Day 3- Part 2

Friday was was by far the best day we've had here yet! After we left Central Park, we took the subway back downtown and went home to the Cupbard.

A couple weeks ago we bought tickets to go one of the Summer Concert Series at Governors Island, which is a tiny 2 mile island right off the south end of Manhattan. The concert was Paul Van Dyk, who is the number one Electronic Dance Music DJ in the WORLD!
For my readers who don't keep up on electronic music, you all would best think of this as a techno concert. FYI, the term "techno" stopped being used about a decade ago, and now it is described in different genres. Paul Van Dyk plays Trance music. Other DJs play different styles, such as House, Drum Base (Tribal), Progressive, to name a few. Then there are all different types within each genre; House can be Deep House, Acid House, Electro House, etc, which is how those of us who are into electronic music decide which genre and DJ we like. Paul Van Dyk (commonly called just PVD) plays kind of a combo of Trance and Progressive House.
There is your Electronic Music lesson for the day!
So anyway, we took the ferry over to the concert, and it was amazing! Here are some pictures:
In line for the ferry


On the ferry to Governors Island






View from the Island looking back to Manhattan- so beautiful!






We had VIP tickets so we were able to stand in an area elevated away from the main crowd (thank goodness! I'm getting to old to be in that mess!) so we were very close and had a great view!

PVD played a 6 hour set, but we only stayed for about 4 1/2 hours. I guess I'm getting old because I started to get tired after standing and dancing for that long, and we were both hungry. After the concert we went to a late 12:30 am dinner at a nice upscale Mexican restaurant, which is another great thing about NYC! At home the only options to eat at that time of night is fast food-gross!
We shared:
-Beer Braised beef tongue taco (yes, I said tongue!)
-Fried Cod taco
-Short Rib Burger
And it was all delicious! After a great night we went to bed.
I'll end this post with a PVD video (I took 19 videos- no wonder my phone died!)
Hope you enjoy!

Day #3- Part 1

I need to retract my earlier comment from my Day 1 post. I said that this blog vacation would not be as detailed as last summers, but that seems to not be exactly true. Since Day 1, I have discovered this awesome iPhone app called BlogPress which lets me blog on the go. This drastically decreases the blogging time it took last year, so it is much easier to blog as we do things. Thus, forget about short blogs- this will more than likely be a play by play all day long. Some of you may be groaning now- this is your chance to pull out of this reader commitment before you are too sucked in :)
Having said that, I'll break Day 3 into 2 segments, as I am documenting more, and this app doesn't seem to be able to handle very lengthy posts.
Part 1:
Friday began with a leisurely stroll a few blocks to get some breakfast.





We chose to go to Morandi, which is an Italian Cafe. (For any of you who read my NYC blog from last summer, this is the place we came to with Amy and Ernest and saw the celebrity stars from "Promises, Promises", Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes.)
We began the meal with coffee and lattes:


Chocolate brioche:






Look at that chocolate smear inside! Yeah buddy!
I had poached eggs with country bread and grilled tomatoes:



Scott had poached eggs over a bed of sunchokes, fava beans, and peas:



Our meals were very good, the only disappointment I had was that there was only one grilled tomato in my dish, where as the menu said "tomatoes", plural. The one I had was unbelievably delish, so one more would have been even better! Yes, I am a tomato freak- the more the better! Yum o!
After breakfast we walked over to the High Line, the once abandoned railway track that has now been converted to an elevated park spanning 18 or so city blocks. Section 2 has now been completed, so we walked around and took pictures. Here are some High Line shots:

































This is Section 3 which has not been completed yet. It shows what a huge change this park is from the previous dilapidated condition.
At the base of the High Line is a picnic area in a parking lot where food trucks and beers on tap serve thirsty and hungry High Line walkers:










Even though we just at breakfast a couple hours ago, we had to get something from the Tiam Food Truck, since Food Trucks are all the rage right now. We split a Falafel pita with Harissa (spicy) sauce. In the immortal words of Cousin Eddie, "Clark, that is goo-ood!"



Action shots:





Scott summarized the situation with this comment: "that is exactly why NYC is so awesome; you can sit in a random parking lot and have the best damn falafel of your life."

Amen!

Afterwards, we walked 30 blocks uptown to visit one of our favorite NYC spots, Central Park. Coincidentally, 5 years ago today Scott proposed to me in this very park! It seemed only fitting to come back to where it all began!
"The Question" was asked right over there in one of those row boats...



5 years since I said "Yes!" :)















As my phone battery is almost dead (I wonder why...lol) I will say goodbye to Part 1. Day 3 Part 2 to be continued....

Day 2

Thursday came and went so fast! Here are the things we did today:
-had a leisurely morning and didn't leave the Cupboard until 11 am.
-went to Kate Spade as I had received an email that both the stores and online were having a 25% off sale!



