v.2

Once again I am behind in my posts so I will try to catch up in the next couple of days. A lot has happened last week! On Tuesday I met up with Pete for lunch at our favorite Shopsin’s. It’s been awhile since we have gone! We have to get back on going regularly again. We opted to get some sandwiches and share them. We decided on the Rooster, chicken salad with avocado on cheesy garlic bread. YUM. Then also we got High School, turkey and sausage with mushroom gravy. YUM.

The rooster came first and I was pleasantly surprised that the chicken salad was warm! OH MY GOSH! Heaven! I would never have thought something as simple as warm chicken salad would make such a big difference. Then the High School came out. It was in a bowl!! It had bread in there but I guess they put it in a bowl because of the gravy. Thick and gooey gravy. Delicious!!

Pete was on his lunch hour so we started heading back. I got home to find that Sienna has a fever (she had felt a tad warm when I left but I was hoping it would subside). More on that in the next post.

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The cupcake craze is really in full swing now and Sienna is all into cupcakes too! It must have started when I gave her a cupcake at the Easter Egg Hunt! There are these 2 stuffed cupcakes that came with the kitchen set the 1st floor tenants gave to her and she loves those things! Well, if you know me, you know I love me some cupcakes so she must have inherited from me! On Monday afternoon, I finally made the chocolate cupcakes with banana cream cheese frosting that I had on my list to bake. I didn’t plan this very well because Monday night I attended Cupcake Night at Etsy labs. I’ve been meaning to go to a couple of their recent craft nights but it turned out those nights were rainy and I got lazy. But I was intent on going to cupcake night! Free cupcakes and cupcake crafts! And then after cupcake night, Brenda met me so I could give her her camera back (I was testing it out for her) and she gave me the leftover mini cupcakes that her friend (who is a pastry chef and used to work at Union Cafe!) baked. Oh man. I thought I would never say this but…cupcake overload!! Good thing I signed up for that aerobics class at the Community College!

Filled and ready for the oven!

Frosted (I opted not to add the yellow food coloring) I really need to take more care in photographing food! I looked so much better than this!

I thought these cupcakes were good but they taste best the same day they are baked. I noticed the bottom of the cupcakes got dry as each day passed. Also, the recipe says it should make 12-15 cupcakes, I got 21! (I gave some to Jana and some to Peter!)

My cheesey attempt at coloring. Good thing I can bake the real thing better than I can color the fake thing! HA!

I was delighted to find that they had cupcakes from Ivy bakery in Bay Ridge. A place I attempted to go to twice but were closed both times! They were good! (Now I’m dying to try Robicelli’s cupcakes!)

Cupcakes from One Girl Cookies. I was intrigued with the blue icing. I’m such a sucker. The icing tasted a bit too sugary. I prefer the more creamy type. They had other cupcakes from other places but these were the two I tried.

These were the cupcake crafts I did, they are tags, or going to be tags.

I also got to meet Rachel, the founder of swap-bot and a new transplant to Brooklyn! Such a sweet person!

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The weather was so nice this past weekend, it’s such a bummer that it’s going to rain the beginning of this week! Friday night we usually have date night but my dad had a cold so could not babysit. We decided to all go out for a family meal at the local Japanese restaurant. It was very nice! Yves got his usual sushi and I got a whitefish katsu bento box to share with Sienna. She really enjoyed the shrimp tempura!

They gave these special chopsticks to Sienna. I don’t know if I am the right person to be teaching Sienna how to use them correctly!

Grabbing for the shrimp tempura!

Then on Saturday we decided to go to Sunset Park to the playground and then have a little picnic with Bahn Mi sandwiches from our favorite place. Yves always gets the original and I get the chicken and an order of summer rolls where Sienna picks out the shrimp. Well, they didn’t have any summer rolls so decided to get her a meatball bahn mi. They are so cheap! Lunch for 3 under $12.

Relaxing with daddy

Here is an amusing video of Sienna eating part of the sandwich on her own. E-mail or leave a comment if you don’t have the password!

