Flora and New Skirts

Ok, I know it's been a very long time since I last posted and you are expecting me to post about the rest of my birthday. Well I don't think that my birthday is recent or interesting enough. Instead I'm just going to start talking about recent things such as getting new clothes and going out to dinner.

My mom, my great aunt and uncle, my second cousin and I all went out to dinner at Flora last friday. I had a Bermuda Sunset to drink, it had ginger beer, lime, and some other types of juice in it. My mom and I then shared a good but not great avacado and smoked salmon salad and a great roasted garlic flan to start. We then got a fantastic extra course of fettucine with mushrooms and tomatoes from the kitchen since we know lots of people that work at Flora. As my entree I had mini lamb chops with green beans and canneloni beans, this was really good especially the beans. As a desert I had a tasty vanilla creme brulee. All in all it was a great meal.

Today I went shopping with a family friend as a belated bat mitzvah present, it was very fun to go shopping with someone that I don't usually go with and I got great clothes.

I got yet another pair of Rayban Wayfarer style sunglasses. These ones are purple and I love them already. I also got two flowered Zara skirts. They are perfectly on trend while still being slightly unusal and unlike anything that other 14 year old girls in my town have.


It was a very succesful shopping trip.

It's my birthday! It's my birthday! We're gonna party like it's my birthday! Part one

May 24th was my birthday. I officially turned 14 with a whole weekend of activities. It was very exciting and I still can't believe that I am 14, that is way too old.

My birthday celebrations started out when I went to see Hamlet with two of my theatre friends and our moms. The show was confusing, but really good. It was cool seeing an all female production of a traditionally male play. The best part of the night though, was probably when we all went to Highland Kitchen for a pre-show dinner. To start off we shared a asparagus and pork belly appetizer, a fried artichoke appetizer, and an order of deviled eggs. It was all great, but my personal favorite of the three was the asparagus one. It was just plain delicious, the crispy pork belly, soft asparagus, and gooey fried egg went together perfectly. For my entree I had a fried soft shell crab appetizer and a side of fries. I love soft shell crabs and this was my first of the year, so it kind of made my night. Overall, it was a lovely evening.

The next morning to continue my birthday celebrations, my mom and I went to Harvard Square to look for sandals. The sandals were going to be one of my birthday presents, but we decided that it would probably be a good idea to have me pick them out myself. To start the morning off we went to Burdicks for breakfast. I had a piece of mocha cake and tea, and my mom had a frozen hot chocolate and a croissant. It was all delicious, but the best part was that Burdicks wasn't completely packed. There were even empty tables! We then traversed all over the square looking for sandals and ended up getting these gladiator sandals, but in black. They are totally hip and really comfortable. Basically, I love them.

We then wandered around for a while and soon it was time for a snack/lunch for me. I got a burger at Flat Patties which I did not like. The actual burger was fine at best, but the bun was too chewy and too big and just ruined the whole composition. It didn't manage to make the memory of the morning any less enjoyable, so I guess that that is very good.

Paté

My dad is a chef, this means he likes to cook pretty much anything. For the past few months his obsession has been with bread. Every few days there has been a fresh new loaf of bread cooling on the kitchen table. It has progressed from simple no knead bread, to whole wheat sandwich bread, to sourdough baguettes made with his own homemade starter. I think that he is getting a little bored of bread though, so he has become pretty interested in charcuterie.

Just last week he made us pork rillettes, which were and still are completely amazing and delicious. For those of you that do not know what pork rillettes are, they are pieces of pork and pork belly and maybe other things cooked for a very long time then shredded and mushed together. Believe me, they are a lot better than they sound. Fortunately for the meat eaters in house (my dad and I) and some what unfortunately for the non meat eaters (my mom and sister) pork rillettes was just the beginning.

This week he decided that we should make paté, so on Monday afternoon we started out. We used mainly a Julia Child recipe for a country style paté from The Way To Cook with some of our own additions.

The prep time really wasn't very long and the prep was mainly easy. We started out by sauteing some finely minced onions in olive oil till they were soft. While that was cooking we lined a loaf pan in plastic wrap and then a layer of bacon for the outside of the paté.


We then had to get all of ingredients ready for mixing together this was mainly a lot of cutting and placing the food processor. First, we put ground pork in. Then my dad chopped up some liver and put that in. Seeing how easy that was I wanted to cut something up, so I volunteered my services for the chicken thighs. Unfortunately chicken thighs are not soft and easy to cut up like liver. I had to fight those things and after two or three I had to admit defeat and let my dad finish the job. It was rather unfortunate.


After putting the chicken, pork, liver, onions, cream cheese, and assorted spices in the food processor we were ready to combine it all. That took a rather longish time since there was a lot of stuff in the processor. When it was done though we got to cook a bit of the mixture to test the spices and that was exciting and delicious.

Once we knew that the spicing was correct and we had added the egg that we had forgotten, it was time to fill the loaf pan. I actually don't know how that was, since my dad did it. But I must say he did do a very nice job.


Then it all got boring. First, the paté had to bake for like two hours so that we could get an internal temperature of 160 degrees.


Then if that wasn't already a very long time for a 14 year old girl to wait, the paté had to sit in the fridge with a five pound weight on it for a day to firm up.


