Eat Drink Laugh Love

Three of my favorite words, especially when they apply to me.  We left for Provincetown on Saturday for one week of fun and relaxation at one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever stayed.  Check it out.  The pictures do not lie at all.  Today always feels like the official first day since everyone is at work, and we’re not!  Hurray for Monday when I don’t have to work.

So far, the weather had been perfect, and we’re having a great time.  I’ll try to post a few more times.  Now, I just going to enjoy my coffee and watch the tide come in.

Wow, beets really generate some strong reactions (see comments in post)!  People either LOVE them or HATE them.  I always considered myself a hater.  I was really only familiar with the canned variety - they always looked slimy and so big and red and just gross.  But, they are an early harvest here in NE and since we’re trying to eat locally, that’s what vegetable was availabe at the farm stand.  I knew it was time that I give beets another chance.  Guess what?  Fresh beets are about 200x better than their canned relatives.  These were tiny and sweet and the way Andreas cooked them was fantastic.  He sauteed a vidalia onion with a little garlic.  He peeled the beets and cut them to bite-sized pieces and added them to the onion mixture  and added a bit (a heavy-handed bit, mind you) of white wine and a bit of water.  He covered them and let them cook for about 20 minutes.  The onions turned this beautiful shade of red and the beets were tender without being mushy - I have a huge problem with mushy, so this is a good thing.  They were really, really good! I was really nervous about that first bite, and pleasantly surprised when I realized that I found a new vegetable to enjoy.

We also saved the beet greens and are going to cook them tonight.  I’ll let you know how they turn out. 

The “dip” into summer party was a big success! The weather gods were smiling down on us and gave us a picture perfect summer day.  Everything came out really good, and I had plenty of food.  I won’t say I had too much, but I could have gone with three fewer dips.

Last night, we both couldn’t face cooking dinner, so we decided to try local restaurant that is new to us: Masona Grill.  It has a definite Mediterranean flair to it’s dishes and is definitly going to be a welcome addition to our local dining spots.

For an appetizer we had artichoke fritters served with roasted red peppers and tahini sauce. Andreas thought immediately of Greece when he had one.  He was right.  The peppers and the other flavors were very reminiscent of the small cafes we ate at on Santornini.  We also got a salad of mixed greens that had a lovely tangy dressing.

For main course, I got the special entree, Paella.  I love paella and this was definitely a good batch. Nothing fancy, just a traditional recipe.  It had shrimp, callamari, chorizo, and chicken, with a healthy smattering of peas and a nice touch of saffron.  Andreas got the lamp tips served with a cilantro rice and purred eggplant.  I tried a bit and it was delicious.

We had a house red with dinner - it was a Chilean Malbec.  Sorry, I don’t have more info on that.

For dessert, we had a blueberry brown butter tart served with dolce leche ice cream.  It was incredible.  All of the dessers are made in house and you could tell.

Tonight, I need to figure out what to do with beets.  Help!

We’re having our first offical party of the summer season this Saturday. Since it’s falling on the official first day of summer, it’s a “dip” into summer theme.  What’s a dip into summer party?  Well, it involves all things dippable! Who doesn’t love a dip? They are usually my favorite foods served at a party anyway, so why not just have dips?

Of course, this poses a bit of a challenge - how do you keep things interesting and not just bowls of chips with different kinds of sour cream based dips?  I think we’ve got a good handle on it, though. Here’s our “menu”.

Vegetarian taco dip
Hot artichoke dip
Guacomole
Shrimp cocktail
Keilbasa and sweet italian sausage with various mustards
Chicken tenders with various dipping sauces
Tzaziki, Hummus, and Babaganoush with pita points
Egg rolls with sweet and sour sauce
Dumplings with soy ginger sauce
Grilled shrimp, steak, and vegetables on skewers with bbq sauce

Pretty good, huh? I’ll post some recipes after the party.  Now, I know what you’re thinking - something is missing. Something sweet, right? Well, we have that covered. My sister is bringing a chocolate coolwhip dip with angel food cake, pound cake, strawberries, and pineapple.  My mom also told me about a dip that she used to make back in the day:  cool whip with creme de menthe with Pepperidge Farm pirouette cookies to dip.  How good does that sound?

