Chocolate & Bacon and Cupcakes

My friend Tammy is buying a house in the ‘burbs (upstate NY) and is hightailing it outta NYC. Tuesday night we went out for a girls night only. Nothing too wild, just dinner at Festival Mexicana and cupcakes at our favorite Sugar Sweet Sunshine. Last week I finally bought Vosges Mo’ Bacon chocolate bar to try and saved it for tonight.cupcakebaconchocoblog.jpg

So what’s the verdict on the chocolate, you wonder? It’s yummy! The bacon felt like it was just the right amount, nothing was too overwhelming. It is quite delicious! I can’t get Yves to try a piece because he thinks it’s disgusting but maybe I can try and trick him somehow…When I was at the chocolate store, there was this group of 3 people looking at the chocolate and repeating all the names and the ingredients in the bars and sounding a bit disgusted. I guess this is not for everyone! (I also bought the Calindia Bar and had a hard time deciding which other one to try and was very tempted to try all of them!)

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Joy contemplates….
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She likes it! “Pork Fat Rules!”
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It looks like Tammy is suspicious of her piece but she likes it (I mean, she keeps harping about these Bacon Brownies I have yet to try!)
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My first bite (a bit blurry!)

3 course dessert and Wiiiiiiii

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On Saturday, Pete came over with some Wii games he’d been wanting to play with us so I took the opportunity to bake. I already knew I wanted to make Banana Chocolate Chip muffins because we had super ripe bananas and I made them for the first time a couple of weeks ago and they were so yummy! And I knew I wanted to make New York style cheesecake so I could use up the 2nd graham cracker crust I had. But then I also decided to bake apple crumb pie while I was at the market and picked up some apples and crust. I was having a baking bonanza! Everything came out delicious. The cheesecake was Yves’ favorite and the muffins were Pete’s favorite. I liked the pie but next time I will use different apples as the Granny Smith were a bit tart for my tastes (they were on sale at the market!) I also made turkey chili for lunch (yes, we did eat an actual nutritious meal beforehand!)
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I knew I could pawn off the baked goods to Pete so there wouldn’t be so much in the house and he did not disappoint! He was going to a party later and I heard it was well received there! They might not look very pretty but it all tastes great! 😉

The Wii games he brought over were super fun!! I enjoyed them all! We played Ravin Rabbids 2, Wario Smooth Moves (by far the most bizarre game played ever!) and Mario Party 8. Sienna woke up from her nap during Mario Party 8 and seemed to enjoy the graphics. All in all a very fun and filling day! Thanks Pete!

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I rushed to take a picture of Sienna on Pete’s lap and had the wrong setting on the camera!
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This one is cute but Sienna’s little car was blocking Skippy!
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Pete’s like “if I smile again, she won’t stop taking pictures! I’m making a somber face now!”

Jamaica Holgas

Here are some holgas I took in Jamaica. I’ve never been a beach person but I’m sure that would be different if I grew up with beaches like the ones in Jamaica!

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Jamaica Finale!

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Sunday was our last full day in Jamaica. It was a wonderful week in Jamaica and I’m really glad we came and that Sienna got to experience it. I was hesitant at first because of being nervous to travel with Sienna (energetic child + 4 hour flight = parents pulling hair out) and thinking of all the stuff to bring for her. Thankfully, we did not have to pack as much for her since there was a good supply of baby things because of Gaby. Plus, I am glad to learn that Sienna is a great traveler! She has a pretty set routine when we are at home and we knew it wasn’t going to be followed while on vacation and we were ready for it. Sienna adjusted so well! She fell asleep most times while going down the mountain, she actually told us she was tired and wanted to go to sleep (for nap and nighttime!) Wow! So unexpected that now I’m thinking, cool! Where can we go next? 😉 This vacation was very super relaxing and I had that in mind even before going. (I’m one of those vacationers that enjoy having something to do every day.) I mean, I only had 2 cameras with me (vs. the usual at least 4!)  I did not end up taking as many pictures as I usually do (I forgot the cord to download the photos) so please make sure to check out Yves’ photos here! My only regret is that I did not think to get a group photo while I had the chance when JP and CA were up!