I needed this bag like I need a hole in my head! But it was marked down 30% off, plus an additional 25% off, so really it was too good a price to let go!
-walked around town






-ad for the next and last Harry Potter movie- can't wait to see it!
-went to Eataly, Mario Batali's newest venue. It's a huge food hall/gourmet dining/boutique grocery store all in one. You can sample cheeses, charcuteries, pastas, pizzas, and any type of meat. You can also have lunch, dinner, and drinks. We had lunch, which consisted of a fabulous cheese plate of 5 Italian cheeses.
-walked around through Eataly, and noticed a display case of a variety of caviar. Almost decided on this one, but decided it was too pricey:


Somehow paying almost $700 for a few ounces of caviar didn't seem like a very good deal.. Lol!
-After lunch, we went upstairs to the Biergairtin (Beer Garden) which was located on the rooftop. It was a beautiful atmosphere, and we had great views of both the Empire State Building and the Flat Iron Building





See the Empire State building up to the right? I should have focused the shot more on that instead of the wine barrels at the bar :)
-went back to the Cupboard to change clothes and plan our night
-went to Turks and Frogs, which was a wine bar, and each had of course, a glass of wine
-went to dinner at Bills Burger Bar and each had a delicious cheeseburger! Mmmm! Another satisfying day in the Big Apple!

NYC- 2011!

I'm baaa-ck!
After a long blogging hiatus, I am back to blog about our current vacation, where else but NYC of course!
This trip will not be as detailed as the 2010 NYC trip, but I do want to keep an account of what we're doing, and most importantly, what we're eating! :)

We arrived last night to our apartment we've rented for the next 10 days. We are again in Greenwich Village, which is in our opinion, the best location in NYC to stay and hang out in.





This apartment, while in a fabulous location, is not nearly as fabulous as our wonderful apartment last summer. It's not horrible, but I will say that the lady we are renting it from is quite skilled at photography and made the apartment seem much more spacious than it actually is. Our 400 sq ft apartment last summer looks like a sprawling resort compared to our accommodations this year.The room itself is fine, complete with a bed, tiny kitchen, and 2 airy windows. However, the bathroom is the smallest bathroom I have ever been in (except airplane bathrooms). I can literally stand in the middle of the bathroom floor (if you call 4 inches between the toilet and sink a "floor") and touch all four walls with my arms outreached. I have a newfound appreciation for Harry Potter's "cupboard under the stairs" in which he lived at his Aunt and Uncle's home. We are living in a "Cupboard in the Village" but at least we are in NYC so I shouldn't complain too much.

We left the Cupboard last night and went to a phenomenal restaurant down the street called "Buvette". It was a quaint little French restaurant, where we enjoyed a couple glasses of wine and the best "boeuf bourguignon" we've ever tasted. The deliciousness of the meal
helped me come to terms about staying in the tiny apartment, and we returned to the Cupboard full and happy.

Cooking at Home

Well, we've officially been home from NYC for a month and a half. In the meantime, we went to Napa Valley, but I'll blog about that later. For now, I want to blog about the fabulous dinner we cooked at home tonight.

I'm starting to feel the slightest twinge of a sore throat/cough coming on, so I was craving some good ol comfort food for dinner tonight. I couldn't find a recipe of exactly what I wanted, so I just decided to make something up. I'll call this dish "Roasted turkey breast on fettuccine with a sage and parmasean cream sauce".

I decided it had been too long since I'd made homemade pasta, so I wanted to get out my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer with pasta attachments. I followed the recipe that came with the attachment for basic egg noodle pasta. After making the dough and letting it rest, I began the noodle making process.

First you stretch the dough slightly and then put it through the pasta sheet roller.

After the dough has ran through, then you fold it over and run it through again. You do this a few times until the dough is thin and long.

Then you change the attachment from pasta roller to pasta cutter. I used the fettuccine cutter as these are my favorite type of noodles.

Once the noodles are cut, I cut them in half as they are really long and difficult to work with. The dough was a little sticky in some batches, so I had to pull the cut noodles apart and drop them in boiling water one at a time:

After cooking for just 2 minutes, I took the noodles out and let them drain. Since the dough stretches so long, cutting and boiling the noodles takes several batches. After 6 batches of rolling, cutting, boiling, and draining the noodles, I was finally finished.

In between the pasta making/rolling/cutting, I also made a creamy white wine sauce to accompany the noodles. I used butter, garlic, white wine, and chicken broth to make the body of the sauce, and I thickened it with a roux (flour and butter). I added peas, fresh sage, paprika, parmesan, and salt and pepper to taste, and then let the sauce thicken while I tended to the noodles.

My sweet little helper Scott helped me with the turkey breast. The noodles and sauce were too much work to have time to get the turkey in the oven, so he helped make that. He coated the turkey breast with paprika, garlic powder, oregano, and poultry seasoning, and baked in a 400 degree oven for 50 minutes. It came out looking perfect!

When the turkey was finished, so were the noodles and sauce.

Here is the finished product:

The turkey turned out moist and delicious (mainly because Scott made it- I have a tendency for drying out poultry in the oven). The noodles were little piles of chewy heaven. Mmmm! So dang good. The sauce was light yet creamy.... Yum O! This was a fabulous way to spend a Friday night. The best part of all, my sweet little helper cleaned up all the dishes!

Good night!