Kristen, Mike and Mercer came over in the late morning and we made crumpets and had an early lunch. Hard to believe we ate 18 of them (granted, Carter also came by) but there you are.
Back to Jodi's for what is apparently an unbreakable tradition now? Bueno y Sano (my spicy BBQ chicken bowl was delicious if tepid), plus this time we remembered the matza and it was devoured.
Thanksgiving at Jodi's. We were sad that some of the Vermont relatives didn't make it, and that it was cold and rainy, but we still had fun. I made mashed potatoes (since the Vermonters were supposed to bring them), gravy and more caramel matzo crunch (that we actually forgot to bring). JAson made bread and Carter brought his favorite canned cranberry sauce. My favorites were cheddar biscuits that Zack made and macaroni and cheese from Kristen. We were too tired to go back to Northampton for dessert and bowling. I think Jason fell asleep at 8.
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| Carter and his new sweater |
Dinner with Jen and John and some of their family and friends for a pre-Thanksgiving get-together.: chili, delicious cheeses and breads, chocolate chip cookies , caramel matzo crunch (from us) and perhaps too much prosecco. Late night.
Well, needing to use up avocados may be a dumb reason to have nachos for dinner, but we don't care. It also used up the leftover black beans, so it was for the best. With some pickled jalapenos, cherry tomatoes and olives, they were quite good.
Carter still had a lot of swipes left on his meal plan so he invited us to dinner at the DC (and then proceeded to be grumpy so it was a mixed blessing). I mainly had chicken pho and sushi...no appealing desserts and the salad bar at Worcester isn't as good as the one in Berkshire. Very light cooking week for me.
Some new-ish friends invited us to a fancy birthday party, so I squeezed myself into high heels and a foundation garment and off we went to the Wheelhouse (it's not a restaurant, per se, but it used to be and I guess it's an event venue now?). Dinner was excellent: fancy charcuterie that I did NOT try enough of, smoked salmon toasts, a salad, and for me, braised short ribs. Dessert was a tiny slice (that was probably plenty for normal people) of chocolate mint torte.
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| All dressed up |
Dinner with Jay and Jodi....stir fry, bread from Jason and some pizzelles that we decided to make at the last minute. It was nice to see Zack, who had just gotten home, and pizzelles turn out to be great with vanilla ice cream/.
A lack of eggplant at Aldi meant that my "crispy eggplant bowl" morphed into a cabbage and rice bowl with some of out leftover black beans. Even with the chili crisp vinaigrette I found it a bit dull; plus there were, I felt, too many onions. Serviceable.
Kind of a weird one from the NYT: sausages roasted with onions and grapes. It got lots of good reviews and had some flexibility, so why not? I used hot Italian sausages, with some rosemary and fennel, and added some sliced red potatoes as well. Otherwise as written. My only minor complaint is that it seemed like my grapes (smallish red ones) were still pretty firm, when I expected them to be soft and juicy. Maybe slice them? Or a different variety? Cook the whole shebang longer? I would also add more onions but overall we both really liked this unexpected pairing. Plus Jason finally got around to making crumpets, which he had been threatening to do for a while. Very nice toasted with some butter.
We had post-dinner game night plans, so I rushed home and made a quick pasta with scallions, lots of cherry tomatoes, some halloumi-esque cheese and garlic. Could have used more halloumi (or less pasta?) but I thought is was delicious nonetheless. Perhaps not super filling so its a good thing we had brownies at our friends.
Dinner with Jay and Jodi (rice and lentils with I think spinach?). Jason made bread and I made some apple turnovers since Aldi had puff pastry. They were fine, not amazing (I blame the puff pastry which turns out to have been made with margarine!! Shocking). They had Tillamook ice cream which was a great add-on and honestly my favorite ice cream. I am sorry, Jay, that I hog the ice cream.
Happy Birthday to my dad! We had dinner at his place with pizza, cake, Caesar salad and prosecco. Always nice to see everyone. Carter couldn't make it because he was getting over a cold, but Liz's daughter and granddaughter were there, which was a nice treat.
Potato pizza (why oh why did we but so many potatoes? At least we both love potato pizza). One of my favorites but I have described the layers pretty thoroughly previously.
The leftovers were building up at this point. We finished off the taco stuff instead of making my planned pasta.
