laika

i'm kind of obsessed with soviet things. now that's not to say that i think soviet things are "awesome" or that i'm a communist (though my husband thinks so...). i understand truly what people in eastern european countries went through during communism--having family that experienced this first-hand, but also having lived in hungary myself and getting to know what life was like there from friends. interestingly, things were still pretty similar even when i lived there in 2000.

that being said, you can't help but be in awe over some of the things that the soviets accomplished, and just the extreme timetables and task-mastering that occurred. personally, i am particularly interested in the space race! even on the web today was this story about about how soyuz is still going strong and will soon be the only way to get to the international space station. WOW!

in comes laika. i am in love with laika and have been for a long time. her story makes me so sad. if my dog had been white and brown, i would have named her laika. so when i went to the somerville public library the other day and saw a comic book about laika, i had to check it out.

what a great story! part fact, part fiction--so nicely illustrated and even though i know the story of laika and know what happens, i almost cried! i recommend it if you like graphic novels at all. it was such a quick read and so worth it. he was really able to infuse the story with humanity. and his bibliography at the back of the book was quite extensive. i think i'll check out some of those books as well (because of my obsession, of course!). i enjoyed it enough, too, to check out some more of nick abadzis's work--i'll keep you posted if i find something else of his to read at the library.

so here's my tribute to laika--to spread her story to those i know. especially if you are an animal lover, it will break your heart (but you should still read the book!). so laika, rest in peace among the stars...

3 weeks with violet

well, we've been with violet for 3 weeks now, and it's been a crazy 3 weeks. i never really, truly realized how much my life would have to change for a puppy.

• i now get up between 2 and 4am every day to take her out for a leak.
• she gets walks at 6:15am, 12:30pm, 5pm and 9pm every day
• she gets fed at 6am, noon and 6pm--these times are not always convenient for me...
• her crate is very ritualized so that she can learn to become comfortable with it and might go into it someday on her own
• we have to watch her like a hawk to prevent messes and potty training is mixed--some days are good, some not

anyway, we've also had some fights: violet and me, not lee and me. she somehow told herself that lee was the alpha and that she didn't have to listen to me. i was to love, but not to respect. we've been working on that, and she's seeing me as more of an authority these days.

all in all, i'm beginning to enjoy it. no--i did not always enjoy her company at first. but we're getting there! and here's 3 weeks of photos to prove it :)

she learned to fetch by the end of day 1. unfortunately, she chewed the hell out of this little ducky (and yes, it was a teething toy of sorts) and so it was thrown out at the end of week 1. she has also completely chewed through 2 nylabones.


wrestling with lee on the floor. she won!


she has claimed our kitchen mat as her own bed... i then bought her a bed and she has been way to excited by it to actually use it--she scratches it, chews it, throws it around, but she does not lay on it. so for now, the kitchen mat is hers. we'll try the bed again in a few weeks...


and this shows what she'll look like if she gets german shepherd ears...


look at those jowls! i think her face looks like a muppet's :)


the first time she voluntarily got into her crate was when we gave her a puppy kong filled with peanut butter. she drooled and immediately ran to her crate to keep it from us. that has not happened again, but tonight she got into her crate on her own when she smelled that our dinner was done! we always put her in the crate during dinner and it worked! don't know if she'll do it again, but yay for conditioning!


when we got her, she was 11 lbs. in three weeks, she has gained 6 lbs. we think she'll be bigger than we originally thought. who knows what went on with her at the rescue--there were a lot of dogs there, so maybe she didn't get enough food or something. but look how much she's grown!

