The two apartment couples spent a night in on Saturday. We watched Spanglish and ate copious amounts of cheese. The Roommie and I decided early on that we wanted cheese, wine, and crusty French Bread for dinner.

Counterclockwise from the orange cheese: smoked Cheddar (if you have not tried it, you MUST!), Brie, herbed goat cheese, and smoked Gouda.

In addition to olives and bread we had grapes and an apple.

Sometimes I think it might be nice to lose five pounds, but with so much cheese in the world, is it worth it?

NO.

With our cheese we shared a bottle of Malbec.

I don’t know anything about wine, but I like Malbecs as far as red wine goes. Later we popped a bottle of Mondoro, which is sweet sparkling wine.

Jack and Lola were happy to chill with us in the living room (and wait for pieces of cheese to hit the floor). We wore the younger pup out — Jack fell asleep on my shoulder halfway through the evening.

But Lola was ready to hang out!

Lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lola. (Do you know that song by the Kinks? I’ve been singing it all week.)

I ate more cheese last night than I’d care to admit. Despite the large block of dairy digesting in my stomach currently, I’m thinking sometime in the future this apartment needs to have a wine and cheese party. Ever hosted/been to one??

The two of us spent about a week with his family between Christmas and New Years.  On Monday we planned a date day in Manhattan which commenced with a very necessary trip to Rockefeller Center so I could pretend to be Liz Lemon.

30 Rock is my absolute favorite show. I have been telling people since season 1 to watch and, thank goodness, they are starting to listen to my good advice.

The tree was pretty cool, I guess.  The Boyfriend finally dragged me away from the 30 Rock sign for a festive couples shot in front of the tree.

Next we scooted over to MOMA.  Did you know that if you are (or, cough, were) a SUNY student, you can get into MOMA and other NYC museums for free?? Just show your student ID card at information.  It’s pretty sweet.

We wanted to see the Tim Burton exhibit there, but it was sold out for the day.  Boo! So instead we strolled the floors.  And then made some art of our own using my camera, a MOMA window, and city lights:

We had plans to see Avatar in 3-D after the MOMA trip.  Before the movie we stopped for dinner at an Italian restaurant near Union Square.

We were hungry so we started with garlic bread and salads.

I ordered the arugula salad as I have been craving arugula since Mom’s Christmas dinner.  The thing is, I sort of expected there might be more to the “Arugula Salad” than just lettuce.  I was wrong in my assumptions.  The salad was okay, but that was it.  I did eat it all, though, because I do love me some leafy greens.

While we waited for dinner I played with the settings on my camera and had a photoshoot with my wine glass.

I’m such a little kid.  I need something to keep my wandering mind busy when I’m sitting still.

Dinner arrived on huge platters and there was much rejoicing.  The Boyfriend got chicken parmesan and it was amazing.

I had one of the specials which was chicken with mushrooms, artichokes, red peppers, and olives with a marsala wine sauce.

Plus a side of pasta.  This is my favorite part about Italian restaurants.

Two clean plates and one stop at a bar for martinis later, we headed over to the theater for Avatar. The animation in that movie was insane! Your brain gets tricked into forgetting that you’re not watching live action for most of the movie. Plus you get these sweet 3-D glasses.

New fashion trend for 2010? I think so.

]]> http://notesonapage.com/2010/01/the-city-so-nice-they-named-it-twice/feed/ 1 http://notesonapage.com/2009/11/little-thanksgiving/ http://notesonapage.com/2009/11/little-thanksgiving/#comments Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:51:08 +0000 Page http://notesonapage.com/?p=1011 Sometimes The Boyfriend is very sweet.  Like last Sunday night when he suddenly said, “We should have Thanksgiving dinner Tuesday night for our little family.  You know, so we can all celebrate together.”

Since the three of us actually have real families in different cities, we won’t see each other on Thanksgiving.  But together we are still a crazy little familial bunch, so it’s fitting that we would celebrate together.  The Roommate and The Boyfriend love each other like a brother and sister.  A brother and sister who bicker and need to be sent to their rooms to think about what they’ve done.  Sometimes, yes, I do have to turn this car around.  And sometimes I have to sit between them on the couch when we watch a movie.  I’m sure it’s good practice in case I ever have children.