Potato soup with greens, from the NYT. It looked so appealing in their photo (due to a lot of turmeric, I think) but in the end it was just potato soup. I added maybe too much chard? It made the soup an odd pinkish color and was also a little slimy. Still, not bad with some cheese sprinkled on. We have so many potatoes and some are so iffy that we can't be too picky.
I made a couple of soups from the Times over the weekend, and the first one was meatball and greens (I used chard from the farm). The meatballs had turkey, oats (odd but it worked) and feta. This was so good. I love meatballs in a soup, and the feta added a lot of flavor. I took some hints from the commentariat: I added celery and orzo and cooked the meatballs in the oven instead of the pot. It always seems like too much greens and never is. I loved this soup and hope I remember to make it again.
Mushroom and poblano tacos, from the NYT. The filling was sort of wet and soggy, which isn't surprising given the mushrooms and cherry tomatoes (it didn't help that I also added spinach). I liked the flavors, though, so if I made this again I think I would roast the mushrooms and tomatoes and skip the spinach. And maybe roast the poblano, too. Jason made us corn tortillas, I drained away this liquid as best I could and voila. A nice vegetarian dinner.
Bagels with Jay and Jodi (Jason made a double batch of sesame bagels and gave some to Carter, too). Smoked salmon (we both bought some), cream cheese, tomatoes. My favorite thing was actually the roasted red cabbage that we made to go with it.
Dinner with Jen and John. The Blue Apron du jour wasn't my favorite for once; Brussels sprouts, roasted squash, chicken thighs with a honey mustard sauce. None of the pizzazz they usually have (but who knows, maybe it was user error?). Jason made some chocolate chip cookies but they were out of chocolate chips so really they were just "cookies". We all agreed we liked them better that way.
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| Guess who spent the day with grandma and Kiki? |
We invited Carter over for pizza night...it's a little odd to have him here in that he's not a guest but doesn't live here, either. He no longer slinks off to his room after his last bite, which is nice. The pizzas were good but nothing out of the ordinary: one cheese, one pepperoni.
Nachos with refried beans...unbeknownst to me, it was actually National Nacho Day. But isn't every day? Particularly in an election year? Jason even took pity on me and we bought some ice cream.
ps: Breyer's either isn't as good as it once was, or I am jaded.
Grasping at straws, I made scrambled eggs with spinach, cheddar and shallots. That and toast was dinner. Honestly, the eggs were more like spinach held together with eggs but that wasn't a bad thing.
Jason had the good idea of fried rice to use up our tofu. Added a lot of peas and broccoli for a quick dinner. Supplies are running low!
We didn't really have the opportunity to plan and shop this week (and our plans got cancelled) so it was bread and cheese for dinner, plus a spinach salad. Not bad for on the fly.
We had the last day of vacation blues, and the stale pistachio croissant from Tatte didn't help. At least my sesame burek was good. We planned a fancy lunch at Saltie Girl, but I just wasn't feeling it...the oysters were good, and my tiny expensive plate of hamachi crudo was a delightful few bites, but my clam chowder was too rich and creamy and also not served hot enough. Jessica had a bagel with smoked salmon and all the accompaniments. Sitting at the raw bar was somewhat interesting if not overly comfortable. We stopped and grabbed cookies from Levain on the walk home, just to see what all the fuss is about. They have a very interesting texture and I didn't hate it by any means. but I prefer a thinner, crispier cooking.
Then onto the bus to head home. Jason picked me up in Springfield and we hit up a pizza place in Ludlow that I was eager to try. Casa Pizzeria features about five styles of pizza, including New Haven, Neapolitan, Detroit, New York and granny. We opted for a New York style plain cheese (our tradition for trying a new place) and I thought it was great. Really tasted like a New York slice. My only minor quibble was that the crust could have used a touch more salt. Another bonus: it reheated really well the next day. I would love to go back and try another variety someday.
