Catching Up

Once upon a time, a blog-worthy day is a good day. Now, a sure sign of aging is when posting becomes an afterthought and a chore. Or, more likely, life becomes boring and uninteresting.

Anyway, since I'm old, I think I'm justified in doing a lame recap post.

August highlight:

Consolation for getting older - late summer beauties from co-workers

September highlights:

J-town folk festival, homemade tiramisu (with homemade ladyfingers)

October highlight:

Pittsburgh 250 - Downtown fireworks

Recently:

Before and After: New scarf from soft baby alpaca wool

Today, I discovered the joy of Banh Mi (Vietnamese hoagies). And Mexican jumping beans.

A coworker and I took a field trip late morning for a client visit and decided to swing by the Strip for lunch. While we were there, he wanted to run a few errands, so I tagged along. The first stop was a Mexican grocery store - the mission was tortillas. As he shopped around, I noticed a row of little clear plastic cases at the counter, making clicking noises... there were tiny brown pods knocking each other spontaneously. There was a writeup on bright pink paper next to them - no gimmicks, no trickery, they're... Mexican jumping beans! I scanned the cases for a particularly jumpy group and bought one. There are five beans. I'm going to name them Spunky, Funky, Chunky, Hunky, and Punky. They've been 'jumping' in the box relentlessly all day - when it's quiet, all you hear is the rattling. Makes you think of Miyazaki's kodama (those little tree people) or Geiger counters; sometimes I'd want to tell hubs to stop fidgeting, then I'll realize it's those creepy beans. We'll see how long it takes to drive us batty.

And Vietnamese hoagies are awesome. That's all I've to say about that.

July in a Nutshell - pictures

The accompanying post with pics!

July 4th Fireworks in Pittsburgh



(Taken with the 75-300 - pre-upgrade)

Wedding


It was a Russian-Mexican wedding - interesting blend of culture, languages, and food. Simple DIY wedding but full of love, as it should be.

Dave's plane



The interior - cozy personal space


Here's a vid of hubs flying over Ohio - recorded with his Macbook Pro

N's Wedding Extravaganza


Thursday evening: Mehendi night. Food, music, conversation, henna. It was a fancy backyard party with lanterns and Turkish divans; they were giving out bindis and bangles too. Pic shows me getting henna done by N's cousin.


My hand on the left


Friday evening: Garba-Raas. Dinner and dance event kicked off by a very photogenic pair lighting candles.


Imagine a ballroom of hundreds of people, many in dazzling colorful saris, twirling and dancing in semi-unison. Later, we picked up sticks and did something like a mass dance.


Saturday morning: Ceremony, Hyatt Regency at Penn's Landing. N - beautiful bride! It was a 2-hr long ceremony that started with the traditional baraat, groom's procession, and ended with a delicious (and posh) luncheon.


Hubs and I during the evening reception. A weekend of Indian food culminated in a deservingly fancy and decadent Indian dinner.

Sunday in Philly


With Le at Cosi over a latte, after a satisfying dim sum brunch in Chinatown


Understated entrance along Chestnut St. So cool!


Giddy little foodie. See neat decor in background - it was the coolest design which nearly distracted us from the food in front of us. Here is another view taken by someone else for official press.


My sucky shot of the place. I was trying to be inconspicuous and not too déclassé with overly touristy behavior.

Coming back to Pittsburgh was hard. No dim sum, no world-famous restaurants, and worst of all, after staying in nice hotels for 3 nights, we realized just how filthy our apartment is. I mean, disgusting - we're such pigs. This weekend's agenda is laundry and some hard-core cleaning.

Nosy

Salty knows.

Kitchen Creations

I have been getting a lot of mileage out of my kitchen lately. The cooking bug comes and goes, but I've been on a roll. Hwah! *flex muscles*

First was dinner with Pete and Kevin (and an empty chair where Kit would've been sitting). Caribbean was the theme, to go with the season.