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We took our last walk around the grounds that morning. It was also our last chance to have a real Jamaican patty so we went to Mothers, since it is the only patty place open on Sundays! Definitely not as good as Tastees but in all fairness, it just came out of the oven and was super piping hot!

Anyway, we’ve been here almost a whole week and did not do any socializing so today was the day. Since we didn’t want to get back up the mountain too late, we made our visits very quick. Yves and my father in law didn’t believe my mother in law could keep the visits short but to her credit, they were! We went to visit Auntie Judy, whom I’ve heard about for many years. It’s nice to finally have a face to put with the name. Then we went to visit the DuMeres (sp?), a frenchman married to a jamaican. They were very nice and Sienna loved their back area (and with a wonderful view of Kingston!). We did a quick shopping trip for stuff to bring home (whole wheat hard dough bread! YUM!) and last minute Christmas presents. A drive by to meet Auntie Denise, also a very lovely person! And then back up the mountain around 5!

We came home to an invasion of red ants in the bedroom, all over the window and the floor where Sienna’s pack and play was. Gross! I’m a really squealy girly girl when it comes to bugs. Yves sprayed them with bug spray and was pretty much able to kill most of them. Of course, I was packing our clothes and some were on our clothes! YUK! But I braved it and even managed to kill some on my own!

We had to go to bed early since we were getting up at 4 am to be able to catch our 8:30 am flight. It was a rough night as me and Yves had trouble sleeping. We managed to get up and Sienna got up shortly after us from the noise we were making. She was in a decent mood considering! We make it down to the airport at around 6, said our goodbyes and went into the airport. Well, guess what?! Our 8:30 am flight was delayed until 2:30! The woman at the line said they might be able to accommodate us on a connecting flight from Montego Bay that leaves at 8. Well, if it didn’t take 1.5 hours to get through the line, maybe we could have gotten on that flight! UGH! Then to top it off, our ONE suitcase (that was for the THREE of us) was overweight by 12 lbs and they wanted to charge us $100! They didn’t care that they were delaying our flight 6 hours or that it was 1 suitcase for 3 paying seats! We had to scurry and throw some things into our carry ons and the one extra bag I had (the beach bag my MIL gave to me!). I was so beyond annoyed and probably more in shock that we were treated like this. We got meal vouchers and I tried to get some sort of phone card or something since there was no way we could get in contact with anyone. My cell phone didn’t work in Jamaica and while I had my MIL’s cell number, she was using my FIL’s cell phone! So we really had no choice but to wait at the airport.
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photo by Shuggy

Sienna was a trooper! We took turns running around with her and she only got fussy maybe 2 or 3 times. Mostly because she could see outside and wanted to go outside so badly. Another time was when she saw a stuffed monkey in the window of one of those kiosks. Of course, I had to buy one for her! I managed to talk her out of the one she originally saw (it vibrated and sang some song that I don’t mind that I forgot as it seemed to go on forever!) and got her one with long arms. She was happy after that. She did take over a 2 hour nap in her car seat!  Yves’ mom had paged Yves around 11:30, when they got back to the house and found out about the delay! My dad ended up calling her because even he couldn’t believe such a long delay could happen! And we finally boarded the flight and left at 3:40 instead of 2:30 (that turned into 2:45). It was a mostly empty flight! We figured that they probably didn’t want to fly a half empty plane up to NY so waited for the 1:45 flight coming in (the same one we took the previous Monday into Kingston) and used that plane instead! I hate to end such a wonderful trip on a negative note but we are NEVER, EVER flying Air Jamaica again! We will connect if we have to! But I swear, never again!

Anyway, by the time we landed and got home, it was almost 8ish. Thankfully, my parents had some food for us and after we ate, Sienna went to sleep and all was well again (besides it being freezing cold, of course!) Home. Ahhh

Jamaica – Road trip! (part 1)

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Yves and the girls are ready to go!

