Monthly Archives: June 2014

This weekend we took a short road trip to the Cleveland area to celebrate Marcus’ high school graduation party! We helped set up and decorate for the shindig with the rest of the family, hit up the nearest beloved Sonic with the star of the weekend for a coney and round of slushies (this is only exciting to people who do not live within 300 miles of a Sonic), spent some quality time with Ted’s sister, dad, uncles, and cousins, enjoyed a fantastic backyard party with lots of excellent food, drinks, conversation, and cornhole, snoozed (sleepover-style) in big, plush, soft, cozy hotel beds that you luxuriously sink into and never want to crawl out of, and had a family/neighborhood speed mass officiated by Fr. Bob in the backyard, under the breezy tent, on Sunday morning – followed by a breakfast of leftover fried chicken, pizza, and cookies (breakfast of champions!). Because fireflies frequent this area of the country I also got to spend the evening catching fireflies to my heart’s delight, which brought me so much joy! And, because I’m a loon, I also brought back to Rochester six quarts of phenomenal hot and sour soup from a local hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant that we discovered in Mentor and fell in love with on our last trip there in the fall. When you order the soup, that’s when they start chopping the veggies and tofu and searing the beef and eggs…they make each order fresh by the potful. And it’s incredible. I am the only person I know who drives 4 and a half hours to Cleveland and comes back with a dozen meals worth of hot and sour soup. I intend to freeze it all and be one happy camper during the long winter months.

I know there were a ton more pictures taken that, you know, actually feature the honored graduate, the party, the rest of the family, and the weekend’s other festivities, but this is what I’ve got for now! :)

Hope you had a lovely weekend too.

From my 5 lb. basket of freshly picked Hurd Orchards strawberries came….

Homemade angel food cake with sliced strawberries coated in homemade strawberry sauce and whipped cream.

 For the record, homemade angel food cake (AFC) is about 1000 times better and more delicious than store-bought AFC, which tends to be spongy and dry, not dense, moist, and flavorful like the homemade version (recipe here). I don’t think I’ll ever buy a store-bought AFC again, if I can help it. This stuff is just too good…I can’t go back! The strawberry sauce was also awesome. It actually came from a wonderful strawberry pie recipe (located here), but I was craving AFC and wasn’t all that jazzed about a pie, so I simply made the pie filling, whipped up a bowl of whipped cream, and added it to AFC instead. Best decision of the week!

I also made several jars of rhubarb-strawberry compote from a fantastic recipe my mother-in-law sent me. It’s tart (and sweet) with hints of orange zest and vanilla…and it’s absolutely delicious! I plan to use it on everything from yogurt to homemade no-churn ice cream to pancakes and toast to oatmeal to angel food cake to pureed in cocktails to eaten by the spoonful. Really.

 Lastly, I whipped up this strawberry mousse (recipe here), which is light but packed with flavor and not at all soggy. A perfectly delectable summer treat that would be an excellent addition to any back-porch picnic. My only woe is that this recipe felt complicated and it took forever to make. But it was pretty delicious!

 Oh, how something so simple can bring so much joy.

 {Webster bike trail on a Friday night}

 {Spinach, artichoke, black olive, garlic, and ricotta pizza from 2 Ton Tony’s in Irondequoit}

 {Smoked salmon and dill hollandaise eggs benedict with shoestring onions from Harvest Cafe in Corn Hill – thanks Geva-baby-naming-contest gift card!}

  {Strawberry picking at Hurd Orchards with Arielle & baby}

{Living on the Great Lakes does have its merits…}

Last Monday night Ted picked me up from the airport and promptly deposited me at the Rochester Brainery for a cookie decorating workshop with the lovely ladies of Scratch Bakeshop.

 {The two photos above are borrowed from Scratch Bakeshop’s Facebook page}

I walked away from the class with a great recipe for sugar cookies and royal icing, a ton of expert tips and tricks for baking, color mixing, icing, decorating, and storing cookies, a box of cookies to decorate (and eat) along with an adorable gold notebook and handful of super cute recipe cards….and they gave us champagne to drink while we mixed colors and iced and decorated cookies! Champagne! These ladies have my heart.

For two hours I very happily set to work exercising my icing and decorating skills, which – as evidenced by my final creations above, has never been my strong suit. And that’s exactly why I took this class. No shame in being a beginner! My ice cream cone and flower cookies were my favorite, several girls in class with me complimented the icing on my ice cream cone, and Ted was pretty pleased with the whale. I wasn’t in love with the three icing colors I created, but now that I’ve gotten more comfortable with the art of color mixing, I can easily whip up some colors I do love. When 8:30 rolled around, I was the last one still working and I couldn’t believe two hours had flown by so quickly! After a full day of airports and flying, this was exactly the fun and relaxing activity I needed. I’m also excited to have a great icing recipe and to have learnd some really neat decorating tips for my arsenal the next time a perfect cookie-making occasion presents itself!

The next night I whipped up a batch of homemade honeydew-lime-mint popsicles….and I’m pleased to report that they’re crazy delicious, easy to make, utterly refreshing, low in sugar, and perfect for summer! Definitely recommended! I should also add that they’d be extra tasty with a splash of gin or rum.

