The Parting Gift

When Craig and I lived in New York we had the opportunity to go to several four-star restaurants.  One detail– aside from champagne while you waited for the rest of your party to arrive, a purse bench,  having your tea leaves snipped right off the plant table side before it was brewed, and a confections cart at the end of the meal– was the small parting gift that was given on your way out of the restaurant. 

This past weekend, Craig created a five-course tasting menu for some friends, and I was inspired to make a parting gift that they could take home with them after the meal.  At first I planned to make canelé, but it was Sunday and you can't buy liquor on Sundays in NC. Unfortunately, we didn't have the rum we needed for the recipe. I opted to make chocolate macaron with a chocolate ganache filling instead. A number of years ago, when we still lived in NYC, I made rose-water macarons with my friend Samantha. That was the one and only time I successfully made macarons– this time I was determined to make it work.

On Sunday afternoon, I went to Craig's catering kitchen and made them all by myself with a little over-the-shoulder supervision and pointers from Craig– and only one tiff about the definition of "test batch".   I'm embarrassed to say that it took me four hours to make a recipe that says it should take 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 hours. In my defense, though, I was taking special care to make sure I was doing every step perfectly. Also, it took some time to make sure the oven was staying at the correct temperature. In the end, the macarons came out pretty well. Although the foot of the macarons did not look completely perfect the overall color and shape turned out great! Most importantly, though, was that they tasted great!

I think the only down side was that for all my hard work the recipe only yielded about 20 macarons. I would have known that had I not skimmed that part of the recipe before jumping into the bulk of the recipe.  I also skipped over the part that indicated that the difficulty level for the recipe was all the way over on the, "hard," side of the scale. Oops!   

Now, I am inspired to try making other flavors.  I think the next flavor I will try is a berry flavor with a cream-cheese butter-cream filling. 

Time Flies When You Are Having Fun

Boy, it has been nearly a month since I last posted. So much for posting every day until June 30th!  So, what has happened since April 15th . . . .

Well, on April 15th Craig and I went out for appetizers and drinks at Mccormick and Schmick's with our friends Rob and Kim.   The restaurant was running a special so we got these coupons that were for $10.40 off of our next visit before the end of May (excluding mother's day of course).  We went back last week for dinner and used one of the coupons. Dinner was really good but we also had dessert which made me feel pretty guilty afterwards.

We went rode our bikes a few times on the greenway. We were able to go farther and faster every time we went out. We bought these little speedometers that we attached to the bicycles. We can record how fast we go, our maximum speed, average speed, how long we rode, how many calories and fat calories we burned, what the temperature was etc. We are keeping a spreadsheet of all of this information on our computer to see how we are doing. We are also thinking of trying new trails on the greenway for variety.

We've been out for ice cream and slushes a few times. There is a new ice cream place that is just minutes away from our apartment. They the ice cream they sell is from a local farm in Carborro. Everything is organic yada yada yada. It is pretty yummy though. I am sort of a purist when it comes to ice cream and I have had chocolate and strawberry so far. Craig has tried some of the other flavors such as Carolina Crunch and Chocolate with Almonds.  The Sunset Slush place is a little farther away from where we live but definitely worth the drive. They sell slush that is sort of like an italian ice but much better. I'd say it was like gelato but I have never actually had gelato (I think). It does not have dairy in it so it is very low in calories and I don't think it has any fat in it at all.

My God Son was baptized in April. It is pretty neat that my sister lives across the street and down the block a little bit from the church. A lot of us walked from her house to the church before the ceremony. I liked that it was a little procession with Andrew in his christening outfit and the family behind him walking together to the church. It reminded me of what it might be like if we lived in some small european town where people actually walk to church.  Afterwards my sister and her husband threw a nice party in their back yard. They had fried chicken and pork bbq, hush puppies and all the fixin's. They  had tents up in the back yard which came in handy since it rained a little bit. There were little kids running around playing and the adults sat around the tables talking, eating and drinking. It was especially nice to see friends and family from out of town who had flown in for the baptism. One of Marybeth's good friends, Jennifer, from College came to town from Texas and surprised her. It was great! I'll have to post a picture of Marybeth's face when she saw her friend standing in her kitchen! I'm especially proud since in my family I am given a hard time quite often for not being able to keep a secret, however I was an integral part of keeping the surprise a secret and I did it! Mb gave me kudos since kudos were due!

Ironically, on the same weekend of the Baptism, it was the First Communion for one of our nephews on Craig's side of the family. Craig and I woke up early on Sunday and drove to Wilmington for the occasion. It was a very nice ceremony because there was only one class of about 14 students who were receiving their communion for the first time. Most of the people at the mass were family of the recipients and the mass itself was very intimate. Afterwards we went to a Japanese Steakhouse for lunch and cake. After lunch Craig and I went over to his parents house for a little bit and had tea and just talked for a while before we had to drive back to Raleigh. Before we left, Craig's mom gave me a really pretty candle holder made of wrought iron and hand blown glass that she said she had and kept forgetting to give to me. I think she may have picked it up during our vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains last year during the Freeman Family Vacation but I am not sure.

