the week in review: good food, good music, coffee table project and family

A (mostly) pictorial review of the week.

(A wee bit late ... should have been posted last Friday). 

/ 1 / 

Lemon Buttermilk sorbet, inspired by a recent trip to my favorite restaurant. Recipe found here. The official kick-off to homemade ice cream, frozen yogurt and sorbet season - highly, highly recommended! My only modification came from a lack of planning - I only had one lemon, so that's how much zest and juice I used. Honestly, even though I am a lover of lemon and all things intensely tart and sour, I can't imagine making this with any more than one lemon. 

/ 2 / 

St. Vincent at the Town Ballroom. Annie Clark was such a great performer - obviously her voice is stunning, but she also seemed comfortable and genuine in her comments between songs which is always a bonus. Her crowd surfing at the end made me nostalgic for high school ... my first concert and crowd surfing experience was at Dinosaur Jr. at the State Theater in Portland, Maine in 1994.

/ 3 /

Dinner at Bambino with my lovely lady lawyer friends. We shared a lot of things, but this was by far the prettiest - assorted melon balls over arugula and proscuitto with balsamic drizzle. 

/ 4 / 

A coffee table in the making. I found four industrial carts locally on Craigslist - we bought two, convinced another friend to buy a third, and then sold one of ours to other friends. They've all finished restoring and converting theirs already and both of them look amazing. Things on this end are moving a bit slower due to the living and sun room renovations underway. 

One of the wheels after Evan cleaned off some of the rust and gunk (new pictures of this wheel completely gunk free coming soon). I love the pin detail. I'm feeling pretty smug that we'll have something like this for more than ten times less. The thrill of the hunt and being able to watch it transform from a crusty work horse into something beautiful for the house right before my eyes makes it that much more satisfying. If you are interested in one and cant source inexpensive carts in need of DIY'ing, Etsy has some great finished options. Not inexpensive, but now that I am seeing all the work that can go into cleaning one of these buggers up, I can say that they are not overpriced either.

/ 5 / 

Summer bedding switchover!

Not pictured: Getting to visit Evan's Aunt and Uncle on Friday - they just moved to Buffalo from Nashua, NH this week. It is the first time since we moved here 10 years ago that we've had family in the area, and it feels great. Evan's Aunt and Uncle met each other while living out here over 25 years ago - his Aunt was from here, his uncle was from Massachusetts. They moved to New England but always came back a few times a year to visit her family. When Evan's grandparents passed away, they decided to move back to be closer to her family, and incidentally, ours! They do not have children of their own, and Evan is their godson - so it will be like having one set of grandparents nearby when the little guys arrives in September. Good stuff. :)

the week in review: art, flora, my "least meal" and staggeringly thoughtful birthday gifts

A pictorial review of the week. 

/ 1 / 

A Sunday trip to the Birchfield Penney art museum. James J. Vullo's "flying sculptures."

A recreation of Charles Burchfield's studio.

/ 2 / 

Birthday dinner at Tempo. Tasty tart mocktail to start.

Antipasto. The feta and salami were amazing, and even better paired with the roasted red pepper spread.

Best carpaccio in town: herb and sea salt marinated rare beef sirloin with arugula, shaved parmigiano reggiano, garlic dressing and capers.

This would - hands down - be my "last meal." It's been my favorite special occasion meal in the city for the past five years or so: proscuitto wrapped filet crusted in warm gorgonzola, over the best gnocchi I have ever had (browned and somewhat crispy on the outside, pillowy and warm inside) with garlic braised escarole. Looks fussier than it tastes, but the combination of flavors is seriously stunning considering that they are not particularly exotic. Just perfectly prepared.
Never ever fails me.

Sorbet trio for dessert - highlight was the one on the right: a lemon buttermilk sorbet. I wasted no time in looking up recipes to make at home. Found one here - a bowl of it is sitting in the fridge, waiting to be put through the ice cream maker this weekend. 

/ 3 / 

And speaking of sweets, here's just one of the small cooler full of whoopie pies my Grandmother sent me for my birthday. *Verklempt!*

/ 4 / 

The medley of shade loving plants that my mom lovingly packaged up from her garden in Maine and sent to me for my birthday for my shade garden project. Verklempt again!
There's Solomon's seal, peony, lady's mantel, lily of the valley, white and red bleeding heart, columbine, Bethlehem sage, ferns and hosta. 

I don't even have words. To say my mom is amazing is such an understatement. 

/ 5 / 

Saying goodbye to the ridiculously long-lasting dubium bought weeks ago. I kept trimming and downsizing, trimming and downsizing until almost every last bud had popped. Finally, I came home to this. It's as if they collectively said, "Enough already, lady - our time has come. Just let us die!" Either that, or the last bloom standing decided she needed more space and shoved all the others out. 

/ 6 /

Grocery store flower pick of the week: Campanula. I plan to play around with them this weekend.

/ 7 / 

Tired of wasting fruit, citrus and herbs on their way out (but still edible), here is my quick and easy solution - especially good for cleaning out the fridge before or after a trip to the grocery store. I am enjoying a big glass of apple-lime-mint flavored water as we speak, and it's fantastic. 