successful food freak dinner club :)

i have no excuse, but i forgot to take pictures. and that's a shame, because we had delicious food! so just a textual teaser today:

glutino crackers, almond thins and a variety of cheeses opened the meal
mulled and spiked cider

for the main course: lobster newburg
served with: pumpkin dumplings over sauteed bok choy and oven roasted asparagus

dessert: pear and cranberry crumble with pumpkin ice cream

all homemade, and all delicious! thanks to beth for sending me a link to a new york times blog with gluten free/vegetarian thanksgiving recipes. that's where the pumpkin dumplings came from--though they were served over sauteed radicchio. i couldn't find radicchio or even endive, so went for baby bok choy and it seemed to do the trick. mmm, mmm... they were a hit, as was everything else. we all licked our plates clean and had NOTHING left except lee's pumpkin ice cream. because, well, homemade ice cream makes a lot, and i don't like it and the other folks just weren't the champs they were supposed to be...

anyway, looking forward to many more meals with these folks :)

some food and holiday misanthropy

lee and i used to be in this fantastic vegetarian dinner club. we met with beth, trinity, paul, sylvie and miriam about once a month. whoever was hosting cooked an entire vegetarian meal--sometimes themed for an upcoming holiday, sometimes a celebration of an event in one of our lives, sometimes just simple food. one meal i'll always remember is when beth had just moved into a new apartment we had veggie burgers and root beer floats. these were great times!

so i've tried to recreate something of this with other friends. my friend, ashley, is allergic to wheat. i thought: maybe we can do a little dinner club and some of my more adventurous friends won't mind cooking restrictions? we'll even make it a pot luck to lessen the burden of cooking gluten free. well, i've pulled it together, but not without difficulty. i have a great pal at work who loves a cooking challenge and we've gotten together for dinners before with our husbands/boyfriends. but other friends have turned the invitation down :( i had hoped people would just like to have a meal with friends once a month! it has made me little sad.

katie and ashley both asked for a list of what i could not eat. here's what i sent them--i've never enumerated it in this way before! it astounded even me a bit:

in the gluten category:
wheat
semolina
barley (this includes malt flavoring or syrup)
rye
spelt
durum
triticale (whatever this is...)
kamut
oats--unless they specifically say GLUTEN FREE
texturized vegetable, soy or any kind of "fake" protein
soy sauce or other asian sauces unless it specifically says GLUTEN/WHEAT FREE
couscous
"normal" pasta and breads
tabbouleh
wheat berries
beer
whiskey, scotch, cognac (all other liquor is okay)
anything with caramel coloring
check packaged broths--many are NOT GLUTEN FREE

in the non-gluten category, i have other problems:
walnuts and pecans--this is where i should also say that nuts make me panic so i stick to cashews, almonds, pinenuts, and peanuts...
quinoa--i am apparently allergic to this magical gluten free food :(
soy and other bean flours--no problems with other soy products or beans, just if something (usually a baked good) is made with soy or other bean flour

we were also invited over to share thanksgiving dinner with friends of ours. they didn't think that i couldn't eat ANYTHING at a traditional thanksgiving table. of course i don't eat turkey, but now--no stuffing, biscuits, cornbread, gravy, not even green bean casserole. just the mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. they're super easy to work with, but i basically will be cooking an entire thanksgiving dinner and then have to cart it all the way out to the suburbs to reheat. it made me sad to think it's just easier to eat by ourselves at home!

so i'm sorry for the rant. tomorrow night is the first gathering with the new dinner club, that we have affectionately dubbed "food freak dinner club." we are a cozy group of 5, and i just hope it works out. i'll post some pictures and some recipes i hope. i'm just wishing for some quality dinner time with some great friends again and i really hope this works!

welcome home, violet

lee and i just got a new puppy. her name is violet. most of you have seen her pictures on facebook, but here's she is again:

violet is doing pretty well on her crate training. although i've got to say that people keep telling us that she'll eventually love her crate and see it as her special place. i feel like they're lying. she goes into it, but only if we make her. and she lays down and goes to sleep, but only after a resigned sigh. if she actually uses this on her own ever, i'll be surprised.

housebreaking is a different challenge. she's just not speaking to us. we know when she has to go do a number 2 because she gets fidgety and barks or groans. but peeing is a different story. we'll be playing or something, and she just drops the toy and pees. we've tried to get her to ring a bell when she needs to go outside but it's not working yet. so this will take some patience.

