Eric always complains that I don’t like hiking. Actually, I just don’t like boring hiking. I like scenery. I like vistas. I like crossing small streams and figuring out my footing over rocks. I like waterfalls. New Hampshire, thankfully, has all that.
On Friday, we left work a bit early and I took the PATH train to New Jersey to pick up our rental car, a minivan (more on that later). The trip was over six hours, including an hour break for thai food. We passed right by the exit to Wesleyan, so I gave my standard alumni shout-out.
I have to say, I love traveling with smartphones. The thai place we found, which was pretty good and so quiet and peaceful, was over two miles away from the highway. We would have been eating at Denny’s if we hadn’t had Yelp and Google Maps. The hotel the first night, a Red Roof Inn, was not my favorite. A lot of the places were sold out for some reason, and at this point it was 11:30pm. I pouted and couldn’t sleep because of those thin comforters they have in cheap hotels. It was also just a little bit cheaper than the much nicer place we had reservations for Saturday and Sunday night. Eric refused to eat the free continental breakfast in the morning.
However, that turned out to be a good thing because we found this awesome pancake place further North on our route. Pretty much everything in this small skiing town was shut down, except for this restaurant, which was packed. It had a cute little train going around that captivated all the little kids in the restaurant, one of those things that makes me almost excited to have children, until I see the little rascal clinging to his mother and running around the restaurant like a wee madman.
The weather was about as nice as it was going to get, so we went up to Mt Washington. It’s the tallest mountain on the East Coast, the site of the highest wind speed ever recorded, and the first “attraction” on the east coast. You have to pay $30 something for the toll road up to the top, which comes with a cheesy yet wonderful audio CD to play in your car. We stopped and walked around at various points. It was really cool to enter the alpine zone. The trees get smaller and smaller until there are flattened, twisted conifer vines, basically. Up top was totally covered in fog. I brought my ski jacket, gloves, and a hat, which I put on at the top. It’s that cold. On the way down we hiked off the road and perched on a rock for awhile that was basically on a cliff. We tried to take pictures but they just couldn’t capture the depth and scale of what we were experiencing.
We stayed at the Bretton Arms Inn, which is on the ground and part of the Mount Washington Resort. The Victorian-era hotel is a vestige of the days when people would spend their whole summers at one hotel. Fifty trains arrived a day. It was a huge hotspot. A lot of these places have gone away, mainly due to the arrival of plane travel. Fun fact!
The hotel was absolutely gorgeous. We ate the first night in the formal dining room. Neither of us had realized the environment was so formal. I brought a new dress that I had been dying to wear, but Eric was in his cargos. I didn’t want to eat at the other restaurants so I made him borrow a suit jacket so he could eat in the formal area. Dinner was wonderful. We sat right by the window, had that exceptional service that makes you pull out all the manners you learned from your mother, and I now have a new favorite dish: osso bucco. After dinner, Eric treated me to one dance on the dance floor. We danced alone in front of the three-piece band. Just a little two-step. He turned bright red and it was so cute. He’s actually expressed interest in dancing lessons, so I need to take advantage of that. I’m not a great dancer myself, but I’ve learned that confidence goes a long way, and I really enjoy dancing with someone that loves me. No sweaty palms!
Sunday it rained all day, as forecast, so we treated ourselves to a hotel day. We had brunch buffet in the formal dining room again, it was one of those crazy Mother’s Day-level brunches. We ate a lot of lox. Then we checked out the spa, since we had made appointments for a couples’ massage later that day. I’ve only been to a true spa once, and didn’t really get the full experience. The male and female concierges each gave us separate tours, and we met briefly in the couples lounge. I went back out after changing, and Eric was nowhere to be found. I went back and used the steam room for a minutes, then checked. No Eric. Did more steam room. No Eric. Finally, I go out and see him. He had shaved and showered, commenting that there’s not usually all that stuff for him to use. After going to a formal tea in the afternoon (so stuffed by that point after breakfast and tea!), we came back for our massage. It was incredible. I definitely want to get more massages. My mom had a bunch of them covered by insurance after she got a concussion in a fender-bender (ok, not a good reason to get free massages), but I hear Washington is a massage-positive state. I would love to get medical massages for my back problems. I asked for a deep tissue massage, which left me a bit sore the next day, but I think it worked out some of my perma-kinks.
