When blogging about your trip to Boston...

...for work, you don't have pictures like this to share from sightseeing...

{random stock photo people}

And you don't have photo evidence of everything you ate - whipping out the camera at dinner would be weird. You can, however, share the Boston restaurants you enjoyed and write that, in addition to eating well,  you learned a lot at the conference you attended.

Anthem Kitchen + Bar
Neighborhood: Faneuil Hall
Meal: Steak and truffled mashed potatoes flatbread pizza

Eastern Standard
Neighborhood: Kenmore Square/Fenway
Meal: Veal Saltimbocca

{Sub thirsty rained out Redsox fans and that was the atmosphere}

Post 390 Urban Tavern
Neighborhood: Back Bay
Meal: Steak Frites

El Centro
Neighborhood: South Boston
Meal: La Mejor Del Mundo, Carne Asada Al Carbon "Estilo Sonora" Con Refritos, Chile Verde, Ensalada Y Guacamole

Oh my, I just realized I ate red meat every night I was there. Maybe my body secretly needed iron. Now I openly need vegetables and fish/poultry. Good times traveling with a fellow foodie...

Brand spankin' new!

Thank you Shawn O'Donnell!

Finishing Touch

Jimmy put the finishing touch on the porch this evening - a colorful and useful wall-mounted bottle opener. I saw something like this at a local shabby chic store for $30. We got the stainless steel bottle opener online for $12, the piece of wood at Home Depot for $3 and I spray painted it with leftover paint from another porch project. Score! Who wants to walk all the way inside to open their delicious beverage?

Jimmy also installed a plexiglass wall to keep out the pesky stray cats that keep clawing their way through this tear in our porch screen to mess with poor Malloy's food and things. To reward my handy man... his favorite - filet, salad with blue cheese and a warm ciabatta roll. Time to cuddle up and enjoy the rest of the evening...

Good Eats

Ali was in town Sunday through Tuesday... and this coming Friday is her birthday...and she leaves us this coming Tuesday to head out west to AZ. All that to say, we enjoyed her being here with some good eats.

The aforementioned Purple Plum Torte - while definitely delicious, I'm not entirely sure it deserved all that hype...

Coquilles St. Jacques for dinner Sunday night...

1 1/2 pounds scallops, preferably bay scallops
2 sprigs fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 sprig parsley
1 bay leaf
8 black peppercorns
Salt
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup water
7 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Cayenne pepper
Freshly grated parmesan

1. Heat the oven to 400. Combine the scallops, thyme, parsley, bay leaf, peppercorns, salt to taste, wine and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for exactly 2 mins. Remove the parsley, thyme, and bay leaf and drain the scallops; reserve the cooking liquid. Let the scallops cool.
2. If using bay scallops, cut them in half and set them aside. If using sea scallops, remove the tough side muscle and cut them in thing slices - so the slices are circular - and set them aside
3. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour with a wire whisk; cook for 30 seconds, whisking.
4. When blended, add the scallop liquid, stirring vigorously with the whisk; simmer for one minute
5. Remove the sauce from the heat and, beating vigorously by hand or with an electric beater, add the remaining 5 tablespoons butter a little at a time. It must be added gradually. Beat in the egg yolks and continue beating until the sauce is cool. Add the lemon juice and cayenne to taste - and you should be able to taste them and season with salt.
6. Spoon a little of the sauce into the 12 small or 6 large ramekins. Top with equal amounts of scallops. Cover with the remaining sauce and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. 
7. Bake for 5-10 mins or until bubbly and golden brown.

Chicken Roasted with Sour Cream, Lemon Juice and Mango Chutney for dinner Monday night...

2 boneless chicken breasts

1/2 cup Hellmann's mayo

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons Major Grey's mango chutney

1 teaspoon curry powder

Juice of one lemon

Fresh black pepper

1. Heat oven to 450. Lay the chicken in a medium baking dish
2. Whisk together the mayo and sour cream in a small bowl. Add the chutney and curry powder and whisk until smooth. Add the lemon juice a little at a time, tasting as you go. It should taste quite tangy. 
3. Spoon the sauce evenly over the chicken. Place in the oven and roast until the chicken is cooked through, about 15 mins. Season with pepper and serve.

Note: It took my oven way longer than 15 mins to cook the chicken - maybe 25 mins. I don't know why considering I knew it had curry in it, but the taste was a little unexpected. Definitely tasted good - just a little different.

Special Delivery

I came home the other day to a gift from Ben, Amie and Lucy thanking us for hosting them at the end of June. As if we needed thanking. I'd do anything to have them closer so we could host them more often. Anyways, on to the gift, it was... The Essential New York Times Cook Book. As noted in this recent post, I bought this cook book for Colin for Christmas last year and I've been lusting after it ever since. Thank you, thank you, thank you Lucas family!

I've since spent hours leafing through it's 932 pages. The verdict: I'll need to eat two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners and two desserts with soup, salad, bread and appetizers in between for the next six months to make all the recipes I've flagged already.

I I always say "I can't bake to save my life," but this recipe on Cakes p. 763 just seems like the perfect first recipe to give a whirl. In the spirit of giving, I'll share it now. Wish me luck this weekend!

