Divinity at Tribeca Grill

Mmm, I just came back from a delicious dinner at the Tribeca Grill. The restaurant is a former warehouse, and it really shows: it's very open, with exposed brick wall and huge ceilings. I told my parents that should it suddenly become a loft built for one with my name on it, I wouldn't complain. Righto!

What's dinner out without bread?


We ordered a delicious bottle of Sandy Cove, a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.


I started with Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Cinnamon Crème Fraiche. This. Was. Heaven. I'm pretty sure that without the crème fraiche, it would have been completely vegan. (The drizzle on top is molasses.)


My dad and I split two entrées, since I couldn't decide which one I wanted and Daddy-O is always very accommodating. This is the pan roasted brook trout with chestnut purée, haricots vert & celery root in brown butter. I ate about 1/3 of a filet... the soup really filled me up. The green beans were my favorite part of this dish.


This was the star of the evening: Spinach and sheep's milk ricotta ravioli with rainbow chard & picholine olives. By the first bite I was completely full, but I could not let the poor ravioli sit all by their lonesome. You know how it goes.


Bring on the desserts! Here we have chocolate truffle cheesecake with morello cherries:


Pumpkin, oatmeal & pecan torte with vanilla ice cream:


And a strawberry semifreddo with a meringue "baton":


We split all the treats in three, but my parents were having trouble finishing their cheesecake. Lilveggiepatch to the rescue! You'd think the pumpkin would have been my favorite, but I didn't even finish my portion in favor of extra cheesecake!

I'm pleasantly and happily- (almost) always happily- full. It's going to be an easy movie night tonight.... We have The Science of Sleep (which I've already seen 1.5 times before) and American Teen. Should be fun! Have a lovely evening.

Meet & Greet

Good evening, all! I just had a very exciting night. It was a first for me: a blogger meet-up! Caroline, Erica, Nicole and I met (how many ways can I conjugate that verb?) at Josie's for dinner. This was the first time I've broken the "blog-wall," so to speak; I was a little nervous, I have to admit! The girls were all really nice, and it was so fun to dish (pun intended!) with other people who also snap photos about 435 times a day.

So... what do you get when you put four food bloggers at a table together? Strobe-like, seizure-inducing camera flashes, foodie news and gossip, indoor photography woes... I could go on and on, but if you're reading this you probably know what I'm talking about, anyway!


The bread basket came around and we all chose seven-grain bread... sameness was sort of the theme of the night! Josie's makes delicious sweet potato hummus. It's delicious, and seems pretty simple to make (although I've already forgotten the third ingredient besides sweet potato and tahini).


The basket came back... Caroline and I split pieces of cornbread and focaccia.


We all ordered exactly the same thing for dinner: Seared Asian Marinated Organic Tofu Salad with baby arugula roasted vegetables, chickpeas and avocado.


Now, this should have been simple enough, but we all decided we did not want the balsamic vinaigrette the salad came with but rather not one but TWO special dressings... and on the side, please. Ha. Totally worth it, though, because the dressings were amazing: carrot miso and red wine wasabi vinaigrette.


The salad itself was so, so good, and it was nice to be able to dip into two different dressings. It was actually pretty big, so I bagged what I didn't finish and took it home.


We did not, of course, skimp on dessert. They were all vegan and very, very tasty.


Warm pumpkin pie with "soy drizzle" :


Ginger berry pie with oat-y crust and soy vanilla ice cream:


Chocolate pecan pie with graham cracker crust and soy ice cream. This was everyone's favorite!


But, as you can see, we weren't really in the mood for dessert.


That's it for me... I'm brushed and in bed like a good little girl. Hope you've had fabulous Fridays!

One Cute Cookie

Good morning sunshines! How did you sleep? I slept well, thank you.  I got cut early last night so I got to leave work at midnight instead of 2 AM.  I love when that happens! I got some bum news last night: I have to work on New Years Eve.  I know it's not such a big deal, and "it's only a day," as Ari said.  It's just sad because I haven't had a "real" New Years Eve in years, and even if it was kind of mellow (like going out to dinner and watching movies at home) it would have been special. But, there's always the chance that I'll be let off early and get to have some kind of evening of my own, so I'm not losing heart.

For some reason (je te déteste, Safari),  my pictures loaded backwards and sideways today, so bear with me while I recap in reverse. 

We had a full house this morning! A lot of Ari's family is here right now, so we had a nice breakfast together.  I had my now daily breakfast cookie:  

Papa Ari thought it was hummus! I wonder how that would taste...

1/2 cup oats

1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder

1 portion applesauce

1 tbsp PB

2 heaping scoops yogurt

dried fruit

Kalle and her friends surprised me last night by stopping by the restaurant.  I love my little redheaded girl.  I had a small mixed green salad with carrot ginger dressing:

And (surprise!) steamed shrimp dumplings.

Before I left last night I had a thick slice of my dad's maple oatmeal bread with 1/2 almond butter/blackberry jam, 1/2 honey.  I also had a bowl of Fage with pumpkin and honey.

I have to surrender the computer now... have a great day!

Ho, Ho, Ho!

T-minus six hours until Christymisty!

Last night before work I had a date with PB. It looks a little ominous out there by its lonesome.


Last night at work, I ordered a bowl of black bean soup (sorry for the horrible picture):


I also got some shrimp dumplings, which are pretty much invisible due to the glare. Sorry!


