wouldn't order them again. The crab cake is good and the fish stew is one of my favorite items on the menu. Tonight it was really spicy, but still very tasty. After dinner we stopped at Murray's Cheese Shop and per usual had great service. We went home with a tasty blue cheese and nice aged Mahon Curado cheese. Time to see Phil on Amazing Race!

Best Thing I Saw Today - Space Shuttle Enterprise!

This morning space shuttle Enterprise flew from Dulles to JFK, eventually it will be on display at the Intrepid.

NASA was nice enough to do a few loops over the city and Mother Nature was nice enough to give us a beautiful blue skies.

There was a small crowd up on the roof of our building and we tracked it as it went up and down and back up the Hudson.



And then over the Bronx and RFK bridge before touching down at JFK.

It was an awesome sight.

Best Thing I Read Today

"Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give to some people."

By Thomas L. Masson, 1866-1934, American editor and author

The Final Frontier

We have become official Natural History Museum members - thanks to a Groupon making the cost a very reasonable $60 for the year.

Our first visit was last Sunday. As members we get to enjoy many of the special ticketed exhibits for free. We spent the afternoon walking through the special exhibit: Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration.

Here we found out about, "robotic missions to explore our universe and what it will take to build a lunar elevator, deflect deadly asteroids, and travel to Mars."

In fact, if Michael were to travel to Mars this is what he would look like:


This Mars exploration photo inspired my blog post title. It is a very obscure reference to the song that was played by JPL as the Mars rover first landed. It is also the song used for the show "Mad About You".

Move over cake balls - time for Push Pops!

Thanks Pinterest for yet another great idea!

I was never really a big cake ball fan, but I have quickly adopted the push pop craze.

Basically tasty treats are loaded in to the push pop form factor (yes, thanks to my technology background this is the word I choose - 'form factor' - keep your 'dork' comments to yourself please).



Once packaged up in cello bags with a little bit of ribbon they are pretty darn cute!

I've made a ton of them with various Easter related treats. I do realize they have a novelty factor, so I'm not sure I'll make push pops treat again - but you never know! They were easy and I liked how they turned out so the odds are ever in their favor for a repeat performance.

Cinderella is proof....

A great pair of shoes can change your life!

No, I didn't get a new pair of shoes but I made 29 pairs of cookie shoes for a party.

They were all pumps, but I made about 10 different colors and designs.

This design looked like wedding shoes to me, white with sparkling white sanding sugar.



Next I made a pale yellow with iridescent glitter - they were my favorite but the glitter really doesn't photograph well.

The dark green shoes were studded with gold dragees.



This style was a bright orange coat of royal icing with pink sanding sugar in various shades - very Boca!

I was not so pleased with the yellow and pink dragees, but I wasn't going to change anything.

This style was my attempt as a Tiffany blue. They are covered in a very light Tiffany blue sanding sugar.

And in honor of Princess Catherine with her Prada navy pumps - I made navy pumps studded with silver dragees. Probably a little too 'rocker' for Kate.

Of course I needed some in purple, this is a light purple royal icing topped with sparkling purple sanding sugar (brought home from my recent trip to Seattle. I knew the jar would set off the baggage scanner so I put my two jars of sugar in a separate bin - sure enough they had to be searched!)

This style did not photograph well, but they looked really cool in person. I covered a darker purple royal icing with an iridescent smoky amethyst luster dust. I use luster dust on my gum paste flowers, it was great to find another use for it!

And finally the greens - the first shade of green I made was a little off and then for some reason I added pink dragees. This pair looks like a pair of prickly pear cactus.

And the final two styles - a darker green with white sanding sugar and the same green but coated in gold luster dust. I liked the gold pair, it reminded me of the statue of liberty with it's green patina.

The cookies were mailed to California and unfortunately they were a little delicate and many didn't survive the trip. Luckily the shoe cobbler on the receiving end used white melting chocolate to get them back in one piece for the party.

Muppet Cake!

Last year Chef Lodge had an edible version of himself 'muppetized' on display. It was so cute, I immediately knew I wanted to take that class when I had the chance.

Lucky for me that chance was this spring. I flew to Seattle to take the Lauren Kitchens 'muppetizing' class held at Mike's Amazing Cakes. Both Lauren and Mike have been on the show "Food Network Challenge".

Lauren took us step-by-step through the process. Due to the size of the finished product, I was not able to take the cake home with me. I made my friend's nephew and she made her niece. It was really cute to show them off to the kids the next day.

The muppets are sitting on a dummy cake and they are made out of rice crispy treats, modeling chocolate, and fondant.

First we rolled modeling chocolate in to the head.




Next we attached the body to the dummy cake with a wooden down and added some modeling chocolate to the neck area.

From here we added a fancy 'splat' for the muppet to 'jump' out of (so cute, love this idea - thanks Lauren!) and we covered the body in rolled fondant.

Now time to add the arms.

Next we attached the hands. Doesn't my muppet look excited to be bursting out of the cake?

Lauren was so cute she came around and used our cameras to take a picture of us working. She said her students are so busy they never get a photo of themselves, so she made sure and took a photo of each person in the class. Did I mention how cool she is? If you ever get a chance to take a Lauren Kitchens class just do it - don't think about, it will be totally worth it!

After the hands we started to add some unique features to our muppets. I wanted my muppet to be wearing a warm up jacket because he plays baseball. I added the crew neck to the jacket and knit cuffs at the sleeves. The jacket was finished with stripes down the arms and a snap front.

Forming the head and mouth was probably the hardest part of the entire process. Lauren was right there to ensure we completed each step perfectly.

The eyes and nose really give the muppet it's personality. Lauren showed us how to create eyes and noses for men, women, and children.

