Sweet Blog o' Mine

Weekend Wrapup

Let's see, where to start.  Friday night I went to a concert put on by middle school students from a set of city charter schools.  We provide pro bono legal services to the parents of one of the schools, and I've got to say, it was so wonderful to see these kids play in the orchestra knowing that some of their families are dealing with a whole host of legal issues that could potentially have an impact on their education.  It feels great to know that our lawyers are helping out.  After the show, I hit the couch hard, and as a result I was up very early Saturday morning.  I took advantage of this odd occurrence and read the paper, then went for a swim.  Afterwards, it was on to a haircut (looks good if I don't say so myself), then Mom, Stephen, and the Lovely Miss Katie came over for some snacks, prosecco, and some home improvement.  Thanks to Stephen, I now have a new light fixture in the bathroom, a shelf and a towel bar -- they look fantastic (thanks again, Stephen!).  Afterwards I met up with Rob Y. for a movie, My Blueberry Nights, which, despite having some great Jude Law eye candy, was sort of mediocre.  Cute, but mediocre. 

Sunday brought a last minute brunch with Matt and his harem, then off to Whole Foods to shop for Sunday night's dinner -- an Asian-inspired feast.  I started off with Japanese rice snacks, edamame and roasted nori to snack on, then a spicy Thai eggplant salad, followed by sesame soba noodles.  The main course was a fish with black bean and garlic sauce and sides of sesame asparagus and steamed rice.  For dessert, I made a ginger ice cream with crystallized ginger.   The recipes that weren't from Epicurious were all from the Moosewood Cookbook (a.k.a. "the cult," per Gabe).  Major thanks to Jimmy for being a fabulous sous chef and co-conspirator.

So, on the Cure front, I'm a little behind.  Only cooked a few times this week (but Sunday should count for more than one meal, I think), and didn't do so much on my list.  Although I sold my TV cabinet, the TV hasn't yet found a home -- I should probably wait a little while before I buy the new one anyway.  Maybe this weekend I can carve out some time for purging some clothing and files and begin the long process of getting all of my CD's onto iTunes. 

In case you missed it, Chip forwarded along a great article from Slate entitled "How economics and game theory explain the shortage of available, appealing men," in response to my Mapquest post.   An interesting theory . . .

Things That Made Me Giggle More Than They Should

1) The thought of naming a daschund "uni panini" (after the sandwich at El Quinto Pino, which I have yet to try).

2) The similarity between Match.com profile headlines and the descriptions of the sakes at Decibel:  "round & superbly balanced," "elegant & smooth," "extremely dry with mellowness and richness."

A Few Photos to Ring in 2008

Didn't manage to take too many, but here are a few pics from the new year's eve festivities.  Enjoy!

The Kiwis Did Me In

I really do think I'm still recovering from Dan and Melissa's wedding, which was one of the most fun I have been to in a while.  The fun, lively, and lighthearted attitude started during the ceremony, where the priest laughingly stopped us all from butchering a hymn (we all started at different times) and made us start over so we'd sound better.  We were then all bussed over to the reception, held under the biggest wedding tent I had ever seen.  Melissa and Dan are in the wine business, among other things, and are lovers of food and wine, so I knew everything would be top-notch and delicious, which it was.  Dan is from New Zealand, so many of the guests were as well -- let me tell you, the Kiwis like to party.  One of the most fantastic parts of the evening was when all the Kiwi men got together to do the Haka -- a traditional Maori war dance.  Several dozen relatively good natured looking guys in suits suddenly got seriously fierce.  When I left at about 1, people were starting to strip down to their skivvies and jump in the pool (for the record, I was not one of those people).  Dan and Melissa looked so happy -- thanks to both of you for inviting me to celebrate with you, and congratulations!  Enjoy Italy!

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.

Weekend Wrapup

I'm getting quite the collection of bridge pictures from my bike rides.  Unfortunately, this bike ride was cut short due to rain on Saturday, but Lauren, Tara, Neil and I still managed to make the most of it.  My bike is now taking a brief vacation across the river in Williamsburg until I can grab it next weekend (thanks, Lauren!).  Saturday night I went to my first show at McCarren Pool -- quite a cool music venue -- to see the Chemical Brothers.  Definitely more on the electronic side than I'm used to but I really enjoyed the show overall.  I took some video of the crazy light/visual stuff that was going on -- have to figure out how to post it.  Still recovering from my brief bout with the plague -- feeling much better but have a bit of a cough still.  Due to sickness and general business, I am woefully behind on my Apartment Therapy, but still managed to have a few folks over for dinner on Sunday night (which is going to be a habit, hopefully), buy some flowers, clean out the kitchen "junk" drawer, get rid of a few books, and purge both the clothes on the rods in my closet and some of the shoes.  I'll pick a date for my "housewarming" as well -- at this rate it will likely be an early holiday party of some sort.  Have a busy week ahead . . .

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.

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 . . .

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.

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.