Monkey Monday: post-birthday edition 31 August 2009 11:15 am
Posted by Tracy in : cooking,dessert,eating,events,monkeys,nyc,pictures,random,restaurants,video , trackbackGood morning, readers! Today’s random ramblings are mostly about my birthday celebrations this past weekend, but scroll down to the end for a special treat whenever you get bored reading all about me, me, me — a Smithsonian video of Julia Child cooking primordial soup. So awesome. Which reminds me: I still haven’t seen Julie and Julia, because I am an enormous slacker, but the good news is that because I’ve put it off for so long, now I can see it using the cheap movie passes available through NYU. Yay! (So, um, anyone reading this who wants to see Julie and Julia in the NYC area some time in the next few weeks, drop a comment or an email, eh?) And now, on to my birthday weekend, with an emphasis on its most delicious aspects.
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The fun began on Thursday night, with an expedition to MoMA with Peter and Andrew, to revisit the James Ensor exhibit I saw with Laurel and Seamus earlier this month. It’s still excellent. Afterwards, we had dinner at Banana Leaf (also where I ate with L & S after Ensor, because I’m unoriginal like that, or at least like to stick with what I know I like). I got to be in charge of ordering (yay!) and succeeded at this very important task. Banana Leaf’s chana masala is still extremely delicious, and their lamb biryani renewed my commitment to trying Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe for said deliciousness. Om nom nom. After all that, we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to order dessert (I was tempted by both the kulfi and the kheer) and instead took a short walk to Shake Shack for after-dinner sweets. I had the sweet corn frozen custard, topped with blueberries. So tasty! It occurs to me that today is my last chance to try the salted carmel frozen custard before they switch the menu for September… hmmm.
Anyway! That was Thursday. On Friday, Peter and I slept in, then had a delicious brunch at Lyla’s Café, where the cafés au laits are huge and tasty, and the potato-goat cheese cake is served on a bed of ratatouille and topped with a poached egg, and one of these days I should order something different but for now it’s hard to branch out when I know that’s so tasty. For dinner, it turns out we should have made a reservation at Café Luxembourg but La Boite en Bois had plenty of tables. Peter had French lentils with sausage, then beef bourgignon, and crème brûlée for dessert. I had French onion soup, then cod filet with onion confit, and ricotta cheesecake for dessert. Om nom nom nom nom.
Saturday is a bit of a blur — all I really remember is being ambushed by friends and family in my own apartment. Eek! But Peter made baked Alaska, which was pretty darned impressive:
Ladies and gentlemen, the love of my life. He looks like he’s wincing because that pan is blazing hot. Thanks for posing, Peter!
Yesterday Peter slept in while I did an epic quantity of dishes left over from the surprise party and boiled enough water to warm a bathtub 3/4 full of the lukewarm liquid that was supposed to be passing for hot water in our building for three hours yesterday morning. I earned the hell out of that bath, let me tell you. Anyway, then we had brunch at Pisticci and dinner was cheddar-scallion biscuits with the punk rock chickpea gravy from Vegan With a Vengeance. Today I’m going to keep cleaning up after the party, which in part means I hope to come up with a use for the leftover white wine in our fridge. Suggestions are most welcome!
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And now, at last, here’s Julia:
I told you it was awesome.
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Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella
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TracyFood
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Ansley