Friday was a road trip! My mother in law wanted to take us to the waterfalls and there were 2 in Jamaica that she has been to. It was decided to go to Reach Falls and we can stay overnight at Bath Fountain Hotel and Spa since it was a 2 hour drive from Kingston. Carol-Anne was able to borrow a car from a friend so we were all able to go. I was in the car with my FIL, Yves and Sienna and CA, my MIL and Gaby were in the other. It was typical Jamaican roads to Bath, passing through sugar cane fields, little villages, windy roads around the water… We got to Bath around 4 and were allowed 2 soaks in the tub during our stay. The water at Bath has been tested and it has one of the highest mineral contents in the world. It’s supposed to help such ailments as gout, some skin conditions and chronic rheumitism and disorders of the spleen and liver. Unfortunately, mosquito bites was not listed so it didn’t help me with those (the salt water from the beach did wonders though!) and I also got new ones there! It was an interesting place and I agreed with Yves when he said it had an old age home sort of feel to it, especially since the workers were wearing a sort of an orderly looking uniform on. We had a nice room with a balcony and my inlaws shared a room on the top floor. Sienna enjoyed the bath! The dinner wasn’t anything to write about although Sienna enjoyed the spicy soup they served!
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Arriving at Bath
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Holding hands at Bath
Here’s a cute video of Sienna giving Gaby a kiss (or 2)- please comment or e-mail me for the password!


Kiss at Bath from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Hallway leading to the reception
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The bath
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At dinner
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Enjoying the balcony

Arigato!

On Sunday I met up with Pete and Joy for some chop chop lunch at Big Wing Wong. I haven’t been there in ages and it did not disappoint! Joy ordered for us and got congee, roast pork, roast duck, wonton noodle soup, rice noodle with roast pork and noodles. YUM! Ya can’t beat that for just $10 each! We headed over to Fay Da to get some pastries (which I ended up bringing home) and then to Ten Ren for hot bubble tea.

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Pete also gave us the things he got for us from his trip to Japan. I had asked him to just pick me up some crafty magazines that he thought would look cool so I can peruse the pictures and just marvel at their ingenouity, since I can’t read Japanese. He ended bringing me back 4 very cool books! 3 were magic shrubber books- crochet and knitting tawashi (used for dish washing/face washing/any kind of dusting and cleaning, etc.)! I couldn’t believe the luck as the term tawashi just started popping up for me. There was a tawashi article in the latest Craft magazine and a tawashi swap on swap-bot (which I just joined). All the patterns also include charts and I’ve never done crochet via chart before. I’m very excited to give it a try! I found some really cool links to help decipher the codes in the chart but the books all have pictures for each symbol showing you how to do it. I already made a cheat sheet on the symbols, except for a couple I couldn’t figure out (although I’m a graphic artist, I can’t seem to learn visually). I decided to give one a try and picked a super duper easy one, a heart!

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The fourth book on the upper right is a pom pom book-make cute creatures out of pom poms. Pete thought it was cute so got that for me too! Aren’t I lucky? Arigato Pete!

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Ok, so this might not be very challenging but I figured the edging might be so I figured I’d dip my toe into it with the heart and maybe by the time I got to the edging, I’d get the hang of looking at the chart. This blog entry really helped!

I also made this flower tawashi to use up the rest of this cotton yarn from a dishcloth I made for a swap:

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Franny’s = YUM

Thursday night I went out to dinner with Brenda and Joy to Franny’s. I’ve been wanting to check this place out since it made Time Out NY’s top 10 pizza places a couple of years ago. It did not disappoint! I ordered their homemade grape soda and it was very good! I’m not a big soda person and it was perfect in that it was overly sweet. For appetizers, we ordered this proscuitto special and the pork sausage. Delicious! We ordered 2 types of pizzas to share, the Buffalo Mozzarella, Garlic and Extra Virgin Olive Oil  (no tomato sauce) and Tomato, Anchovies, Chilies and Parmigiano Reggiano. So good! Thin crust and we had to cut it ourselves (which was entertaining!). We also ordered 2 desserts to share: the Cannolo (which is singular whereas the plural is cannoli) and the Chocolate Sorbetto. YUM! Needless to say, we were all stuffed! Again the pictures aren’t the greatetst because I don’t have much patience!