Sienna Eats a Bahn Mi from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Last Thursday, Geneva was kind enough to invite me and Sienna over for lunch along with Starr and her kids and Yan Lin and her son. It worked out well since the Little Gym was closed for Spring Break so our Thursday was free! It turned out to be a beautiful day! I brought over some chocolate lollipops (I had a lot!) and Geneva made pizza and Asian Noodle Salad and rice krispy treats and Starr baked some chocolate chip cookies. YUM!

A part time little sister perhaps? LOL. Sienna really likes Sylvie!

Sienna was really jamming with the guitar! Bopping her head around like she was really playing!

Dessert time! Can’t you tell?

Phoenix enjoying some chocolate!

Sienna chowing down on a chocolate chip cookie! (And wearing one of Nico’s crocs!)
AND some rice krispy treats!

Geneva and Sienna

Sienna doesn’t usually have so many sweets but it was a special occasion so I didn’t care! We didn’t get home until about 2:45 pm and Sienna fell asleep pretty fast in the car. Once home, I put her in her crib and that only lasted about 30 minutes! It was a fun day!

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Tuesday was the April mixer and that was the title of my mix. I made chocolate lollipops to give out in lieu of making a cover for my mix. Sienna sort of helped me with some of them by putting the sticks in. You could see that on Shuggy’s blog. I bought the edible food writer pens to add some color and details but I was very disappointed in how they worked. As in, they didn’t work very well! That’s what I get for being lazy!

This was a mold for covering sandwich cookies. I couldn’t resist the cute animals on them!

It did get a bit messy!

We met up at the Ace bar at first but it was so crowded and I think they were having some event there. So after the first drink, we hightailed it outta there to a more quiet bar down the street. I think it was called Sophia’s. Me, Brenda and Joy met up beforehand to grab some dinner and we intended to go to Porchetta’s, there wasn’t any room (super small) so got indian food instead (which was delicious too!)

I have also uploaded my mix so if you are interested in downloading it, let me know and I can send you the password! Here’s my setlist:
No Dice    Beirut
Feel Flows    Beach Boys
Bag of Hammers    Thao
The Lion & The Teacup    Bishop Allen
The Great Defector    BellX1
Best Imitation Of Myself    Ben Folds
Gay Peace    The 1900s
Spiralling    Keane
Go Full Circle    Dah-Veed
Sister I’m A Poet    Morrissey
Girls & Boys    Blur
The Size Of A Cow    The Wonder Stuff
Crash    The Primitives
Calcutta    Hopewell
Tattva    Kula Shaker

And here’s a funny photo of Brenda and Joy playing the shooting game at the second bar!

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Ok, this actually happened on the 4th and am slowly getting back up to date! Tommy is a friend of mine from back in the old drinking days. I met him through my old roommate, Peter, whom I don’t even talk to anymore! Tommy is a great guy and am very happy for him and Maureen. Maureen is great too!

We took Sienna to the church ceremony at Saint Rose of Lima. She was great! This is her 3rd wedding but the other 2 she was relatively young. She was so amazed and curious about all the sights in the church! When we were at the reception everyone commented about how well behaved she was at the church (I guess they didn’t hear us shushing her every few minutes as she kept singing!) The photographer even mentioned what a cutie she is!

The reception was at Douglaston Manor and we made it in time for the cocktail hour. The appetizers weren’t bad and there was even a hot dog cart! There was a nice view of the city. The actual dinner was eh. The staff seemed a bit unorganized. Half our table was eating their pasta dishes while the other half were waiting for there’s because they ran out! And then they ran out again so we got like the bottom of the barrel pasta. I ordered the filet mignon (not bad, edible) and Yves got the salmon. Of course, knowing Tommy, there was open bar and I admit that I indulged a bit. I even got Yves to dance twice! Unfortunately we had to leave before they cut the cake (they really stretched out the evening) because  we were concerned about my dad staying so late. We got home around 11:30. I had a nice time and didn’t have a hangover the next day!

Sienna singing!

Maureen was going around taking photos of everyone!