Last step was the hair. I was able to get it done with one single piece of modeling chocolate!

Lauren helped me make a baseball hat and with the baseball securely attached in his hand, my muppet was complete!

Lauren is a great teacher and just an overall fun person. The class was a blast and I'm so happy I had the chance to learn something new.

Now who is ready to order their cake muppet?

Dinner at Hearth

My birthday adventure to Florida was delayed a day due to snow that never arrived - per usual the weather in February is just unpredictable.


Michael made the day absolutely fabulous by taking me to brunch at craftbar (we shared: white anchovy bruschetta, pork scrapple with eggs, and biscuits with sausage gravy) and dinner somewhere new (to us) - Hearth. Not only is Hearth a James Beard award winning restaurant, but the executive chef's mentor is Tom Colicchio. Chef Marco Canora worked at both Grammercy Tavern and craft - two of our favorites.


When we arrived they asked if we would like to sit in the pass. They have 4 counter seats at the pass which all look right in to the open kitchen. Of course we said yes! It was really cool, we were able to watch all of the prep and cooking and our server let us know who was working on our food. It was really a treat seeing our food being prepared.




We opted for the 7-course tasting menu. The server asked our preferences and from there the chef decided what we were going to eat.





We started with an escarole salad with red onion, Pecorino Romano cheese, walnuts, pear slices, and a light vinaigrette. The salad was crisp and refreshing and all of the different textures gave the dish a nice crunch.








Course #2 was a delicious octopus appetizer. The octopus was grilled and then plated with some potato, celery, and smoked black olives. The octopus was tender and delicious, with a slight char from the grill. The smoked black olives were just the right amount of salty to pair perfectly with the vegetables.











Course #3 was cacciucco (sort of a fish stew or ciappino). The fish station was directly in front of us and we saw the entire course being cooked and plated. The dish had prawns, mussels, Sheepshead bass and clams in a thin tomato broth. The seafood was cooked perfectly and everything tasted like it had just come out of the ocean, briny and delicate.











Course #4 canestri pasta. A home made pasta noodle that was kind of tube shape similar to rigatoni. The pasta noodles were in a tomato based sauce with cauliflower and cabbage and topped with Pecorino cheese an crispy bread crumbs. The dish was amazing but bite after bite it became very salty. Luckily it was a pretty small portion.












Course #5 was a braised pork shank. The meat was literally falling off the bone. It was sitting on top of some creamy polenta and some kind of broccoli - maybe broccoli rabe. We were pretty much stuffed at this point but it was out of this world tasty and neither one of us could stop eating. The meat chef looked up at us after we were served and we made sure to let her know we loved the dish. The braised pork shank is usually not part of the tasting menu, but because it was my birthday they did something special.



Finally the pastry chef provided some relief to our palettes with a bit of grapefruit granita served with a tiny dallop of Greek yogurt. The granita was light and refreshing, perfect after the rich braised pork.



And dessert was awesome. The pastry chef prepared a special plate just for me:

















We had warm glazed apple cider doughnuts with apple compote and maple cream on the side.



About 30 seconds after my plate was set down in front of me it looked like this:















A fabulous meal planned at the last minute is just one of the reasons I love living in NYC!

Where in the World? Key West!

Michael's mom had the best guess - she knew we were headed to somewhere warm and most likely Florida. She is the official contest winner!

We started off in Ft. Lauderdale, while it was 3 times warmer than NYC, it was still just 60 degrees and a little too cold to sit out by the beautiful pool.





The upper pool was an infinity pool that looked out to the ocean and it had a porthole that looked down in to the lower pool.




Lucky for us the Westin Diplomat has an amazing spa facility and guests have complimentary access. We spent the afternoon relaxing in the steam room and whirlpool.


Monday afternoon we headed south down Highway 1 - past Key Largo and Islamorada - all the way down to Key West. We parked the car just in time to watch the sunset.






The weather in Key West was a sunny 75 degrees, just about perfect. We stayed at the Orchid Key Inn. A small hotel that has a wonderful staff and beautiful landscaping.





Of course we spent time by the pool but we also had a fun time touring the Hemingway House. Not only did Hemingway do quite a bit of writing there, but it is currently home to 44 cats.

It's hard to read, but the sign on the couch says "Please do not sit on the furniture." Clearly this is for humans - the cats do as they please.




About half of the cats are polydactyl - they have an extra toe on their front feet. It looks like they are wearing a mitten on their feet.

The yard around the Hemingway House is fenced in such a way the cats can roam about outside but not jump over and escape.




Of course I tried to find all 44 of the cats, but lost track along the way. Pictured below is the room where Hemingway did his writing and the actual typewriter he used, and another cat!

Even though I really wanted to steal a cat away in my purse Michael made sure we didn't go home with any extra felines.





There are roaming chickens and roosters all over the island (except for the Hemingway House yard).

We also did a stand up paddle boarding lesson and tour. It was awesome. We both were able to stand up and paddle around the mangrove forest and waterways. I have some pictures on a waterproof disposable film camera - it is really strange to think I need to go get film developed!

Our last morning we walked around a bit and went to the "Most Southern Point" in the United States - but we didn't wait in line to take any photos there. Michael is pretty sure there are points further south since you can see them while standing at the alleged southernmost point!

He did agree with this statement and was willing to take a photo here:

Key West was the perfect vacation spot and it was really hard to head home. I'm already trying to figure out when we can go back for a longer stay.

Ummmmm, doughnuts!

My latest toy - a doughnut pan!

Baked doughnuts must be healthy because they are baked and not fried, right?

They are delicious right out of the oven and were a nice Valentine's Day treat for my friends in NYC.

Thanks to Michael's parents for such a great birthday gift.