my birthday

So, my birthday was last weekend.

My husband and I took a couple's night out and went to Dear Bushwick, a fairly new restaurant featuring locally sourced, mostly organic fare.

I ordered the whole sea bass stuffed with beetroot green, in a vinaigrette sauce. It was very nice and once I was done, with all my fish's bones, skin and head set to the side, the waitress said that they offer to deep fry the remains and serve them with a spicy mayonnaise. 

It is very popular in Japan. You can eat everything, including the head.

Have I mentioned I like to work for my meal? Crunching on the vertebra snapped off the spine, covered in crunchy fried batter and dipped in a wonderful spicy mayonnaise sauce that included mint (!), was so good and such a unique experience I will never forget the meal. You must check this place out.

So, yeah, my birthday. I am an unimaginable amount of years old. I can't wrap my head around it. Mostly because I feel the same as I did 10, 20, 30 (yes that many) years ago.

But it is sooooooooooo much better now. For me, age has added bravery. A who-cares-what-people-think attitude has slowly crept into my psyche.

And, I learned some lessons (or hope I did) at this ripe old age (just this past weekend, actually):

Phones will fall into toilets. It is not the end of the world. They may even work again afterward. A Birthday Miracle

When you are thinking about yelling at your significant other about the fact that he has a perfectly fine laptop and that you need one in order to continue blogging through your planned month long vacation in the country cabin in July and therefore he should not be concerned about the small screen size of your dinky little Thinkpad that doesn't work at all and is too small to see anything on... make sure to check out the size and weigh of the present he plans to give you for your birthday, which is only days in the future...

Yes, he did. I am the owner of a brand new laptop.

So hooray for age. I'll take it over the alternative.

pizza making 101

The nice people over at Vimbly offered eight food bloggers the opportunity to take a free pizza making class. I was one of them. Amazing! I never win anything.

Vimbly is a new website that brings NYC classes and activities to one place, allowing you to search for the perfect way to pass your time and hone your skills. My experience in booking this class was very easy.

Nicole Garguilo

I had a fabulous time. The other bloggers were really fun. The host was 180 Hester Street, and the class taught by the lovely Nicole Garguilo. She taught us how to make traditional Neapolitan pizza, done the right way. This includes using double zero flour, San Marzano tomatoes, very hot temperatures (900 degrees - don't try this at home), and very little time (once the dough has risen) since it cooks in 90 seconds.

We were plied with unlimited wine and ended our day with not one but two pizza pies. Delicious. I took my second ball of pizza dough home and made one for my family. Unfortunately I was not sure how long to cook it in my NYC oven, which only goes up to 500 degrees, and under cooked it. I definitely need some more practice with this dish, but I think the work will be well worth the work, in the end. Homemade fresh pizza is amazing.

This was my first Food Bloggers in NYC meetup and I can't wait to join another, I had a blast.

Disclaimer: I was offered this class for free, but all of the opinions in this post are my own.

bún-ker and shinobi ramen

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We never eat out. But in the past week we ate out (and ordered in) twice. A new record!

Both places are new and both serve Asian fare. Bún-Ker, just 30 minutes walk from my house, on Metropolitan, is a Vietnamese gem. If you want to see it in all its unassuming glory get there soon. I heard they are being written up next week by Time Out NY. Everything we ate was so good, especially the tapioca pudding full of fresh fruit, and they were very accommodating to my toddler and stroller and car seat, all in tow.

Shinobi Ramen is just steps from my house, on Morgan. The ramen dishes are really nice and not too expensive. We ate at home, so I cannot speak to the decor (my husband went and got it), nor the service, but if it matches the flavor, it's a hit!

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forest park and salt + fat

This weekend we found a gem of a park right in our own backyard. Forest Park is wild like a forest but only minutes away from our house. If you don't live in a large city, this may not sound that exciting, but when living in New York City it is a welcomed change from the urban landscape you are greeted with daily.

scallops with carrot sauce, corn and capers at salt + fat

We never eat out, but this weekend we sampled, for my belated birthday dinner, the dishes at Salt + Fat, a new restaurant I happened to notice while driving by one day.

It is not for vegetarians since all dishes are largely meat based, but my vegetarian sister was able to order two dishes without meat (one was an alteration of the Korean BBQ Wraps), and they were very friendly and willing to make changes.

My taste buds were thrilled from the beginning to the end of this meal. It started with some bags of popcorn cooked in bacon fat (that my son promptly devoured - proclaiming, "This is mine and you cannot have any."), which were absolutely delicious, and ended with super sweet, pineapple flavored yogurt digestive drink in small bottles, doled out like fortune cookies.

My son commandeered two and a half bottles of this sweet liquid and once finished, declared he needed more. Add to this the wonderful fried chicken and daikon dish he had for the main meal and we had one happy customer.

The slope is so darned slippery, eh? Start with chocolate chip cookies and soon you're eating bacon flavored popcorn!

Ah well, tomorrow is another day.