Around Rochester

Roc City Treats

Cheshire Old Fashioned Cocktail Lounge

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{Ramos Gin Fizz: No. 3 London Dry Gin, Orange Flower Water, Organic Egg White, Cream, Fresh Lemon Juice, Fresh Lime Juice, Sugar, Club Soda}

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{Aviation: No. 3 London Dry Gin, Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur, Rothman & Winter Creme de Violette, Lemon Juice, Fresh Cherry}

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Le Petit Poutine Food Truck

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{Traditional Poutine: Fries, gravy, fresh local cheese curds, fresh thyme, sea salt}

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Martha Jane’s Bakery

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{Raspberry lemon pastry pie}

Moonlight Creamery

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{Norweigan Krokan: Rich brown butter ice cream with cream and salty almond brittle}

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{Lollipops: salty caramel, lemon ginger, pomegranate orange, and maple bacon}

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{Irish Cream ice cream!}

All of the above…amazing. I recommend all of it.

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Repeal! A 1920s Prohibion Party/Night at the Museum

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So, if you’re anything like me you read “1920s prohibition party” and immediately thought “Oooooh! That’ll be the cat’s meow!” as you conjured up images of getting all dolled up in your glad rags for a night of gaily hoofing the Charleston to swanky live jazz music with your best sheiks and shebas, sipping classy real McCoy cocktails with a liberal helping of bitters from your ruby kisser, and puttin’ on the ritz in your flirtiest twenties finery. (FYI, the remainder of this blog post is going to be riddled with twenties slang. No shame.)

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“Now you’re on the trolley!”

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And then you saw the words “night at the museum” and your jaw hit the ground in gleeful anticipation of dashing about the heebie-jeebie inducing labyrinth of the museum halls at night in your flapper getup, navigating the ice cave, hoping the dinosaur skeleton or Native American display would come to life just for a minute, dive-bombing the ball pit, and tackling the rock climbing wall in the children’s wing.

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If that was your vision (and it was indeed mine), this night surely did not disappoint! It was the bee’s knees, and how! Except nothing came to life. I thought I should clarify that, just in case.

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There were twenties-inspired costumes for every Jane and fly boy. There was a live jazz band playing swanky tunes. There were Charleston lessons for all the hoofers out there. There was bathtub gin at the gin mill and bootleg liquor in the speakeasy (or, you know, classic twenties era cocktails with gin, egg, and lots and lots of rhubarb bitters at the bar).

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There was 1920s trivia. And we smoked the competition taking home the grand prize of a bag full of nifty science gift shop goodies the likes of sore throat, stomach ache, and malaria stuffed animals, glow in the dark silly putty, postcards, and lollipops with crickets in them. We may not be the big cheese – just three dolls who were not alive in the 20s – but we’re no dumb Doras either! Never underestimate the power of a trio of smart dames/theatre majors. Also, Shawnda is the cat’s pajamas and a trivia goddess! A few of those trivia questions were toughies, but our smarts would have knocked your socks off!

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There was a popcorn cart, and there were silent movies playing in the theatre.

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There were handsome gents in bow ties and suspenders, flapper dresses and drop-waist frocks, feathers and mustaches, and miles and miles of great gams.

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There were museum shenanigans not limited to a hover craft, a ball pit, a rock climbing wall, a weights & pulley system, an earthquake simulator, bones, and taxidermied animals.

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Finally, there was an epic motion “submarine to the bottom of Lake Ontario” ride that lets you to feel what riding in a submarine might be like. Furthermore, they allowed us costumed saps to take alcoholic beverages in glasses without lids on the ride while the compartment tossed and turned and jerked up and down and to and fro. Clearly, it was amazing. I should also mention that you are approximately 50-75% more likely to feel the motion sickness on this seven minute long ride if you attempt this beeswax with an edge on you. P.S. Hope your drink wasn’t full when you got on.

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And after all that merry making we owls left the juice joint only when the party ended and everyone was told to scram. So we followed up at Good Luck for some swell eats and another round of hotsy-totsy giggle water (oh, 1920s jargon, you slay me!)

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And that, my dears, is what a swingin’ 1920s prohibition party at the museum looks like.

If you want to know where all that amazing slang came from: here. You’re welcome.

Until next time!

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Pear Weather Friend’s Debut!

