Saturday we went to the NY Aquarium in what seems to be our yearly trip. She seemed to be a little more into the fishes and other sea life there than last year. We were pretty much done with the place in an hour and a half, opted to forgo the shows and get lunch at Nathan’s. We got home in time for Sienna to take her regular afternoon nap and later that afternoon, we filled the blow up pool with some nice cold water and had some of Yves’ yummy burgers on the grill for dinner.
We were invited up to Tammy and Mark’s house for a BBQ on July 4th. Since we had gone up there already, the drive wasn’t so bad. Their house is perfect for entertaining and there was plenty of food and good people. I love any excuse to bake and tried 2 new recipes for me: ‘real’ strawberry cupcakes and strawberry lemonade cupcakes using the frosting from the 2nd cupcake recipe for both (of which I had trouble). Both were really good and got lots of praise despite the look of the frosting (which tasted good but didn’t look anything like the photo posted on that blog).
Tammy and Zack and friends. No shortage of babies and kids at this BBQ!
Grilling!
Alison, the tattoo artist!
Sienna’s new Donald Duck tat
My new tat to match the other one!
Quiet swing time
Sienna playing ball with a baby. She loves babies!
Tammy going around giving samples of bacon ice cream. You can see that Yves isn’t that excited to try it but he did and liked it!
Got cupcake frosting?
The cupcakes:
See how blah my frosting looked?
Filling for the Strawberry Lemonade cupcakes. This is the first time I had less than what the recipe said I would (I usually have more, way more!)
On the 11th of this month I turned 40. I can’t believe it. I don’t think I really mind turning 40 probably because I don’t look 40 (fingers crossed!). Time just seems to be going so fast. And I always feel like I still have so much I want to do and see and make. It was hard to decide what to do for my big day since it landed on a Saturday. Yves organized a birthday BBQ for me but we had that the following weekend. I decided I wanted to get a pork sandwich for lunch from Porchetta. It’s a little tiny place in the East Village that my friend Brenda told me about. We had tried to go there one night before a mixer but it only has 6 seats and it was raining. I managed to get a couple of bites from a sandwich she brought to another mixer. It was delicious. I wanted a whole one for myself. I actually forgot about the place until a couple of weeks ago when I saw a post on one of the foodie blogs I read who had recently gone there. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Then I figured it was a good place to go while Sienna was home with my parents. And that was that.
It was really good although I did find the skin a bit on the chewy side. I like my pork skin crispy.
Potatoes with burnt ends
PORK!
Yves enjoyed the sandwich but he didn’t think it was worth the price. I might have to agree with him on that. We went back home to have cake that my parents bought for me. They buy me a cake every year and this year I managed to talk them out of going to the chinese bakery. (Not that I dislike chinese bakery cake but they order from one every year) I managed to convince them to go to Jean Danet Bakery (after an attempt to get them to go to Ivy Bakery failed-they thought $35 for a cake was too much which I would usually agree with them but come on, this is my 40th! Anyway, I digress…)
The cake was a chocolate cake with strawberries and chocolate pudding. They were very generous with the strawberries! The cake was delicious! So good that I forgot to take a photo of a slice.
Yves got me a mega stand mixer, the Cuisinart 5.5 quart in brushed steel, for my birthday. It’s fabulous! Sienna bought me an orange case for my Ipod touch! Thanks guys!
On Monday I met up with Peter to have lunch at the Blue Water Grill as part of NYC Restaurant week. We usually go to Nobu but seeing as we have been going to Nobu for the past 3 or 4 restaurant weeks, I thought it might be fun to try a different place. There are so many restaurants taking part so it can be a little intimidating to pick one. When I saw that BWG had a BBQ soft shell crab sandwich as one of their entrees, I picked that place. Unfortunately it was changed when we got there and it was a swordfish sandwich instead. Pete got that and it was good. I got the seafood salad, that was good too. For appetizer I got the Spicy Laughing Bird Shrimp Maki Roll, which was quite delicious! And Pete got the watermelon gazpacho, it was different and refreshing. Pete got the watermelon granita and I got the chocolate truffle bar for dessert. It was all yummy. We enjoyed our dishes but we both agreed that we probably would not go back there. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with anything we had but it didn’t have any WOW factor that would make us want to go back. But it’s always fun spending time with Peter!
My appetizer
The gazpacho
My seafood salad (that I wish there was more of!)
