P.D. O'Hurley's, Hummus, Crooked Tree, Landmarc

We were busy this weekend. we got out with the boys all three days of Labor Day weekend. On Saturday we tried to take a tugboat ride on he Hudson River, but even stand-by tickets were hard to come by. We ended up settling for lunch at P.D. O'Hurley's. I had some sort of mozzarella and pesto sandwich which was mediocre. Rex refused to eat the hot dog we ordered for him and I guess J's burger was OK. The funny part was when they delivered my lunch as mozzarella sticks and I had to explain that I had ordered the sandwich. Clearly attention to detail is not their strong suit.

On Sunday we went to the East Village. We had to forage for a lunch spot. J had looked in Zagat, but we forgot to bring it. On one street there was a bar/restaurant with loud music, which was not good for my sleeping Dash. The hummus restaurant was my first pick. Unfortunately the wait was going to be too long for my antsy toddler. Lunching with kiddos is definitely not the same as lunching as adults. Then we fell upon a place called the Crooked Tree. There were people at the outdoors and inside tables - good sign. We sat down and had a pretty nice lunch. It definitely qualified as a hole in the wall, but a good one.

Monday we headed to the carousel in Central Park. Rex had a good time on the carousel and then we walked to the Columbus Circle Shops and had lunch at Landmarc. There were strollers pared along the whole wall outside. We got inside and there were many tables with kids. The hostess brought crayons for Rex. The decor was contemporary. The service and menu were upscale. J and I enjoyed a half-bottle of Caymus Conundrum while our toddler drew on the paper tablecloth and our infant napped in my arms - LOVED IT! It didn't hurt that my caesar salad with salmon was very tasty!

Heirloom Tomato Terrine and NY Strip Steak

YUM! This was my meal last Wednesday when J and I treated ourselves to an acclaimed Manhattan eatery to celebrate our 9th anniversary. Granted the celebration came 1 week early, but the timing allowed us to take advantage of my mom's "free" babysitting. It was monetarily free, but emotionally expensive - nothing is EVER free. All that aside, it was nice to come home and not have to fork over $80+ for a sitter plus pay for her to take a car home. The car is pretty cheap and I would be horrified if I didn't get her the car and something happened to her - definitely a worthwhile added expense.

Back to dinner...I met J at the bar of the restaurant. It has recently relocated so everything was super spiffy. We each had a drink, chatted and took in the crowd. Then we went to our table in the dining room. As we made our menu choices we each had a Hendrick's Cucumber Gimlet - I couldn't go through dinner without a cuke! We are so much more than foodies - I need to come up with another word, like drinkies? J also picked out a bottle of Pinot Noir with the help of the sommelier. It is funny that when we were younger we never wanted help from the sommelier, now we readily accept it. Is it because we were too uncomfortable in our early years, too lazy now, too embarrassed by our young palates years ago or so confident in our "mature" palates today?

Our first courses came and mine was delicious - light, flavorful and beautiful. My strip steak was amazing - super tender and rich. I followed it up with a dark chocolate torte and a glass of 20 year tawny - how I missed my ports when pregnant. I used to always get scotch after a meal, but my mid-thirties have really rung in the era of the port.

We came home, let my mom off duty and crashed. It was a great night. In addition to the meal, we chatted about our kids and our future - 2 of my favorite topics!

Tomorrow is our actual 9 year anniversary. We will celebrate at home with a meal/snack more reminiscent of our early dating years - shrimp cocktail, cheese, crackers, salami, and some antipasti items. I am sure the conversation will be grand and the wine from the wine fridge will do the trick.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

My mom made this cake for us today to help commemorate our upcoming year anniversary. It was a very tasty cake, especially considering I eat cucumbers for dinner during the week. This week should be much different. J and I are going out to a great dinner on Wednesday so my diet will be shot this week. I am looking forward to the awesome meal bit I do like the hungry feeling - it makes me feel thinner.

