Best Meal I Ever Had. In My Whole Life. Ever.*

So for The Chef's birthday a little bit of time ago, we spent a few days in New York City, which is one of my most favorite places, which surprises me more than it does you.**

But I fall in love with it a little more each time.

For the Great Birthday Weekend, we saw Book of Mormon (front row!) and Jersey Boys (third row!).

And we ate at Babbo, which I enjoyed much more this time than the first time we went.*** And if you go, which you totally should, you'd darned well better get the Tasting Menu, otherwise, you're not getting the most for your time and money. You should trust me. I know lots about food.  But I'll tell you about Babbo another time.

And I'll tell you about Eataly another time too--which is one of our favorite places in the whole wide world.

But the biggest and bestest birthday dinner (which was, in fact, lunch) of all time was at Del Posto, the only 4-star Italian restaurant in NYC and one of only 7 four-stars in the city.

We got the tasting menu, which if you don't know, is when you get forty thousand small courses brought to you over a couple of hours. It included the best salad ever made: Bitter HERBS & LETTUCES with Truffle Dressing. Salad isn't a thing that I love, but I could eat this every single solitary day. For the rest of my life. But I digress, because that's how I roll.

Anyway, the reason why you should always get the Tasting Menu is because you'll receive a variety of dishes you probably never would have chosen for yourself, which expands your experience and makes it unique. Plus it's at the whim of the chef so each visit is a surprise. And it means you don't have to choose one thing and regret your choice. <--I hate when that happens.

And speaking of surprise, when we got there and were chatting with the maitre d', one of the owners popped in and we chatted with him for a bit.  You may know of him--Joe Bastianich from MasterChef fame. We asked him to have lunch with us, but he was running in and out. And you'd think, well, that's the end of the story.

Except that would be 1. boring and 2. not the way our lives work.

So in our chat with Joe, The Chef may have mentioned we were there for his birthday. A throw-away comment in a longer discussion.  And yet not, because at the end of our meal, when they were bringing us FOUR dessert courses, one of them happened to be a super-rich chocolate birthday cake, complete with candle and well wishes written on the plate in chocolate, all accompanied with an olive oil gelato that made us weep with delight.****

I could go on for a thousand years, but I will spare you, and instead will go write, in order to make more money, because The Chef has another birthday coming up in nine months and I suspect I know where we're going for dinner.*****



* For some reason, Blogger is being an asshat and won't let me add pictures. Sorry! Check out the links!!

** You know--on account of I don't like noise or crowds or weirdness.

***I was DYING on that trip two years ago--I felt kind of lousy the whole time and then on our way home, I asked if we could, you know, stop at the hospital cause I felt that crappy. So, 8 days later, when I finally left the hospital...  Yeah, I didn't really enjoy Babbo's $300 dinner price tag as I probably should have. (By the way, I still can't eat prosciutto, which was one of the last things I had on that trip. ::shudders just thinking about it::)

****The Chef says I have to tell you about my most favorite parts, which includes a member of our team of servers and buspeople bringing an embroidered (by Italian vestal virgins) footstool upon which to lay my purse, lest it rest on the immaculate carpet. And we shan't forget the table covered with linens woven that morning by saints, which rested upon a plethora of batting, made of angel wings and unicorn manes, much softer and more plush than any bed on which I shall ever lay my head.

*****And this lunch was $350.00, so I can only imagine the cost of dinner. Gotta go!

In which I break the "What happens in Vegas" rule

Also while I was away from you, we went to Las Vegas. For WORK. The Chef's work, not mine--although prepare yourself to be featured in a book sometime soon, Las Vegas. You've been warned!


We stayed here:

The Venetian. You have to sleep here. You may also want to dance in the lobby next to Thomas Keller's bakery with an Australian guy who hasn't slept in 48 hours because he just came from Kuwait.

You HAVE to eat here. "The menu, created by James Beard Award-winning Executive Chef Luciano Pellegrini, features an array of traditional and contemporary Italian cuisine that includes a variety of homemade pasta dishes, enticing entrees and decadent desserts." That's a fancy way of saying you want to put every morsel of food they make right in your face.

We also ate at the Mexican restaurant, right there on the right, which was weird as the gondoliers sang "O Solo Mio."

But the best part? Besides being there with The Chef?  This:

Obviously I didn't shoot that video, but we saw this one in real life, and can you say SUPER COOL? (I thought you could.) The best of the zillion fountain shows we saw. "Just one more!" I kept saying. The Chef is so kind to put up with my shenanigans.







We're so AWESOME!!! And we're definitely staying here next time!