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| We forgot to take a picture before we nearly demolished it |
I think this was our best all around eating day (plus we even went to a small house museum tour, so there was culture). Breakfast as Blank Street coffee where we enjoyed "daydream lattes" with I think cinnamon and vanilla? I had a scallion scone which was quite nice. I knew I wanted sushi for lunch and really struggled (ok, struggled may not be the right word?) to figure out where. In the end, I picked Blue Ribbon, another place on our list. This had the advantage of being mere steps away from the subway station. I was underwhelmed when I looked at the menu---it was so basic! But everything was like the best ever version of standard sushi bar stuff. Even the classic salad with iceberg and ginger dressing was amazing, as was the miso soup. I had hamachi with ponzu and serrano, plus tuna over rice, and Jessica had a sushi selection. She wasn't too excited about the eel, but bravely ate it anyway and pronounced it good. The setting was also very pretty. I loved this lunch.
But I was also excited about dinner at Pammy's! We started off with lovely cocktails (of course; and of course we were both drawn to the same one): Morning Dew: Pammy’s Gin, Meyer Limoncello, Riesling, Fennel, Elderflower, Lime. I started with cobia crudo with yuzu (the sauce was good enough to eat on anything), then had a buckwheat crepe with corn, spinach and stracciatella which was maybe a bit salty but I demolished it nonetheless. Then on to skirt steak with roasted pineapple and Jimmy Nardello pepper condiment. I was very happy with all my selections. Jessica started off with one that sounded so weird but was so delicious: a heart of cabbage salad with mustard and I am not sure what else. A sleeper hit! Then she had the famous lumache (I was jealous but I did have it last time) and striped bass. This place was busy as hell...next time I would try to reserve earlier so we could get a table rather than sitting at the communal table but no regrets! Too full for dessert, we headed back to the city. We truly planned to have a nightcap at this cool hotel bar right near where we were staying. We even walked in! But good sense prevailed and we went home to watch more terrible reality TV. Awesome day.
Breakfast was a place in the North End called Sunny Girl, which was reputed to have excellent breakfast sandwiches. I had essentially an Italian grinder and I loved it:
salame • soppressata • mortadella • burrata • provolone • roasted tomato pesto • shaved ’berg • calabrian chili hots • iggy’s sub roll
And I think Jessica tried something called an Arty Party which looked very messy. She said it was good but there was an unexpected sweetness she didn't love in the mascarpone:
over-easy nellie’s egg** • crispy mortadella • pistachio mascarpone • wild cherry mostarda • housemade English muffin
For lunch we went to the wilds of Somerville to try pizza place we didn't get to last time, Mortadella Head. They feature Roman style pizza which isn't unlike Sicilian.. We tried two slices, one with meatballs and ricotta, and one with I honestly can't remember but prosciutto and pear maybe? Plus mozzarella sticks that unfortunately (and I can't believe I am saying this) too much cheese. The crunch to cheese ratio just wasn't satisfying. I had a nice boba tea before we schlepped back to the city.
Dinner was another place we didn't get to last time, Puritan & Co. Very pretty and very good. Jessica and I always go for the same cocktails; this one was particularly delightful: light up the moon: bombay dry gin, lavender, st-germain, lemon. We shared an order of impeccable Parker House rolls, I had beef carpaccio (as always) and orecchiette Bolognese (excellent), Jessica had burrata with roasted squash, arugula, pumpkin seed crunch, and a pasta with crab, Calabrian chile and preserved lemon (I liked mine better). Jessica had some kind of rocky road deconstructed thing for dessert while I had something with cinnamon ice cream? I can't remember so I guess it wasn't stellar. I was surprised that this very good restaurant wasn't more crowded, honestly.
They take Halloween pretty seriously on Beacon Hill:
I arrived in Boston at around 1 and after some struggle, got myself into the apartment to drop off my luggage. By then it was a bit late for lunch, so I just grabbed a pastry (some kind of thing that looked like a flattened bialy, with spinach and labneh) and a pistachio latte from Tatte. Then got myself to the airport to meet Jessica. For dinner I had picked Sweet Cheeks, a BBQ place out near Fenway. I am not sure why? Anyway, the food was pretty good, if not better than Village Smokehouse, I had pulled chicken (actually quite good), Jessica had brisket, and we shared a biscuit that was good but hell, I make a good biscuit. Her potato salad was better than my broccoli cheese casserole, and why I ordered a salad is anyone's guess. Guilt? The place was oddly quiet and I think that made it somehow less fun. Then we needed to get back to the apartment to watch TV.