Grass-Fed Beef Burgers

It seems we have have burgers on the grill every weekend. We typically order 4lbs of grass-fed beef in hamburg form from our CSA co-op each month along with some steaks and other meats. Tonight my mom joined us for burgers. I may be in the minority, but I prepare my burger with mustard, ketchup, lettuce, tomato and onion and then eat it. I rarely look at the beef. I think having a 3 month old that just went to sleep for the night and who could wake up at any moment makes me eat fast. I still enjoy the food, but can't take the time to pleasure in it. I realized when I cleaned the plates that my mom had left small pieces of slightly reddish beef on her plate. Maybe I don't care if my burger is on the rare side - actually I know I don't care if it is on the rare side. I just don't get how/why she needs to inspect every bite. And you may be thinking my mom is a size 2, but no she's a size 14 - at least.

I often wonder why while I love and salivate over good food, I am not all that picky about what I eat. I will try just about anything and any disappointment I have usually has more to do with lack of flavor or spice than with texture or degree of "doneness". I find that most of family is stuck in a food rut. I am very grateful that I am not in that same rut. I really hope my kids avoid the rut as well.

Tomorrow night...another helping of Chinese Cabbage Salad.

Chinese Cabbage Salad

I picked up some Chinese Cabbage as a part of our CSA share last week. As I really don't eat dinner during the week, we need to eat our CSA share over the weekend. I did a quick google for chinese cabbage recipes and found a recipe on Cook's for a pretty simple salad - the cabbage and scallion, a dressing and ramen noodles and almonds that have been browned with butter as a crunchy topping. The salad was delicious and this was the first time I ever ate ramen noodles. They were pretty good as a crunchy salad topping, not sure I want them in my soup. We also had bone-in ribeye steaks that J cooked on the grill and a simple rice and bean side dish. The whole meal was awesome, including the Freemark Abbey Zinfandel we opened.

We spent most of the meal talking about our vacation in November, or should I say salivating over our vacation in November. We will spend the week in a beach house on Jost van Dyke in the Caribbean. I am so glad I turned J into a beach bum for vacations! He will enjoy his cubans and I will enjoy the sun. J's cousin is coming along to help with kidcare which really excites me about this vacation. Anyway, our meal fare will be nothing close to last night's dinner, but the sun and sand will make that OK.

Did I mention I had 3 helpings of the salad?

Cucumbers and Salt

Lately we have been getting 3-4 cukes per week from our CSA. Seeing as I am on a diet, I eat a cuke for dinner - dipping it in kosher salt. I also have a few glasses of wine to kill the "no eating" pain. Anyway, that is my dinner Monday-Thursday. I am living, eating and drinking larger on the weekends.

Beef and Bok Choy Hot Pot

I found this recipe and J cooked it last Saturday night while I tended to the boys. It was delicious! Now that we have our CSA pickups every Tuesday we need to be creative with our veggies and this recipe was definitely a keeper. Speaking of Saturday night, the weekend was nice. We are starting to get into a regular pattern with the kids, but I think we need to respect Rex's nap a bit more even if that keeps us in on gorgeous weekend afternoons. I guess we should utilize the deck a bit more. Rex is just such a better companion when he isn't tired and cranky. Dash is pretty much awesome all of the time at this point - sometimes I wonder how I have such a chill baby.

On Sunday we attended church - it was a bad start to the day. The church was not our speed. We followed that experience up with lunch at Starbucks and then attended an open house for an apartment in Harlem. If we didn't have kids I would probably drool over the apartment, but with 2 boys it is too small. The agent wants to interest us in a 2 bed, 1 bath apartment that is 1600 sf - very sizable by Manhattan standards. I really want 2 baths, but this apartment has 2 beds, living room with a dining area, open kitchen, library and family room with plenty of built-ins. Did I mention it is a fifth floor walk-up? Family of 4, strollers and 5 floors to haul our hit up - NO!

Tuscan Bean with Wild Rice Soup (from a can)

This is what I am eating as I write my first blog post since our newest son was born 6 weeks and 5 days ago. His name is Dashiell Brooks and we call him Dash. He is wonderful, a very good baby and very cute! I am looking forward to the end of the newborn days though - is he hungry, tired, gassy? And why does everyone assume that a crying baby is a hungry baby? That assumption, like just about all other assumptions, simply isn't true. Anyway, life with 2 little ones is an assload of work. I swear the laundry never ends.