I did realize during the trip that I may not be cool enough for Las Vegas. I was shocked--SHOCKED!--that in all the amazing shops in all the amazing hotels, I did not see one bookstore. NOT ONE! What the...?  Las Vegas, you've got some 'splainin to do.



The Arch. She sways.

 The Gateway Arch is known as the "Gateway to the West". It was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen and structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel in 1947 and built between 1963 and October 1965.

During my time away from you, I visited St. Louis and while there, The Chef and I went up in the Arch--and by the way, that's just a nickname for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial--because we thought we should. It's actually quite lovely, but before I go any further, I have to tell you a few things:

• I don't like to be closed in.
• I am not one of those people who sees a little kid and gets all mushy; in fact, I'm the opposite. I run away from them.*
• I don't love heights.
• I have wicked vertigo.
• Not a fan of crowds.

 It stands 630 feet (192 m) tall and 630 feet (192 m) wide at its base. The legs are 54 feet (16.5 m) wide at the base, narrowing to 17 feet (5.2 m) at the arch.

Knowing we had to return the car by whatever o'clock or we owned it (or some other penalty), we sprinted from the parking lot to the Arch.**

 There is a unique tram system to carry passengers to the observation room at the top of the arch.

We beat the line by offering to go up in separate pods--like the single rider feature at any amusement park. A good idea, right? No, because:

1. You do not want to ever get into anything called a "pod," especially with strangers.
2. Children may be some of the strangers in your pod.

Lets take a tiny little look into some pod facts:

• Eight small capsules, used in each of the two Arch trains.
• Each train capsule has a 5-foot diameter barrel that is open on the front and closed on the back.
• There are five seats in each barrel, so the weight of the passengers helps keep the capsule in an upright position.
• Each capsule rotates approximately 155 degrees during the trip to the top of the Arch.
• Each of the Arch trains carries 40 passengers and is capable of making a round trip with passengers in 9 minutes including loading and unloading passengers in both directions.

There is nothing in that list that gives the impression of, "Hmmm, that sure sounds like fun!" Nothing.

So we got to the top and as I rolled out of the capsule, I expected to see something glorious inside the Arch. I don't KNOW what, specifically, I expected to find. Maybe something in the tone of Disney. Instead, we got something in the key of crowded old doctor's office. And more kids. Gah!

Look beyond the handsome and blurry Chef for a minute.
See those tiny little windows?
Yeah, that's what you get on both sides.
And you have to lean over an angled, carpeted area to see out them.
Okay, now you can look at the handsome Chef
and please note that he's not that blurry in real life.

But, of course, I guess you could say that the glory of it all is the view.

Hello, vertigo, my old friend

Nothing personal, St. Louis, but your buildings aren't very big, especially for the largest metropolitan area in Missouri..

And then the Arch moved. Or swayed.  "Can you feel the movement?" The Chef asked his delicate flower of a girlfriend, who felt more woozy than after three-quarters of a margarita.

We took a few more pictures and vamoosed because we had to hurry to get to the airport to...do nothing because our flight had been cancelled. Apparently someone coughed in Georgia or something and we were trapped until the next day. Trapped and tired and uncaffeinated and cranky. And that was just me! Poor Chef. He puts up with so much crazy.

I get just as dizzy looking at these pictures as I did when I took them.

But you've got to give me an A for effort, right?
Unless these are the ones The Chef took,
which would explain why they're clear and well-composed.

Apparently, there is more to St. Louis than the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, I wouldn't mind checking it out, which will probably happen in the near future because if you want to get to Columbia, MO, where my son lives, and not pay one gajillion dollars for a plane ticket, you visit "Rome of the West" / "Gateway to the West" / "Mound City." Heh heh. I said "mound."

*Except little kids who have proven themselves to be cool and worthy of being in the vicinity of my awesomeness. You parents who have children who have passed the test know who you are.

**Yes, by sprint I mean The Chef walked quickly and I went slower and slower as I looked around and then came to a full stop. The Arch is a VERY big, VERY shiny thing. Shiny sense overload.

PSSST! Unless otherwise noted, I swiped the info from Wikipedia, because I'm cool like that. Yay me!

Delish Dish (pan actually but no alliteration there!)

Barbecue pizza with chicken and red onions and cilantro! (It was supposed to have flat leaf parsley on it, but The Chef made a mid-cooking replacement.) That's it, below.

Hello, I am it.

We're at Uno Dué Go in the heart of Boston* and this place is fantabulous! It's like Panera only waaaay better (and not just because there's pizza here).