On Monday it finally stopped raining and we went on a couple of hikes in the White Mountain National Forest before we headed back to NYC. The first one was advertised as “Twenty Minutes to the Waterfall,” and it took a bit longer, but it was beautiful. We could see the trail markings on the other side of the waterfall, but there was no way you could get across at this time of the year, with all the spring snow melting. Then we headed down to the river, where we saw people canoeing and rafting down the river in wetsuits. They do this every May. Eric and I decided we will go rafting together—he’s done it before but I haven’t.
At this point Eric thought I wanted to head back to the car and go home, but no I didn’t! I turned onto a trail and started hiking. It turned out to run uphill along a stream/waterfall. We had the best time hiking up there, which led us to believe that there are only good trails in New Hampshire. There were lots of rocksteps and tree roots, and different types of waterfalls. We finally ended up turning back at a break in the trail.
Then, we got around to the whole purpose of the trip, and why we rented a minivan. The boxes. About a decade ago, Eric left ten boxes of stuff at his ex-girlfriend’s parents’ house before he moved to Portland, Oregon. Seriously. The parents were really nice, and I didn’t feel that awkward, thankfully, even though I was wondering if they were judging me against her. We started to go through them and there’s lots of duplicate kitchen stuff, for example. This morning Eric spotted a trio of microwave cookbooks. Yeah, there’s some great stuff in those boxes.
It was so nice to take a three-day weekend, and now that I have more vacation time this is something we’ll plan to do a couple more times this summer. Relaxed and refreshed! Also, we always tend to get closer during a trip together, but I think now I really understand what old married couples mean when they go away for a weekend to reconnect. The weekend was all about spending time with each other away from our usual distractions, and I felt so much more in sync with my partner by the end. Going to New Hampshire made me realize there are many, many more destinations to explore on the East Coast.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Ping Pong and Green Smoothies
This week went by pretty quickly, and with my boyfriend already tuckered out in bed, I thought I'd share.
THE PING PONG STORY
While biking home, I see people playing ping pong through the chain link fence in a pretty neglected park by our apartment. I realize that Eric has a couple of ping pong paddles lying around.
I go on Amazon and purchase some ping pong balls (they sell a lot of 300-packs for beer pong...). Tonight, after dinner we decide to move around a bit and play some pong. It was fabulous. We were out there for about forty minutes. We realized that was the longest either of us had been outside that day. It's kind of pathetic, especially because I consider myself to be a lot more outdoorsy since I bike to and from work (15 min each way) and generally try to leave the office to walk around or run an errand at lunchtime. It felt old-fashioned, like when I was a kid and would race to go outside and play after dinner, especially during warm summer nights.
I beat Eric two games to one. I'm pretty competitive, but I had an advantage since I play tennis (I think anyway). I like that we're not too unevenly matched. Success! Hopefully I can rope some other friends into playing or turn it into a drinking game sometime.
GREEN SMOOTHIES
I make fruit smoothies semi-regularly with my immersion blender. I have it down to a science
1) frozen fruit from whole foods
2) frozen bananas--I slice up all extra, overripe bananas and put them in the freezer for this use
3) yogurt
4) milk or fruit juice to thin
However, I feel like they're not as filling as, say, having some yogurt and berries and actually chewing everything. They can also be pretty sweet. I've been seeing a lot of green juices around lately, usually priced at some insane level like $7 or $9.50, so I thought I'd try to make my own at home. Tonight I made a kale smoothie as follows
1) As many leaves of kale (de-stemmed) as I could fit into my pyrex measuring cup
2)frozen banana + frozen strawberry
3)milk
It was surprisingly good, just a little bit of vegetal bitterness. As Eric said, after trying it reluctantly, "It could hold a lot more kale."
