Walk in the sun

One last walk in the park with JD before he headed back to the Old Country. He will be back at end of December, so just a few more weeks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We're having a great time cooking all the Thanksgiving food. Its almost done, we are having a rest before finishing the last items. So after some tooing and froing the menu is:

Appetizers:

Bacon wrapped dates

Sausage meat meatballs

Mimosas

Mains:

Lemon, garlic and herb marinated turkey breast

Green Bean casserole

Roasted sweet potatoes with maple syrup

Mash

Hot sausage meat stuffing

Cranberry sauce

Dessert:

Pecan-Pumpkin pie

Apple pie

Home made vanilla ice cream

New York, New York

2 days, 4 meals, 1 night. Two very tired but happy parents.

Staying at the Waldorf, we walked almost everywhere. Started with the UN building, then quick lunch and a surprisingly empty Empire State. We spotted an interesting building with an ice rink a few blocks away so found it by Bryants Park - where we stopped for a glass of wine and a well deserved rest. Dinner at River Cafe - what a view!

Today we went to Ground Zero, Century21 (its cold, so got mum a throw) and walking along Battery Park. The queue to the Liberty Island ferry was AMAZING so we veered left and checked out Wall Street instead. Then rounded it off with a visit to Rockefeller centre and lunch at Grand Central. Dad now asleep and mum resting in the sofa.

By the beach

wishing it was still nice and warm. But its nice with sunshine and I do quite like autumn and having proper shoes and being allowed and able to cover up a bit more.

Autumn love

IKEA Shopping

Guests

My parents are coming over to visit. They land Friday and staying a week, over Thanksgiving. So I have decided we will spend Thanksgiving day cooking the food, drinking wine/beer and having the Macy's parade on tv in the background.

I got myself a beautiful pie dish at Williams and Sonoma along with Pecan-Pumpkin butter to use for the filling. Will get dad to cut out the acorn and leaves to decorate the top.

The main will be brined Turkey breast, they sell organic free range dito at Whole Foods. And sides I am thinking normal mash, sweet potatoe casserole with marshmallows and cranberry sauce. I think we will also have to cook green bean casserole even if it sounds the weirdest dish ever - I mean green beans with mushroom soup and ready friend onions on top? But when in Rome.

Almost

No cooking for me on Thu night as I went out with a friend and tried the local Spanish tapas bar. It was surpisingly good and shame on me for thinking Septics wouldnt know how to cook tapas. Good wine too. And sangria. Out again tonite but probably for more drinking rather than eating. Does it count that someone else cooked for me? At least it wasnt microwaved.

Cooking

Cooking for one is dull so I have become Queen of Lean Cuisine. Not good. But handy. Ideally accompanied by diet pop. Double bad. But convenient. My favorite is Swedish Meatballs.

This week I am back from travelling and travelling and travelling so decided to go for a new start. So Monday night visited Whole Foods and got veggies, fresh eggs and fresh crab cakes. While crab cakes just need heating they are lovely. Today I cooked scrambled eggs with chopped tomatoes and avocado on the side. Mmm. Lets hope I can keep it up.

Rude

Just back from a long day of flying. Its not fun at the best of times and when you get delays it sucks a bit more. But I made it home in the end so that is the main thing. But while queueing to get to the gate (not even boarding, pls note) a lot of people were incredibly impatient, trying to squeeze past or trying to hurry the staff up. Not clever. And so pointless. We still had to sit and wait another 20 min by the gate so what use is getting into the room 30 seconds earlier?

American Beauty

This summer in Stamford they had statues almost in every corner, something that apparently happens every year for a few months. Not sure what happens with the statues afterwards but am sure they are sold off for a vast amount of money to people who have grown to love them. I would like to have bought several of them. There was a hippo in rusted iron in one corner. A moose made of scrap metal with a lovely soft nose. A snail looking thing made from a giant chain like you have on your bike - it was called 'The missing link' - ah - must have been a link chain?

Such a great idea. Think more cities should get local artists to display their arts in unused street corners. It really cheered me up walking around and suddenly finding a dragon fly on a wall.

Phoenix nights

I had a great time visiting A. She got me echinacea tincture to cure my oncoming cold and sorted me out with special high vitamin C tea and also made me a fantastic face wash oil with lots of good stuff to make me more gorgeous (hard to imagine, i know).

We spend a lot of time in her yard drinking beer and nattering, it was a relaxing weekend which is just what I needed mid travel. In her garden she has a pomegranate tree and a grape fruit tree and a pecan nut tree. How unfair is that? I love the idea of going out picking your breakfast grape fruit in your yard. Hmfp.

I am now in Sweden, its snowing and cold. And dark at 3. Strange. Funeral went very well and while it was sad to say goodbye we know she had a long and good life which is comforting.