Happy New Year!
We're having a luxurious weekend off here at the Mayflower Manse. Yesterday we slept in, had coffee and omelets and watched some political shows, and then went back to bed. Heh. Crawled back out around 2:30pm to get a jump on the day--visited Construction Junction to get a desk (which was sadly gone by the time we arrived, but rebby got some legs for the coffee table she is building) and recycle the cardboard from rebby's job. There was a corner storage unit for $15 bucks we talked about getting, but by the time we went back for it someone else had jumped on it. The $85 saurkraut crock is still there....and still $85. Too rich for my blood. I also saw a box of the PERFECT tiles for the kitchen floor...of course, one box won't get me very far. And tiling the kitchen floor is pretty far down the list of home improvements. But someday.
We hit the Co-op for lemons to start a batch of limoncello (inspired by Chris Fennimore!) and then to the brewery for some conviviality and beer. I think I've mentioned before how much I love it there. I'm not really one to hang out in bars much these days, but I love to stand around the brewery for half an hour or so and chat with the "bartender" and the brewer, and the other folks who are standing around enjoying a little beer too. We ended up with a growler of the Black Strap Stout for a change.
Got home and found a package from Santa Fe---a print of my new favorite Georgia O'Keefe painting! It's called Mountains and Lake, and the colors are so incredibly beautiful. Thanks J and W! It will take the place of honor in the downstairs bathroom once I get a nice frame for it. We also got the curtains for the front room yesterday, so we'll be hanging those today. Today will be all about home improvement.
Anyways, back to the domestic bliss. Rebby shaved the lemons for the limoncello (into the cupboard for a month and a half!) while I got dinner ready. I roasted a chicken in the clay pot with potatoes, onions, carrots and garlic, lemon and rosemary. Yum! That chicken was insanely juicy. Like, come on. I also heated some green beans from the freezer and made a dill aioli for them, and then I made buttermilk biscuits. Oh yeah---2008 is all about the baking. In fact, I have some bread rising right this very second. Turns out my stainless steel table is the PERFECT height for kneading! I kneaded happily for 20 minutes this morning, having only had one cup of coffee! My arms are tired, but man, what a good time. I am definitely going to be baking like the wind this year.
After dinner rebby watched the rest of The Panic In Needle Park (after she fell asleep watching it Friday night) while I digested in the front room reading the co-op newspaper. Turns out there are all sorts of cool things going on at the co-op on tuesday nights...the night I work. Oh well. We put away leftovers and washed dishes and then played a couple rounds of backgammon. Wow, we are seriously hooked on this game. Back when I was a wee thing I had a very pimpy leather bound travel backgammon board with felt and marble checkers. I had completely forgotten how to play until midway through the first bout, and then it all came back. It's very exciting to play with someone who has the same sort of devious criminal mind I do. Heh.
After that, believe it or not, we got in bed and watched the end of the Steelers game. It was really sad and disappointing---so close and yet so far. Sigh. I was hoping to watch some of Saturday night Live but after the game I was ready to pass out. That's the kind of exciting Saturday nights I am into these days.
Today is all about the bread, and the curtains, and putting away laundry, and maybe a little thrifting. Hopefully later we'll go see Sweeney Todd. And definitely start planning for the first soup party!
So, I should say a little about New Year's Day. Or even New Year's Eve. NYE after cooking all day for the storm, we got ready and headed over to the South Side to Ibiza for dinner. The hostess basically laughed at us for trying to get a table without a reservation on new year's eve, but then something amazing happened....our waiter from a couple years ago at Mallorca, whom I've just determined has the incredible name of Seraphim Rodrigues, came running past and said "I'll get them a table." Turns out he is the GM of Ibiza now, and he not only got us a cafe table right next to the open kitchen, but he personally kept checking on us all night long, refilling our bread basket and making sure we were happy. Now, I don't imagine he could possibly remember us, but I still felt so SPECIAL. He's excellent. The place was understandably busy, but we got pretty good service considering. We had excellent sangria, an arugula salad with goat cheese and hazelnuts, delicious fried artichoke hearts with balsamic reduction, chorizo with espinaca, scallops in garlic wine sauce, and seared tuna with wasabi. Oh damn. The bread and hummus was also fantastic, and even though my back was to the kitchen it was fun to turn around once in a while and check out what they were doing. I can't wait to go back on a more relaxed night. After dinner we sped home, had a glass of scotch and a glass of brandy, and promptly passed out. At 10:30pm. Ha!
Happy new year.
New Year's Day I got up early to get the food ready---people were coming over at 2pm. I made Roasted Pork with homemade saurkraut in sweet and sour mustard sauce; vegan hoppin john with collards and cornbread; balsamic roasted carrots; butternut squash with apples; Italian Sausage and Lentils; and Swiss Fondue. Rebby did the mashed potatoes. It was really fun to spend all morning cooking up a storm. Rebby put on the Vibes on Velvet record I got from the Benford Shanleys for Christmas, and then people started showing up. We had a full house, including Jeffy, Lisa and Bill who had been here for Thanksgiving---they brought a new friend named Jack who was an absolute joy and provided Mimosas! Jim and Marissa, Mike C, who brought a beautiful housewarming painting, Whiskey Daisy, Olivia, Leah and Jessie(? I think) Tony and Allona, The Benford Shanleys....it was a great time. Everyone feasted and then some of us retired to the front room for booze and talking and some of us retired to the middle room for coffee and talking and Foreigner and the evening pleasantly degenerated into a Zep fest. Good times.
My battery is about to run out so I better stop here. More later!