Our CSA starts up in three weeks (yay!) so I think green smoothies will be a good way for us to quickly go through perishable vegetables. Last year we got into kale chips to go through all the kale, but this year I'm hoping we can add smoothies to our "easy ways to eat kale" repertoire. A sidenote: I'm all about fiber, but I suspect the kale is behind some major intestinal rumblings this evening. Ironically, when I googled this I came across a website recommending you make raw vegetables more "digestible" was to make a green smoothie. Yeah, right...
Anyway, the real way to make an awesome smoothie is to have a high-end vitamix or whatever but I told Eric to check out craigslist and I think we're going to get a $200 for $50. Nice!
THE PING PONG STORY
While biking home, I see people playing ping pong through the chain link fence in a pretty neglected park by our apartment. I realize that Eric has a couple of ping pong paddles lying around.
I go on Amazon and purchase some ping pong balls (they sell a lot of 300-packs for beer pong...). Tonight, after dinner we decide to move around a bit and play some pong. It was fabulous. We were out there for about forty minutes. We realized that was the longest either of us had been outside that day. It's kind of pathetic, especially because I consider myself to be a lot more outdoorsy since I bike to and from work (15 min each way) and generally try to leave the office to walk around or run an errand at lunchtime. It felt old-fashioned, like when I was a kid and would race to go outside and play after dinner, especially during warm summer nights.
I beat Eric two games to one. I'm pretty competitive, but I had an advantage since I play tennis (I think anyway). I like that we're not too unevenly matched. Success! Hopefully I can rope some other friends into playing or turn it into a drinking game sometime.
GREEN SMOOTHIES
I make fruit smoothies semi-regularly with my immersion blender. I have it down to a science
1) frozen fruit from whole foods
2) frozen bananas--I slice up all extra, overripe bananas and put them in the freezer for this use
3) yogurt
4) milk or fruit juice to thin
However, I feel like they're not as filling as, say, having some yogurt and berries and actually chewing everything. They can also be pretty sweet. I've been seeing a lot of green juices around lately, usually priced at some insane level like $7 or $9.50, so I thought I'd try to make my own at home. Tonight I made a kale smoothie as follows
1) As many leaves of kale (de-stemmed) as I could fit into my pyrex measuring cup
2)frozen banana + frozen strawberry
3)milk
It was surprisingly good, just a little bit of vegetal bitterness. As Eric said, after trying it reluctantly, "It could hold a lot more kale."
Our CSA starts up in three weeks (yay!) so I think green smoothies will be a good way for us to quickly go through perishable vegetables. Last year we got into kale chips to go through all the kale, but this year I'm hoping we can add smoothies to our "easy ways to eat kale" repertoire. A sidenote: I'm all about fiber, but I suspect the kale is behind some major intestinal rumblings this evening. Ironically, when I googled this I came across a website recommending you make raw vegetables more "digestible" was to make a green smoothie. Yeah, right...
Anyway, the real way to make an awesome smoothie is to have a high-end vitamix or whatever but I told Eric to check out craigslist and I think we're going to get a $200 for $50. Nice!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Oh man..
After reading this article on Gawker, I scrolled over to McNaughton's website, where I found a number of offensive pictures.
Like the one of Obama stepping on the constitution.
And Via Dolorosa (above), in which a modern American businessman stands front and center next to Jesus. F*** Mother Teresa, Jefferson, etc. They're in the background. I imagine this would be the perfect picture to hang in a douche-y businessman's office.
This one is (above) more complicated (um, and even BYU finds it offensive and is taking it down?). He has a female businesswoman on the left "the good side," but a Mr. Hollywood and liberal reporter on the right (all figures that could represent me). It's very Fox News-y, gives me my standard liberal gag reflex, but the viewpoints he expresses reveal some common ground between liberals and conservatives. Although, now that I think about it--why is it the female businesswoman's responsibility to "preserve conservative values?" Because she is the one that is deviating from the traditional to work out of home?
It's weird to see a modern painter using the highly symbolic style popular hundreds of years ago, where every person actually represented something. He's not really that good of a painter, but apparently these things sell like crazy.
