A Pocketful of Licorice

Beach Week 2012

Just wanted to share some favorite shots from beach week. This year, I made a list of things I wanted to do at the beach, and although I didn't do all of them, I think it got me to throw myself into the whole experience more fully than usual. My beach week reading fell by the wayside, but I think it was worth it. 

sweet old school beach chairs, c/o Buster's mom, Joan!

I love happy hours at the beach!

Tina's homemade limoncello with cream. All I can say is...holy sh*t!

Morning chat with Shatty, Rita, and Baby Payce. 

PC girls!

This counts as tan for me!

Marina took this one of her girls. 

Later, Old Lyme. See you next year. 

dinner party

I was so excited to host my first dinner party in the new apartment the other day. It was just for my mom and dad, but still. I need to start small because having people over for dinner is a lot of work. To get in the proper spirit, I put on my apron.

Seriously. I started prep at around 4:30 and worked straight until 8:00 when they arrived. Yikes. I thought I chose a menu that was foolproof and easy. Well, nothing I chose was especially hard to make, but getting it all together took forever. I enjoy cooking, though. It wasn't time unpleasantly spent. I just put a lot of pressure on myself to make things just so. 

At least I took it easy on the pre-dinner snacks. I put out olives and cheese. Nothing could be easier than that. And I used my new olive tray! 

Next, I made a spinach and fresh pea salad with feta from Jamie Oliver's first cookbook. It's such a tasty salad and it literally has three ingredients - spinach, peas, and feta. It's dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. It's definitely one of my go-to salads. 

For dinner, I made Jamie's meatloaf - the one from his Food Revolution cookbook. In case you were wondering, I like Jamie Oliver's cookbooks. This meatloaf is pretty awesome. I know. The word meatloaf sounds unappealing. But this one is sooo good. A lot of steps, but really worth the time. The sauce is what makes it, I think. I'm such a sucker for Worcestershire Sauce. And I did mashed potatoes to go with it. Kind of the ultimate comfort food meal. 

I stuck with the comfort food theme for dessert and made tapioca, topped with strawberries and whipped cream. My mom always used to make us tapioca for dessert. It's one of my favorites (and my dad's favorite too). But I hadn't had it in years. I'll definitely make it again soon. I'd forgotten how good it is. I even served it in the dessert cups my mom used to use. I acquired them when my mom and dad moved to their new house and they're one of my favorite things. Lots of memories attached to them, I guess.

For my next dinner party, I have two goals. First, invite more than two guests. And second, prepare a simpler meal with fewer steps. But I'm already planning it out in my head. This one was so much fun!

 

breakfast of champions

I hate strawberry-banana flavored yogurt. It's always been my least favorite flavor. The "fruit" on the bottom is this slightly brownish glop. But yogurt with strawberries and banana (and almonds) is a completely different story. So delicious. I like to slice the strawberries first, then add a dash of balsamic vinegar and a sprinkling of sugar and let them sit in it for about a half hour first. I know. Vinegar on berries sounds weird. It brings out their sweetness - I promise! And the yogurt has to be Greek, preferably Fage Total 0%. 

I need a good breakfast because I'm planning a thrift shop excursion today. I'm excited. I haven't done that in ages. I'm hitting the North Providence Salvation Army and if there's nothing good there I might head to the Pitman St. Salvation Army on the east side of Providence. I haven't been to that one since college, but I remember it as a glorious heaven of thrift goodness. It's gigantic, has an entire room just for furniture, and is in an old factory, which gives it the proper atmosphere for thrifting. Mainly I'm looking for old clothing items that can be altered or re-worked. I want to practice. But I'll also have an eye out for small pieces of furniture that might look cool if I paint them a bright color. And who knows what other goodies I'll find.

Yesterday I spring-cleaned the bejesus out of my house because I wanted the rest of the week free for fun and projects. And catching up on blog posts, which have been scarce lately. So I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with some thrift store finds to share. 

art journal update and cupcakes

some new pages from the past few days.

I love the way this one turned out. On the left, it's just gessoed, then glittered, then mod-podged. On the right, I drew a grid with a Sharpie, then painted in the squares. I added a lace doily and a random card I had lying around. I'll probably add a list at some point, but I like it as is too. 

A little collage, and a list about crap I found in the attic. 