What was I saying? Something about love and family… oh, dinner! We’re had Thanksgiving dinner tonight.  It was a scaled-down version since we are all headed to our respective parents’ houses on Wednesday.

Roast turkey and sausage with onions, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with a maple glaze, spinach salad with pomegranates, goat cheese, and toasted walnuts, garlic green beans, apple and onion stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pecan pumpkin pie.

You know. Things happen. You start cooking, and all of sudden it’s, “No, we HAVE to have my mom’s maple glazed yams AND mashed potatoes.”

Worth it.  My plate (plus a bowl of salad on the side):

Eh, that’s mostly vegetables on there, right?

We took a brief intermission between dinner and dessert so I could go get my sister from the train station.  Then the four of us settled in with cups of tea and this:

Want to make some of these recipes? Check out the recipe page!

Maple Glazed Yams

Pecan Pumpkin Pie

Oh, well.  I actually like Monday mornings because I don’t have to go into work until 1:30.  Currently I’m making a little chili and preparing some posts for the week.

But let’s recap the weekend: two big things happened.  The first was, obviously, breakfast.  For simplicity’s sake I threw together a scrambled egg pita with some swiss and oregano.  Scrumptious, but not radical, I know.  But focus on the wrap there.  It’s a new one I picked up at the market last week.

I am not the biggest fan of wraps and pitas and all that.  They are usually better for you than bread, but sometimes they have a weird taste or they are too bread-y and overpower the ingredients.  I want my wrap to hug my sandwich, not suffocate it, thanks.  BUt Joseph’s hit the mark: soft and chewy and not dry at all.  And the combo of flax, oat bran, and whole wheat flour really appealed to me.

Try these out.  You won’t be disappointed. I haven’t tried other Joseph’s products but I expect good things.

The other Moment this weekend was this small little thing that I remembered I have to do.  I happened to look down at my desk calendar that has been buried under paperwork for a couple weeks and I saw a date that was circled.  And then I did something that the Boyfriend absolutely LOVES: I said “Uh-oh!” and then went silent and got lost in my own thoughts while he panicked about what was the matter.

There is nothing wrong; I just realized that I am running the Turkey Trot 5k on Thanksgiving and I’m working this dumb temp job until the night before.  Meaning I’m working 60 hour work weeks until Thanksgiving, 8:30am to 11pm most days.  Meaning I won’t have that much time to train and I haven’t been working out at all due to the flu.  But I think it will be fine.  This is at least a motivation for me to find some time to work out, which is really a great stress relief and usually the only Me Time I have.  Worst case scenario? It will literally be a trot for this turkey and I will be the last person to cross the line.

I’m officially “in training,” I guess.  I met my cousin/running buddy at the gym Saturday morning and we ran a mile and walked a mile.  Then Sunday I went out for a run by myself (lucky Albany’s weather has been warm and inspiring!).  It is really tricky to get work-outs in on days when I work from early in the morning to late at night and I don’t think I can be too hard on myself.  Wednesday I have a day off from one of my jobs, so hopefully I can score some gym time.

Speaking of running, I need to run off to work! Enjoy your Monday, Blog Land!

My mom used to make this for me when I was a kid as it was the only way to get me to eat zucchini.  She was always good at pretending this was not a dessert (don’t be fooled, it is).  I’m not entirely sure where her recipe came from, so I sort of made up my own using ingredients I like to put in my breads to make them moist.

Page’s I-Won’t-Eat-Zucchini Bread

1 C flour

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t salt

3/4 t baking soda

3 T unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 C canola oil

1/2 C sugar

1/8 C brown sugar

1 egg

1/4 C applesauce

1 t vanilla

1/4 C sour cream

1 C grated zucchini

1/2 C chocolate chips

Extreme close-up! Check out that green!

Mix the first five ingredients in a bowl; set aside.  Mix the oil, sugars, egg, applesauce, vanilla, and sour cream.  Add the dry ingredients to the moist ingredients.  Mix in your zucchini and chocolate chips (and feel free to use more of both!).  Bake in a well-greased loaf pan at 350* for 20-25 minutes.

Enjoy a slice with a cool glass of milk.

Or while watching tomorrow’s episode of The Office.

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!