Like the one of Obama stepping on the constitution.
And Via Dolorosa (above), in which a modern American businessman stands front and center next to Jesus. F*** Mother Teresa, Jefferson, etc. They're in the background. I imagine this would be the perfect picture to hang in a douche-y businessman's office.
This one is (above) more complicated (um, and even BYU finds it offensive and is taking it down?). He has a female businesswoman on the left "the good side," but a Mr. Hollywood and liberal reporter on the right (all figures that could represent me). It's very Fox News-y, gives me my standard liberal gag reflex, but the viewpoints he expresses reveal some common ground between liberals and conservatives. Although, now that I think about it--why is it the female businesswoman's responsibility to "preserve conservative values?" Because she is the one that is deviating from the traditional to work out of home?
It's weird to see a modern painter using the highly symbolic style popular hundreds of years ago, where every person actually represented something. He's not really that good of a painter, but apparently these things sell like crazy.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Lazy Weekend
Last weekend I went camping for a night in New Jersey in 40ish degree weather with a deflated air mattress. Although it was nice to see trees and birds, I was glad to have a more relaxing weekend.
Friday night E & I met up after work at Ten Bells, a place I've been wanting to try for their "oyster happy hour," where the oysters are only $1. The oysters on the half shell were actually quite good, but they did have some grit in them and were too salty. E wanted to leave ASAP. So we did. I've heard so many raves about this place, but it really is overpriced...$1 oysters are nice but when the cheapest glass of wine is $9...I mean come on, it doesn't really even itself out.
We ended up going just next door to Barrio Chino, a fantastic Mexican restaurant I had my 24th birthday party at with several friends. Except for 8+ people, they don't take reservations, so it's usually tough to eat at, since there are maybe 30 seats...one time E and I put our name down and they called when we were paying the bill at the restaurant we ended up going to. So, anyway, we were able to sit right down since it was so early..like 6:15-6:30 on Friday. They have amazing cocktails, so I made E get a jalapeno grapefruit margarita. I wanted him to have the jabanero one but the waitress said that would be mean! I tried an elderflower lime one, which was nice, and later we had a strawberry vanilla one, which would have been better before the meal. Great enchiladas verde and I had some kind of stuffed chile with this awesome ground meat that had, apparently, pears and dried fruit in it, though I couldn't see it. Oh, and we had shrimp tostadas as an appetizer. I'm kind of meh on shrimp, mainly because you always seem to get these flaccid, flavorless things. Small yet firm and full of flavor, these shrimp were the shrimp I wish I could eat more regularly.
Saturday, we tried to make a dutch baby, a kind of puffy pancake, but it was a bit of a fail. The edges were nice and puffy but the middle was just thick and yucky.
I decided to go on a run for the first time in months. It was a huge success! I was able to run at a slow pace comfortably for about 10-12 minutes (I had only planned on going on a 20-minute run total to warm myself up). I then did some interval/sprint training. I did a couple walk/sprints, then a walk/build, then wound down with some slow run/walk intervals. I read a year ago that it's actually better to WALK for part of your run if you pair it up with sprints and builds, and I think it makes sense. After all, we used to do that in swimming all the time. It also makes the run more interesting, and I got my heart rate up really high (um, over 200? I think that means I still need to get in better shape, apparently the "target" is 165 for a 26-year-old). Plus, I ran for 32 minutes, 10 minutes more than I wanted to ease myself into. Today, my inner thighs are way sore but I feel more refreshed and energized.
That afternoon we did our Whole Foods trip in the rain on our bikes, leading me to release a primal scream on the way back when there was so much rain blowing in my face and some of these crazy 30mph winds that seem to be the norm for NYC (and are much worse when you're biking into them..walking the wind is slightly more tolerable). We filled up our growler, and I'm enjoying the beer from it right now.