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On Saturday, Casa Larga Vineyard, a fantastic finger lakes region ice wine and regular wine winery and vineyard in upstate New York and host of the NY State Ice Wine & Culinary Festival that I won tickets to attend a few weeks ago, hosted a special public tasting of the two winning ice wine cocktail contest creations. My friend Meg and I crafted and entered the Pear Weather Friend cocktail and a former RIT student and his girlfriend entered the Ice Berries cocktail. The contest was surprisingly very dramatic and an extremely close call for all four days of voting. Due to a technical difficulty that prevented online voting from closing on time, the festival settled on “too close to call” and awarded us both winners. The final score was Meg and my Pear Weather Friend with 216 votes, and Ice Berries with 212 votes.

The winery made and dressed up our cocktails for a special photo shoot (bottom left), and spread the word via facebook, newspaper, and e-blast about Saturday’s tasting. All visitors to the winery were offered a shot-sized sample of each cocktail to try, a full glass for $5, and a recipe card featuring the two winning cocktails for folks to take home and recreate on their own. We chose to make our Pear Weather Friend cocktail (recipe below!) with Casa Larga’s Fiori Vidal Ice Wine (bottom right) which has won over 40 awards including “World’s Best Ice Wine” in 2008. You should order some. It’s amazing.

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Pear Weather Friend

  • 1 part Casa Larga Fiori Vidal Ice Wine
  • 1 part fresh pear puree infused with freshly grated ginger root (Wash, peel, and cube ripe pears. Bring 1 cup of water to a boil on the stove. Place pears and a small sprinkling of freshly grated ginger root in a steamer basket in the pot. Cover, reduce heat to simmer, and steam until tender. Blend pears, ginger, and a bit of the juice at the bottom of the pot in a food processor or blender until well-pureed and not too thick. Chill.)
  • 1 part ginger ale
  • Splash of Disaronno
  • Garnish with a thin slice of pear sprinkled with ground cinnamon
  • Serve chilled and enjoy!

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Thanks for all the support, well wishes, and votes friends! Hope you’ll be able to pick up a bottle of ice wine and try out the recipe  :)

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What’s New Wrap-Up

{1.} Back in the saddle! I started up tap classes again last week after a multi-year absence. It was amazing. I have two friends taking class with me, the teacher is great at accommodating varying levels of experience and strict on technique so I’m confident I’ll learn a lot, and I’m so happy to be lacing up those taps again! The chorus girl in me is beyond stoked.

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{2.} We submitted an application for our own little townhouse for two in Rochester for early May! Our noble goal is to not live apart for ten months ever again. Shoot for the stars! What can I say, we like to keep things interesting.

{3.} On Thursday morning I drove one of our Book Club Play actors out to SUNY Brockport for a workshop on comedic acting. Workday field trips are the greatest!

{4.} Got two treats this weekend! One I am thoroughly looking forward to enjoying as I build up my ice wine cuisine collection, and the other will have to wait until my curiosity eventually gets the better of me. I’m intrigued yet horrified. Anything that lists “cricket” as one of the top 3 ingredients is clearly suspect.

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{5.} Our craybies have gotten so big I can hardly stand it! When they were born last May they were so tiny and translucent that you could barely see them without a magnifying glass, let alone locate them in the tank amidst all that gravel four times their size. Ace and Gigi have grown into pretty magnificent little sneaks in the past 10 months, if I do say so myself. This one is Ace, our escape artist hard at work. Gigi spends his days attempting to snack on the neons in his tank. Both, clearly, are brilliant.

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{6.} Tried my first White Castle burger courtesy of last week’s Meet N’ Greet for the staff, cast and crew of BOB, a new play comedy about a hilarious and inspiring everyday hero who was born in a White Castle in Louisville, KY on Valentine’s Day. White Castle, pizza bites and spicy chips = best and most unhealthy yet delicious Meet n’ Greet EVER. I love my job.

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{7.} Spring is springing! It was 56 degrees on Sunday. 56!! The snow melted, the ducks were stoked, and I wore a short sleeved shirt and rejoiced because it was warm outside. Who am I!?

{8.} I learned of World Book Night US at book club this week and I cannot wait to participate next year. The premise is that to celebrate and share a love for reading across your community, 30 books are chosen by a panel of librarians and booksellers. The authors of the books waive their royalties and the publishing companies produce specially-printed editions of the books for free. You select a book from the bank of 30 and fill out a short survey to apply to be a book giver in your area. In April you receive 20 free paperback copies of the book you selected to hand out, at random, for free, to light or non-readers in your community. That’s it! You can take them to the public market, or a shelter, or a coffee shop, or a sporting event, or anywhere else you please so long as you give away the 20 copies in hopes of nurturing a love of reading among those who might not otherwise have access to, or who generally don’t for whatever reason, read books. Check it out, sign up for their newsletter, and apply to be a book giver next year here. Which of the 30 books would you choose to give away this year?