J and I got out for a night last Friday and boy was Saturday U.G.L.Y. I overdid it a bit. Hopefully I can keep that from happening again any time soon. We went to the Spring Benefit at the school Rex will attend in the Fall. The silent auction was fun and we ended up winning a framed print, 4 nice cookbooks and a photography session that we will use in the Fall for family photos.

Rex is a great big brother most of the time. He is getting really big and active. I am going to enroll him in soccer classes for the Summer. He definitely as a lot of energy to expend.

Porterhouse Steak for Two

J and I recently enjoyed our last date night before our second son, named "Niner" for the time-being, arrives and probably for a long while afterward. We met at The Palm on the Upper West Side and planned to eat at the bar. When we lived in Boston J and I were regulars at the Boston Palm. We grew to really enjoy Jules and Phil, the bartenders. It was very nice to often have 1 or 2 glasses of wine on the house. We never thought the food was fantastic, but it was good enough. I guess we mostly enjoyed the ambiance. We always had a great night out when we went there.

We have lived in NYC for 3 years now and I think we have been to The Palm in Midtown West 3 times. It doesn't have the same feel as the one in Boston and generally we have always left slightly disappointed, yet we keep wanting to give it another try in the hopes that we can have a Palm night reminiscent of the ones we enjoyed in Boston.

I arrived first and grabbed a seat while I waited over an hour for J to meet me. His fantasy baseball draft was taking longer than he anticipated so he was quite late. I started my evening with a club soda and lime. As I sat and waited I started having very consistent Braxton-Hicks contractions. After waiting an hour, I decided to order a glass of wine and half of a wedge salad. The salad goes by another name at The Palm, but I can't think of it now. The blue cheese dressing on it is so tasty. The wine put my contractions at ease and as I was nearing the end of my salad, J arrived. He ordered his martini, how I can't wait to have my first post-partum martini. Then we decided to share a 28 oz porterhouse steak and a couple of sides: creamed spinach and half and half - yum. We had never had that steak at The Palm before and it was absolutely fantastic. Our night turned out to be a success. We both had a great time and the coup de grace was that we also caught a cab very easily to get home!

Stuffed Shells

We visited my mother last weekend. She invited my youngest uncle, his wife and kids to dinner along with my grandmother and sister. She served stuffed shells, tossed salad, sausage and bread for dinner. My mother was never much of a cook when I was growing up. Her dinner menu consisted of a constant rotation of spaghetti with meat sauce, Chinese pudding (don't ask), American chop suey (again, don't ask), tuna noodle casserole, hot dogs and beans, macaroni "sudan" (this is in the don't ask category as well), grilled cheese and soup, green bean stew, pancakes, tuna and peas on toast, baked chicken coated in Seven Seas Italian dressing, and last and least - hamburg gravy. Therefore, by these standards, stuffed shells was rather upscale. It was a tasty dinner, my 2 year old son ate 2 entire shells. It was also a good visit.

Much of the talk for the weekend revolved around the yard sale my mother is planning for the summer. She has many things to get rid of, but for some reason she thinks these items are worth something. She wants to price her 30 year old tent that "sleeps 6" for $50. I think $15 would be a better price point. She's never going to use it again and if she doesn't sell it she'll throw it away so why not just get $15? I really hope her ego isn't destroyed the day of the yard sale.

The weekend was also good because I survived my mother without alcohol. I am less than a month from my due date and I really didn't know if I would have the stamina for her. Turns out I did alright.

Lindt Truffles

These are my most recent guilty pleasure. Pregnancy does not leave many choices for guilty pleasures so while the truffles are pretty tame they are pretty much my only option. I am partial to the white chocolate ones. I usually buy the variety bag and I wonder why there are fewer white chocolate truffles than milk or dark chocolate truffles. Maybe it just seems that way?

Quail Eggs

About a week or so ago we visited friends in Brooklyn. They only live about 11 miles away or a 30 minutes car ride or a 60 minute subway ride away and it amazes me that we only manage to see each other once per year. Why does adult life make keeping in touch with friends so challenging? Anyway, we brought our 2 year old with us and he was immediately intrigued by our friend's tiny little dog. He is more accustomed to our 60 pound clumber spaniel who moves at a sloth-like pace due to her advanced age. This sprite little dog seemed like a doll to Rex and he kept trying to figure out how to pick the toy dog up. As Rex contemplated his moves with the dog, we adults chatted and snacked.