For drinks, I’m going to make a sangria. We’ll also have some white wine and cold, cheap beer. We usually go for the Miller High Life. 

We’re hoping for sunny and 80 degrees! Keep your fingers crossed!

I don’t know about anyone else, but I always imagine that once the warm weather comes, I’m going to start eating healthy and generally taking better care of myself than I do in the winter.  But then, summer comes along and with it comes the burgers on the grill, the guacomole and chips, the regular chips to accompany the burgers, the potato salad, and the worse of them all - the gloriously cold, yummy beer.  I love the summer brews and unfortunately they don’t come in the light variety, so I’m drinking quite a bit of calories along with my great summer snacks.

In the past week I have eaten:  bison burgers, keilbasa, chicken tenders, flank steak, bbq chicken thighs, pork chops, steak tips, and swordfish.  That’s just the grilled food.  I’m not even going to mention the three different kinds of potato salad, the pasta salad (with pepperoni in it, no less), the cold sesame noodles, the dorito’s, the homemade ice cream and the chocolate chip cookies.  I actually think I took better care of myself in February!

The thing is that we have such a short summer season that we feel that we have to take full advantage of it.  We wait 9.5 months to sit outside, drink a cold beer and hang out.  Why would I want to deny myself that?

I guess I’ll have to get back on my Wii Fit and work off the grilled meats!

When:  Saturday, 7 June 2008
Where:  Tuckers’ Bistro, Newport, RI
Who:  Stephanie and Andreas
Wine:  Cabernet Sauvignon, Clos du Val ‘05′

Andreas and I first went to Newport together in 2004, after we’d been dating about 1 year.  We had exchanged the “I love you’s” and were in a committed relationship with each other, but it was this weekend in Newport that really cemented the relationship for us.  It was our first trip alone together and we had a wonderful time, especially at this romantic little bistro on Broadway in Newport.  Then next we went back to Newport, in June of 2005, we got engaged. We celebrated that night at Tucker’s. We hadn’t been back to Newport since that wonderful weekend until last week and it was understood that we would, of course, go to Tucker’s.

This is one of the most charming, intimate, romantic, fancy, friendly restaurant’s I’ve ever been to.  It is decorated like an eccentric aunt’s house, all of the tables have different settings - the lamps, the salt & pepper shakers, the plates, all different.  The proprietor, Tucker, works one side of the dining room.  The other staffers have been there since the first time and seem to really enjoy working together.

To top it off, the food is wonderful.  We started off the evening with Thai shrimp “nachos”.  Beautiful pieces of shrimp with yellow and red peppers in a Thai coconut sauce with fried wonton chips.  They are fantastic.  We also shared a green salad with a sesame vinaigrette.  The vinaigrette went very nicely with the Thai flavored sauce.  For dinner, I got the grilled pork loin served with cheddar mashed potatoes, arugula grape tomato-corn salad, baked corn tortilla, and port wine sauce.  It was fantastic.  I heart cheddar mashed potatoes.  Andreas got the grilled NY Strip Sirloin with cheddar and chive baked potato, crispy onion rings, horseradish sour cream and cabernet demi glaze.  Do I even need to say whether he enjoyed it?

Tucker was our server and he just makes the experience that much more enjoyable.  We had such a great time and it will ever be thought of as our place. 

I’m back! I have no excuse for not posting for almost a month.  Life just happens, you know?  Anyhoo, we just experienced our first 90+ degree weather weekend! And to make it even better, Andreas and I were in Newport, RI for a getaway weekend.  It was absolutely picture perfect weather.  Yesterday we walked along the cliff walk where the breeze kept us cool the entire time.  It also made it hard for us to notice that the sun was slowly baking our skin to a crisp!  We weren’t the only ones though. By the end of the day, there were large groups of tourists walking around with red chests, noses and foreheads.

Today we went to the beach!  I love going to the beach and hardly ever do it. We spent about 1.5 hours which was just enough.  The water is stil too cold for me to go all the way in, but I did get by legs wet.  If you are not from New England, you can’t understand how freakin’ cold the water can be in June.  Up to the knees is impressive.

