Category Archives: Other

I meant to post a couple of weeks ago with photos of our Christmas tree and a recipe for the crackers I made at Thanksgiving, but for some reason that never happened.  I also adapted this granola recipe as a stocking stuffer and it was super easy and delicious!

After a hectic, but successful first semester, it’s been relaxing (and a little boring) to have so much time off.

We had a white Christmas in Vermont with Brian’s family.  The weather has been so strange and warm in Boston, but in their house, it felt like I was inside a snow globe.

Tomorrow, I’m off to California to see my own family and celebrate my grandmother’s 85th birthday.  After that, it’s back to school and being busy busy busy, which is how I like it!

Incredible miniature food sculptures.

Via DesignMom

I like to use this guide when I’m grilling steaks at home.  We don’t have a grill, but a grill pan works just fine.  B like his steaks on the medium well side of things so I usually follow the suggested grilling times then take the grill pan off of the heat and immediately cover it with tin foil as it rests.  This helps keep the steak cooking through without the need for the oven.  You could always leave the foil off if you like your steaks more rare.

Some simple (scaled down) scalloped potatoes, roasted broccoli, and garlic bread (with sugar in the butter), and we had a full-on feast!  We’ve been having a few guest over lately and I have been loving it.  Cooking for more people is so much fun and it helps me fine tune some of my classic dishes!

As I was sorting through old recipes, I came across this post from Molly Wizenberg’s blog in 2008 and I couldn’t help but appreciate the sentiment.

I have a confession to make. I haven’t finished writing the thank you notes for our wedding gifts. It has been nine months – nine months tomorrow – and though no one has been brave enough to confirm it, it is becoming quite clear that I am the worst bride ever. I wish someone had warned me about this when we got engaged. Maybe I would have held off on the wedding thing, or chosen a man who has legible handwriting. Instead, once all the fun stuff was over, the whole party part, I had 93 thank you notes to write. Ninety. Three. And as of today, I still have 18 more to go.

I am genuinely thankful – really, so thankful – but even gratitude has its limits. I would much rather gather all the people around one night, all the people we want to thank, and bake a big batch of cookies, make some lemonade, and climb up on a chair and thank them. That would be much better. We could even spike the lemonade with a healthy dose of vodka, so that they would understand that we were very, very grateful.

I love this.  I love it because I am so thankful and because I too have not finished the thank you notes.  It has been a little less than 5 months since our wedding, so I’m not as behind as Miss Orangette, but I did assign a small stack of thank yous to Brian last week and they are still sitting in the middle of the coffee table where I left them.  Your thank yous will arrive eventually if they haven’t yet, but until they do this is me saying thank you and I love you.  You’re the best.

Last week, Brian and I took a trip to visit my family in California for a West Coast wedding reception.  As one of the guests of honor, I didn’t take any pictures but it was a lovely event with delicious food.  My mom and my sister made an amazing antipasto spread including marinated mushrooms, roasted peppers, ciliegine mozzarella, olives, salami, and roasted tomato goat cheese crostini.  There was also lasagna, chicken parm, garlic bread, and the top secret family salad recipe, but I don’t want to make you too hungry without any pictures to back it up!Although I was only in California for about two days, I managed to make a stop at the Orange County Fair. I grew up going to this fair and although the highlights used to include the rides, shopping, the hypnotist, and the concerts, this year we only had a few hours to focus on what was really important- the food!  This year’s theme was “Let’s Eat!” so we did.There is at least one new fried food item served each year.  This year two of the hot new items were deep fried kool-aid balls and the artery-clogging gag-inducing deep fried stick of butter.  I didn’t personally witness anyone eating this marvel of a food item, but I heard it tasted a bit like a churro.Brian and I watched a food-on-a-stick contest and indulged in such delicious treats as Australian battered potatoes, a giant sausage with peppers and onions, frozen lemonade, tacos al pastor, and my favorite item of all, the deep fried Klondike bar.  Brian and I shared this deep fried delight which was coated in a crisp hot batter and filled with a cool creamy not-yet-melted ice cream center.After our brief California visit, we drove out to my parents house in Lake Havasu City, AZ where more food was enjoyed along with boating, water skiing, tubing, and other fun.  But more on that later…