walking on a leash is going fantastically though! she's great at this and loves to walk--which is good because she gets about 3 or 4 walks per day. she has so much energy and loves to walk, so we do this and she's sleeping like a baby at night. she gets up between 2 and 3am for a leak, but otherwise sleeps well without even a whine in the crate. also, once she gets settled down in the house (after walks or playing) she also goes right to sleep in one of our laps. this is helping us keep our sanity. because otherwise she barks a lot. and i hate barking. she barks so loudly that lee and i had to buy earplugs. we're hoping this is just separation anxiety and will go away. if not, we'll be remedying the situation with anti-barking methods...

anyway, violet is a puppy and also chews a lot. i'm waiting for this to end as well. but all in all, she's a sweet animal and we can't wait for her to settle down a bit and be the kind of dog we can take for hikes and more. she has a great disposition and is super friendly, so she won't make a good watch dog :) but that's ok!

i'm so glad we found violet.

i can't do it!

read the kjv, that is.

i've basically given up :( it's cumbersome, it puts me to sleep, i pay attention to everything else that is going on around me when i'm reading the book EXCEPT the book itself. to really illustrate how difficult this book has been for me to read, and really show why i've given up--i shamefully admit that i have only finished genesis and exodus.

yes folks, that is only the first two books of the bible. oh, and i've been reading it for about a month and a half now.

i did, however, finish madame bovary and it was lovely. so while attempting to read the holiest book in christendom, i finished and loved a book filled with amorality, lust and lies. :) i recommend it!

pumpkins

i like carving pumpkins. on my birthday, lee and i drove by this great market and picked up some pumpkins for just this occasion. he got a littler white one that they called a cinderella pumpkin. they carved up nicely!

10.10.10

my birthday is on october 10. this year, that meant it was on 10.10.10. i did not implode, explode, become enlightened, gain superpowers or anything on this day. i am disappointed.

but i did eat eritrean food at a place called asmara in central square. it was good and they make traditional teff injera, so i can eat it. lee made me a delicious lemon poppy sead cake with lemon frosting.

and then i went to funspot, the world's largest video game arcade, located in weir's beach, new hampshire and home of many great, fun, old time arcade games, including but not limited to:

ms. pac man
centipede
tron
space invaders
indy 500
pong
super off road
duck hunt
donkey kong
after burner
frogger

and many more. also including, skee ball, plenty of pin ball, whack-a-mole, and so much more. it was heaven on earth!

so my parents were league bowlers when i was a kid. every friday night, we ate hamburgers for dinner (well, my parents and sister ate that. i had some kind of chef boyardee), then we got in the car and drove a half hour to get to the bowling alley. when we got there, my sister and i each got a roll of quarters and we hung out in the arcade. i played this cyclone pinball a lot, but i'm not so good at pinball anymore... they had a lot of fantastic pinball machines, too!

i also played this game a lot, but i still had it in me! lee played with me, but then ended up watching, and watching and watching. so he took some pictures.

just check this place out! and this is just part of one floor. it's three floors, and even has a full bowling alley, a bar and a small cafeteria.

here's lee playing tron. lee didn't really play video games as a kid and wasn't familiar with a lot of the games. but he had a good time and was a good sport :)

and here i am with my prize :) i didn't play too many ticket games, but my high score on skee ball was 290. i'm pretty proud of that. but lee and i combined our tickets for a grand total of 250. that got me this sweet fairies note pad. i had an awesome birthday!

pierogies

if you know me, you know that i love anything that can be made into a dumpling. so even though hungarian cuisine doesn't have something like the pierogie, because it is a dumpling i am in love with this beautiful polish food. going gluten free made this a sad thing for me. but i found a great pierogie recipe--so great, i made them twice in the same week! mine are with a bit of a hungarian twist :) served covered in saurkraut and sweet paprika! best thing, this recipe is soooo simple to make. thanks to daring cooks!


gluten free pierogies (makes about 15)

1/3 c tapioca starch
1/3 c sweet rice flour (called mochiko)
2 tbsp potato starch
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp xanthan gum
2 eggs
1 tbsp olive oil

1. combine flours, salt and xanthan gum in a bowl.
2. whisk eggs in a separate small bowl. then whisk in oil.
3. pour wet ingredients into dry. mix together, then you'll be able to knead this dough.
4. grab small portions of the dough and roll out on parchment paper. roll out to about 1/8" thick and cut into rounds.