Masking and misting with doilies. And a wish list for my birthday. I got a bunch of those things, so far. :)

And another birthday list - things I actually did on my birthday weekend. And a little picture I drew of the cupcakes I made for myself. Here they are for real.

That frosting is pure butter, by the way. (well, confectioners' sugar and vanilla extract and food coloring, too - to be precise.) They were so delicious. I had to leave them at the Maxwell's house for Will and Arlo to finish or I would have housed about 10 of them on Sunday morning for breakfast!

 

milking my birthday for all it's worth.

So, today I turned 37. I don't feel 37 though, and that's all that matters, right?

What I like best about birthdays is the chance to get together and celebrate with so many different people. 

Tonight, I had a dinner date with Paola. We went out for Indian at our usual place, Bollywood Grill in Glastonbury, CT. It's highly recommended if you live near there. 

We ate papadums and naan and chicken tikka masala and malai kofta. It was delicious and I'm still full two hours later. I can eat as much as I want - it's my birthday. 

We also had chai. The waiters are really nice. They brought us little complimentary desserts - those little balls of dough soaked in honey. And we sat and talked for so long that they brought us even more tea, on the house. 

It was a really nice night. We decided we should have a dinner date at least once a month. 

And I have more birthday celebrating in the works. 

Tomorrow night, H and I are meeting Ryan and Kelley at River Gods in Cambridge. I've been wanting to try it for a long time - it's always on the Best of Boston list. 

Saturday, H and I have a play date in Hingham with the Maxwells. 

Next week, I get to have dinner with my mom and dad. 

(This is my new favorite picture, by the way.)

If anyone else wants to get in on the birthday action, I'd love it! Like I said, get-togethers are the best thing about birthdays. I could go on like this all month!

Holiday Fun Review

Just wanted to share a few of my favorite pictures from Holiday Fun last weekend. I took over 100 pictures. I always have big plans to beautifully capture events on film. Then, when it's all over, I look at the pictures I've actually taken and am disappointed. Photography is something I'd love to be better at. Learning to take better pictures is one of my goals for the new year. 

In any case, the weekend was so much fun, even if I wasn't all that happy with my pictures. Kristen and Rita arrived in Boston around 7 and we had cheese, crackers, veggies, hummus and other snacks. Oh, and wine. We also had some of that. Funny story. H called me from Trader Joe's on Thursday night and asked if I wanted him to pick up some cheese and crackers for my guests on Friday. I said sure, that would be great. When I showed up on Friday and opened the fridge there were like six different kinds of cheese. Apparently he doesn't mess around when he buys cheese. Not that I'm complaining. I've actually been eating leftover cheese for lunch all week. I think I'm officially all cheesed out, which I didn't even think was possible. 

When Paola arrived (late because of car trouble) we had some green minestrone that I put together. It was so tasty. And sort of light, which was good because as I mentioned, there was a lot of cheese. 

And then there were peppermint Joe Joe's, which seem to be Trader Joe's version of Oreos. 

Oh, and more wine. 

In the morning, we worked on a circle journal project that I brought. Those aren't quite ready yet, so we haven't officially started the process. But I think it will be cool for each of us to have a little book with pages made by all the others in it. We chose themes and started decorating them. Paola's theme is "lists", Rita's is "love is...", Krippi's is "it's a funny story", and mine is "top ten". I'm pretty excited to start exchanging them. 

After that we went to Kendall Square to the community skating rink. 

Super fun! If you haven't skated in ages, you should definitely find a rink and do it. I'm happy to report that none of us wiped out. 

No wipe outs, despite the fact that there were antics. There are always antics, but when ice skates are involved, the potential for injury increases exponentially. 

After skating, we went on to Harvard Square for lunch at Tory Row and shopping. I'd never eaten there before, but their menu had a lot of things that sounded good on it. Paola and I shared the meatloaf sandwich. It was kind of awesome. So that place gets a thumbs up. Next, we stopped in Black Ink for a while. That's one of my favorite little card and gift shops. They've got awesome letterpress greeting cards and a truly random assortment of cool little things. It's designed kind of like a general store. 

At this point, the girls decided it was time for the main event, the relatively new (opened in August) Harvard Square Anthropologie. I think we may have been there for over an hour. It's a magical place with many floors of beautiful things. 

Here is Paola, pretending that Anthropologie is her house. 

I was very good and didn't buy anything. I was seriously tempted by several items but I showed admirable restraint. But I did find Paola a gorgeous dress for Christmas in Washington. So I shopped vicariously. 