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{9.} This article in Rochester’s Democrat & Chronicle features both a write up about and picture of the YP book club I am in and The Book Club Play at Geva as it discusses the book club culture in Rochester. Two world collide.  Read it here!

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{10.} Found our new Vintage Drive-In Theatre in upstate New York to replace our beloved Starlite Drive-In Theatre in Ohio! And just in time too. I was beginning to wonder how on earth we were going to watch movies in the spring and summer without a drive-in. Our new drive-in boasts a country setting far from the light pollution of the city, first run double features, cheeseburgers, jalapeno poppers, funnel cakes, ice cream, an arcade, and mini-golf. YES. Crisis averted, I can stay in Rochester! My 50s loving heart is singing. I also found this sweet website that tells about all of Rochester’s old, now closed or abandoned drive-in’s of the 40s-80s. Stuff like this, I eat it up!

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First Friday

So apparently Rochester has this wonderful thing called First Friday whereby a whole bunch of neat arts and cultural organizations and local shops and eateries in the city pull together for a free shindig on the first Friday of every month, hosted by a different location. This March 1 First Friday was at Writers & Books, an awesome organization where my friend Kristen works and where the Young Professional’s book club I am in originated and meets. To accompany the “If All of Rochester Read The Same Book…” selection of Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea, the festivities were Mexican themed. Selena’s donated delicious free Mexican food to eat including rice, beans, tortilla chips, salsa, and empanadas (and as a born-and-bred Texan who is a pretty harsh critic of other state’s feeble Tex-Mex attempts, I have been fairly impressed with Selena’s food), my friend Kristen mixed me up a drink of tequila, cranberry juice and fresh lime, there was a live Mariachi band, The Magnificent Seven (the movie that, in part, inspired the book I’m reading) was playing on the TV, a few friendly faces I knew were there to chat with and, of course, I had Into the Beautiful North to finish before this week’s book club meeting. It was a pretty chill and wonderful evening. I’m thinking I’ll be participating in more of these First Friday events in the future. Also, they had a scavenger hunt where they hid a handful of tiny little toy iguanas at participating venues across the city. If you found and brought back an iguana by 9 p.m., you received a free copy of Into the Beautiful North. I’m a total sucker for scavenger hunts, so this is obviously fate.

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Does your city have a First Friday?

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Relax and Glam!

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{Saturday morning I used a rockin’ LivingSocial deal to La Salon Bianca for a LONG overdue haircut and a little relaxation with a hot chai cappuccino and a magazine, a luxurious scalp oil treatment, a massaging shampoo and conditioning, fresh haircut, and master styling. Thanks to the deal it was fantastic, cheap, and totally worth it. I am pleased to no longer resemble a frizzy, stringy wet cat. I’m certain that everyone else who has the privilege of looking at me all day are pleased too.}

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{Saw “The Quartet” and further chilled out at The Little’s adorable artsy cafe with a hot drink, a book, and some people watching. Also, you should totally see “The Quartet” – I loved it!}

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{Saturday night we cleaned up, dressed up, and showed up to partake in opening night festivities for The Book Club Play – the opening night VIP toast, the wonderful show, the post-show nibbles and desserts reception, some drinks from the theatre bar with our fellow staff members, cast, artistic team, and the rest of our theatre family, and an epic live band karaoke after-party in the NextStage. EPIC, I tell you. Seriously. Theatre folk know how to go all out and do it with style, absurdity, talent, and laughs. Killer opening night!}

{Sunday, of course, was a day of rest, quiet, getting stuff done, and the Academy Awards.}

How was your weekend?

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Can Thursdays Always Be This Awesome?

Last Thursday brought a fun lunch date with a sweet patron of our theatre and our lovely visiting playwright who’s show we are currently producing, cupcakes for dinner with my friend Kristen, and the laugh-out-loud third preview for The Book Club Play (the joyful creation of said playwright) with Kristen, Shawnda, and the young professionals book club I joined last month. What a great day! All Thursdays should be so awesome!

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{Two bloggers out for cupcakes…is it obvious?}

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{Cupcakes of choice: coconut cream pie and pearberry. I can’t speak for Kristen’s coconut cream pie, but the pearberry was incredible!)