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I am way behind in my postings! But I suppose before I get too backed up and overwhelmed, I guess I should just start with today! Starr organized an Easter Egg Hunt at Owl’s Head park. Everyone brings goody filled eggs, they get hidden and then the kids run off to search for them. I never did this as a child and am glad Sienna had an opportunity to experience this. She had a blast! I don’t know why I was surprised that she basically understood what to do, although she was a bit slow about grabbing the eggs. She made out pretty well but of course some of the older kids were faster so they got more eggs. I also made cupcakes from a recipe I got off of Paris Pastry (I did not do the cute bunny decoration). The cupcakes came out huge as I got confused (she had said she halved the recipe but posted the full recipe, she changed the wording after I inquired!) but still delicious! Sienna ate a whole one!

Some eggs hiding

Waiting to start!

Grab ‘Em Sienna!

Not a bad stash!

Waiting to dig into the cupcakes!

Yum! Sienna and Phoenix chowing down!

A close up of the cupcakes!

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She’s lookiing right at me! Can she feel my craftiness?? LOL!

Yesterday I went to a taping of the Martha Stewart show! Woohooo!! Pete was kind enough to take the day off and go with me. We had to be there at 8:30 (yawn!). Once we got inside, it seems to be moving pretty smoothly, I didn’t feel like I was waiting around a lot (it could have been because I was in the wonderful company of Pete). Once we got inside the studio, we had to stay seated. It was a live taping! I didn’t know that! Her guests that day were Marcia Gay Harden, a woman from the stem cell research foundation and the owner of a sausage place on the Upper East Side. I was a little disappointed that we only got a free t-shirt (from the stem cell research foundation) but I kept telling myself I wasn’t there to score free stuff! But it sure would have been nice to get a sample of her wurst sandwich! It was making me so hungry!

Me and Pete in the waiting room filling out the release forms

Joey Cola, the warm up guy

The set!!!!

so many lights!

Oops! I forgot I had the camera on zoom!

That’s better! At our seats.

Pete pointing out the water tower on her set

This truck was giving out free White Castle sliders and hot cocoa. Of course, I had to partake!

We ended up going to midtown so I can check out Book-Off, the Japanese book store. We met Joy for lunch and ended up going to Comfort Diner. It was a nice day!

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Wednesday I met up with Pete (poor Joy couldn’t break away from work!) for lunch at Shopsin’s. I vowed NOT to get the sliders again because I wanted to try something different. Pete got the sliders tho. I ordered a shrimp po’boy and chocolate egg cream. It was quite yummy. The entertainment wasn’t as colorful as my first visit but fun just the same. The people that sat on both sides of us were very nice and friendly. One side was an older woman with his son that has been going to Shopsin’s every Saturday for brunch for I forgot how long. They gave us a few of their favorites items but of course I forgot. I was so excited to be back there again, I forgot to take photos of the food! Arggh!! Since I forgot to take pictures at Shopsin’s, I took photos of everything else I got that day. We stopped over at Roni-Sue’s chocolates (they also have bacon covered chocolate!) and I opted to get BaCorn (caramel popcorn with bacon & chile pinon nuts) and one of their homemade lollipops. I couldn’t convince Pete to go in with me on Bacon buttercrunch.

We also stopped by our favorite cupcake shop, Sugar Sweet Sunshine and I brought home a pistachio and spicy pumpkin to share with Yves.

And a stop off at Economy Candy yielded this:

And in case you think your eyes are playing tricks on you, they are not! Yes! That is Pop Rocks candy in chocolate!! I can’t wait to try it!

And yes, I do have a major sweet tooth but to my credit, that time of the month is here so I think I went extra crazy! 😉

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On Wednesday, me and Pete celebrated Restaurant Week at Nobu again. I got the sushi plate and he got the cod (it’s the same menu as previous RW). I also got an extra roll of tuna with asparagus. I wish the waiter had told me there was already tuna roll on my dish as I didn’t remember! Argh! Pete introduced me to a new roll, the sea urchin, which has become one of his favorite rolls. It’s a creamy consistency. It was interesting. I’m always up for trying new rolls and glad I tried this one but I probably won’t be ordering it again!

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