We hit LUSH, The Tannery and The Harvard Book Store, where I did pick up a couple gifts. 

Harvard Square was so festive and pretty. After all the shopping, we had dinner at Tamarind Bay. I love Indian food and you can usually find most of the same dishes at any Indian restaurant, but this place has a different menu. They serve lots of things I'd never heard of or tried before. H joined us for dinner and we ordered five different dishes and shared everything and I thought it was all delicious. Especially the fish curry. That was amazing. 

Later, back at the loft, we had our gift exchange. I'll take pictures of the present I got from Kristen and post them this weekend. It's awesome sauce. I'm going to make things with it. 

So, in conclusion, I'm very glad we have this tradition. We get together every year around Christmas for girl time. Spending time with them makes me happy and thankful. I love my ladyfriends. The end.  

 

I know they're not in season...

but I adore cucumbers. They make me so happy. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I buy those English cukes that come unwaxed so they don't need peeling. 

The other evening I stopped at the grocery store on my way home because I needed something for dinner. I have to say, having the iPhone when I'm food shopping is really handy. I use the epicurious app a lot. I get to the store, use the app to find a recipe and make a shopping list, and I'm ready to go. On this particular night, I was in the mood for a sandwich and epicurious found me this one...

cucumbers, hummus and feta cheese. The recipe called for whole grain bread, but I don't think there's anything better than rye/pumpernickel, so I got that instead. 

You've got to try it. It's so delicious that I ate it two days in a row. 

I used the extra cucumber to make one of my favorite salads. 

It's super-simple but it tastes so amazing! My friend John introduced me to it over the summer and I've made it a bunch of times since then. It's just cucumbers, toasted sesame oil, rice vinegar, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. It's awesome.

There you go. Two super easy and delicious ways to eat cucumbers. Even better when the cucumbers are in season and local, but I get sad at the idea of only having them a couple months of the year. 

Lazy Weekend Food

What amazing weather we had in Boston this past weekend! It was sunny and cool and beautiful. H and I did some city hiking on Saturday and some Fells jogging on Sunday, but besides that we just hung out and relaxed. Usually, we spend a fair amount of time cooking dinners, but this weekend we totally took it easy. 

I arrived on Friday to find that he had stopped at Anna's Taqueria and picked up some burritos for us. We love Anna's!

For Saturday's dinner, we dug a pizza shell and some pesto out of the freezer, picked up some mozzarella, olives and turkey bacon at Trader Joe's and made a pretty delicious pizza. Quick and easy.

I love the Cambridge Trader Joe's. It's one of the few in the state that sells wine and beer, and I've recently discovered that Three Buck Chuck isn't half bad. 

Tonight, I'll be drinking some Charles Shaw cabernet sauvignon with dinner. Another one we found in the freezer - leftover turkey meatballs from a couple weeks ago. They're sooo good and I was so excited when I remembered that we still had them. 

Cooking is something I really enjoy and I don't at all mind spending an hour or more preparing dinner. But every once in a while it's really nice to take it easy, take shortcuts, or just buy takeout. What a nice, lazy weekend. 

Long Weekend Love

So, Columbus was a colossal douche who did nauseating and horrifying things. However, schools tend to get a long weekend in honor of him. Western hemisphere's first slave trader! woot! 

Anyway, I had a long weekend and it was pretty sweet. Highlights include:

1. spending time with my ladyfriends

2. a pasta dinner and an Indian feast

3. running the Hartford Half Marathon faster that I was expecting and feeling great almost the whole time

4. laughing until my stomach hurt

5. watching Rita tackle the mechanical bull and hearing her utter the words "I just have visions of myself being good at it."

6. making plans for Holiday Fun in Boston

7. my boyfriend's coq au vin

8. firming up details for New Year's Eve in London with H's sisters

9. some scrapping

10. gorgeous fall weather

Hope you all had a great long weekend too!

 

If you're in the neighborhood...

definitely check out Lord Hobo, at 92 Hampshire St. in Cambridge.

They have an awesome selection of rare and difficult to find beers. That really dark beer in my glass there is Stone's Sublimely Self-Righteous. It's a "hoppy American strong ale", 8.7%, and very delicious. H and I stayed for three each. It's a great place to spend a Sunday afternoon, sampling and watching football. Cheers!