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Ladies Night #3 – Fruit Tart

The locations: Verita’s Wine Bar to start, followed by our usual hangout at Becca’s.

The goods: Le Cordon Bleu Fruit Tart – A light flavorful treat perfect for summer, dessert…breakfast.

The eats: A shared cheese board and a shared charcuterie board paired with bread, nuts, and crackers at the wine bar. Back at the house, Becca made a delicious salad of field greens, Cara Cara oranges, pomegranate seeds, avocado, crumbled feta, and a maple balsamic dressing. Meg made baked chicken marinated with olive oil, rosemary, thyme, and garlic served with white rice. Both were delicious!

The drinks: A different glass of wine for each of us at Verita’s. Back at Becca’s, a shared bottle of dry white wine for Meg, Mary, and Becca, and I drank a sweet tropical wine – Rosebud Gold from Niagara Landing Winery in the Finger Lakes wine region just down the road from us. We also split two bottles of effervescent peach beer and, later in the night, gin-pomegranate-citrus cocktails.

The entertainment: Good conversation, many rounds of the game Scattergories, and of course, baking!

And now…the goods!

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Alternate blog titles for this post (bonus!):

– ‘There’s too much peach liqueur in this pastry cream,’ said no one ever.

– ‘To living above the poverty line!’ – A toast to success!

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Weekly Outings Are Good For the Soul

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Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday followed by a Mac n’ Cheese dinner with some of my friends from the Young Adults group. During dinner a couple was upstairs in the rectory doing their FOCCUS test and discussion. I wonder if they were actually in different rooms or merely separated by a fake potted plant like we were? I also wonder if their betrothed misread the “are you concerned about your spouse-to-be’s drinking habits” questions and consequently created a rather interesting post-test discussion, like some couples I know? ;)

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Went to Geva’s Comedy Improv Troupe’s annual performance of Be My Valentine: A Blood-Soaked Slasher/Romantic Comedy last Friday night (uh, ignore the dates. Old promos: that’s what you get for snooping around on MySpace.) This year’s show was set in a bad kid boot camp in a foggy swamp. As promised, there were lots of humorous, gory and unlikely offings, tons of fake blood squirting everywhere (first 6 rows of the NextStage is the splash zone, FYI), plenty of romance, and oodles of comedy. Grab a beer, sit in the back, yell out a suggestion or two, watch the comedy unfold, and laugh until you snort.

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And last weekend on Saturday night after the Ice Wine & Culinary Festival I saw this Out of Pocket Productions show, All This And Moonlight, directed by my good friend Shawnda. First of all, to clarify, The Space Theatre & Gallery at Rochester Greenovation is not located at the sketchy abandoned warehouse off a side street in a dark alley like my GoogleMaps apps said it was (thank God for that), but it IS located in the hidden back room of this huge and amazing thrift store of treasures! Walking in there was everything from mirrors and furniture to an 8 ft. camel. Like I said, awesome. The show was refreshing, had a lot of funny one-liners, was well-directed, well-acted, and was just a lot of fun in general – a neat script. Not to mention, I really love Out of Pocket Production’s mission. According to my program, they “started in 2008 with the goal of producing quality shows in Rochester and giving actors and theatre-goers a way to give back to their community. Our mission is to use theatre to raise awareness and funds for local and national non-profit organizations. Out of Pocket productions produces high quality shows at a minimal cost to maximize funds for non-profit organizations.” For this show Out of Pocket Productions partnered with Foodlink, a food bank that distributes food and plants gardens to promote wholesome and nutritious eating in emergency food networks in a 10 county area of upstate New York. 1/3 of the ticket price went directly to the organization. And they accepted non-perishable food donations at the door. Great show, great cause. Pretty great, right?

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And finally, on that Saturday evening after a day of savoring more super sweet ice wine and ice wine inspired cuisines than any person should ever drink in one day, my stomach could take no more syrupy sweetness and demanded something salty and substantial. And who am I to say no my body’s needs? (My arteries are throbbing too, it’s okay. Insanely delicious does come at a price.)

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Ny State Ice Wine & Culinary Festival

“I wish to go to Festival! I wish!” – Into the Woods

(ironically, one of my least favorite musicals)

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And thanks to all of the facebook votes we received from our awesome family and friends for our ice wine cocktail creation, the Pear Weather Friend, we were able to go to the NY State Ice Wine & Culinary Festival at Casa Larga Vineyards this past Saturday with the tickets we won! THANK YOU for sending votes and luck our way – you sure know how to share the love on Valentine’s Day!