Highlight not captured on film: Baby's first real kick! Big enough for Evan to feel. The look on his face when he felt it was priceless, and I'll never forget it. 

Definitely not a highlight - Adam Yauch's passing today after a battle with cancer of the salivary gland, age 47. The world lost an extremely talented musician and (although I didn't know him personally, I'm willing to bet that everyone who did would say that he was) just a really, really good person. RIP, and xoxo.

Happy weekend, everyone. 

nyc weekend

 Beautiful sky on Saturday, on the way to Eataly.

 Drinks at the Clover Club.

 Teddy, snoozing.

 Fresh apple, carrot and ginger juice.

 At the Brooklyn Flea.

 Brunch at No. 7.

 Fried eggs & nachos.

 Colorado & Florida by D.S. & Durga at bird - my proudest moment of restraint. Despite this seriously gorgeous perfume's hefty price tag, I was dangerously tempted when the store clerk said it was a limited edition, only 99 bottles were made, and that bird was its sole distributer. 

 Sunset views from Sunset Park.

ps - It seems surreal that it was exactly one year ago this weekend that I was basically doing the same thing - visiting Alice in Brooklyn, having a blast eating my way through the weekend, and checking out the flea market for the first time while my sweet little niece Emily was busy being born. Happy birthday sweet pea! 

So excited to visit my family in Maine this weekend to celebrate this milestone properly, together with my Mom's birthday, for the first time in at least a decade. 

October in Maine

{ So mad at myself that this post has been sitting in draft form for at least two months! I could have forgiven myself if I had at least posted it in the same season that I started it in, but seeing how we now appear to be officially in the throws of winter here in Buffalo (still, only a dusting of powder from the last "weather advisory"), I am having a hard time pretending this is in any way a timely, relevant post. So I won't. But I'd still like to share it. :) }

Our Coastal Rt. 1 road trip in October! We so rarely indulge in this meandering, slow but beautiful route from point A to point B, but it being fall, and the traffic being not so terrible as summertime, we embraced it, and I am so glad we did. 

"Are we there yet?"

Foggy and cool on top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine. 

Evan's mom picking tomatoes and other veggies from her garden. 

Old Bucksport Bridge.

This was the first time we'd been back for a Fall Maine visit in several years. The first half of the trip was cool and drizzly - and I loved every minute of it. 

As the passenger I could take in all of the things I may have taken for granted growing up in Maine, but deeply appreciate in a heart-aching kind of way now - things I could not demand that we stop to take pictures of, because we only had a week and not months....

Lush, foggy green hills that were just starting to show hints of orange. 

Countless old, white homes with cedar shingle barns straight out of a tourist postcard. 

Steep, steep hills with covered bridges at the bottom. 

Expansive, rolling, delightfully purposeless fields. 

Maple trees. 

Stone walls aplenty - some neatly stacked, some like heaps of tumbling rock. 

The smell of wet pine, covered in cold drizzle. 

Willow trees.

Chippy white picket fences. 

Windy creeks running along the road and into the woods. 

Small brick elementary schools. 

Gingerbread trim. 

Old, old graveyards with crooked, humble tombstones. 

Public squares fenced in with split rail fences. 

Road signs warning you that an area is "thickly settled." (a favorite)

White steepled congregational churches. 

Old, slanting houses. 

Skinny birches and aspens. 

Victorian farm houses with front porches and deep front yards and serious acreage. 

Alpaca farms, bails of hay and rolling pastures. 

Railroad tracks through the woods - the kind I used to cross country ski with my mom on. 

Tall, skinny, pointy pine trees peeking out of colorful oaks and maples. 

Gorgeous marshland on both sides of the road, cattails everywhere. 

Horses in a field with apple trees.

Gigantic felled trees covered in moss, surrounded by ferns. 

Red leaves against bright green lichen. 

Sumac trees.

Boulder fields with sheep that make you think you are in Scotland. 

Cedar shingled homes with porches with blue ceilings.

Someday, if and when bigger budgets allow, I'd like to take a lazy, unrushed, meandering trip along Route One to check out all of the numerous antique stores, thrift stores, hooked rug studios, craft co-ops, the Swans Island blanket shop in Northport and the Windsor chairmakers in Lincolnville. But the memories and gift of taking in all these sights that I once took for granted is still better than any blanket, rug, chair or trinket that I could bring home.

But I won't lie, I was psyched to have found this bittersweet wreath being sold along side the road to bring home with me, and these few trinkets from Bar Harbor. 

A disclaimer: Lest you be from Maine, and find yourself thinking that I have sugarcoated my observations, or turned a blind eye to all that is less than beautiful - I assure you I did not, and could never. But I will admit to only including those images leaving positive and/or nostalgic impressions. Edited out: dozens of prefab modular homes, tarpaper shacks, aggressive pick up trucks spray painted camouflage ... among other "less pretty" things. I feel compelled to bring it up as I find myself reading - with increasing squeamishness - blog after blog touting Maine's magic and hipness, knowing that there is a lot left out of the picture: generations of poverty, hard, hard living, and plenty of ugliness - just like anywhere else. My roots touching down to some of the harsher realities of Maine living, I struggle with the over-romanticism sometimes. 

Ah, Maine. You're complicated, but that's why I love you.