While I was doing my run, Eric went to Marlow & Daughters, a butcher shop across the Williamsburg Bridge. He got a whole chicken, some lamb for Sunday, house-cured bacon, and some sausages they gave him to try. I love local butchers! Though I was trying to start a health kick (the run and all), he insisted on fried chicken (another America's Test Kitchen recipe), and it was fantastic. Damn, I never knew I liked fried chicken til I met this man! Earlier in the week, pre-health kick (and reading this stupid (as in probably right) Magazine article, "Is Sugar Toxic?"), I had expressed interest in making blueperry pie, so we did that. The crust had two sticks of butter (for top and bottom crust), but actually I added only 2 tsp of sugar to the crust and 1/2 cup to the blueberry filling, so it was naturally sweet, at least. I was so full of chicken, but I made room for pie, with some of my favorite vanilla gelato to make it a la mode. Seriously, is my whole life preparing for meals and eating? I blame my boyfriend.
We watched Vicky Cristina Barcleona, which I had been meaning to see forever. It was nice, light, and a little sexy. Go Woody Allen.
Today we traipsed over the Williamsburg Bridge on bike, checked out Marlow & Daughters, and biked though W-Burg. The hood has changed so much in a few years, and not for the better. The main drag, Bedford Ave., was totally overcrowded with people. The side streets are still more deserted, a mix of broken down abandoned warehouses and spanking new condos (some of which are unfinished thanks to the housing crash). The best places are kind of on the edges and away from the main drags, but that makes them a little harder to discover. There's an uptick in the amount of baby carriages, and the neighborhood isn't quite as uniformly hipster anymore, but it's just so darn young. It's like a college/grad school campus. It lacks diversity when it comes to age. Also, when I come to W-Burg I expect to pay a little less for dinner/drinks. A lot of places make good on that, but there are some places that charge Manhatten prices..that SHOULDN'T. E says I think about money too much. But what can I say, it's who I am!
Tonight I made a healthy-ish banana bread from a Moosewood cookbook, and we're having lamb and fingerling potatoes. I think it will be a good night.
Oh, and last night I finished Three Cups of Tea, which is about an ex-mountain climbing guy building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Today, I find out "60 Minutes" is doing an expose on him, saying he's a liar. Just in time, right?
Friday night E & I met up after work at Ten Bells, a place I've been wanting to try for their "oyster happy hour," where the oysters are only $1. The oysters on the half shell were actually quite good, but they did have some grit in them and were too salty. E wanted to leave ASAP. So we did. I've heard so many raves about this place, but it really is overpriced...$1 oysters are nice but when the cheapest glass of wine is $9...I mean come on, it doesn't really even itself out.
We ended up going just next door to Barrio Chino, a fantastic Mexican restaurant I had my 24th birthday party at with several friends. Except for 8+ people, they don't take reservations, so it's usually tough to eat at, since there are maybe 30 seats...one time E and I put our name down and they called when we were paying the bill at the restaurant we ended up going to. So, anyway, we were able to sit right down since it was so early..like 6:15-6:30 on Friday. They have amazing cocktails, so I made E get a jalapeno grapefruit margarita. I wanted him to have the jabanero one but the waitress said that would be mean! I tried an elderflower lime one, which was nice, and later we had a strawberry vanilla one, which would have been better before the meal. Great enchiladas verde and I had some kind of stuffed chile with this awesome ground meat that had, apparently, pears and dried fruit in it, though I couldn't see it. Oh, and we had shrimp tostadas as an appetizer. I'm kind of meh on shrimp, mainly because you always seem to get these flaccid, flavorless things. Small yet firm and full of flavor, these shrimp were the shrimp I wish I could eat more regularly.
Saturday, we tried to make a dutch baby, a kind of puffy pancake, but it was a bit of a fail. The edges were nice and puffy but the middle was just thick and yucky.
I decided to go on a run for the first time in months. It was a huge success! I was able to run at a slow pace comfortably for about 10-12 minutes (I had only planned on going on a 20-minute run total to warm myself up). I then did some interval/sprint training. I did a couple walk/sprints, then a walk/build, then wound down with some slow run/walk intervals. I read a year ago that it's actually better to WALK for part of your run if you pair it up with sprints and builds, and I think it makes sense. After all, we used to do that in swimming all the time. It also makes the run more interesting, and I got my heart rate up really high (um, over 200? I think that means I still need to get in better shape, apparently the "target" is 165 for a 26-year-old). Plus, I ran for 32 minutes, 10 minutes more than I wanted to ease myself into. Today, my inner thighs are way sore but I feel more refreshed and energized.