I also made some rhubarb mint popsicles. They, too, were easy to make and absolutely packed with flavor!

I brought a dozen of the honeydew-lime-mint popsicles as my contribution for our “Picnic in the Park” June Potluck at the theatre.

It was glorious!

The food was abundant and totally awesome, the weather was perfect (we’re talking sunny, breezy, mid-70s, and no humidity perfect!), the company and conversation were simply lovely, and I think we all could have quite happily lazed around on our blankets in the lush, shady, grassy park across the street from our wonderful theatre all. day. long….napping, laughing, and eating pasta salad and popsicles to our hearts content!

Alas, all good things must come to an end…

But seriously, make those popsicles. Delish!

{My red sandals above are the Seedless Romantic Flat from Modcloth. I only put this in here because I’ve already been asked many times where my shoes are from. They’re ridiculously cute and, after about 3 wears, break themselves in and are also super comfortable from there on out. They are my summer holy grail sandal!}

If you missed Part II, check it out here.

Last Saturday. Also known as the day I ate or drank at 8 restaurants in 3 cities and saw 4 groups of 8 friends from 2nd grade, high school, college, and my first full-time, year-round, non-internship theatre job…in less than 15 hours.

Impressive, right?

It was AWESOME. So much wonderful catching up! So many wonderful people! So much laughter! So many hugs! So many stories to share! And so much food and drink!

Sunday was my day of rest. My day at home. My day with my family. And my cat. And Father’s Day. I made New York concord grape mini-pies-in-a-jar with my mom for a Father’s Day present for my dad. My brother, sister-in-law, recent college grad niece, and three close family friends came over mid-afternoon for a Texas feast starring the ever-delicious slow-cooked brisket, and homemade strawberry rhubarb pie, and leftover ice cream cake, and beer and hors d’oeuvres on the back porch. It was so wonderful! We watched the Spurs game and their 5th championship win (San Antonio is a lively city to be in when this happens!). I played with Sancho to my heart’s delight, and polished off an entire pint of my beloved Blue Bell Moo-llennium Crunch ice cream!

In conclusion…

Texas pros: Wildflowers, Blue Bell ice cream, killer margaritas, HEB, inexpensive food, Tex-Mex, barbacoa tacos, breakfast tacos, naps, back porch sitting, gorgeous scenery, lots of cactus, good wine, cowboy boots, tons of friends, herds of deer in our yard, my mom’s cooking and homemade pottery and awesome pastel drawings, Sancho, my family!

Texas cons: Bugs, heat.

THANK YOU to everyone who made my trip so fantastic – to my parents for their generous love and limitless hospitality, to my sister for driving out to Chicago Midway twice so we could spend time together, and to all my friends for making the time in their busy schedules to drive from near and far to spend time with me.

‘Til next time, you magical place, you!

If you missed Part I, be sure to check it out here!

Friday night was our Boerne High School Class of 2004 10-year high school reunion at Random! And it was totally great! I think there’s a certain amount of awkward to be expected with these kind of events, but honestly, the reunion was so much less awkward than I’d anticipated. It was lovely and fun and joyful! I was able to catch up with a bunch of awesome friends I’d been so close to in high school and have been missing for a quite a while. Not everybody, of course. There were at least 8 or 10 more people who couldn’t come that I would have LOVED to see, but I had a really wonderful time with the friends who were there too. We enjoyed an excellent meal catered by Hungry Horse (home of the world’s BEST mac n’ cheese), an open bar stocked with endless beer and wine, lots of laughter, plenty of wide open spaces with room to roam under the starry Texas sky, lots of cool shady trees to converse beneath, simple but pretty decorations, lawn games like corn-hole, and a trampoline bounce pillow for kids AND adults (because growing up definitely isn’t mandatory)! Kevin and I owned that bounce pillow!

The location was absolutely fantastic, people could bring their kids if they wanted to (and many did), there was plenty to do, nothing felt contrived, we weren’t cramped or confined to just one room, the venue was appropriately sized for our group, we were well fed with really good food, there were plenty of free-flowing drink options, and lots of people from all different social circles came. I’m so glad I made going to this reunion a priority! I was also pleasantly surprised that every single person I talked to at the reunion – whether I was particularly close to them 10 years ago or not – was so friendly and genuine. Everyone was super nice and seemed so happy and well-settled in their families and careers, and also sincerely interested in and happy for everyone else’s success and lifestyle choices. Basically, it was nothing like the catty high school reunions you see on TV. And our class president and his committee did an excellent job planning this shindig.

Also, before I left New York, I found my big, beautiful high school class ring with that sparkly purple gemstone (you know, the one I so desperately wanted and painstakingly designed), and decided my 10-year reunion was the perfect occasion to wear that sucker…for the very first time.

After the reunion a handful of my closest friends joined me on my parents back porch beneath the stars for a thick slice of my mom’s homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream cake, just like old times.

Part III’s coming up next!

TEXAS!

