Okay, maybe this rule only applies to me. And my sister. Who celebrated a very snowy birthday last weekend with lots of yummy eats.

We met up in New York for some sisterly birthday celebrations, which entailed walking, talking, and eating. All day long.

Most of the day was spent tooling around Soho and the Village, but my sister absolutely insisted that we go uptown for Absolute Bagels. I’m not one to turn down a good bagel, so I agreed.  

We split a plain bagel topped with Tofutti (non-dairy “cream cheese”), which turned out to be tasty and not a bad compromise for you lactose intolerant folks out there. If you’re around Broadway and 108th (or go to Columbia University), I, in all of my intimate knowledge of the bagelries of New York, recommend Absolute Bagels. Personally I’m just gonna buy some Tofutti next time I make homemade bagels.

I had wanted to take my sister to Crumb for some birthday cupcakes, but they were closed. (For being the city that never sleeps, New York sure feels pretty drowsy on Sunday evenings). We were saved by finding a Magnolia Bakery stand in the dining concourse at Grand Central.  

I bought us each two cupcakes. The birthday girl tried red velvet with whipped vanilla frosting and a pretty purple-topped white cupcake.

I went with the Hummingbird (banana and pecan cupcake with cream cheese frosting) and a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting.  

I am a true lover of cream cheese frosting, so the Hummingbird was the winner of the cupcake competition. It was like a moist slice of banana bread covered with cake frosting! So good.

We shared, just like Mom always told us. Even so we ended up with leftovers when we parted ways in Grand Central. Yum!

By the end of this post you will note that, even though I spent the day in fabulous New York with my fabulous sister, I have pictures of neither. To this I say: a beloved sister and a pretty city are forever; cupcakes and bagels are fleeting.

At any rate, here’s a charming photo of the two of us from yesteryear:

The Roommies and I took Jack out for a romp in the snow.  I say “romp”…. we may have romped, but Jack sprinted around the backyard like a bat outta hell!

Jack attack!

He was a blur.

The snow really put us in the Christmas spirit so we heated some Mexican hot chocolate and busted out the decorations to festify the apartment.

This is not, as it were, a case of Maker’s Mark.  Although I suppose that would make for a merry Christmas of another sort.

We strung lights about the apartment and in the windows.  And on the pets.

The Boyfriend, meanwhile, was actually working.  It didn’t take long to get our tiny living ready for the holidays!

Even the fish got in on the act.

We found a bag of my Mardi Gras beads from last year.

Jack dressed up as a Louisiana belle.

Hm… perhaps I wanted a little girl dog? No way, I love my patient little puppy.  (Fun fact: today is the 6 month anniversary of his adoption!)

Somewhere during the day I finished up my bagels.  I added salt to half and flax seeds to the other half.

This batch went much faster than the last batch, so apparently I’ve got the recipe down! I really think the trick is adding toppings.  Who doesn’t love toppings?

I have to get started on narrowing down my cookie recipes for Christmas.  If it were up to me I would make 27 different kids and Santa and I would split them all.  But then I would look like this guy:

[Image courtesy of Chicago Tribune]

Only in my case it would be upset stomach, not lust for world domination, that explains the super grumpy face.

If you need me, you can find me drooling poring over these:

Anyway, positive attitude! Got in a little cardio at the gym between work and dinner.  After I threw together a quick stir-fry for the three of us.  I started with some chicken marinated in Szechuan Spicy Stir-Fry Sauce from House of Tsang.  Holy deliciousness! I like a little spice in my stir-fry.

Next some broccoli and red peppers got cozy in the wok.

I added the chicken to cook, along with water chestnuts, mushrooms, and baby corn (of course!).

Nice blurry picture, eh? Apparently Technology is having a case of the Mondays.

In another pot I cooked some spaghetti, a mix of white and wheat.

Stir-fry is wonderous dinner food because it’s easy and customizable.  And you can use any grains you like to accompany it: egg noodles, standard pasta (which we seem to have an obscene amount of around this house), rice, quinoa.

My bowl.  If you look closely you can see a puppy nose in the edge of the frame.

Everyone at the house seems to be in EDF mode.  The Roommate has to make dessert for her class tomorrow and in order to do so she scoured the cupboards for sweet ingredients.  She came up with this awesome cookie pie made with toffee pieces.

I need to get back into the kitchen now and bake some bagels that are chilling in the fridge.

Haha, isn’t that the truth? I would have loved to sleep late this morning, but vacation is OVER.  I’m at peace with that fact, honestly.  After half a week of rich food, alcohol, pie, schmoozing, pie, travel, and pie, I definitely need to get back on track, mentally and physically.

I’m trying to make December a healthier, less stressful month.  I’m going to make a serious effort to be nicer to myself by taking better care of the ol’ body and mind.  To start this resolution, after work Sunday morning I stopped at Uncommon Grounds to do something I rarely ever do: enjoy 20 minutes alone.  My bagel and I people-watched and read Metroland.

On Monday I worked from home which allowed me to run some errands and clean/rearrange the house.  We moved furniture around a little (and made room for future Christmas decorations!).  We added a desk for The Roommate and set up a small bar area in the living room.

Taking all this stuff out of its previous home in a nook in the kitchen opened up more space for our table.  We can now all comfortably sit at our kitchen table together! What a crazy idea!

It looks so much better in here! Don’t you feel better when you rearrange your living space to make it more stream-lined and comfortable?

As part of my personal healthier living initiative, The Boyfriend and I signed up for a free month-long membership at Best Fitness  and we’ve got a workout date Wednesday morning.  I have a free membership to the YMCA because I work there, but I like having a gym buddy and hopefully this month will start me on some positive habits I can carry into 2010.

Enjoy your Tuesday! Look for snow (we had a few flakes in Albany this morning)!

I broke down and used the flash for the last one because I was sick of looking at yellow. I hate the flash. I’m still a little bitter.

Next I tried out Kath’s recipe for bagels. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but bagels are a big deal to me. I’ve noticed that there are a lot of bagels haters out there. “Bagels are too high in fat and calories to be worth their consumption,” they say. Oh, I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the loud and delicious bite of bagel I’m currently chewing.

At any rate, Kath is a healthy girl, so I figured she would make a healthy bagel. These are made with whole wheat and small enough to tempt a bagelophobe.

It’s sort of a complicated process, but I got a real kick out of it. First you make the dough, then you let it rise. Then you shape your bagels and refrigerate them for at least six hours (or overnight, as I did). In the morning you boil them, chill them thoroughly in an ice bath, and bake. Behold:

While these bad boys were baking, I whipped up some scallion cream cheese.

For breakfast we enjoyed our fresh, hot bagels with butter for the Boyfriend and scallion cream cheese for me.

Drool.

Don’t be shy, make these yourself. You can add toppings, too, just like at a bagel shop. Once you get the hang of it, I bet this will become your Sunday tradition, too!

You better eat it before it eats you….

My mother ate bagel’s from Whole in the Wall before the store even existed: when she was in college the original bagel baker, Elliot, sold his bagels right on campus. These are not Bruegger’s bagels’; they’re denser and chewier and made entirely with whole wheat.

I toasted my bagel and topped one half with apple butter and pecan butter and the other half with goat cheese (I was experiencing some conflicting savory/sweet feelings).

Yum! Perfect fuel for my morning and an excellent start to the work week!