Seductive Pete and the fish sandwich (the fish was yummy as I am sure Pete is too)
Chocolate!
The granita
Nico had a birthday party to celebrate his 3rd year here on the 20th of June. It was to be in Owl’s Head park but the weather wasn’t cooperating. Geneva was kind enough to offer her house as an alternative. The kids played pin the tail on the donkey but I think they mostly enjoyed getting tattoos! Starr made birthday cupcakes and pizza was ordered. It was a nice day despite the rain.
Sienna and Phoenix playing ball and not minding the rain.
Phoenix showing off her tats
Sienna getting her 2nd tattoo by Diana, the ‘tattoo artist’
Sienna and Phoenix going to show off their tattoos to the pizza delivery guy!
The rest of the birthday cupcakes
And Nico opening some presents
Leave a comment or send me an e-mail for the password!
The Singing Frog from Lisa on Vimeo.
I’m way behind on my posts once again. So I thought I would work on the current then go backwards. Saturday was the Toddler Take Over BBQ! I finally decided to go ahead and invite all of Sienna’s playdate friends over to our house. I always hesitate to do that since the majority of our playdates are in Bay Ridge so that means most of them would have to rely on public transportation to head over. But to my surprise, people were saying yes and before I knew it, 27 beings were coming over! (I say beings because the number includes adults, toddlers and babies). Initially I was in shock and started stressing about how we were going to fit all those people back there. And since they have never been over, I didn’t want them to have the incorrect notion that we had this big, beautiful backyard (which we so do not!) But Yves reminded me that these were nice, easy going people that go with the flow of things. Eventually I stopped stressing and got super excited about it. Eventually it ended up being less with some last minute cancellations so it worked out! The kids loved the kiddie pool and the sand/water table was a big hit as well as the sprinkler ball. All the guests loved the burgers (yay Bubba!) and hot dogs. I made homemade ice cream (vanilla with banana and strawberries), black and white cupcakes (in honor of Michael Jackson, solely coincidence!) with either chocolate frosting or butterscotch and blueberry slab pie. We have a lot of food leftover because everyone was so generous with bringing stuff! There was antipasto, guacomole and baked ziti from Geneva! Cole slaw from Starr, empanadas from Diana, fruit salad from Yan Ling, yummy veggie sticks from Michele…I hope I didn’t leave anyone out!
I shot film so I don’t have any digital shots but borrowed a couple from Yves.
Sienna with Phoenix, Nico and Ethan. Dakota, Sophie and babies Casey and Sylvie not shown.
Sienna enjoying her cupcake! There’s the blueberry slab pie!
Eating!
And here are some baking shots:
The Blueberry Slab Pie is from Martha Stewart’s baking handbook. I made the dough too! I had to do it in 2 batches because my food processor isn’t big enough to hold all the flour. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out but people enjoyed it. I think the biggest hit was the ice cream. I don’t have a shot of that!
 
I can’t believe I forgot to post about seeing Doves at Terminal 5 on the 4th with Joy and Pete! My photos came out on the darker side and at the time was lazy to fix them, which is probably why I forgot about it. The show was good. They have a new album out, that none of us have, so the majority of the show were new songs we weren’t familiar with. Of course the band and the crowd really picked up at the encore when they played a bunch of familiar songs. We got there around 9:15 and they were already playing. I’m pretty sure they just started. We walked out of there at about 10:45.
Prior to the show, we met up for dinner at a Mexican place called Tulcingo del Valle. It’s a small little place but their menu was pretty large. I got overwhelmed and ended up ordering mixed fajitas to get a little bit of everything. It was just ok. Paled in comparison to Joy’s and Pete’s dishes! Joy got tripe soup and chicken molé and Pete got fried pork skin in a green sauce. We also got an order of Texan style nachos that included delicious pickled carrots that were hotter than the jalapenos! (I forgot to take a photo of that!) Would definitely go back there and this time not order the fajitas! And you know it’s authentic when there is no sign of sour cream! 
After swim class on Saturday, we had our first BBQ of the 2009 season! Start time was 2pm and we had put Sienna down early for a nap. It worked out well as she willingly went to sleep after lunch (also earlier) and swim class helped with that. She slept for 3 hours although I basically woke her up so who knows how long she would have really slept.
