rewind, part 3

Since I've already blabbed about Renegade elsewhere, I will keep my talk here to our friends + the food. I'm never good about eating while at a show, so dinner is always a big deal. Especially when we're in New York. Since we live in a place that has less access to really authentic ethnic food, I always feel like I have to eat GREAT food whenever I can.

Last year when we stayed with mr. + mrs. sv we were all so beat after day 1 that we went back to their place and had takeout Chinese food. We were all so hungry that the food was delicious, but I was so exhausted that I fell asleep AT THE TABLE as soon as I stopped moving (chewing). Has never in my life happened before, and never again.

This year the show was at the McCarren Park Pool (don't the pool parties look fun?) so after we packed up we headed over to My Moon, just a few blocks away. The food is described on free williamsburg as Mediterranean/Turkish and you could tell that it gets lounge/club-y after dark, but the food was INCREDIBLE. Definitely in the top 10 meals this year, no matter what else I eat from now 'til December.

Click through for more about each dish. I'm starting to drool just thinking about it.

They have really nice outdoor seating and we got to RELAX which was nice, since we rarely get to see mr. + mrs. sv and she had just spent all day (and would spend the whole next day) helping us! We didn't do anything else non-work-related, except shop at Renegade :)

Hopefully we'll get back soon. Thanks again, mr. + mrs. sv for all your help and for housing us + all my stuff!!

By the way, I recently sent our nice hosts this, which I MUST share here.
Yes, that is a luxury chocolate bar from Vosges made with BACON. Mo's Bacon Bar. I want to try this ourselves, but since they carry most of the Vosges bars at Whole Foods now, I keep hoping they'll show up at our local store so I won't have to pay hot-weather chocolate-shipping costs for one chocolate bar! If you haven't had these yet, run to your local Whole Foods and grab one!! My favorites are the Goji Bar and the Macha but honestly, they're all good.

rewind, part 2

Continuing on...

In early June we went to ms. s & mr. l's wedding. mr. l is d's college roommate. We went out friday afternoon with another of d's roomies from school, mr. o. ms. s & mr. l's rehearsal dinner on Friday night was at the Norman Rockwell Museum, and you know I wasn't missing that. The museum & surroundings were gorgeous, and the food was yum.Strawberry mousse-type thing with some kind of cake inside, and biscotti too! Ms. m sampling mr. l's dessert. Really, it's hers too, right? This is mr. o, mr. l (rockin' the seersucker) and d. Still looking good at this point. After the rehearsal dinner (which was open bar) people rode the (chartered yellow school) bus to a local bar. It was a late night. So we slept in (here's a pic of the tub in the master bedroom at the Oak & Spruce Resort) and then went hunting for foodImagine my surprise when we found the BEST VIETNAMESE FOOD I'VE EVER HAD in Lee, Massachusetts. It was at Pho Saigon, on a little side street. Definitely a family-run place. I had this incredible "make your own" fresh rolls meal (sorry, I can't remember what it was called on the menu). Thin rice-wrappers on the left. They're hard, so you dip them in the hot water (yellow bowl) to soften. Then you fill with your choice of meat (I had chicken-very tasty, nicely marinated + grilled), rice vermicelli (underneath the chicken), lettuce, carrot shreds, daikon, basil and cilantro. Then dip in sauce (tangy + and bit spicy)! I guess we could make this at home, but every aspect was so perfect! The only thing I might add in an extremely perfect world was some bean sprouts. d's food was awesome too-- amazing spicy pho. Seriously, I am still thinking about this food almost a month later. Will definitely have to make the 2+ hour drive back out sometime this summer. Back to the wedding. Due to a bit of afternoon rain, the ceremony was on the back porch at the beautiful Cranwell Resort, which may well be the epitome of picturesque non-coastal New England.

And check out what every wedding needs: Yup, it's a candy bar! Lots of attention to detail. Note the little glassine bags at front left corner of table so you can bring the candy to your table with you :) We noticed one of the photographers chowing down on candy and going back to the table over and over again!...

Pretty wedding cakes in several flavors :Anyone who actually knows people in this wedding and want to see more pics can view them here. And finally, us, at the end of the night, looking pretty beat. Early morning next day so d could get back for graduation too.

rewind!

I've been feeling a little sad recently about my lack of proper blogging because the days go by so fast! and when I look back and wonder "what was I doing in March & April?" I can't remember because, well, I didn't blog about it. And believe me when I say my memory is just not as good as it used to be.

I guess the only way to prevent this nostalgia over lost days/months is to blog about stuff more regularly. I can go back and look through my flickr pics to jog my memory some, but who brings their camera everywhere? Pas moi.

Most of early March + late April seems unrecorded. Lost to time. At the end of March I went to Taipei for 10 days to visit my grandmother. She's still mostly the same. FYI, it rained for 7 of the 10 days I was there. Uncharacteristic for Taipei at this time of year, icky all-day-downpour rain. Sigh.

The one really hot, sunny day was the one we were outside all day for tombsweeping. One week ahead of the actual Qingming festival, supposedly to avoid the really bad traffic. I kept asking all my relatives if it was ok to take pictures, and they all said, "Not if you're not superstitious about it." Which I guess I'm not, and none of them seemed to be either...
LOTS more pictures from Taiwan, many--okay, most--are of food: here.

In May, we went North to our first wedding of the season. On the way there, we stopped in Portland to visit our friends W & J. Old friends but new roommates, they moved into a condo upstairs from one of our favorite jewelry + glass artists -- Stephanie! Quel coincidence!

This is Gus, J's dog. We like him. He is jumpy but small, and cannot knock you over.Ask me about what happened to W when he was alone one night watching Gus and his own dog, Lola. Warning: this story is not for the faint-hearted.

The wedding was lovely! Very quirky but perfectly suited to the bride & groom, who are a unique pair. The dinner was very over the top: salmon AND filet mignon. We cut our filets with BUTTER knives. I kid you not. It was DELICIOUS but we didn't actually get to eat it until after 9:30 pm.There was lots of pink (bride's favorite color) and ocean-themed decor (it is coastal Maine). The cake was gorgeous but there was a lot of fighting over all the different flavors inside. The servers couldn't even get the plates out to the dessert table, guests were mobbing them as soon as they exited the kitchen. Scary! Since we'd arrived in Boothbay Harbor a bit behind schedule (typical, I know) so only had a few moments to look around our room at the Topside Inn. It was very cute.
Look at the size of the shower!! D is 5'9". He is not slouching. To be fair, they warn you about this in the room description. (Scroll down, it's room #5.) And when we got a better look at everything in the morning, we were definitely kicking ourselves for not staying in town longer!That's the view from the front porch, and that's supposed to be the ship from Pirates & some other movie too. And check out breakfast:Fresh fruit, homemade granola, and lemon blueberry pancakes with sausage made to order. We're going back! Next post: more wedding, more food, and BK.