Purple Plum Torte - first published in 1983

"This is both the most often published and the most requested recipe in the Times archives. By my count, Marian Burros ran the recipe in the paper twelve times."

"I've thought a lot about why this torte struck such a chord with people: the answer, I think, is that it's a nearly perfect recipe."

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Large pinch of salt
1 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon, or more or less depending on the tartness of the plums
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
12 purple plums, halved and pitted
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, or more or less depending on the tartness of the plums
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt
2. Cream 1 cup sugar and the butter in a large bowl with a hand mixer until light in color. Add the dry ingredients and then the eggs
3. Spoon the batter into an ungreased 9-inch springform pan. Cover the top of the batter with the plum halves, skin side up. 
4. Sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of sugar and lemon juice, adjusting to the tartness of the fruit. Sprinkle with the cinnamon.
5. Bake until the cake is golden and the plums are bubbly, 45-50 mins. Cool on rack and then unmold.

Now to reassume the position on the porch again...

Kelly's Baby Shower

Kudos to Marisol and company for such a nice event on Saturday. It was a great day of celebration for Kelly and baby boy, lots of good food, tons of oohs and aahs - so much fun! Here are some highlights. I am a terrible photographer and I did not get any good pictures of the wonderful hostess and many of the guests.

Woman of the hour - Pregnancy suits her!

Favors

Decorations - Baby things!

Decorations - Tissue paper flowers

Blonds groping the belly

Kel with her U of Delaware friends

Kelly and lifelong friend, Shea

And then the trip would not have been complete without a stop by beautiful Riva, MD to see Ron and Martha! They have an insanely tempting pool in their backyard. I wish I had more time to hang with them and take a dip. Next time. Me + raft + drink with a bendy straw = bliss.

Baby Things & Favorite Chain

I went to MD this weekend for Kelly's baby shower. More to come on that in a future post. She got an unbelievable array of cute baby things. Check out these from me and Jimmy.  Baby Gap is too much fun...

Wallabees like his Dad's

Baby jeans - nothing cuter on earth

And then this Cooley Redskins jersey/onsie from Mrs. Long...

My trip up to MD after work on Friday was made especially enjoyable by a stop at my favorite VA and MD chain - Wawa. It's the only gas station chain I know of where you can get a made from scratch turkey on ciabatta sandwich and fresh mango for dinner. They also have hummus and pita, grapes and cheese, fresh veggies and dip, Chobani greek yogurt and all kinds of other goodies. I know, I know, I sound like such a NC tourist...

Star Spangled

Happy belated 4th! We had such a nice holiday weekend. First up we had the Lucas family for the night on Friday! They drove back to this area to catch an early am flight on Saturday. We were so happy to have them again! I made a tomato pie which Ben and Amie had never had and Amie tells me she is making this same recipe for her bookclub dinner. Yay! We also had this lemon coconut poundcake, berries and cool whip for dessert.

All cool whip and no poundcake OR berries

Hair - effortless, beach chic

Sadly Ben, Amie and Lucy left early Saturday and our fun with three of our favorite CA residents was over. Hurry back soon! Jimmy did school work during the day Saturday and I read and sunbathed on the beach with my mom. Dinner Saturday was Omaha Steak burgers - compliments of Martha and Ron (huge thank you!) and these completely on a whim, but extremely delicious homemade onion rings. A must try! I'm all about links and no visual evidence these days...

Sunday we decided to head out for a paddleboarding/fishing adventure at the Basin in Fort Fisher. It was, let's just say, disastrous. The goal = fishing on Zeke's Island. Transportation = Jimmy & Kaylie on paddleboards across the Basin; My mom on foot via the rocks that close in the Basin. As my mom sets out on foot, Jimmy and I walk to beach of the Basin to drop our boards in. About a 15 min walk. About a 15 min paddle. We'll meet on Zeke's island. Well 15+ mph winds coming right at us made our paddle, or shall I say, kayak on a paddleboard, a 1 hour and 45 min affair. It was horrendous. I am still sore days later from the arm, legs and core strength it took to keep paddleboarding when the wind made me feel like I was going nowhere.

Jimmy and I got to Zeke's Island and my mom was nowhere in sight. Luckily a lady on a kayak had a cell phone. I got a hold of my mom only to find out the tide over the rocks closing in the Basin made the rocks extremely slippery, and she had fallen... and had a giant bump and open wound on her shin. We both felt really bad and we all were completely exhausted, so we headed back to the North End for a cocktail and some effortless surf fishing....

My mom - such a trooper!

Fireworks on Sunday evening, some chores around the house and dinner out on Monday and the long weekend was over. Can't believe it's already Wednesday!

How does one actually capture the beauty of a firework in a picture?

Jimmy spent the day today revisiting our beloved Basin and Zeke's Island on paddleboard and this time came back with a delicious flounder for dinner. Success!

More of Jake's Wedding

Jake's mom sent me a link to some of her pics from the wedding and I wanted to share these. The first one sets the scene of their ceremony and our reading.  The other is just a good shot of us with some longtime Carolina friends...

I have a 4th of July update too. Will do tomorrow.