beXnlog

Big Updates

Happy belated birthdays to the four Taurii: Crack, Mama Sapp, Mama G and MacGuyver!

It's been a while. We've been busily domestic. I have 14 holes in my hands thanks to pins, but the place is looking nicer each day. Here's the big update:

Thursday 4/28: M wanted to watch "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," an excellent movie but really not for first thing in the morning! We checked out a few sections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had dinner at Vegetarian Dim Sum House, dessert at Sambuca's Cafe (be and M had some creamy strawberry dessert that they loved, while my tiramisu was okay but too blandly creamy) and ended the day at the Bowery Poetry Club.

Friday 4/29: be woke up super, super early to drop M off at Penn Station. Afterwards, we both stopped in at work for a few hours. During my walk to the bank, i decided i had to have an Egg Florentine sandwich from Pret a Manger. The branch near my job closed, so we've been longing for it ever since. I trudged many blocks out of my way to another branch, but sadly they were out of the EF so i got an avocado sandwich instead. Our evening was spent at a graduate-level film screening (yay Doey!) and dinner at Pongsri on 23rd St. The portions were HUGE and the food was good - not the best and not the worst. In their Thai iced tea they used full cream, or something that made the drink taste slightly different.

Finally, we had dessert and drinks at Veniero's in the East Village. I must first say that their strawberry cake is great (at least it was, like 7 years ago) but we had a terrible experience there on Friday. There was a long wait for a table, but after seeing dozens and dozens of groups get seated before us (all due to the fact we were a grand mob of 5 people), the only way we got seated was when we just sat down at a table for 4. We were ignored for a while before they insisted we move to table for 6, which "magically" opened up. We didn't get our menus until be flagged down the host. When we finally got our desserts, they weren't as good as i remembered and be's cappuccino was eh. To top everything off - as we were waiting for a table, i peered over the counter to watch the guys prepare hot drinks behind the bar. A few things i noticed: they use fuckin NESQUIK to make hot chocolate, they squirt pre-made espresso from a thermos and their coffee is auto-drip brewed. This is certainly not right for any real cafe. Instead of Veniero's, get a real cannoli from De Robertis or real coffee drinks from Panini, all around the corner from Veniero's, a totally overrated place.

Saturday 4/30: A good food day! be visited his parents before i even woke up, and he brought back 4 bags of Elotitos (my crunchilicious love), 2 amazing fresh-not-frozen corn tamales and some Salvadorean cheese from be's mom's trip to El Salvador. For dinner i decided to make gougeres (cheese puffs) using this recipe. I mainly followed the instructions with a few changes: i mixed in all the grated cheese instead of reserving some to sprinkle on the tops, i used freshly ground black pepper instead of white, i used sea salt ground in my new awesome grinder, i opened the oven in between temperature changes to let steam escape and i pierced each gougere right out of the oven to release more steam. (The steam tips i learned from Alton Brown's choux pastry episode.) I was a little worried the gougeres would turn out like rocks or dough balls but they actually ended up AMAZING. Just like at Artisanal, they were hollow and soft inside, crusty on the outside and full of salty cheesy flavor. be and i ate 24 in no time. The only thing i'd change for the next batch is make them smaller, piping out 1/2 T instead of 1 T mounds. Having each gougere as a single bite would be nicer than 2-3 bite ones. The bad news: i put the second pan in the freezer to bake at a later date and during an ice cream search, the pan (of course) slides out and spills 24 frozen puffs all over the kitchen floor. What is it with me and dropping baked goods? Finally, we had a nice dessert of orange Superfruits (vegetarian jell-o) with mandarin orange slices.

Sunday 5/1 - Tuesday 5/3: Mainly can be summed up as knitting, Hostess chocolate cupcakes, Vietnamese fresh spring rolls, mushroom pate, painting and cleaning (and back to work, bleh).

posted by beXn @ 3:25 AM