On our way home we took the back roads and ending up having lunch in Bristol, RI at this cute little waterfront restaurant called Quito’s. I had steamers and Andreas had a lobster roll.  It was the perfect way to end our wonderful weekend.

Now we are back home and very grateful for our central AC.

I’m just finishing up my second trip to Nashville in a month.  I had to go to a conference for work, and it happened to be at the Gaylord Opryland Resort.  This worked out really well for me because I got to see my wonderful friends who (whom? I can never get that right) I went on vacation with last month.  On Tuesday night, Laramey and Heath picked me up and we went to here.  It is a really cool, funky building that is kind of reminiscent of a tree house or a fort.  We sat inside, but on the edge, where they windows opened out on the patio.  They had a very interesting menu, with a lot of wood grilled choices.  We got the mediterranean platter for an appetizer.  There was hummus, feta, pita, olives, chutney, and other delicious treats.  For my entree, I got ostrich!  Yes, ostrich!  It was delicious.  It tastes a lot like a very tender filet. This was served rare and marinated with a pomegranate molasses and topped with a currant sauce. I think this must have helped to cut down on the gaminess that some people taste with ostrich meat.  It was served with a sweet potato almond tart that was so good that it sated my craving for dessert.   It was a nice departure from the “southern” cooking we’d be subjected to at the confererence and was a great visit.

Last night, Beth came to the hotel with her three girls.  We sat my the pool while they swam (how is it that children feel no cold? I had a towel wrapped around me and they were in and out of the pool until it closed) and enjoyed some great pulled pork.

These are the times that I don’t mind traveling at work.  Even though I just saw them last month, it was so nice to be able to hang out with them again.  I hope that this conference comes back here again!

Wow, it’s been HOW long since I last posted?  More than a week? That’s unforgiveable!  I guess I haven’t had anything really exciting to say. 

Spring is kicking into gear (FINALLY) in Boston.  We’ve been spending a lot of time in the garden prepping for putting the tomatoes and peppers in the ground and watching the brussels sprouts and bok choy grow.  We’ll start our local eating project in about a week and a half.  Local farmers markets should be starting up so it’s as good as time as any.

One thing we both want to make sure we can do is eat out.  Luckily, there are more than a few places that use local ingredients, so we should be OK.  One of those places is the Ashmont Grill in Dorchester.  This is a truly great local restaurant that has defined local dining in the past few years.  More and more, people are investing in their neighborhoods and opening places like this and Cafe D.  As someone who doesn’t live in Boston Proper, this is a welcome change.  Anyway, Ashmont is a wonderful restaurant that not only serves local ingredients, but also biodynamic and organic wines.  We went there on Saturday night with friends and had a great time.  It was a nice enough night to sit outside. They have a fire pit that gave off a bit of heat, but just in case you got too cold, there were blankets on the chairs. How cute is that?  I love a blanket, so this really appealed to me.

We had a great meal and Andreas was happy about the fact that he could get a naturally-raised, grass fed filet.  When I’m craving a burger, I now have a place to go!

Well, I survived my cleanse.  I ended up losing around 5 lbs, my skin improved and I felt very healthy.  In the past four days, I have pretty much reintroduced every other food in the world, capping it off yesterday with a Mother’s Day feast to beat them all.

Typically we go to my cousin’s house and order fried clams from the local clam shack by her house.  We usually celebrate with my mom and my aunt and all of the cousins.  This year Christine wasn’t in town, so we kept it to just our immediate family and went to my sisters house.  She has a small apartment, but we totally lucked out and had beautiful weather. It was sunny and in the mid-sixties. She lives right near a pond with a walking trail and picnic tables.  She also lives near one of the best BBQ joints in the northeast - Blue Ribbon BBQ.  It is just awesome.  We had pulled pork, ribs, chicken, burnt ends, corn bread, baked beans and cole slaw.  My sister made cookies. Andreas snuck us some beers.  We sat on the side of the lake and made a mess of ourselves eating.  It was wonderful. To cap off the day, we walked to the center of town and got an ice cream.  They had a special where you got any size ice cream for $0.99 if you’re a mother.  This is akin to geting a diamond necklace to my mom.  It was a banner day.

So happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there!  Hope you had a great day celebrating.