* Jamaican Jerk chicken
* Rice and black beans, Haitian style
* Avocado & mango salsa
* Papaya, lime, pineapples
* Jamaican Spinach Soup
* Boscobel Beach Ginger Cake

There was even Jamaican hot sauce. For kicks, we made blender cocktails too! Hummingbird: Rum cream liqueur, coffee liqueur, strawberry syrup, banana, milk, ice. Sounds très bizarre but it was very yummy.

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The next weekend, we hung out with some S'poreans at Soergel's Orchard in Wexford. Took a hay ride to the farm and picked strawberries for 2 hours.


Our basket - came out to just over 4 lbs

What does one do with 4 lbs of strawberries? Freeze a portion, and make jam with the rest.


Homemade Amish white bread, lightly toasted, with homemade spicy strawberry jam

After reading several recipes that emphasize strongly on storing in sterile jars, we boiled the jar and the whole nine yards before putting the jam away... but in the end we finished it in 3 days anyway. Hehe.

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After the Jamaican dinner, I was still crazy about those Hummingbirds so I bought a lot of ripe bananas. I figured if they didn't become cocktails, I could make banana fritters to go with the other leftovers. We finished all but two lonely dark bananas. Inspired by the desire to spice up Sunday breakfast, I made chocolate chip whole wheat banana muffins.



I think I've graduated from being a tragic failure of a baker to a mediocre so-so one. Not bad! It lasted for a few breakfasts. Great on the go.

That's it for now. Tune in next time for another episode of Kitchen Creations! *fluttering cape and superhero music*

Happy Birthday Hubs!

... and may we celebrate many more. You know you're getting old when you've to lie about your age to control the skeeze factor. :) But you'll always be 21 to me.

xoxo
Your biggest fan


Igor, E's birthday prez (Lego for grownups)


Oak tree and bluebells - spent the birthday weekend at his parents'


Climbed the oak tree to prove age hasn't made him less limber - E hangin' out


Hot dog roast! We even made our own skewers from tree branches. Had marshmallows afterwards.

Bright Lights, Big City

Taken at the Top of the Rock

Went to NY/NJ for a wedding this past weekend. Spent Saturday evening in the city; only had time to whirl around Midtown. Getting there was an adventure - we had assumed we would catch a shuttle from our hotel in Basking Ridge, but the shuttles don't run on the weekends (d'oh). After some panicking, we ended up driving towards Jersey City, parked at a light rail station, took the light rail to Hoboken, then a Path train into town, and then we got on the metro. Figured all this out along the way.

Hubs had no other agenda than to 'see the sights'. As a surprise for him, I bought tickets to the Top of the Rock. We got there just in time for sundown, and it was beautiful. I'm not a stranger to city sights or seeing the skyline from the 70th floor, but it's different when the sight includes the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge in a distance. The horizon was blanketed in dense little specks of light. We saw a couple getting engaged. :) Pretty cool experience.


Empire State Building and Central Park with a theme...


Another shot of the view at dusk

Dinner was at Chop Suey in Times Square. We were seated right next to the window with an unobstructed view of the square, where Broadway meets 7th. Hubs was bowled over... it was quite incredible, I've to say. It was like watching TV with dinner, except there were over a dozen giant TVs and they were all flashing the same ads. The food was also phenomenal - I had oyster and bacon lettuce cups with kim chi and ginger chicken, while hubs had a watercress and Asian pear salad and a decadent buttery, eggy lobster entree. Then we finished with dessert, sorbet medley and coffee ice-cream respectively.


Hello!


View from our table

Finally got back to the hotel at about 2am.

The wedding was on Sunday. It was small, intimate, and beautiful. The bride and groom actually had Rock Band and DDR set up for post-reception fun - as if that wasn't enough, we hung out with friends afterwards until the wee hours.

Good trip! More to write later...

Lazy Sunday

Hellooo Spring! It was a beautiful sunny weekend. Still a little cool, but I busted out my capris anyway. Yeah!



Took a nice afternoon walk around the neighborhood. I'm in love with our tree-lined streets. I came back smelling like the outdoors. :)



Dinner was homemade spanakorizo, garnished with a generous sprinkle of feta cheese, parsley and lemon, and baked barley (barley, pine nuts, parsley, onions, mushrooms in vege broth). Went very well with a hot cup of Moroccan mint tea.