Luckily the wait was worth it. The paté looked great and tasted just as good.


Now the most important questions. Is it good? Of course. Is it the best paté I've ever had? Ehh maybe not, but we did make it at home with out fancy gadgets. And last but not least, will we be able to eat the whole thing? That I really don't know. It seems enormous.

Rain Boots!

As with any small child my love affair with rain boots just started with wanting to jump in the puddles. I didn't care about color, pattern, or height. As long as they kept my feet dry, I was happy as a clam.

This all ended in the fourth or fifth grade when my real style started to show. I also got a pair of Lands End striped rain boots for my birthday. Although I now realize that they are pretty amazing (my sister has them now and she always looks fantastic in them), I didn't really appreciate them for all of their worth. I mainly just wore them at camp. Pretty soon they were too small and I was rain boot less.

My mom on the other hand got paisley target rain boots pretty close to when I grew out of my striped ones. I thought that they were the coolest things ever and they got me really interested in rain boots.

For about 2 years I was rain boot less, until one day I was out with my grandma in Harvard Square when I saw the coolest pair of rain boots ever. They were tall, streamlined, and just one solid color. To sum it up they were Hunter Wellies.. I was in love. For about a year I talked about them pretty much any time I was reminded of them. It was my dream and aspiration to own a pair of Hunter Wellies.

Well, last spring that dream came true. For my bat mitzvah family friends got my my very own pair of purple Hunter Wellies. They are tall, stream lined, a very dark purple, and incredibly stylish. Although I don't even like the rain very much, it always cheers me up to be able to wear my boots. They are great with leggings and a big plaid shirt ala Kate Moss, or jeans and a sweater ala city chick.


My mom even has a pair, although hers are orange and she doesn't put as much thought into what to wear with them as I do. Still we are a veritable rain boot power family.

Food Score in the Neighborhood

Just this week a new restaurant, Little Q Hot Pot, opened in our neighborhood. We had been wanting to to try it ever since we noticed that a new restaurant was going in in the space it now occupies. Lunch today seemed like a perfect time to try it, since it was raining and we had been cooped up all morning.

Once at the restaurant we looked at the menu and immediately my mom, dad, and I knew that we wanted hot pot. My sister, the picky eater, got her signature Asian restaurant meal of rice. We ended up deciding to get Mongolian Veggie broth with shrimp, clams, fishcake, a vegetable platter (that was pretty much just greens), and noodles to put in at the end. This is what our table looked like before we dug in:


Oh my was it delicious! To begin with the broth was great, and it imparted its flavor into all of the stuff that we put in it. The other great part about hot pot is that you get to cook everything yourself and decide when you want to put things in and take them out. Everyone got a kick out of that, even the picky eater herself who didn't eat but wanted to cook.

We pretty much devoured everything in sight and managed to leave the table looking like this:


It was overall a very successful lunch, but my mom and I felt that it needed something sweet afterwards. We decided to go to Quebrada to get dessert. We have had bad experiences with non breakfast items or cookies there, but today we made great decisions. My mom had a very good mini chocolate chip cheese cake and I had a good mini chocolate eclair.

All in all it was a very successful neighborhood eating expedition.

The First Food Post

Highlights of my food life:

- That first bite of coffee ice cream at the age of one. It opened my eyes to all of the possibilities of food.

- My first oyster at the age of 6, and the next 10 or so that I ate immediately after that one. This was when I really discovered my favorite food, oysters.

- My first super fancy meal that I remember at Rousillion in April of 2008. This was an amazing meal during a great trip to London.

- French fries and ice cream, pretty much whenever I can get them. These are two of my favorite foods and I could eat them almost everyday.

- Going to Momofuku Ssam Bar with my dad for my birthday last year. Oh my goodness, it was just so porky and delicious. My mouth waters just thinking about all of the delicious food we had.

- Going to L'Espalier to celebrate my bat mitzvah with a friend and our moms.
Now that was a high class meal, plus the food was pretty darn amazing.

- Falafel this past spring at a tiny shop in Jerusalem. It was very simple, but very fresh and that is what I think made all of the difference.

There are probably more great experiences that I have had, they are just not coming to me right now.

The Met Ball

After looking at all of the Met Ball pictures I have decided that:

A. I want to go, just so that I can wear a really fancy ball gown and hang out with fashion people, and

B. I have a thing for puffy skirted dresses. All of my favorite dresses had giant skirts except for Emmy Rossum's blue Kenneth Cole dress, but hers was a great color.


Anne Hathaway's Valentino dress was the first dress that I saw and went that is my favorite dress! And you know what I think it still is. The skirt is lovely and full of tulle, the bodice is sparkly, and she looks great in it. What more could one ask for in a dress?


Camilla Belle's red Jason Wu dress is definitely a close second. In her case the dress is not as poufy and full of tulle, but it is in another statement color and it has a teeny train which is very cool.


A lot of the outfits were pretty awful though, all of the jumpsuits were horrible and I'm sorry but Katy Perry's dress just freaks me out.



On a side note, only Grace Coddington could show up to the Met Ball in a long sleeved black sheathish dress and white flat sandals and not look completely out of place. The hair and fame probably has something to do with that though.


All pictures are courtesy of style.com/