FULL DISCLOSURE: i rolled out all the dough at once and i do not use a biscuit cutter or anything fancy. i just cut into squares. then i thought about it--next time, i will use my ravioli maker! roll out, place on top of ravioli maker (which is kind of like a little ice cube tray), fill, cut. voila!

5. fill. moisten edges of dough with wet fingers and press edges together. then use a fork to completely stick together and make fluted edges.
6. boil until the dumpling floats to the surface and stops looking "doughy."
7. drain pierogies and place in a hot, non-stick frying pan with butter. coat with butter and fry until lightly browned.
8. eat hot!

i filled mine with a mixture of potato, sage and mild cheddar. so i mashed a boiled potato with a bit of butter and salt and pepper. then added some dried sage to taste. i put about a teaspoon of filling into each dumpling and a pinch of cheese. then sealed. they were divine!

catching up!

it's been a while! time to get caught up... september and october are very busy for us. our anniversary is at the end of september and then my birthday is only another 2 weeks later. so i'm going to try to remember some of the fun we've been having!

for our anniversary this year (on september 24--and i have several friends with anniversaries around the same date! what an auspicious time of year. cheers also go out to sara and jessica s!), we kept it low-key. we went and had a lovely dinner at ole in inman square. i had the vegetarian chiles rellenos--mmm, mmm! we're still getting used to the new 'hood, but it is so nice to be able to go to such a great neighborhood and WALK!

then the next day was free smithsonian day. since i work at a museum, i get into a lot of places for free anyway, but it's usually just me and not lee as well. and we thought we would pick somewhere that we wouldn't normally go. we decided to go to fruitlands, which has transcendental ties, but also a little art museum and shaker house there. it was fun!

it was a beautiful day, and they have all these tree sculptures around. they are amazing.

the old alcott farmhouse and then under the arbor next to it.

it was fun. and finally, we went to see blue man group on that sunday. hilarious! a really neat show. i would recommend it to anyone looking for something interactive and funny. we really enjoyed it. over all, a nice anniversary weekend.

the best vegetarian loaf ever

i'm going to say it... i hate those nasty nut and lentil loaves that people think vegetarians like to eat. really? i mean, they're gross and they have strange textures. who wants to eat that? and when i was a kid, i hated meatloaf, too. my mom's was dry and bland. she just put plain tomato paste on top after she baked it! ew... but my mom is not a very good cook--she knows this.

i was flipping through my joy of cooking looking for some home-style dinner inspiration. it was a rough week last week, and i just wanted comfort food. i found it! it's phenomenal! and it's a loaf. i changed the recipe a bit, as usual. it called for store bought baked, smoked tofu and i could not find this. other options were not gluten free. so we made our own smoked tofu out on our grill with our grill smoker. it was great :) i wish i had a better picture. but this thing was so delicious we had eaten half of it before i remembered to take a picture!


smokey tofu vegetable loaf (inspired by the joy of cooking's smoked tofu burgers)

7 oz. smoked tofu
5 oz. sliced button mushrooms
1 c chopped broccoli
1/3 c chopped orange bell pepper
1/4 c sliced scallions
2 tsp peeled and minced ginger
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 c cooked rice (you can use any kind on hand. we happened to have leftover sushi rice, so that's what i used. i might use brown rice next time if i plan ahead.)
2/3 c bread crumbs (i made crumbs from 2 slices of pamela's bread mix bread)
2 eggs, whisked
1 tbsp soy sauce
plenty of the following spices: black pepper, salt, paprika
pinch of chipotle

1. we had to grill and smoke our tofu.
2. preheat oven to 375 and oil a loaf pan.
3. saute mushrooms in olive oil. when they start to release their liquid, add broccoli, bell pepper and scallions. cook until slightly soft, then add ginger, garlic and spices. add rice, stir around and remove from heat.
4. put veggies and rice into food processor. our food processor is small, so we had to do all this in a couple batches.
5. run smoked tofu through the food processor. mix together the rice/veggie mixture, tofu, breadcrumbs, eggs and soy sauce.
6. the mixture should be pretty uniform, but you should be able to see little veggie pieces and whatnot. it should not look like a "custard."
7. press into loaf pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until nice and browned on top.

we had this with dilled mashed potatoes and gravy and buttered carrots. it was comfort on a plate. and the loaf makes fantastic leftovers. i kept imagining tofu loaf sandwiches this winter. i can't wait to eat this again.

great september fun

we've had such a busy september already, and it's not even our anniversary yet! i just wanted to share the fun things we've been doing.

first, last saturday, september 11, we went up to hampton beach for the annual seafood festival. i had never been to hampton beach before, and neither had lee (because it's fun--for those of you who know lee, you know that his parents scorn absolutely anything that could be perceived as fun...). it was everything kitch-y and cheesy that i expect a trip to the shore should be. beth, you would love it! there was the seafood festival, which was full of all the people of all stripes that you expect would be there, there was an arcade, a shooting gallery, and we when we were done having fun at all those places, we went up to a 3rd floor roof bar and just watched the waves below. i loved it!

of course, i forgot my camera so i have no pictures of myself eating crab and watermelon gazpacho and freshly made fried potato chips. i have no pictures of me creaming lee at ms. pac man or galaga (and they were only a quarter in the arcade! just like 1989!). i know that some of you may not realize this about me, but i am PASSIONATE about atari and old school arcade games. i played pinball, skee-ball, centipede. i want to go back for the arcade alone...

on our way up to new hampshire, we stopped in reading at a market i had heard about called natural food exchange. they have thousands of gluten free products! i got baguettes, some hard-to-find flours, and this pancake mix from king arthur that made the best pancakes i have ever had :)

anyway, the next day we went out to the 'burbs to visit our dear friends mike & maria and their lovely baby. we went to new england's largest oktoberfest at a german-american club in walpole. there were men in lederhosen and saurkraut--which is one of my FAVORITE foods...

fun german music...

and of course our friends' cute son :)

then this weekend, we rented another car to go apple picking. we ended up getting another cheap car for the whole weekend (thank you, enterprise weekend rates! yes--you can get a car for $9.99/day!!! sadly, zipcar cannot beat that...). so we also had a date night at route 1 mini golf. says it right there on their web site: yup, it's the home of the big orange dinosaur. it was another great time with mini golf, where yet again i won. lee has a hard time accepting my supremacy in sports such as these, but i had 2, count them, 2 holes-in-one! then we went to the arcade and played a couple of rounds of ice-ball (just like skee-ball, with heavier balls that are white), and then went to the dairy castle for soft serve.

the dairy castle is behind me, here.

and here's the ice-ball and then lee posing with our great prizes: stickers and some temporary tattoos :)

on sunday, we went to honey pot hill orchards for apple picking with our friend, allison. honey pot hill was a new place for us. i don't think i'll go next year. they have tv commercials and we just wanted to see what all the hubbub was about. it was MADNESS! but we got a lot of apples and had a good time.

here i am on a ladder picking.

and here's just 1 of honey pot hill's 3 parking lots. crazy!

but it was fun and i'm glad we could go. and i've already made some apple goodies: apple muffins for breakfast and today i had a tuna melt and i made the tuna salad with a nice crunchy apple, olive oil, lemon juice and just a touch of mustard. topped with swiss and grilled to perfection :)

yay for september!

pineapple upside down cake

we had a bbq. i really wanted a tasty and easy dessert to make. then i craved it: pineapple upside down cake. this might be the best pineapple upside down cake i've ever had. there was none leftover from the bbq. i so wish i had taken a picture of them whole, beautiful, unmolded. but alas, they went that fast. i only have this picture of my wonderful slice of heaven.

thank you, the baking beauties, who i have on my list of favorite blogs. they are gluten free and gave me my base recipe here. i adapted a bit...sorry, i don't put mayonnaise in cake...

eat your hearts out, pineapple upside down cake lovers!

pineapple upside down cake
yield: 2 cakes

1 1/2 c white rice flour
3/4 c tapioca starch
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp xanthan gum
4 eggs
1 1/4 c sugar
2/3 c sour cream
scant 1 c pineapple juice (drained from the can of slices)
2 tsp pineapple liqueur

topping:
1/2 c butter
1 1/2 c brown sugar
1 can sliced pineapple rings
maraschino cherries

1. preheat oven to 350. grease and flour 2 8" cake pans.
2. melt butter. divide evenly between the 2 cake pans.
3. sprinkle the brown sugar evenly over the butter. divide between the 2 cakes.
4. top decoratively with pineapple rings and maraschino cherries. set aside.
5. mix together dry ingredients.
6. mix eggs, sugar and sour cream until fluffy. pour in dry ingredients, pineapple juice and pineapple liqueur. mix well.
7. pour evenly over the pineapple slices in the prepared cake pans.
8. bake for 25-30 minutes until done. cakes should be lightly golden and should spring back lightly to the touch.
9. remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes. remove from pans at this time or they will be stuck forever!

WARNING: you will eat all of this cake! :)

a pizza crust to keep!

one of the things i miss about being gluten free is pizza. most everything else i don't care about. it's funny--these days, the smell of some baking things just make me feel sick to my stomach, a true reminder of how bad i used to feel :( but not pizza... luckily, there is some great gluten free pizza out there. some of you might remember the wonderful gluten free pizza and jojos that i had in ohio upon a visit to my family. i will go to altieri's again! and there is a fantastic place here called zing in porter square. my favorite at zing is the blue october: a pizza with squash sauce, spinach, caramelized onions, and i substitute feta for the blue cheese. heaven!

in any case, i like to make pizza sometimes too, and i finally found a crust i can work with. don't let the long ingredient list scare you! this particular pizza that i made was spread with ricotta (and the tiniest amount of pizza sauce on top of this), sauteed apples, browned onions, cheddar and sage. YUM!


a good pizza crust (adapted from gluten free mommy)
yield: 1 crust

1/4 c millet flour
3/4 c white rice flour
1/4 c sweet rice flour (called mochiko in asian stores)
3/4 c tapioca starch
2 tsp xanthan gum
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp additional sugar (for proofing the yeast)
1 packet active dry yeast
3/4 c warm water (about 115 degrees)
2 tbsp ricotta cheese
2 eggs
2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp honey

1. place pizza stone or pan in the oven and heat to 170 degrees.
2. mix olive oil, ricotta cheese, vinegar and honey in a measuring cup and set aside. allow to come to room temperature. do not use cold ingredients!
3. combine all dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. give a couple of whirls with the paddle attachment (NOT DOUGH HOOK) to aerate.
4. heat your water.
5. in a small separate bowl, add yeast stirred with the tsp of sugar and 1/4 c of the warmed water.
6. let it sit for a few minutes so that you can see it's active. it will get all foamy.
7. whirl your dry ingredients again and add your eggs and then the ricotta mixture.
8. add the yeast mixture and then gauge your liquids... the dough should look like a stiff cake batter. it should still hold the twirls from the mixer well and should be shiny. add additional heated water as necessary to achieve this. i only added an extra 1/4 c of water, coming to a total of 1/2 c of warm water. the original recipe writer used a total of 3/4 c. it depends on how dry your flours are--but you'll have to play with this one!
9. turn the oven off and remove your pizza stone/pan. cover with parchment paper. spread dough over the top. i used wet hands to spread over the stone. i might use a rolling pin and some wax paper on top the next time to make a thinner crust. but do whatever you feel comfortable with :)
10. put stone back in the OFF oven and let rise for 40 minutes. (full disclosure, i only let mine rise for 25 because i was hungry!)
11. once it has risen, turn oven to 375 and prebake for 10 minutes.
12. remove and add your toppings. bake for an additional 7-10 minutes.

vermont...finally!

i took lee to vermont for his birthday. it was a month ago today that we took this trip, but now i finally have a computer that works and is hooked up to everything!

i worked on the saturday before lee's birthday. so he had that day to spend on his own. his instructions were to pick me up at work, with a zipcar that i had rented, and he would drive where i told him to go. he did not know where i was going to take him. he eventually figured out that it was vermont--i mean, it's not too difficult to figure out, after all. we stayed in a cheap hotel in montpelier. nothing fancy, but inns in vermont are terrifically expensive! and what with a new condo, i wanted to have a good time without breaking the bank... so we checked in around 7pm and promptly started the festivities. first on the list was a stop on vermonts beer trail: the alchemist pub. Now, this may have been lee's birthday celebration, but i must say that i was ELATED to find out that the alchemist makes its very own gluten free beer! it's called celia pale ale and it was THE BEST gluten free beer i have ever had. possibly the best pale ale i've ever had... too bad they don't sell their beer anywhere but at the pub :( but lee sampled several delicious beers while there and then we had a great dinner. thanks, alchemist!

we then woke up the next morning and headed straight out for the ben & jerry's factory tour in waterbury. it was fun and smelled delicious. this is also where, though it was lee's birthday, they happened to be serving my favorite ice cream flavor as the free sample :) it was mint chocolate chunk. for those of you who know me, you know that i always go to ice cream shops with the intention of trying something new and fun, but each time, as soon as i get up to the counter, i just order the shop's mint chocolate ice cream, whatever it is. how predictable! lee was also able to nab us an additional sample to share :)

anyway, this was vermont, and i'm happy to report that by 1pm, lee and i had sampled the following:

• ice cream at ben & jerry's
• plenty of cheese at the cabot annex store
• chocolates from lake champlain's factory store
• apple cider
• wine and hard cider

nary a vegetable or healthy item to be found. so we drove into stowe and had a wonderful salad at the green goddess cafe :)

then we drove up to burlington. i know there are some die-hard burlington fans out there, but i have to say that i just don't really have to go again. lee and i used to live in boulder, co, and burlington and boulder are so much alike (but not in the ways that we liked boulder--in the ways that we disliked boulder...). in any case, we had a nice stroll around on some festival day. then we went to a creperie called the skinny pancake that makes gluten free buckwheat crepes! both of our dinners were delicious--lee did not have a gluten free or vegetarian/pescatarian variety, so i could not sample--and we were so full that we had no room for dessert. but lee's was a completely local crepe: local handmade sausage, cheese, maple syrup, and some veggies. it looked great.


we rolled ourselves back to our hotel, slept soundly, and drove back to boston the next morning. it was a great trip, though it sounded more like a trip for me than for lee! i had never been to vermont before, and i will go back. but lee thought it was a great trip and also agreed that we should go again sooner rather than later. maybe we'll get in some good snowshoeing this year?


lee's real birthday was the following tuesday, august 10. lee wanted a real new england meal, so i made lobster, steamed mussels, biscuits, maple glazed carrots, and boston cream pie. i am eating a lot more seafood these days (my choices are so limited, and i immensely enjoy what i've been having!), but i'm not a huge lobster fan. lee got most of the lobster to himself and then was able to gorge himself on plenty of mussels too.


all in all, i think he had a great birthday :)