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(already cut into! the roasted scallions were a great! What a surprise!)

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Looked much nicer before I cut into it!

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I’m an old fart!

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I went to see Girl Talk at Terminal 5 last night with Pete and Joy. Talk about feeling super old! More on that in a bit. We ended up having dinner at Ariana Afghan Kebab Restaurant upon Pete’s suggestion.  Not only was the food excellent but the service was super and friendly! We ordered the fried pumpkin and chicken wings for appetizers (the wings were a late addition via Joy and I can’t find it on the menu) and for entrees to share, we got homemade noodles (Aushe Burida), okra with lamb (Barniya Chalow) and Kebab CombinationII (lamp chop, kofta, chicken and lamb tikka). ALL delicious!! And of course the bread was so good!

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Photo by Joy

We got to the venue a little before 9. Right away we all felt like old farts! I swear I’m pretty sure there were only a handful of people there that were probably the same age as us. The majority of them were probably born when I graduated high school. HA! I guess it’s only to be expected since GT is a guy born in 1981! We made it for the end of the 2nd opener, Grand Buffet. They made us laugh because they were so bizarre, corny and terrible. It was entertaining. Girl Talk came out right at 9:30. It was cool that he was mashing live but his set in the beginning bored me a little bit. I was trying to get into it. It got really good 45 minutes into it and I really was starting to rock it out. LOL. That’s around the time Joy took some funny pictures of me. He sampled Kelly Clarkson’s Since You’ve Been Gone and I went wild on that song for Yves. LOL. The crowd had been slowing pushing us back the whole time until we finally all went into the corner. It sounded like his set was ending soon so made our way closer to the front door by 10:45. We left shortly after that and got a taxi to the subway (hey, it was cold and windy!) And no joke, when we walked out of the venue, it looked like there were cars with parents waiting inside to pick up their kid! Oy!

As usual, it was fun going with Pete and Joy. Even if I got teased for trying to coordinate a specific time to leave beforehand! And for not having enough money on me. And for packing them individual slices of pumpkin bread I baked. And for rocking out to Kelly Clarkson.

Zoo who!

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Kangaroo and wallaby
As I mentioned before, we took Sienna to the Prospect Park Zoo on Sunday. It was a bit windy and cold but we bundled her up and she seemed to have a good time! Yves was the photo taker on this excursion so no pictures of him!
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You want me to do what?

I know this photo is blurry but I love the look on her face.  The light in the back is a little hole you can peek through and see the other side. Yves was trying to get her to do it but she wouldn’t.

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Watching the ducks and making duck sounds.
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Baboons!

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Look over there Sienna!
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What sound does a cow make Sienna?

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Sienna climbed all these stairs by herself and if we let her, would have climbed down on the other side and go around and probably back up this way.

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a high-5 for going up all the stairs!

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And lunch at Golden Krust!

Pumpkins and a cow, oh my!

Saturday we met up with Tammy, Mark and Vitamin Z at the Queens County Farm Museum for some pumpkin picking (or pumpkin picking upping as corrected by Yves as we weren’t literally picking pumpkins, just picking them up off the ground) I was unsure about the place, it being Queens and all, but it wasn’t bad! It was actually perfect for Sienna. Not too overwhelming but enough things to entertain her. There were farm animals (a cow, sheep and horses) and some sort of birds roaming around (which I thought were turkeys but no one agreed with me) and chickens and roosters. There is a corn maze but there was a sign that said it was a bit muddy so we didn’t bother. And we picked up lunch at the lone food stand where they made gyros and kebabs which were actually pretty good! Go figure! Zack ended up having to leave a bit early as he was cranky from being woken up from his nap to meet us.

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running after the unidentified birds
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Mark and mini Mark
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Zack as snuggle bunny
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Sienna kept trying to pick up huge pumpkins!
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So many pumpkins! Which one to pick?
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This one!
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Tammy & Mark choose 3 pumpkins. I asked what they were going to do with them and Tammy said roast the seeds. She asked what I was going to do with ours and I said ‘decorate it and let it rot!’
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At first Sienna didn’t want to go up to the chickens or the cow. We had to convince her it was ok.

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