I swear if there were one of these anywhere near Casa Chef and Me, I would write here; I would run my Mary Kay business from here; I would even eat here. Of course all that would be contingent on them losing the Pepsi products and hauling in a fountain dispenser of the good stuff. (You know what I'm talking about!)

We also had the grilled cheese panini with tomatoey goodness (we should have gotten the tomato soup to dip it in; make sure you do this if you go there) and a prosciutto, fig, and cheddar panini, which would have been superawesomegreat if I didn't have this thing about prosciutto... it was one of the last things I had before I got really sick last October and spent a good long time in the hospital, so not so fond of that anymore... But the rest fell out of the tasty tree and hit every branch!

Of the three things, the pizza won my heart, though. Just in time for Valentine's Day!

And keeping with the Uno's theme, we went to an actual Uno's restaurant a couple of nights ago, but you'll have to wait on that. Time to go!  The Chef is done chatting with the workers and I'm going to see if I can score myself a whoopie pie (chocolate with chocolate filling)!!

XOXO

* Yeah baby. Blogging from my phone in a restaurant. Am I cool or WHAT?

So I went to Pittsburgh...

And I ate this whole sandwich all by myself. We were at Primanti's, which you may have seen on various Food Network shows throughout the years.

I know what you're thinking: Holy moly. Are those french fries in that delicious looking sandwich? As I recall that ginormous meal also had pastrami, lettuce, tomato and an egg. Don't ask--the Pittsburgh people seem to like eggs on lots of things that normal people don't usually put eggs on. I've learned it's best just to accept that.

But I CAN explain the fries thing. Stolen directly from the Primanti's website

Back in the 1930's, Joe Primanti opened a cart in the Strip District selling sandwiches to truckers on the go. It was decided that he should expand to a small restaurant on 18th Street. The hours were 3am to 3pm to accommodate truckers and the like. His brothers, Dick and Stanley, joined him along with nephew John DePriter who was the cook.

According to John, "One winter, a fella drove in with a load of potatoes. He brought a few of 'em over to the restaurant to see if they were frozen. I fried the potatoes on our grill and they looked pretty good. A few of our customers asked for them, so I put the potatoes on their sandwiches." And the rest is history. The Primanti Sandwich: a true taste of Pittsburgh.

That's not all the deliciousness, though.

As you may know, or may not know because you live on the moon, my birthday is on Christmas. I spent the holiday and Christmas (heh heh. See what I did there?) with my family, in the traditional holiday/Christmas celebration: Helping my son pack a UHaul trailer so he could move to Missouri the next day.  Then there was food and presents with the whole clan. Delicious and fun.

The next morning I went to Logan Airport and got on a plane ALL BY MYSELF* with NO LUGGAGE** and a ONE-WAY*** ticket, which meant a first-class pass to a full body scan. Good times, people. Yeah, like I would risk blowing up my new Vera Wang purse or missing out on that sandwich above.

Anyway, back to food.

After apparently some serious shenanigans including The Great Search for a Round Pan and Is Your Lemon Curd Lemony Enough? on Christmas night, in anticipation of my arrival the next day, The Chef and his family stayed up all night while he created the best birthday cake ever, complete with homemade aforementioned lemon curd and delicious coconut, my all-time favorite cake flavors.

I will end this post by allowing you to bask in the glow of the lemon curd...and no, I will not stop saying lemon curd.****


I am a delicious cake and you should be jealous because you cannot eat me!



"Nom nom nom," said the little butterfly...

* I was only a little bit afraid.

** Because I had sent it along with The Chef when he drove out to see his family.

*** Because I would be driving back with The Chef and my luggage.

****Lemon curd, lemon curd, lemon curd...

I wish it could be more...

...but I only have time for 524 words today.

But! There should be much rejoicing because I figured out the thing that I couldn't figure out with the plot and now it's figured.  I will have to go through the whole darned thing to make the figured out stuff work, but I will do that at the same time I make my romantic hero Irish all the way through.

My main character's main squeeze is from somewhere on this map. Anyone know from where, exactly? His name is Ryan (for now). Do you know him? Do you know where he lives?

In other news...

Oh my gah! I just yawned so hard that I almost dislocated my jaw. Apparently that means I am tired and should start wrapping up my day and go to bed. But the internets! They are so shiny!

I'm looking forward to The Chef returning from Man Camp (where they hunt and drink and act manly) tomorrow.  If I go to bed now, his return will be that much closer. A week is a really long time!  Thankfully, that BFF of mine came and saved me from myself for a few days!

Two more weeks of school after this week, which is more than halfway done, so we can stop counting it. Two. More. Weeks.  And you know what that means!  The birthday countdown begins!

25 days until my birthday!