Our friends had prepared a very nice snack for us - great cheeses, tasty artichoke dip, cerignola olives and quail eggs. Our friends who do not have a young child and who do go out to dinner regularly informed us that quail eggs are very popular at trendy restaurants. My husband and I had heard about new types of eggs such as quail and ostrich eggs that are being sold at Whole Foods and other specialty markets, but between raising a toddler and being pregnant our restaurant hopping days have become a thing of the past (hopefully to be resurrected in the coming years). So besides feeling woefully out of touch, non-trendy, and parental, we were genuinely happy to try the quail eggs they prepared for us. Rex and I enjoyed the eggs quite a bit. My husband wasn't as impressed.

Toward the end of the evening, Rex once again occupied himself with the dog while we finished up chatting with our friends. My husband and I are tentatively planning a holiday party for the end of the year and if we can pull that off we may see these friends twice in the same year!

Almost Irish Stew

I made this dish in the slow-cooker a week ago when my mom and sister visited. Everyone enjoyed it which was good. Being together with my mom and sister was something of an experience this time around. I really don't know where to begin, but my mother tried to convince me that monkeys don't have tails and my sister thinks that her employer would not have had the right to tell her she couldn't take time off to go to Obama's inauguration. I think they both must be out of their minds, at least a little. It seems the longer I am away from them, the less I understand them. I just can't imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't gone to college and made a life for myself. Am I destined to be irritated by my family? Should I readjust my expectations and acknowledge that they don't understand my views just as I don't understand theirs?

Oh and my sister slurps - I hate slurping.

Swedish Meatballs with Cabbage and Apple Salad

This was our dinner last night. The salad was great and the meatballs were good, especially if you could tolerate all of the butter in the sauce. Thankfully I made a dessert that wasn't particularly heavy so we didn't feel too gross by the end of the night. I have to admit that even though the butter was heavy I am looking forward to the leftovers. I guess I am a glutton for punishment. I do enjoy our weekend meals that can turn into cooking extravaganzas. I don't enjoy the mess that the cooking creates, but I guess that's the price to pay. There's always a price.

Hungarian Beef Borscht Leftovers

J made borscht last weekend. It was the first time either of us had had such a dish. It was pretty tasty, but the recipe stated that you should make it 24 hours in advance and then reheat it. I had some leftover borscht for lunch the following day and it definitely was more flavorful. It seems that just about all meals are more enjoyable the second time around which boasts the question, why? Is it that the work of creating the dish has retreated farther into our memories so we can relax and enjoy the dish more? Is it that we already know what to expect from the dish and that allows us to be most pleasantly surprised if the dish seems more delicious? Does the refrigerator have some magical power? Is there some augmentive force in my Ziploc containers?

Should we make all meals one day in advance?

Parmesan and Herb Crusted Beef Tenderloin, Potato and Baby Spinach Gratin, Brussels Sprouts and Goat Cheese Salad

This was our dinner on New Year's Day. Since J and I have been together I have always taken the first foods of the New Year seriously. I figure we can eat terribly anytime so we should eat well on New Year's Day. I guess it helps that we enjoy cooking and cooking together. The meal was excellent and we had enough beef for two more meals.

In addition to good food New Year's Day also brings some pressure to identify resolutions. I have quite a few this year. Many of them are small or things I can't do anything about immediately. Here are my resolutions for 2009:

~ make at least 1 blog post per week. I was going to aim for once per day, but I know that won't happen once the baby gets here so I am trying to be realistic about my goals.

~ stay on top of household clutter. I need to really get moving on this one. Thankfully the Christmas decorations are down and put away so I should be able to get things organized soon.

~ pay bills in the office every Monday. I want to start using that room more often and be more organized about bill paying.

~ Be more mindful about spending!

~ lose this baby weight quickly after Niner gets here. I want to get back into leather pants shape by the Fall and be able to wear a bikini if we go on vacation in December. Speaking of being pregnant here is what I look like at 25 weeks: