A Day of Nostalgia

This morning got off to a rocky start as we had to replace the battery in the car.  We were stuck at the hotel for about an hour as AAA worked on the Honda Pilot.  Breakfast was had before we discovered the battery issue. I made myself a poppy seed bagel cream cheese, scrambled egg, and bacon sandwich.

After the car was fixed we started our family nostalgia adventure with a pit stop at Marylou’s for coffee.

I got a small iced peanut butter wonderful which was indeed wonderful.  Seriously, if all coffee tasted like this I might drink it every day.  Funny story though, I had a ridiculously embarrassing exchange with my coffee lady –>

ME: I’ll take a small, iced peanut butter wonderful please.
LADY: Cream and sugar?
ME: *long pause* Um, no.
LADY: So you want it black?
ME: *blushing* Um, no.
LADY: Okay, we have….

Obviously I do not order coffee ever, at all.  I must had just made her “stupid list” that morning.  In the end though the drink was great and a nice pick me up on the way to Onset, MA.  The reason this place is nostalgic is because Jack’s family used to own a summer cottage up in this area.  I figure the pictures are pretty enough to speak for themselves.

Above is the old cottage which was actually for rent, lo and behold.The siblings and dad.

After taking a trip down memory lane, we stopped for lunch at a local pizzeria.  We ordered spicy chicken fingers (with parmesan bleu cheese dressing) and onion rings to start and then two large pizzas: The Original with mushrooms, onions, green peppers, pepperoni, linguica, and extra cheese along with a straight up sausage pizza.

When various people in the group finished with the food we proceeded to blow close to $20 in quarters on arcade games.  We also managed to find a significant portion of the state quarters in our lot.

The rest of the day was spent with some of my family who happen to live in a suburb of Boston.  We arrived just in time for a lovely dinner of meatloaf, wild rice pilaf, and roasted veggies (spring onions, butternut squash, red peppers, and zucchini).

I was so glad to get to spend some time with them while we were here in Massachusetts.  I think it was more than overdue and it was a nice change of pace.  Plus, Jack hasn’t met a whole bunch of my family (mostly due to distance, expenses, and time commitments) whereas I have met basically all of his family so it was time to start evening the score.  =D

On our way home from our dinner visit Jack and I stopped for frozen yogurt to top off the evening.  I ended up with a whole bunch of froyo flavors (red velvet, hazelnut, cheesecake, taro, cookies & cream, and lychee) and quite a few toppings.  You know, par for the course for me!

And now we’re off to bed to get some sleep before we tackled the science museum in Boston tomorrow.  Should be a blast. G’night all!

Questions: Do you like science museums?
What’s your favorite frozen yogurt flavor?

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!

I had a lovely time today and I can’t believe it’s only 7 o’clock as I write this.  Geeze, it feels so much later than that.  I suppose it doesn’t help that out here in Boston the world gets pitch black dark by 4:40p.  Anyways, let’s recap shall we?

To give you the whole story, we’ll need to rewind to the evening of Christmas Eve.  Here in Jack’s family there is a Chinese food tradition.  It was decided that we would order from a local restaurant for a 7p dinner.  The order was placed at 6:45 which I thought to be a little late for comfort.  Oh little did we know that this place was what we dubbed “the worst Chinese restaurant EVER” because not only did they not have dumplings (apparently they are raviolis…) but they completely didn’t include our Szechuan chicken in the order and the food was cold when we got it.  By the way, we got the food at 8p.  That’s right, an hour and fifteen minutes later. Ugh.  We were starved.

When we set out all the food we did have quite the spread though.  Beef teriyaki sticks, chicken wings, puff-fried shrimp and chicken with sweet and sour sauce or plum sauce, crab rangoon, egg rolls, house fried rice (awkwardly pink in color), chicken lo mein, and pan-fried “raviolis”.

I had a taste of just about everything, minus the chicken wings.  Honestly, if I wanted wings I would go to Buffalo Wild Wings or something.

Aside from being cold the food wasn’t all that flavorful either but the tradition was fulfilled and it certainly wasn’t awful by any means.  And afterwards we got to the cookie part of the evening which cancelled out any lingering Chinese woes.  I mixed up four colors of icing and we grabbed just about every sprinkle known to man and went to town.

For the last cookie we tried to combine all the frosting and do a “dipped tie-dye” cookie.  It turned out to be a bad idea but it was definitely worth the laugh.

In the end we finished over two dozen cookies and they turned out to be one of the main Christmas Day food groups. *blush*  Also eaten on Christmas morning, thanks to the hotel that Jack and I along with his brother and brother’s girlfriend (Dan and Dani) are staying at, were things like waffles, eggs with ketchup, bacon, and yogurt.  [Sorry for the cell phone picture…]

Presents were the main attraction.  The tree was practically overflowing with presents.  I honestly don’t remember the last time I saw so many under one tree.  It was probably when I was much, much younger.  When it’s just you and your two parents, the tree is seldom bursting at the seems as it can be when 10 peoples’ presents are under there.