I went out for sushi with a co-worker one night after work. She and I had said that we would go out for sushi for at least 5 months now and we finally did it. I really like her a lot but we don't get much opportunity to hang out together. I think we have a lot in common and I hope we get more opportunities to hang out. I am a little worried though, that I may have bored her with my conversation. I hope not!

Craig and I vowed that we were going to lose weight before we went to NY for Josephine's wedding but  even though we have been trying really hard by exercising more and eating better we really haven't lost any weight--which is kind of frustrating. I guess we will have to do even more exercising and stop going out for ice cream altogether --boo!

I guess the last thing we did since my last post was that we went to a party of a friend of mine, who I went to HS and college with, last weekend. We stayed longer than I thought we would -I'm not really sure how late I actually thought we would stay but we ended up staying until about 11:30 p.m.   We were not the first to leave but there were still a good number of people there when we left. My friend's husband grilled some very nice kabobs and vegetables. He had different sauces for the kabobs, one was african, one was peanut and the last one was a cucumber dill sauce.  My friend had fresh pita bread and made a nice tsatsiki sauce and home made hummus for dipping. Their two year old daughter was the star of the party as she kept going to the cooler and getting beers out and handing them to the adults. People were joking and calling her a beer wench. My friend's husband is part Scottish and part Norwegian.  One thing that blows me away is when she talks to her little daughter in Norwegian. I told her, if anyone would have told me back in HS or college that she would know how to speak Norwegian I would  have said they were crazy! But it is true, she speaks Norwegian and even goes to Norway for several weeks every summer! How cool is that?

February Trip to NY: Part 2

The the second leg of my New York trip was meeting up with my friends May and Josephine at areally awesome Japanese restaurant called Inayaka http://www.inakayany.com/ .  I posted a photo of my desert here because even though May and Josephine are both beautiful, I unfortunately look horrible in all of the pictures we took.

It happened to be restaurant week during my visit and we were able to get quite a good three course meal at a very reasonable price. I loved how the waiter would call out our orders in Japanese to the chefs and the chefs would shout back to the waiter. I had no idea what they saying but it was very cool because it was in Japanese. Craig later made fun of me (in a lovingly joking sort of way of course) saying that it was akin to ordering at a Waffle House or something that the waiter would shout out,  "2 egg special! Side of hash browns!" and the short order cook would repeat it back.  This was A LOT better than the Waffle House though!

Another thing I thought was super neat was that since we were eating at the sushi bar our drinks and food were served to us on a paddle that the chef used to reach across from the kitchen to where we were sitting. Then, toward the middle of our meal there was a slight commotion in the dining room when two chefs were taking turns pounding sticky rice with large mallets into sheets of mochi.

One thing that really stands out to me about the friends I have made in NY is that even though nearly two years had gone by with very little action in the keeping in touch process, I feel like the three of us got together as if no time had really passed at all. Everything fell into place as if it was just one of our many get togethers when I was still living in NYC.  I wish the three of us had more time to spend together during my visit but I am really glad that we were able to get together even for a short time.

February Trip to NY: Part 1

This past February I took a trip up to NY for a week to work and to visit with friends.  It was probably one of the coldest times of the year. The week started out with a very cold rain and later developed into one of the largest snowfalls NYC had ever had. People asked me if I missed NY, and I did, but the weather made it a little easier to say no I didn't really miss it that much.

What I do miss are the friends I have in NY. When I first arrived I stayed for two days with my friend Samantha. Samantha and I know each other because we were cubicle-mates at a magazine publishing company in lower Manhattan. (more about that later though).

During my first night we relaxed at her apartment, ordered Thai food and just caught up with each other. After work on the second night we met up at the Gramercy Park Hotel for a drink and a snack with our friend Sue. From there we walked around the park and went to an art show at the National Arts Club because two of Sam and Sue's friends were showing pieces.

It is kind of funny how when you live some place, sometimes you don't really take advantage of the things around you since you are busy living your life from day to day. I literally lived around the corner from the National Arts Club, on 23rd street, and have walked passed it countless times without ever giving it a side glance except to maybe admire the architecture. Oh well, ces't la vie!

Aside from the actual art show, which was very cool, there was a side hallway that I really enjoyed walking down. This hallway was lined with large photographs all depicting love--probably due to it being February and Valentines day.  Most, if not all of the photographs were black and white shots of couples embracing and such. One of my favorites was of a couple, mostly nude standing face to face to kiss, but there was a lampshade over their heads. Not sure why, but the photo sort of stuck me. Another photo that struck me was one of a love note that had been left on a dresser. The memory of this photo is a bit hazier though.

The photo above was taken at the National Arts Club by one of Sam and Sue's artist friends. It is of Sue, me, Sam and their other artist friend.