(Shop early; shop often)

XOXO

Foodstuff and Stuff (but not H.R. Puffenstuff)

So The Chef and I went to NYC this weekend under the auspices of me going to the SCBWI (make it up or look it up) conference. He frolicked about whilst I...did not. Although I did play nicely with my friends.  More about the conference another day. Maybe I'll even tell you about hanging out with R.L. Stine (yes, he of Goosebumps fame).

But! We frolicked together in the night! And on Friday, we went to one of our all-time favorite places, Eataly.  There, amongst the amazing foodstuffs, we had meals made of the very foodstuffs we'd been mingling amongst. (Please tell me you caught the gist of that sentence.)

Imagine this as a whole pizza, with buffalo mozz and high-end olive oil, and basil of course. We also talked the folks sitting next to us to get one of their very own. We are very good suggestive sellers. That was not meant to sound dirty, and yet...it does.

This is fritto misto. Or it was...before we ATE it. I had the calimari and a piece of skate. The Chef ate everything I didn't, because he will eat anything (almost). And he WILL try everything. I try to try everything, but sometimes I have to squash that idea.

This is me squashing the try everything idea. It is a SEA URCHIN and it was still MOVING (which was both gross and cool). It also made quite a nice hat. I think The Chef is tired of me openly mocking this foodstuff. But...but...I just can't help it. As my BFF pointed out, a few years ago I wouldn't even eat garlic in my mashed potatoes. So this...no.

More NYC reports coming up, but not now, as I am very tired from the jaunt that shall bring you more blog posts--another time.

Look, Kids, I may be from New England but...

I loves me some Steelers.* So sue me.

And I may have spent a major international holiday in Steelers Country. (If you're guessing my birthday, then you're guessing right!)

The Chef: Let's go to the overlook.
Me: Can we not?
The Chef: Is it because you're afraid of heights?
Me: Yes.
The Chef (taking my hand): Then we're definitely going.
Sister of The Chef: You should have said you were cold. Then you wouldn't have to do it.
Me: So noted.
By the way, I am not screaming. It was effing cold and wind-chilly. Actually, maybe I am screaming.

*I mean, it's not like I've ever said I wanted to see Tom Brady's Patriots head roll down the field while still in his helmet.**

** What? Oh. Well, I may have said it, but only, like, once.***

***Fine. Once times a million.

Scribbling and snacking my way to NYC

FIRST DRAFT
"Don't get it right, just get it written”
          --James Thurber
Me: scribblescribblescribblescribble DONE!

SECOND-ISH DRAFT/MINOR OVERHAUL
“Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.”
          --Olin Miller
Me: scribble Look! Something shiny! scribble scribble This stinks! scribble ::years pass:: (imagine a calendar with the pages flying off, a la Hollywood) scribble?

THIRD-ISH (and by this I mean SEVENTH-ISH) DRAFT/ MAJOR OVERHAUL
“Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.”
          --Moliere
Me: scribble snack scribble ::sees end of the story, a mere weekend away:: scribble snack scribble snack scribble

I said I would get this thing (known by friends and family merely as "Hazel") done by the end of the month. Actually, I said I would get this YA novel done by the end of last November, during NaNoWriMo, but there was that whole extended hospital stay (kidney infection, pneumonia, and gall bladder) and pain-medication-fueled recovery, during which time my brain resembled a tumbleweed.

Of course, anyone who knows me also knows

1. I will do anything for attention
2. I will do, no, would have done anything to avoid finishing this thing--but not anymore. Now I want to be done. Done-er than done.
3. I rarely feel badly about not achieving a self-imposed goal. I just wave to it as it passes by. No sense beating myself up; I was probably distracted by shiny things, and who can feel badly about THAT?

Psst. The Chef doesn't know this but he's going to help me this weekend with some of the foodstuff descriptions included within Hazel. The book, not the person. Not that she's a real person. You know what I mean. But I digress (again). My degree has made writing about the sweet stuff easy. The savory? Not so much, especially considering if left to my own devices, I'd eat Campbell's tomato soup for every meal. Except breakfast, at which time I would have French toast.

Don't worry! He shall be rewarded--with a trip to New York for the SCBWI conference next week. Well, it's kind of a reward. It's reward-ish.

When Jame asked if he'd be attending sessions, I said (via the facebook), "He will run amok in the city whilst we suffer for our craft. Or sneak off and drink. Whatever." 

Then she pointed out, "Watch he'll get a book deal while he's out: Drinking in the Underbelly or some such." Knowing The Chef as I do, I TOTALLY see that happening.Stay tuned to see who he signs with. :)

We'll be staying here. Well, kind of here. Dare I say, here-ish?