We're having a luxurious weekend off here at the Mayflower Manse. Yesterday we slept in, had coffee and omelets and watched some political shows, and then went back to bed. Heh. Crawled back out around 2:30pm to get a jump on the day--visited Construction Junction to get a desk (which was sadly gone by the time we arrived, but rebby got some legs for the coffee table she is building) and recycle the cardboard from rebby's job. There was a corner storage unit for $15 bucks we talked about getting, but by the time we went back for it someone else had jumped on it. The $85 saurkraut crock is still there....and still $85. Too rich for my blood. I also saw a box of the PERFECT tiles for the kitchen floor...of course, one box won't get me very far. And tiling the kitchen floor is pretty far down the list of home improvements. But someday.
We hit the Co-op for lemons to start a batch of limoncello (inspired by Chris Fennimore!) and then to the brewery for some conviviality and beer. I think I've mentioned before how much I love it there. I'm not really one to hang out in bars much these days, but I love to stand around the brewery for half an hour or so and chat with the "bartender" and the brewer, and the other folks who are standing around enjoying a little beer too. We ended up with a growler of the Black Strap Stout for a change.
Got home and found a package from Santa Fe---a print of my new favorite Georgia O'Keefe painting! It's called Mountains and Lake, and the colors are so incredibly beautiful. Thanks J and W! It will take the place of honor in the downstairs bathroom once I get a nice frame for it. We also got the curtains for the front room yesterday, so we'll be hanging those today. Today will be all about home improvement.
Anyways, back to the domestic bliss. Rebby shaved the lemons for the limoncello (into the cupboard for a month and a half!) while I got dinner ready. I roasted a chicken in the clay pot with potatoes, onions, carrots and garlic, lemon and rosemary. Yum! That chicken was insanely juicy. Like, come on. I also heated some green beans from the freezer and made a dill aioli for them, and then I made buttermilk biscuits. Oh yeah---2008 is all about the baking. In fact, I have some bread rising right this very second. Turns out my stainless steel table is the PERFECT height for kneading! I kneaded happily for 20 minutes this morning, having only had one cup of coffee! My arms are tired, but man, what a good time. I am definitely going to be baking like the wind this year.
After dinner rebby watched the rest of The Panic In Needle Park (after she fell asleep watching it Friday night) while I digested in the front room reading the co-op newspaper. Turns out there are all sorts of cool things going on at the co-op on tuesday nights...the night I work. Oh well. We put away leftovers and washed dishes and then played a couple rounds of backgammon. Wow, we are seriously hooked on this game. Back when I was a wee thing I had a very pimpy leather bound travel backgammon board with felt and marble checkers. I had completely forgotten how to play until midway through the first bout, and then it all came back. It's very exciting to play with someone who has the same sort of devious criminal mind I do. Heh.
After that, believe it or not, we got in bed and watched the end of the Steelers game. It was really sad and disappointing---so close and yet so far. Sigh. I was hoping to watch some of Saturday night Live but after the game I was ready to pass out. That's the kind of exciting Saturday nights I am into these days.
Today is all about the bread, and the curtains, and putting away laundry, and maybe a little thrifting. Hopefully later we'll go see Sweeney Todd. And definitely start planning for the first soup party!
So, I should say a little about New Year's Day. Or even New Year's Eve. NYE after cooking all day for the storm, we got ready and headed over to the South Side to Ibiza for dinner. The hostess basically laughed at us for trying to get a table without a reservation on new year's eve, but then something amazing happened....our waiter from a couple years ago at Mallorca, whom I've just determined has the incredible name of Seraphim Rodrigues, came running past and said "I'll get them a table." Turns out he is the GM of Ibiza now, and he not only got us a cafe table right next to the open kitchen, but he personally kept checking on us all night long, refilling our bread basket and making sure we were happy. Now, I don't imagine he could possibly remember us, but I still felt so SPECIAL. He's excellent. The place was understandably busy, but we got pretty good service considering. We had excellent sangria, an arugula salad with goat cheese and hazelnuts, delicious fried artichoke hearts with balsamic reduction, chorizo with espinaca, scallops in garlic wine sauce, and seared tuna with wasabi. Oh damn. The bread and hummus was also fantastic, and even though my back was to the kitchen it was fun to turn around once in a while and check out what they were doing. I can't wait to go back on a more relaxed night. After dinner we sped home, had a glass of scotch and a glass of brandy, and promptly passed out. At 10:30pm. Ha!
Happy new year.
New Year's Day I got up early to get the food ready---people were coming over at 2pm. I made Roasted Pork with homemade saurkraut in sweet and sour mustard sauce; vegan hoppin john with collards and cornbread; balsamic roasted carrots; butternut squash with apples; Italian Sausage and Lentils; and Swiss Fondue. Rebby did the mashed potatoes. It was really fun to spend all morning cooking up a storm. Rebby put on the Vibes on Velvet record I got from the Benford Shanleys for Christmas, and then people started showing up. We had a full house, including Jeffy, Lisa and Bill who had been here for Thanksgiving---they brought a new friend named Jack who was an absolute joy and provided Mimosas! Jim and Marissa, Mike C, who brought a beautiful housewarming painting, Whiskey Daisy, Olivia, Leah and Jessie(? I think) Tony and Allona, The Benford Shanleys....it was a great time. Everyone feasted and then some of us retired to the front room for booze and talking and some of us retired to the middle room for coffee and talking and Foreigner and the evening pleasantly degenerated into a Zep fest. Good times.
My battery is about to run out so I better stop here. More later!
posted by sheryl at 10:03 AM
1 Comments:
Did you see Sweeny Todd yet? I saw it new year's day(!!) Or did I already mention that?
XO
WD
Post a Comment
<< Home