in photos

frankenmuth:

so maybe needing some new adjectives

okay, not saving the best for last today. this plastic thanksgiving "centerpiece" [?] is the new "best thing" in the house.


BEST THING EVER


c'mon, how could you not LOVE those faces?

others would say that terry's BULL is the "best thing" in the house. whatever.


whatever!

so, i didn't write about it, but last weekend i went to nyc to visit my sister. we crammed lots of things into my short stay. she was off friday, so first we went to the museum of natural history, which i was SO pumped for. unfortunately and surprisingly, i found it kind of boring, and the amount of school children there [reportedly 68 busloads!] was totally patience-trying.




my most-hated animal


favorite display, by far


unrealistic?


this is what baby bear terry looks like in the morning when he doesn't wanna get up and won't let go of me

then we ate a late lunch at jean-georges, the restaurant at which my sister is an extern. it's a really fancy, really really good restaurant. in the top three in the city. we didn't take pictures there, but we ate amazing/crazy food like venison and frog legs and shrimp sashimi [i think?/!], and we also got a ton of extra desserts on the house. i was SO stuffed. cramming mini macaroons and chocolates in my mouth. i wish i had a pic of that! i definitely had a food baby after that. we shopped afterwards and had a late snack/dinner at yaffa café on the lower east side, which has the BEST decor of any establishment i've been to [the second being "the jesus bar" in paris plastered completely with religious iconography and the bathrooms in porn].


changing shoes in columbus circle

she had to work saturday, so i let the wind blow me around the city. i spent most of my time in greenwich village/east village and union square area.






the new nyc see! [what a ridiculous phrase, man, ha]

after work, steph met me at union square to feast at max brenner. and we did! we got the big-big "sharing" plate, which included waffles with candied bananas, a chocolate cup with pop rocks, a bunch of other stuff [pictured] AND chocolate fondue AND roasting marshmallows. seriously. ha! and we ate the whole thing! max brenner's is my absolute favorite new place. i want to go there on my birthday and every single occasion and every non-occasion in between.


YUM!!

sunday was the chocolate show, and steph had to help out with johnny iuzzini's [her boss] demo. afterwards we walked around, sampling chocolate goody-yummies like green tea truffles and dessert wines [i went back for seconds, of course!].




with her boss

after all that, we went with two girls she works with to a wine bar on the LES where we had crazy cheeses and paninis and then to a brand-new japanese dessert bar [dessert bars are the new black, er, bars] and ate nuts desserts like tofu cheesecake and things with black sesame and some things that were good and some that were gross and some that made me gag. but i didn't show it. :)



terry and i are going to frankenmuth tomorrow for some simulacraic german decadence. all-you-can-eat chicken &tc., jacuzzi, five pools, largest xmas store!!! i can't wait to pronounce all the german words with a french accent. !

"i'm so proud of your inadequacy."

after 20+ years of wishing and wanting and hoping, it's official:

I NEED GLASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

adventures further into domesticity - THE POT ROAST

this recipe makes the BEST pot roast i've ever eaten [sorry mom], and what's the very best about it is that it makes oodles of the certifiably-yummiest gravy ever, which comes in handy when you're new to the kitchen. i couldn't make a good gravy from scratch if my life depended on it. trust me, this has amazing flavor. upon checking on it halfway through baking, i couldn't stop eating spoonful after spoonful of the scrumptious gravy, straight out of the pan. serve with mashed potatoes, your favorite canned vegetable [ok, you can use a fresh veggie if you need to up the yuppie factor] and lots of fresh bread [to sop up all that gravy!].

The "Oh-My-God-This-Gravy-Is-So-Good" Super-Easy Pot Roast

Ingredients:

2-3 lbs. chuck roast
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 envelope onion soup mix
1 medium onion, sliced thin
Whole carrots (as many as you want or can fit in the pan), peeled
1 tsp thyme (dried)
Salt
Garlic powder
Pepper
2 cups water with beef bouillon

1. Place roast in pan and season with thyme, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Be light with the salt, as the mushroom soup and onion soup powder are very salty on their own.

2. Sprinkle the dry soup mix on top of meat.

3. Spread both cans of mushroom soup on top of that.

4. Place onions and carrots around meat.

5. Pour beef bouillon water over top of meat.

6. Seal roasting pan tightly with foil and bake at 350°F for about 3 hours.

little one, you're not alone

sunday; two milestones:

1) terry and i are making our first frittata, i.e., the initiation into the simple life [read: refusal to make OMELETTE {also see first trial of such}], i.e., initiation into yuppie-dom. right? RIGHT? recipezaar, again [and again and again] came to the rescue. i must admit to being absolutely addicted to that site. no idea how the frittata will turn out, as it is cooking up as i write, but the smell of the fresh basil [read: loved-by-yuppies] on a sunday morning is inimitable.

2) we went up the four-at-a-time plan on netflix, i.e., sinking further into the nightly dinner [homemade] and a movie [rental] [seven-months-into-dating-style]. winter will invariably also help this trend along.

tomorrow i'm going to write about PlanFirst. free birth control? yes, yes, YES, it's true!