Mmm.... Strawberries

We live in a small town surrounded on all sides by farms.... miles and miles of farms. Summer is the best season in our town for many reasons but also because of the bounty that our farms provide. I have been searching for a pick-your-own ORGANIC strawberry farm (the pesticides reside in the skin of the fruit so any fruit or veggie that you consume from a non-organic farm will have a larger amount of pesticides if you plan to eat the skin on the fruit or vegetable). Unfortunately I could not find a local pick-your-own farm but I did find a farm about 10 minutes down the road from us that had organic strawberries. Strawberry season can be short and I was just so impressed with the beauty of her fruit that I bought 6 quarts... Now what am I going to make will all those berries....

PS. If you would like to find a pick-your-own farm near your home, check out this website http://www.pickyourown.org/

Homemade Pasta

I know, I know... I have been MIA for nearly two months and one of my friends here in O-town actually missed my posts... how lovely!!
Well it has been a busy month and Mr. E. and I just returned from a 10 day trip to Italy. One of our favorite foods from the trip (besides the Mascarpone and Nuttella gelato every night!) was the homemade pasta and I just knew that I had to learn that skill upon our return. After some investigating (thank you sister-in-law Mrs. E.), i was encouraged to purchase the Prago pasta machine which latches onto your countertop and costs quite a few Benjamins less than the KitchenAid pasta attachment. I decided that this weekend would be the perfect time to break out the pasta machine and learn the ancient art of making pasta.

Thank you Cake

This afternoon we are having a thank-you lunch for all of our student interns here in the office as they will be finishing up the semester in a few weeks. I decided to make a chocolate cake with a layer of chocolate pudding in the center and decorate the cake to look like a family tree--these students are part of the intern family! I liked how it turned out but it really took a long time to make! However, in the end it was worth it... Onto Cake Decorating 3 later this month--we are learning fondant!

Gazpacho

What's better than a cold soup with fresh vegetables and topped with parmesan croutons when the weather begins to heat up? Not much, which is why this lovely soup hit the spot and even better is that the soup is actually healthy. Luckily (or unluckily for Mr. E.) this soup made about 10 servings so there was enough to serve it as a side dish each night for dinner this week and it met nearly all of our vegetable requirements for the day!

NYC Restaurant Reviews Continued

Restaurant Review #2
After my final meeting of the day I took the subway back to lower Manhattan and decided to find something to eat in between the subway and my hotel which luckily led me right through Soho. As most of my friends and family are aware, Mr. E. and I spent our honeymoon in Espana and we love Espanish food! So when I stumbled across Boqueria (www.boquerianyc.com), I could not have been more excited. Boqueria means market in Spanish and this was a Spanish tapas restaurant. In tapas style I had the house salad with parmesan shavings, a house vinaigrette, snap peas and croutons. I also had to sample their patatas bravas which are essentially salty/spicy hash browns drizzled with a spicy sauce. These would have gone beautifully with a Spanish beer but alone they were a bit salty for my liking. However, the tapas that my waiter suggested took the prize. Almond and Bleu Cheese stuffed dates wrapped in bacon. I could not have been a happier customer.

Restaurant Review #3
During my travels this week I was able to coordinate my work schedule with that of an old high school friend. She suggested we meet at a Mediterranean restaurant near her office in Midtown. As noted in the above review, I am a big fan of food from this part of our world. Ammas has a beautiful interior with nearly a full wall covered in bottles of wine (of which we did not partake as it was lunch and I was going to be a meeting with hundreds of seventeen year-olds). For our lunch we shared an appetizer of spreads with pita and for lunch we both had a greek salad with grilled chicken. The spreads were fine—typical of these kinds of restaurants, satisfying but they did not blow my mind. The salad however, was filled with ripe (rare, I know!) red and yellow tomatoes, generous squares of feta cheese, a few lovely black olives as well as slices of purple onion and cucumber. The grilled chicken was the perfect accompaniment to move the salad from just a salad to an entrée. The meal was wonderful and I would go back again… however, it was on the pricey side so be prepared.

NYC Food reviews...

Unfortunately, I am unable to cook this week because I am traveling for work. Fortunately, I am in NYC--one of the world's best cities for good eats.... Yesterday I met up with one of my dear friends from my days in Philly and we traipsed around the city doing a little of this and some of that... Exactly what one should do on an 85 degree Saturday in NYC.

Later that evening we met up with her hubby and a few other friends for dinner at Fig & Olive in the Meatpacking District--so fun! The restaurant is dark and loud and the design is simple with olive oil bottles lining one of the walls. We had a fabulous dinner of flat bread small plates and Trio La Mer--three fishes all completed with a fig... a wonderful accompaniment. For dessert we shared a chocolate souffle as well as olive oil gelato. This is Diane Sawyer's favorite gelato and I can understand why. Did I mention that it was 85 degrees in NYC and that the air conditioners could not quite keep up with the volume of people in the city... that olive oil gelato was the perfect way to cool down at the end the meal.

Cake Decorating Continues...

Last evening was my third class of cake decorating and unfortunately I will have to miss the final class next week as I will be traveling for work. As you can see from the photos we learned how to make people and to stripe the icing on the clowns. One of the women in my class refused to make clowns because they freaked her out--she made flowers instead. Now that I have graduated from Cake Decorating 101... onto fondant... yum!