Adam over at Serious Eats linked over to one of my Umbria photos as a picture of the day — I was obsessed with that bowl in our kitchen — probably took about 8 shots of it!
Category: Food and Drink
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Words of Wisdom
I went to see a lecture last night on Julia Child (before heading to the PJ Harvey show) and was reminded of how much I admired Julia’s attitude towards life. One of my favorite Julia quotes (I read her biography last year) is her recipe for a healthy and happy life, "Moderation in all things — a great variety of food — exercise and weight watching – and most important of all, pick your grandparents."
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Yummy Weekend
Oh, what a delicious weekend. Oysterfest on Saturday, a duck club at Marshall Stack Saturday night, a pupusa, some ceviche, a taco and some grilled corn at the Red Hook ball fields on Sunday and then a dinner party Sunday night with mushroom fettucine and my first batch of ice cream in the new machine. All in all, delicious. Plus, my dinner guests gave me great ideas for the slow-going Apartment Therapy project. Went to a much-needed boxing class last night and slept like a baby.
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It’s Still Summer in My Book
Labor Day may be gone, but I’m still not done with the beach. Not only did I stay out for the gorgeous weekend, but I stuck around to take advantage of the midweek night I had left. Although the weather didn’t cooperate, we made the most of it with a long walk (perfect for photos) and some extreme swimming — despite frolicking in the roughest waves I had encountered all summer, I didn’t get my bathing suit knocked off at all (bonus points if you can figure that one out). I had a bit of an extreme run on Friday night as well — we got a bit of a late start so ended up doing the return trip from Robert Moses in the dark. I’m stunned I didn’t twist my ankle on the sand path between the lighthouse and Kismet.
This weekend brought some major eating in addition to the extreme sports — a Lebanese/Middle Eastern feast on Friday night including some lamb tartare prepared by Rachel and her fantastic guest crew, and a multi-course dinner from Iron Chef Joe, featuring a spicy watermelon ceviche, corn flan with a charred corn and strawberry salad, figs Rockefeller with chorizo, grilled soy ginger hangar steak with stuffed tomatoes and edamame salad (with goat cheese — that I liked and willingly ate!). There were also biscuits with sausage gravy, and some excellent repurposing of leftovers with Frank’s lamb ragu pasta for dinner on Sunday night, and another multi-course extravaganza on Monday night courtesy of the Laren/Frank MacGyver squad. Seriously — corn flan topped with lamb sliders and red wine sauce? Superb. And I somehow managed not to ingest a single piece of bacon until this morning, when I just couldn’t help myself. The pictures from the weekend are here. And now back to that boxing I was discussing.
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Shrimp, Lobsters, and BLT’s
Ah, Labor Day weekend at the beach. This time, I was actually not staying in my usual digs, but rather down the block at Margarita Villas. Some of the folks back at the house took to calling us "the Others," a la Lost, but quite a few people stopped by to visit. We managed to eat quite well on our end of Pine Walk — Joe prepared a delicious grilled skirt steak, arugula salad and pasta on Friday night and Katie and I made lobsters, grilled corn with chipotle lime garlic butter, grilled veggies, caprese salad and peach cobbler on Saturday night. Saturday night’s festivities included the annual BLT party, which required all guests to don a black tie, lingerie, toga or some combination thereof, although some took the BLT directive more literally. Sunday featured the shrimp boil — one of my favorite meals of the summer — followed by fried oreos and prosecco. Between the sugar, the bubbly, and one high-octane frappe/crack drink that Roberto concocted for me, I was bouncing off the walls for a while there. Thanks again to Amy for arranging our weekend getaway and to John B. for the extra accomodations. There will be no link to the photos this weekend — I’m limiting them to house members this week due to some potentially incriminating shots . . .
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Castles in the Sand
Well, although I didn’t participate other than by taking pictures and bringing (very strong) cocktails down to the beach, this weekend’s sand castle competition certainly managed to have an impact on me — that night I dreamed that a friend had bought a giant chocolate sand castle as a gift for another friend (he had bought me a gift as well, so I was happy). Caroline cooked a delicious Haitian meal, I went on my first run since the triathlon (only about 3 instead of the usual 4), and I certainly had my share of belly laughs, many inspired by a re-interpretation of a scene from the 40 Year Old Virgin. If you haven’t watched it lately, you really should. The pictures from the weekend are here.
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6 Hundy
On Thursday, I hit my six hundredth Gothamist Food post. SIX HUNDRED!!!!
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Weekend Wrapup
I’m less than a week away from my triathlon, and I actually feel ready, for the most part. Was able to sneak in some good training this weekend, including a brick — a bike/run back to back — which wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be.
Rob is back from London for a bit so I joined him and Sara for lobster rolls at Pearl on Friday night followed by a bottle of wine and cookies (yes, cookies) at the new 8th Street Wine Cellar, which is destined to become one of my new favorites. Was up bright and early for a trip to the farmer’s market on Saturday and went a little crazy there — brought a beautiful and delicious salad of corn, yellow and red tomatoes, snap peas, scallions, and purple basil to a picnic for Annie and Tara. After that, it was off to the Lovely Miss Katie’s birthday celebration, where I saw tons of folks, including Luke, Michelle, and Jim, (I promised them a shout out).
Up the next morning for the aforementioned brick (thanks, Frank!), then a few errands before dinner at Joe’s. I’ll let him tell you his thoughts on it before I tell you mine. He was kind enough to let me sous-chef a bit — as you might imagine, I’m generally not so good at just shutting up and taking orders, but I was good this time around.
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Ersters
Love ’em. Had these earlier this week at P.J. Clarke’s with several people who will not be named because they don’t want to be on the blog. They were okay, not great (although the company was fantastic), but I made up for it last night with some delicious malpeques at Pearl Oyster Bar with Rob (welcome back) and Sara. I still like the picture. Wrote a Gothamist post about oysters in hopes of learning about some new oyster happy hour joints — let me know if you know of any!
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And Much Lobster Was Had By All
Over the course of four days, we ate lobster rolls once, fried clams twice, and whole lobsters twice. We also made some kick-ass grilled salmon with corn salsa and shrimp tacos with grilled onions, guacamole, and chipotle crema. To balance it out, I swam across the lake and back once (1/2 mile), went on two runs, and finished up the last day with a swim/run combo (getting ready for the tri). Got to catch up with the family and some family friends a bit as well. In addition to cooking and eating, we spent a great deal of time reading, sleeping, and throwing either a ball or a stick into the lake so that Lucy (the dog), could jump in and fetch it. As a gesture of thanks for our entertaining her for hours on end, she ate our cheese plate while we weren’t looking. The pictures from the weekend are here.