Jack’s dad played Elf and distributed gifts and Jack was Elf #2.  He even wore the hat to go with the role.

When all was said and done I got quite a few things (always more than I expect) from everyone in the family including a santoku knife, partoku knife, bling-ified slipper socks, cold packs for my shins, and a nice silver-threaded shirt.

Mom and dad got me a gorgeous scarf (which I opened before we traveled) and Jack got princess cut fire opals.

Every girls knows that some of the best gifts come in blue boxes with white bows.  =D  After presents we put the roast in the oven and settled around the dining room table for a game of Foodie Trivia.

The roast ended up taking about 90 minutes longer than originally planned so we played for quite a bit.  No one did very well.  We had a lot of trouble with the dates and the names.  Oh well, it was a game full of lots of laughs.  I think we had more fun making up the answers than getting the right ones.  Haha.  Finally the roast was finished, thanks to the new meat thermometer reading 135 degrees, so we set the table.

Love the paper towel napkins, huh?  Some of us had red wine, a Bordeaux, and others white and still others had water.  On the table we served the cracked pepper roast, sweet potato fries, carrots cooked in butter, and a red bell pepper/bacon/sweet potato dish.  There were also a few awfully overcooked fingerling potatoes on the table because we threw them into the roasting pan when we thought the beef was only going to take 30 minutes.  They were not mean to take two hours of oven heat.

I had some of everything (minus the sad 2 hour potatoes) along with seconds of the sweet potato-red bell pepper dish.

The pepper-bacon-potato mixture was incredibly unexpected, especially with the white wine deglazing action I did over the burner on the stove.  However, it was really good and something I actually think I might make again.  Maybe adding onion to it would take it to the next level.

Apple pie a la mode was for dessert a tad bit later after dishes were done.  I’ll admit though that I probably ate my weight in cookies throughout the day.  It’s a good thing this kind of day only happens once a year…

After dinner, dessert, and dishes I grabbed my computer and sat in an empty room to Skype with mommy and daddy.  It was wonderful to see them instead of just talk to them.  Fairly sure mom and I almost cried at the beginning.  I think I’d like to turn this into a much more frequently occurrence.

Now the group is off to watch The Help which Amanda, Jack’s sister, scored for Christmas.  I’ve read the book but we’ll see how the movie compares.  Once again I hope you had a great Christmas.  I hope you got everything to fill up your heart and soul.  I’ll catch you later my dears!

Questions: What did you get for Christmas?
Have you seen The Help? Thoughts?

Pre-Christmas Pleasantries

What a week so far it has been: traveling, eating, laughing, loving, and lavishing in the safety of not having to go to the mall for last minute shopping.  Let’s start with the eats of late:

Peanut butter and jelly waffle sandwich.

Chicken with mushroom sauce over wild rice with broccoli.

Pesto tortellini with shredded chicken, chunky marinara, and shaved parmesan.

Lobster roll with fries.

Coffee cake crumb muffin.

Strawberry Chobani with Carr wheat cracker crumbles on top.

Chocolate frosted donut.  Yes I ate it shared it with Jack using a fork!

Dehydrated pineapple from my awesome mommy.

Idaho nachos.

Buffalo chalupas.

Chocolate covered Oreos with nonpareils.  We made them last night!

Aside from eating, we have been up to a whole bunch too.  Before we left for Boston, Jack and I had a dinner and game night with a few friends.  We started out with Pictionary which we dominated in the latter half of the game.

My favorite picture of the night that I drew: a Pegasus.

We then took on a game of good, old-fashioned Scrabble.

The four of us were surprisingly neck and neck for the whole game but my use of “SIREN” ended the game pretty promptly.  I ended up winning on accident after Jack found the rule that entitled me to all the points the other players lost when I used the last of my tiles.

Other things we have been  up to: catching up with family (in the midst of wine, cheese, and chocolate), taking tours of old neighborhoods, playing with all the new technology in the new house (Jack’s dad and stepmom just moved), sleeping in twin beds, finding new leaks in the bathroom, grocery shopping since there was very little in the kitchen when we arrived, and the best of all: relaxing!  Today’s plans include picking up Jack’s brother, brother’s girlfriend, and stepbrother from the airport; making sugar cookies and having a frosting party; getting Chinese takeout for dinner (tradition!); and relocating to a hotel for the remainder of our overnight stays since downsizing has severely limited the bedding capacity of the house…

I hope your pre-Christmas preparations, pleasantries, and parties have been great.  Have a superb Christmas Eve and Christmas morning!  Enjoy this time and relish all the experience and memories you are creating.  Food for thought before I go:

Questions: Your best eat of late?
What is your favorite Christmas EVE tradition?