That afternoon we did our Whole Foods trip in the rain on our bikes, leading me to release a primal scream on the way back when there was so much rain blowing in my face and some of these crazy 30mph winds that seem to be the norm for NYC (and are much worse when you're biking into them..walking the wind is slightly more tolerable). We filled up our growler, and I'm enjoying the beer from it right now.
While I was doing my run, Eric went to Marlow & Daughters, a butcher shop across the Williamsburg Bridge. He got a whole chicken, some lamb for Sunday, house-cured bacon, and some sausages they gave him to try. I love local butchers! Though I was trying to start a health kick (the run and all), he insisted on fried chicken (another America's Test Kitchen recipe), and it was fantastic. Damn, I never knew I liked fried chicken til I met this man! Earlier in the week, pre-health kick (and reading this stupid (as in probably right) Magazine article, "Is Sugar Toxic?"), I had expressed interest in making blueperry pie, so we did that. The crust had two sticks of butter (for top and bottom crust), but actually I added only 2 tsp of sugar to the crust and 1/2 cup to the blueberry filling, so it was naturally sweet, at least. I was so full of chicken, but I made room for pie, with some of my favorite vanilla gelato to make it a la mode. Seriously, is my whole life preparing for meals and eating? I blame my boyfriend.
We watched Vicky Cristina Barcleona, which I had been meaning to see forever. It was nice, light, and a little sexy. Go Woody Allen.
Today we traipsed over the Williamsburg Bridge on bike, checked out Marlow & Daughters, and biked though W-Burg. The hood has changed so much in a few years, and not for the better. The main drag, Bedford Ave., was totally overcrowded with people. The side streets are still more deserted, a mix of broken down abandoned warehouses and spanking new condos (some of which are unfinished thanks to the housing crash). The best places are kind of on the edges and away from the main drags, but that makes them a little harder to discover. There's an uptick in the amount of baby carriages, and the neighborhood isn't quite as uniformly hipster anymore, but it's just so darn young. It's like a college/grad school campus. It lacks diversity when it comes to age. Also, when I come to W-Burg I expect to pay a little less for dinner/drinks. A lot of places make good on that, but there are some places that charge Manhatten prices..that SHOULDN'T. E says I think about money too much. But what can I say, it's who I am!
Tonight I made a healthy-ish banana bread from a Moosewood cookbook, and we're having lamb and fingerling potatoes. I think it will be a good night.
Oh, and last night I finished Three Cups of Tea, which is about an ex-mountain climbing guy building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Today, I find out "60 Minutes" is doing an expose on him, saying he's a liar. Just in time, right?
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Baaabies
Sometimes I want to have babies so I can experiment on them.
From Slate:
"Why Preschool Shouldn't Be Like School
New research shows why teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire."
For the record, I went to a Montessori preschool and have fond but vague memories of it. There were different "stations" and areas where you could explore different things on your own schedule. For example, you could pull out a tray and practice pouring purple-dyed water from a pitcher into a glass and back, and a sponge to clean up any messes you made. I remember doing that one a lot--for some reason it entertained me. As an adult, I appreciate the fact that it taught hand-eye coordination, a basic skill that could be used at home (pouring milk), and that it taught independence. You could do it "all by myself," which also meant you were responsible for cleaning up your messes.
There were also letter tracing things. And we would have circle time to sing and do things together, like sing "Farmer in the Dell." But what I remember most is all those trays with different activities contained within. One last thing: We all put on our coats by ourselves using this foolproof preschooler method. The coat would be placed upside down on the floor. We would put each arm in our coat and then flip it over our heads, thus avoiding that "I can't find the spot for my other arm" problem that little kiddies have.
From Slate:
"Why Preschool Shouldn't Be Like School
New research shows why teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire."
