Moving to Posterous

Hi!

For those of you that read this - which may just be Ashley and Kristy! I wanted to let you know that I'm moving to pinky10.posterous.com.

I hope to see you there!

Sunday Funday Brisket Style! And other food highlights........

What an amazing food weekend I had! Friday night - went to dinner at the Madison in Hoboken. This dish may sound strange for the venue - but their miso glazed cod over vegetable fried rice is amazing. What I love about the Madison, and other restaurants like it, is that I can have amazingly prepared fish and my meat loving husband can have steak. We had a long overdue date with some friends of ours that are expecting a baby in a few months. So variety here was good. The food and company were perfect.

On Saturday my husband and I celebrated our engagement anniversary at Gramercy Tavern - please no eye rolls at the engagement anniversary celebration. Gramercy Tavern is such a special restaurant with service to match. The service is attentive without being overbearing. The wine list is outstanding and the food as you can imagine is always outstanding. We opted for the regular menu - with our food restrictions (allergies and otherwise) this was the safest bet. My absolute favorite part of the meal was the cheese course! Some opt for this for dessert - I chose to make this my pre-dessert course. The whole meal was perfect. Gramercy Tavern is by far in my top 5 of all time favorite restaurants.

Sunday was Mother's Day. My mom is in Milwaukee and Dwayne's mom was with his sister celebrating her completion of her dissertation. So - we were lucky enough to honor a mom that is very important to us. Our friend (and neighbor) Cindy Morgan's mom Bonnie!! Cindy and her husband Chuck Tumulty are dear friends and we've become very close with Cindy's parents too. So to honor the day and on some levels my mom - I cooked up a good old fashioned Jewish homestyle dinner! Chicken soup and brisket, broccoli kugel and roasted potatoes. All very simple - but I think I'm most proud of the brisket. The recipe follows and is a variation on this recipe from Gourmet magazine:

Here's my take on it.

· a 5- to 6-pound first-cut beef brisket

· 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

· 3 large yellow onions, sliced

· 5 – 6 carrots peeled and sliced (large chunky slices)

· 4 or 5 large garlic cloves, or to taste, smashed

· 1 teaspoon paprika,

· 3/4 teaspoon salt

· 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

· 2-3 cups (or more) of vegetable stock or beef stock (I’m not a fan of beef stock)

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Pour vegetable oil in bottom of heavy roasting pan and distribute sliced onions, carrots and smashed garlic cloves along the bottom of the pan. Season vegetables with salt, pepper and paprika.

Put brisket on top of prepared vegetables. Season brisket with salt, pepper and paprika. Add vegetable stock enough so that 1-2 inches of the pan are covered with stock.

Bake brisket covered with lid slightly ajar for 3 ½ hours (or until brisket is tender) Check pan regularly (roughly every 30 minutes – add more stock if necessary and baste brisket with liquid in pan)

Cover meat with foil on cutting board and put all vegetables and gravy in a sauce pan to keep hot/reheat. (keep hot over low heat on stovetop)

Once meat is cooled – slice against the grain.

When ready to serve put on serving tray (duh) and pour some of heated vegetable mixture over the sliced brisket.

I hope you try it! If you do - let me know how it turns out!

Business Trip and Reminder of What's Impt!

Just back from a business trip this afternoon. I spent two nights in a city I've never traveled to before - which after over 15 years of traveling for work - is pretty amazing. The city itself was pretty cool - lots of bbq and fun collaborative clients. I'm grateful for that. I'm not grateful that I've been up since 4:15 this morning! LONG day!

While I was gone I got word that a close friends mother (who had been ill) had taken a turn. When I spoke to her and heard my friends voice just break into tears, I just wanted to reach through the phone and help her. I did what I could do and what she needed really - which was remind her how loved she is, how strong she is and how proud her mother is of her. This friend is one of those friends that is the life of every party, knows how to laugh A LOT, and and of course a little inappropriate - that's a compliment. ;-) People are drawn to her like moths to a flame. All of those things are what draw people into her orbit and if you're lucky she'll let you stay there. I just hope she's feeling the love and support from her friends.

Belated birthday celebration

Almost a month ago I celebrated my birthday - on the calendar any way....since I was recuperating from back surgery at the time my husband and I decided to really celebrate this weekend. And holy celebration it was. I felt so lucky that so many of my friends came to toast me and that they all had a good time. It was so cool to see a friend I met at the office - laughing hysterically with a friend I've known for almost 10 years. I have a weird feeling they were laughing at my pink boa - but that is fine. :) It was the kind of night that I really needed to usher in this next decade and gave me some much needed perspective. It was AWESOME.

Food - my real favorite!

I eluded to the fact that some lingering health problems have affected my weight over the years - well that problem is called Crohn's Disease. I've had Crohn's for 28 years and for the past 7 I've been following (for the most part) a wheat/gluten free diet. I don't want to get to technical here - because I've adapted this now very popular diet to work for me. I'm not able to eat actual bread/pasta etc - but I can tolerate things like spelt and other grains. So what that means for me is that my diet has a LOT of protein and I read a lot of labels.

And it also means that when I go to my favorite Italian restaurant in Hoboken - I can't eat the pasta - which is really the best part. But because this is a local place, old school Italian, family owned and run - I bring in my rice pasta - (the best is from Trader Joe's - and you should trust me here b/c I've spent a lot of money trying lots of crappy wheat/gluten free pastas) - and the great Sharon and Fran make me whatever I want. It's incredible.

The Hills

I should probably be a little embarassed to admit this - but I'm not. I've been watching the shenangins of Lauren, Lo, Kristin and even Heidi and Spencer since this nonsense started and I just can't get enough of it! My shame isn't hidden that's for sure - I'm a fan and really proud of it. So as the clock is ticking down to the launch of what we're told is the FINAL season of The Hills - I'm just so excited to watch. Now because I'm also an avid reader of US Weekly magazine - you know that I've already been 'told' that Kristin apparantley has some sort of drug situation - but I'll need to see it unfold before I really provide what is sure to be my astute evaluation of the situation.

I think I would put that last paragraph in the 'twist' category of the blog. For the 'health' portion - I'd like to say that even though weight isn't an issue now for me - it has been and even though I'm recovering from back surgery 6 weeks ago - I have been trying really hard not to just stuff my face during this time. And I'm grateful that when under extreme stress - I don't eat. I just obsess! So..Now that things are leveling out in the health category - I'm back to my normal eating. Which is why I've joined WeightWatchers online. It's only been a few days and already I'm seeing that I'm paying MUCH closer attention to what I do eat. AND am SOOOO glad that I can go back to the gym and really start exercising again.

So - between The Hills, starting to work out again, watching what I eat OH and celebrating my first wedding anniversary in June AND having a big birthday a few weeks ago AND BON JOVI in one month. There's a lot happening here - I hope it's interesting to you.

To begin........

Ok so far the hardest thing about writing my first blog post was picking the name! I admit I am LATE in joining this party - but I'm fine with that. Thanks to my one Ashley that inspired me to get going. You can find her here and I hope you enjoy reading Ashley as much as I do and that I can be as interesting as she is.

I'm going to finish my profile so you can learn more about me and will write something more scintillating tomorrow. I hope!