Summer is Beginning

Summer has finally started here in Boston!

I, accordingly, began the summer with a nice Strawberry Jam with Aged Balsamic and Black Pepper!

 4 lbs of fresh strawberries

 All the jam is setting up now and will be ready tomorrow!

We also planted our garden! It's finally done (fingers crossed) dipping below freezing every night.

We have cilantro, dill, basil, lettuce, and flowers!

Our Zoo Date

We met a story-time friend at the zoo today.

When they wanted to walk and not hold an adult's hand we asked them to hold each other's hand. So cute!
Adele kept saying "friends, friends" and even hugged him goodbye when we left!

Orange Soda

Bryan found an article on how to make your own soda recently so we decided to give it a go!
Our first soda is similar to orange crush:
We started with honey oranges (next time we might try blood oranges!)

Juice them all and funnel the juice into a bottle with a tight stopper.

Add lemon juice and simple syrup.

And soda water...

And viola! A yummy drink that has less than 4 ingredients!

 It couldn't be easier! You can do any combination of juice you can think! I can't wait to try more!

Oh No! The Birds!

Elizabeth gifted us free tix to see Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds this evening at the Coolidge Corner Theater. That's probably my favorite theater in town!

They even brought in an ornithologist before the showing to discuss why birds attack! How fun and informative!

An Easter Picnic

Most of our friends are not originally from Boston so when holidays come around it's nice to have a family, of sorts, to spend the day with! We met at the Hatch Shell for an Easter Picnic.

Everyone brought picnic items to contribute! Three of the said items were straight out of Southern Living magazine recipe archives. We had delicious potato salad, bread and cheese, yummy fruit, deviled eggs, chips and dip, pimento cheese sandwiches, strawberry-rhubarb mini pies, honey glazed ham, biscuits and jam/ marmalade, fruit-herb-mozzarella skewers, and the ever popular cheese puffs.

 We made short order of everything available, that's for sure. 

 A little walk on the Esplanade 

A beautiful sunny day! Maybe the first this season!

Happy Easter!

Boston Cream Pie

Vanilla chiffon cake with vanilla curd and dark chocolate glaze. It was a keeper! Really Yummy!

Yoni will be leaving Boston soon so we had a farewell gathering in his honor last night.

David and Carolyn also got engaged recently so to keep the cake from being all sad, you just had to turn it around!

Easter Cupcakes

Martha was home all week with Adele and me! We had lots of adventures this week and even made Easter Cupcakes together yesterday.

Stay tuned... My first attempt at Boston Cream Pie coming soon!

We are in Boston, after all.

New Cocktails!

Bryan is really getting good with the cocktail mixing. I think he should take a bar tending class sometime!

Nolan and Elizabeth came over last weekend to help us try his newest ones!

The "Tomato Kiss"

This one would be so yummy with a grilled cheese sandwich!

The "Plantation" 

This one was probably my favorite of the evening. 

"31 Flavors"

"The Paddleboat"

Garnished with fresh raspberries.

And for dessert I made blackberry, lemon puddings with a bit of sponge cake and vanilla ice cream on top!

What Exactly Does a Heart Attack Feel Like?

Because I think I just had one!

On a more cardiac-friendly note, Bryan and I went to Island Creek Oyster Bar for a dinner date last night.

We hadn't been there yet, and we ate extremely well!
Of course, we also had cocktails:

Mine, above, was made with a rhubarb infused vermouth and Bryan's below was similar to an old fashioned but with added cinnamon.

Everything we ate was delicious, too!

From the raw bar we had several types of raw oysters and halibut ceviche.
We also had fried oyster sliders (my new favorite food!)
We split a lobster roll, fried clam strips, and house made sugar doughnuts with strawberry-rhubarb jelly.

When friends come to visit from now on, we will make sure to bring them here!

Happy Saturday!

Home Improvements

I entered my sweet Chinese-Food-Restaurant sofa re-do in a competition today!

I have my fingers crossed!

Working at an upholstery shop in college has benefited me more times than I can count. I'm so glad I took that totally random job working with an amazing 70 year old man who taught me how to sew, build, upholster, and re-upholster!

Pizza Night, Again.

This margherita pizza was our delicious dinner!



Pizza night isn't a new norm at our house but really this one was very good.

And in honor of pizza night I'm posting the recipe for:
Raspberry and Ginger Crumble Pizza from our last pizza night!

Ingredients:
1 recipe of white pizza dough (you can make it or buy it... But not a pre-cooked dough. It needs to be raw dough in a bag in the refrigerated produce section.)
1 tbsp melted butter
2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
1 tsp fresh grated ginger (make your life easier and peel the Ginger with a spoon and not a veggie peeler before you grate it)

4 tbsp butter, chilled and diced
2/3 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp oatmeal

Vanilla ice cream to serve

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400

Roll out dough and brush with melted butter.
Put raspberries on top and sprinkle on Ginger.

To make the crumble, rub the butter into the flour with your fingers until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar and oats and sprinkle mixture over pizza.

Cook for 20-25 min until crust is golden.

Serve while hot with ice cream!

Let me know what you think, Brittany!

My Legs Saw the Sun Today

And it was good.



We walked over to the Marsh Chapel at BU this morning for a Bach Cantata which was really quite good!

After the cantata we walked over to the Eastern Standard with Nolan and Elizabeth for brunch.

And then a lovely stroll home again for a nap!

Can it be that springtime has arrived in Boston?!

Hi-Ya

On my way home yesterday I was witness to some bizarre public behavior.












I know he's tiny in these pictures and you may have to zoom in to see what he's up to, but he was jumping and leaping and karate chopping up and down the platform.

This was only a short time after Adele and I witnessed a grown man in a business suit be-bopping his way through the Commons while singing quite loudly and in an unexpectedly high pitched voice 'soul sister' by Train.

Yikes.