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I enjoyed two seminars: Ice Wine Rules (what makes a true ice wine “the nectar of the gods” and how to spot the phonies) and Sipping with Sweet & Savory (pairing food and wine), both of which were hosted by great and amusing speakers and included samplings of tasty desserts, my favorite Casa Larga ice wine (which won the Best Ice Wine in the World award), and a sampling of faux ice wines – to see if we could tell the difference between the real deal and the fakes. In the Ice Wine Rules seminar I learned that true ice wine (which is made from grapes frozen on the vine at between -7 and -14 degrees Celsius for several weeks and typically picked in the middle of the night, are pressed far more gently and slowly than normal grapes, often only producing 2-3 drops of wine per grape with a residual sugar percentage of between 33-56%) will be clearer and brighter in color, will be thicker almost like a syrup or nectar and will slide around the glass much more slowly, and will smell of caramelized sugar with a sweet scent that lingers. Canada, Germany and the United States top the list of true ice wine producers while China and Moldova top the list for counterfeit ice wine production. Of the over 300 wineries in upstate NY, many of which are in the Finger Lakes wine region in Rochester’s backyard, only 22 wineries produce real ice wine.

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It sounds simple, but in the Sipping with Sweet & Savory seminar I learned that pairing a sweet wine with a sweet dessert or a dry tart wine with a heavier or spicy dish or a bitter chocolate often works best because sweet and sweet will neutralize each other just like bitter and bitter will, so you won’t be overwhelmed by any one flavor (as I would have previously expected). We experimented by pairing a sweet vanilla bean custard with caramelized pineapple with a dry chardonnay and then with ice wine. The chardonnay has vanilla and citrus notes, which many people originally thought would pair well with the custard, but the sweetness of the ice wine balanced the sweetness of the dessert really nicely. We did the same with a chocolate cookie that had a kick of cayenne with it. It tasted much better with the tart red than with a sweet white. Also, I could have eaten that custard all day.

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Following the seminars I attended, Meg and I worked our way around the room sampling ice wines and regular wines from ten different wineries, as well as a variety of gourmet cuisines infused with NY State Ice Wine.

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From top left: radicchio and arugula salad with toasted almonds and raspberry ice wine vinaigrette, pulled pork sliders with mango chipotle ice wine glaze, farfalle with pancetta, leeks and wild mushrooms in an ice wine cream sauce, butternut squash soup infused with ice wine, ice wine cheese fondu, iced apricot filled cupcake, fire and ice wine s’mores, and pinot noir and white chocolate raspberry ice creams. Download all the recipes here under “the recipes.” While all the recipes were definitely tasty, my favorites were the pulled pork slider, cheese fondu, and s’more – which had a hint of heat from cayenne pepper and ice wine both in the chocolate and in the marshmallow! Those three were to die for! We also sampled NY state maple cotton candy, NY state cheeses, monk-made breads, balsamics and oils, fantastically flavored chocolates, Genesee beer, and ice wine, ice wine, ice wine!

Outside we took a chilly but fun tour of the winery and learned about the ice wine vs. regular wine making process, enjoyed the ice bar and ice sculpture carvings, and warmed ourselves by the heated toasting barrels before deciding to stow away in them.

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At the conclusion of the Festival I finally met “Ice Berries Louis” – the dude who’s cocktail was our strongest competition throughout the four days of voting and the guy who nearly tied with us twice, both at the midnight voting deadline and the 10 a.m. deadline after a technical glitch prevented voting from closing at midnight. Because of the closeness of the competition and the system hiccup, the Festival decided to crown us both winners and gave both of us tickets to the festival. Our winning cocktails (see the cocktail recipes here under “the contest” – check out that amazing sounding Pear Weather Friend!) were supposed to be made and served to everyone at closing ceremonies, but due to an ingredient oops (Hmmmm, a trend? I think there’s a few contest-related things for them to work out for next year’s festival!) they had to postpone the tasting until a few weeks from now when we’ll be invited back with our friends, as well as an invitation extended to all the Festival attendees and general public, to sample our cocktails. Instead everyone received glasses of champagne topped with ice wine to toast to our success. But I’ll keep you posted when the real tasting comes along!

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A magical day, indeed!

THANKS FOR GETTING US THERE EVERYONE! :)

Now go get yourself a bottle of Casa Larga’s Fiori Vidal Ice Wine and kick back with a Pear Weather Friend!

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