Cherry Blossoms in DC

It's that time of the year again!

For our 4th consecutive year, we drove down to the capital for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Our hostess extraordinaire M moved from Manassas to San Francisco (which incidentally also has a cherry blossom festival), and we didn't want to impose on our non-single friends, so this time we stayed at a hotel.

(Funny story about getting there: we didn't decide to go until Friday night. E had a little too much fun at a wine and cheese gathering that night and, well, the red wine didn't stick with him very long. During the few hours that he was sprawled on the bathroom floor, he insisted on still going and I finalized the itinerary. By Saturday morning, hangover or not, it was DC or bust.)

Took a bunch of pictures, of course. As usual, I'll leave the cherry blossom pics for the finale.

Saturday
We drove straight into the city - first stop, Georgetown. A quick healthy snack at Sweetgreen and a visit to Le Pain Quotidien to pick up jam and pastries, then we waited in line for cupcakes at the local boutique Georgetown Cupcake. (We're still fans of our neighborhood bakery Dozen.) We browsed in a few shops along M Street too.

Dinner: Kaz Sushi Bistro
The sashimi was divine - E and I concurred that the fish just melted like butter in your mouth. Fresh and tasty. E got the bento specially created for the sakura festival, and the dessert course was sweet red bean paste in sticky rice wrapped in salted cherry blossom leaf, with a tinge of coffee. I had a sinfully rich ginger creme brulee. What a great way to start the trip!

Sunday
Packed our touristy things (camera, water bottle, map) and headed for the metro station. First stop: brunch! The DC experience isn't complete without Sunday brunch at the Ebbitt.


Old Ebbitt Grill: Historic oyster bar and grill near the White House


When in an oyster bar, get oysters!

I couldn't resist getting oysters - half dozen Rappahannock River oysters. 'Plump and buttery'. E indulged in the Eggs Chesapeake, a combination of poached eggs and crab cake on English muffins.

After brunch, we walked around the National Mall and Tidal Basin simply admiring the explosion of blooms. Even though it was chilly, it was a beautiful day. Pics in a bit.

We visited the Sackler gallery for the exhibition of Edo paintings, then the National Air & Space Museum.


Grumman X-29

When we walked past this baby, E cooed like a little boy. It was his favorite plane as a child, and he's flown it many times on his dad's flight simulator. The wings face forward; there was a video and writeup on why that kind of instability worked.

Took a break from museum-hopping and headed to ACKC Cocoa Bar between Dupont Circle and Cardozo. Got brioches, hot chocolate (lavender for me, orange for hubs), and took a long walk along Q street admiring the townhouses.

Dinner: Zaytinya
One of our earlier times in DC, we visited Jaleo, a great tapas place; this time, we went to another resto by the same chef, José Andrés. It serves a great selection of mezze, Mediterranean tapas, and even the wine list was authentic to the region.



We ordered the following:

* Ayran - cool refreshing yoghurt drink. Went very well with all the dishes.
* Fattoush and Portakal Salatasi (oranges, pine nuts, feta etc. in orange blossom dressing)
* Squash couscous with zucchini and tomato-lemon broth
* Havuç Köftesi - carrot-apricot fritters with pistachio sauce which E was over the moon about. Excellent.
* Midyes - fried mussels on skewers with walnut tarator sauce.
* Lamb Kleftiko - spring lamb in phyllo, almost like a spanakopita, with yoghurt dressing and feta. Unusually good.

It was one of the best meals I've had - and that's saying a lot! Finally, we rounded up dinner with Lebanese arak, a strong anise liquor. It's even stronger in flavor than Greek ouzo and Turkish raki, so we sprang for it.


Two tall shots of El Massaya arak


"Keshak!" (Lebanese toast)

The cool thing about arak is louching - like absinthe, the clear liquid turns cloudy when you add cold water to it. 2 parts water, 1 part arak, add ice and enjoy. (Video of arak in action)

All gastronomic adventures made possible by my favorite reservation system, OpenTable - food without a 2-hr wait is the best kind of food.

Finally but definitely not least, the beautiful cherry blossoms.