It was super fun! Peter made his delicious deviled eggs, Nate and Mari made fruit kabobs and Joy brought over her Wii with Guitar band setup (drums, guitars and microphone!) Yves came up with the brilliant idea of putting one of the extra tvs in the garage and setting up the Wii there. We kept the food simple with Bubba frozen burgers (quite good for frozen!) and hot dogs. I made my Potato Apple salad and a new recipe, a lighter version of Cold Sesame Noodles from Martha’s website. For dessert I made homemade oreo cookies, banana choco chip muffins and at the last minute decided to try vegan vanilla cupcakes with butterscotch frosting. Everything was well received! Yves has a funny video of us during rock band. Apparently, you could hear the singing a bit from the front of the house. I might be getting some funny looks from the neighbors!
There really is no reason I posted this shot, it’s just that Sienna looks like such a grown up here!
Sienna really took to the drums!
Skippy was eyeing the hot dog on the table!
Did I mention that Sienna really took to the drums?
Yves’ drum solo
Grilling is hard work!
Joy cutting up a burger for Sienna. Awww, she would make a good surrogate mom! HA!
Pete and his cuddle buddy!
Sienna tries a vegan cupcake
Nate, Sienna and Skippy looking for ants
Homemade Oreos recipe here. They weren’t bad. Don’t know if I would make it again
Vegan Vanilla cupcake recipe here. I came across the recipe by accident and was curious about it since it got good reviews (if you know me or read my blog regularly, you know I am not vegan). It was quite yummy and you wouldn’t have known it was vegan. I decided to do a butterscotch frosting.
My crack muffins as Pete refers to them and the vegan cupcakes pre frosting.
Sunday we had a playdate with Raya, the 3.5 year old daughter to my old friend Tami. Tami and I were best friends in elementary school. We hooked up again around 2001 because she knows Tommy from college, what a small world. We lost touch after that and then hooked up again because of Facebook. We met at the playground by the Brooklyn Bridge. I love that playground mostly because I love the view of the Brooklyn Bridge, it’s my favorite bridge. Afterwards, we had lunch at Bubby’s.
I love that smile on her face in this shot!
Tami and Raya
Robert and Raya (and my shadow)
Raya kisses Sienna
Going down the slide
Sienna eating a biscuit at Bubby’s. She got a scrape on the side of her face from a fall.
Yves cutting up Sienna’s french toast
Even though Yves cut up little pieces, Sienna grabs the big piece he didn’t cut up!
My smoked chicken salad sandwich
On Monday for Memorial Day, we got invited to a family BBQ by my lovely friend Geneva. We had a wonderful and great time and it was nice to spend the time with other parents of little ones. Besides Phoenix, Sienna had Nico, Sylvie, Nico O and Ethan to play with as well! Fun times! The food was great, the company even better! I made Devil’s Food Cupcakes with this chocolate frosting. I had a bit of a mishap (I overfilled the cupcake and they baked up huge and ran into each other over the rim and got stuck) but luckily this recipe made 24 (although I think I got more like 36!) And I also baked some of Yves’ favorite cookies to bring over and some pasta salad. Even getting bit by mosquitos didn’t squash my fun! 😉
Sienna with a chip
Yan Ling holding Sylvie wearing an old outfit of Sienna’s, which I think was a hand me down as well!
Sienna with Phoenix and Nico at the kids table!
Watermelon!
Starr made this awesome cole slaw and told me to put it on a hot dog for a slaw dog, a Southern thing.
The kids playing!
And here is my baking mishap!
They may not look so bad here….
The outer edges of the cupcake that were touching the pan were stuck and I thought I was being clever by just flipping it over. HA!
The tops just kinda crumbled and fell apart!
I baked another batch with the silicone cups and normally I don’t have any trouble getting them out but for some reason, they were sticking inside the silicone cups! But thankfully there was enough batter to make another dozen in some Elmo cupcake paper.
I put the ones from the silicone cups upside down to prevent it from sticking to the rack. Do you notice the kinda glaze that’s on the bottom of them?
And here are the ones I brought over. I had fun frosting them (I did the ziploc bag thing)!
They were a big hit at the BBQ as well as the cookies. I think my pasta salad probably didn’t matter! HA!
| Blog: |
| The bunnylog blog! v2 |
Topics: |
| family, crafts, food |
You are currently browsing the v.2 weblog archives for the 'Gluttony' category.
Comments(2)