For the record, I went to a Montessori preschool and have fond but vague memories of it. There were different "stations" and areas where you could explore different things on your own schedule. For example, you could pull out a tray and practice pouring purple-dyed water from a pitcher into a glass and back, and a sponge to clean up any messes you made. I remember doing that one a lot--for some reason it entertained me. As an adult, I appreciate the fact that it taught hand-eye coordination, a basic skill that could be used at home (pouring milk), and that it taught independence. You could do it "all by myself," which also meant you were responsible for cleaning up your messes.
There were also letter tracing things. And we would have circle time to sing and do things together, like sing "Farmer in the Dell." But what I remember most is all those trays with different activities contained within. One last thing: We all put on our coats by ourselves using this foolproof preschooler method. The coat would be placed upside down on the floor. We would put each arm in our coat and then flip it over our heads, thus avoiding that "I can't find the spot for my other arm" problem that little kiddies have.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Two-year anniversary!
On Sunday, E & I celebrated two years together. Leading up to the anniversary, I felt more anxious than usual about our relationship--pretty much how I felt last year, though I think I handled it better. Last year, I was so anxious to get that "one year" mark under my belt. I wanted the intensity of my feelings to be matched by a history together that was more quantifiable, so passing the one year mark meant a lot to me. "We've been together for a year" means something to people.
The whole weekend was relaxed and we spend all of it together, with the exception of a "Chocolate & Spice" party we went to on Saturday night. Sunday we had brunch at Yuca Bar, where I had some awesome eggs benedict on arepas with cilantro hollandaise. Eric & I rarely (i.e. never) do brunch together, so this was a nice change of pace. We're not so into brunch because of 1) lines 2) waiting/still takes awhile to get breakfast 3) food's just like what you get at home, but thankfully this place didn't have any of those problems. But really--When I order pancakes now, I know they won't be as good (or to my liking) as the ones we make. That's what I like about eating at home--doing it just the way you like.
Sunday, as you may remember, was the Super Bowl, so I felt incredibly lucky that my boyfriend is not a sports fan at all. One out of seven years together dealing with the Super Bowl isn't all that bad, but thank god I don't have to deal with him vegging out in front of the game every weekend (though now that I think of that, replace game with recorded concerts...). We dined at Gentleman Farmer, which was absolutely lovely. My favorite was the lobster appetizer. It had this solid beurre blanc sauce that was fantastic. They also had no corkage fee because it was Sunday, so we stopped at got a decent bottle of wine ($16). Eric's not a big wine connosieur so I just wanted to get something that would be delicious for both of us. I'd like to be able to drink that nice of wine more often--something quaffable. There really is a huge difference between $5 and $15. Curses!
The whole weekend was relaxed and we spend all of it together, with the exception of a "Chocolate & Spice" party we went to on Saturday night. Sunday we had brunch at Yuca Bar, where I had some awesome eggs benedict on arepas with cilantro hollandaise. Eric & I rarely (i.e. never) do brunch together, so this was a nice change of pace. We're not so into brunch because of 1) lines 2) waiting/still takes awhile to get breakfast 3) food's just like what you get at home, but thankfully this place didn't have any of those problems. But really--When I order pancakes now, I know they won't be as good (or to my liking) as the ones we make. That's what I like about eating at home--doing it just the way you like.
Sunday, as you may remember, was the Super Bowl, so I felt incredibly lucky that my boyfriend is not a sports fan at all. One out of seven years together dealing with the Super Bowl isn't all that bad, but thank god I don't have to deal with him vegging out in front of the game every weekend (though now that I think of that, replace game with recorded concerts...). We dined at Gentleman Farmer, which was absolutely lovely. My favorite was the lobster appetizer. It had this solid beurre blanc sauce that was fantastic. They also had no corkage fee because it was Sunday, so we stopped at got a decent bottle of wine ($16). Eric's not a big wine connosieur so I just wanted to get something that would be delicious for both of us. I'd like to be able to drink that nice of wine more often--something quaffable. There really is a huge difference between $5 and $15. Curses!
Monday, January 17, 2011
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