Despite a bumpy (literally and figuratively) start to my Texas vacation that resulted in a delayed flight out of Rochester, a missed connection to San Antonio, and an unexpected – but generous and lovely – overnight with my wonderful sister in Chicago, I finally made it to the Lone Star state Thursday morning. Weather and airplanes: Keeping life spicy since 1903.

After my 4:30am wake up call to get to the airport by 6, I was too tired to do much else on Thursday aside from help my mom chop the 15 lbs. of New York rhubarb I brought her, smother Sancho with kisses and cuddles, take in the scenic views I’ve missed so much, delight in an afternoon siesta, sip my way through happy hour at the gorgeous (and hip! Boerne, you are getting so hip!) Boerne Wine Company with my parents, and enjoy some good conversation and an authentic Tex-Mex feast (shrimp and cilantro cream enchiladas, and the best creamy jalapeno chip-dip around! ) with my mom, dad, brother, and sister-in-law. After dinner, my brother Brent – a pilot – took me to his hangar to check out his airplanes, ncluding the one he scored a great deal on at an auction and a Kitfox plane he’s been building for the past several years. We were also treated to an awesome  summer lightening storm, with rolling thunder, that lit up the whole sky!

Friday morning my mom and I did some browsing at a handful of sweet (and hip! Boerne, you are getting so hip!) boutique clothing stores up and down Main Street. Of course, I also had to stop in the local family-run Pickle store that’s been in town since well before we moved there in the early 1990s because, duh. Those sweet, spicy, crunchy pickles are delicious and addictive and scream Texas! We also met my childhood best friend Alix and her sweet 7-week-old babe Cali (from my elementary and middle school days at St. Gregory’s!) for a chilled coffee drink and 14 years of catch-up. It was so awesome to see her again! Friday evening I met my high school best friend Katie, her husband Kevin, and their newest babe – one-and-a-half week old Micah – for mouth-watering snowcones at Snowbiz on the river (our high school hangout!) and then I was off to Random for our 10-year high school reunion!

Check back tomorrow for Part II!

More catchup!

Thursday consisted of an early morning doctor’s consultation and appointment for Ted and I at the Passport Health Travel Clinic to get ourselves a Typhoid immunization and learn up on some details for travel to our country of destination (more on this later). A post-work rehearsal Thursday afternoon and book club for March by Geraldine Brooks kept me busy in the evening. I’ve said this a thousand times and I’ll say it a thousand more…our book club is the best! We always have such a great time together…and such great food! Next month we’ll be meeting for a backyard picnic/BBQ and our next book, The Fault in our Stars. I’ve been anxious to read this book for a long while now, and I’m pretty pumped about our upcoming social soirees too.

Friday brought a 15-hour workday and our biggest theatre fundraising event of the year – a big old fancy party/feast/performance/auction and paddle call that raised us over $160,000 for our education programs! So awesome! Not bad for a day’s work (except this takes an entire year to plan for, of course). If that’s the outcome, I’m perfectly happy to put on a fancy dress, a pair of heels, and red lipstick to schmooze our guests with offerings of wine and the lovely voices of last year’s Summer Academy students and to help out with paddle spotting. It was an absolutely exhausting day, but well worth it. And we basically ate like kings all day. Work hard, play hard. And support the future of live theatre!

Saturday, post-event, I had the energy to haul my only-mildly-awake butt to the market at 7:45 a.m. to buy 15 lbs. of rhubarb (ahhhh, June in NY), carry on an intelligent global conversation with a wonderful Iranian couple we met and shared breakfast with at the market (the only coherent discussion I’ve had all day, I can assure you – but it was so great!), take 2 naps, eat a coconut almond crunch ice cream cone, make a watermelon margarita, and stay awake long enough to watch the Belmont Stakes race at 6:52 p.m, and fall asleep soaking in a bubble bath. And that’s pretty much all I could offer the world. A day of rest was so needed!

Sunday, we did our couponing and coupon shopping, and I did some packing and organizing for Texas….and I watched this awesome and wonderful and adorable and funny video. Tuesday I worked from home because the HVAC in most of our theatre building is being replaced, so our office was in a pretty wild state of demolition and construction (in addition to being scatching hot). I had a hugely productive day though, and on Wednesday the portable AC arrived for our office, which is making a world of difference! Tuesday night I immediately and permanently filed making homemade concord grape pie filling at 9 o’clock at night under the “guess I won’t be doing THAT again anytime soon” category. For future reference, there is a reason why grape pies are expensive, and there is a reason why you should pay someone else handsomely to make them for you. Seeding cooked grapes is strenuous, mind-numbing, takes 9 bazillion hours, and stains your hands a bold shade of shocking purple for all of eternity. Lesson learned. 

For the next few days, I am – quite happily – in Texas visiting my family, my friends, and my cat. My 10-year high school reunion is tomorrow and I’m totally looking forward to it! Unfortunately, this little journey to the Lone Star State is sans Ted, but that’s the way life goes sometimes.

I’ll be back soon with some joyful Texas updates…I hope!

Meanwhile, stay cool :)