I had some blackberries when I got home.


This morning we woke up very early and got breakfast before the clock struck 8. Who am I and what have I done with Katie?


Bagel with lox... I probably ate about 1/20 of that cream cheese.


It was a morning for pie! Pecan pie is Ari's favorite... I'm not such a fan so I didn't have any.


A couple hours later I took Megan's suggestion and heated up this Clif bar. Very good! Ari had a bite, but the top was too "white and creamy" for him.


I hauled tail back to Manhatty and was greated by this lovely rum cake. My babysitter, who is from Jamaica, used to make this for me when I was little. So. Good. I felt like Proust and tasted my childhood as soon as I had a bite!


I had a little sliver, which I spread out to look like teeth. Santa has to chew his cookies with something!


We got Chinese food for lunch, which I've been craving. Bad choice. This place used to be delicious, but it was so bad. No flavor at all.

They were shelling a lot of beans... I discretely (although my idea of "discretion" has been greatly blurred since I became a blogger) snapped a photo...


I ordered a lunch special that started with a bowl of miso soup (thick and gluey):



A greasy spring roll:


Mushroom tofu and brown rice. I literally had one bite and lost my appetite, but I may not be able to blame that all on the food. I brought it home, so maybe I'll eat it later.



The tea was good! I had almost that whole pot to myself.


Off to find some holiday cheer, and make some gingerbread cookies with the fam. Have a great and magical night!

Vampire Weekend... and a BIG surprise!

Hello, hello! I hope this Sunday has been restful and happy, as Sundays are meant to be. I got off work at 1:30; it was a pretty good night, restaurant-wise. About half my high school showed up for drinks, surprisingly! I guess I'm sort of in the neighborhood for that to happen.

I slept pretty badly for two reasons:
1) I woke up just in time to see Ari's hand come flying towards my head. I glared at him (which I'm sure he could see, in his sleepy haze) and he said, "Sorry... I was trying to chop off your head." Then he proceeded to make sawing motions on the back of my neck for a good 10 seconds. Of course, he has absolutely no recollection of this... Silly boy.

2) Twilight readers, maybe you'll understand: I had THE most terrifying dreams about vampires. Not sweet, cuddly, Edward Cullen-esque "vegetarians," but cutthroat, apocalypse-starting bloodsuckers. I remember grabbing bundles of chopsticks to kill them with (AKA wooden-stakes, for all you Buffy ignorants). I know it sounds very silly, but it was quite scary!

Anyway, on to breakkie: whole wheat toast with butter (forgot to ask for it "dry"), a bowl of fruit and coffee.

I went to the gym but my pen exploded, so I don't have any stats for you, sorry! I did 20 minutes on the stair mill, 6 on the bike, arm and ab exercises.

I came home to a wonderful surprise. Now, I don't want to brag, but I pretty much have the best Secret Santa ever to have graced this earth. Melissa over at Trying to Heal sent just about the sweetest, most thoughtful (and time consuming!) treats ever! Look at this cute little card:


GIANT BOX OF GOODIES!


Inside were:

trail mix chocolate bark
chocolate-covered cashew butter sandwiches
TtH's very own trail mix!!!

I'm sure you'll see these in just about every post coming up... I can't WAIT to try all theses scrumptious things!

THANK YOU MELISSA!!!


I was STARVING after the gym, so I made a quick mess of Fage, 1/2 banana, pumpkin and syrup from the poached pears (read on!).


And finally... here is the cake my mom and I were making yesterday. It's a chocolate coffee gingerbread bundt with hazelnut poached pears.




We're having our annual holiday party tonight. My dad has really outdone himself! I'll share the pictures and some recipes with you later.


Party time! I REALLY need to catch up on the blogs. Have a great evening!

Yoo hoo!

Well hello! Vitamin A does really help you see!



I had two of these eatingbender (Gliding Calm) inspired coffee cocoas today:


They ended up putting me to sleep for about 4 hours! I woke up at 4 PM (!) and had a quesadilla.


I sandwiched one whole egg + 1 egg white, 1/3 avocado, swiss cheese and tomato between two small Ezekial wraps. Strange combo, I know, but it was pretty good! There was some ketchup slathered on there as well.


A slice of pumpkin bread leftover from Monday's pot luck:


Sarah, Carlye, Becky and I had a farewell meal tonight (sniff sniff). Sarah made us a fantastic dinner, while Carlye and I sat around on our bums! Ah, what a life.

We had some of this delicious Vignoles wine that Sarah got when we went apple picking. Look what a good mama Carlye is!


Dinner was made of two kinds of pumpkin pastas: pumpkin tortellini and pumpkin sage ravioli. Sarah mixed it all together with a boiled sweet potato, garlic, oil and parmesan. YUM.


Miss Jenna was here in spirit tonight... Sarah made her delicious Peanut Butter Incredibles and let me tell you, there were out of this world.


The only adaptations she made were to use 1 jar of peanut butter, and 1/2 semi-sweet chocolate and half bittersweet. I died and went to heaven!


She sent me home with a whole plate of goodies... I just enjoyed a brownie to help my studies.


I can't wait to be done with this paper and GO HOME! My flight is at 7 PM tomorrow... I am so excited!!!

Sleep well, little bloggies :-)