More Food

Mr. woke me up this morning at 8am and insisted we go to the green market. I was kind of in shock. It was lovely, cooler, and less crowded. I went yesterday, so had less to get, but still managed to totally fill our bags. Got the first beautiful heirloom tomatoes and cherries.

This was our dinner- all from the market! Spinach pasta with peas and pesto. Beets and honey chevre. The tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. It was perfect after our hot mid-day run-walk with Sparks.
I also got sick of watching some veggies shrivel up when I cannot stuff myself with enough salad. I know that most pickling is a rather intensive process- but this is quick pickles. So easy!
I already tasted them and they are really good...
Also broke in my new baby casserole pan with a strawberry cherry crisp. The pan is so little and cute.
I know, I know- enough food already....

Greenmarket!!!

The thing about eating from seasonally from the greenmarket is a sense of overload. When something is in, you want to eat it, cause it won't be around for another year. But, then you get a little tired of it and wonder what more can you do. So this is the latest incarnation of strawberries. It is just whipped cream with strawberry puree and pistachios. I have been meaning to make a little crisp- but it is too hot to bake.
The greenmarket is getting very exciting! This is my haul from the Friday morning 97th street market. So many veggies! So fresh!
I am the only one in the house who likes radishes- but i couldn't resist. I didn't get any meat today, cause I am trying to be more inventive with veggies and with cooking that takes very little heat. So we have been having elaborate salads and I am going to make some soup that can be served cold. Sparks loves the market too. Everyone there compliments him and the milk people always have treats.
ps. After I gave a little note to one of my students, she pointed out that her teacher at school told her that she could only use one exclamation point. What is that all about??? Do we really want to dampen children's enthusiasm? For punctuation, nonetheless??? Puuhlease!!!

Gauc-off

Despite our massive win last year...we decided to bring banana pudding as our offering. This is a disgustingly tasty sweet recipe that is really easy. Pudding mix, milk, cream cheese, condensed milk and whipped cream plus cookies and bananas. Ridiculous.

Everyone else assumed everyone else would be bringing gauc too- so there were only 7 entries.
Despite this- it was still challenging and these were the prizes.
And the winners. Yet again, the first place winner choose to make it fresh on the spot and that made all the difference.
Ps. If I am leading you astray- we only got second place last year.

Greenmarket

More ways to eat strawberries....freeze them, blend them with milk and agave. I could get a good shot of the "gelato" before we started to snarf it. Look at last years blueberry entry and imagine that it is bright pink.

Frozen berries above.

There is nothing more simple and delicious than the first fresh strawberries and organic handwhipped cream....

It is so exciting at the market. Finally some fruits and veggies!!! There have come and gone some of the real delicacies of spring- ramps and fiddlehead ferns. Now we have asparagus, rhubarb and strawberries!

What a great day

Sunday was like a Saturday, so we went to Central Park. J. and I. joined us and we rented a boat to row around the lake. See here, we are about to go under the Bow Bridge, designed by Calvert Vaux. It is fun to watch New Yorkers trying to get the boats to go in the right direction...
So romantic, our husbands rowing us around.
We had a picnic, topped off with the Paula Deen's 500lb. Banana Pudding...
Then we whipped their butts at bocce.

Disney

I guess you should really start at the bottom of the page and go up.  We arrived on Saturday, rested, ate dinner at the hotel and then went to the Magic Kingdom.  Sunday we went back to the Magic Kingdom (lunch at the Plaza) and rode Space Mountain, the train, stitch's escape, Peter Pan's ride and Big Thunder Mountain.  That evening we ate dinner with Mickey and then took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom to get a boat to our hotel.  We went to Epcot on Monday and rode Mission Space and Soarin'.  Both of which were crazy visual rides.  You are sitting sort of still and a screen is showing you the action.  But somehow it still mimics the sensation of moving; you feel g-forces when the space ride takes off...I got a little motion sick.  We also rode on clam-mobiles in the Nemo ride- really fun!  We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in the World Showcase and then stayed to watch the fireworks.

On Tuesday we got up early to go to Animal Kingdom.  I really wanted to take a Safari- they had elephants, giraffes, rhinos, warthogs, and lions.  But the truck didn't stop- so I got very few good pictures.  We also rode the Mt. Everest roller coaster and the Dinosaur ride.  That evening Epcot was open late for resort guests, so we had dinner in Morocco and pastries in France.  We also rode the Test track ride at about 11:45!
On Wednesday, our last day we went to Disney Hollywood studios.  Besides, just being exhausted, this was the hottest and most humid day.  We had a reservation for lunch at the Sci-fi Dine- in Theater.  It is like a drive in movie and you sit in "cars" and watch the big screen.  We rode the most intense rides- Tower of Terror and Rockin' roller coaster and then got the heck out of there. 

Our last night there we had dinner at the Polynesian hotel in the Ohana restaurant.  It had a view of the Magic Kingdom from across the lagoon.  After dinner, there was a huge fireworks display and the soundtrack to the fireworks was piped into the dining room.  We did a last bit of exploring (planning our next trip...) and then went back to pack and collapse.
We had our own wild Animal Kingdom waiting for us....
Really, NYC is a little like Disney World, just dirtier.

More Disney

We spent five days in Florida, so we headed back to the Magic Kingdom on Day 2.  This pic was taken in Liberty Square aka Philly.  

This is our new house- pretty impressive for first time home buyers....
We had dinner with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald at the Contempary Hotel.
There was a flower show happening at Epcot, so there were amazing topiaries and flower towers everywhere.
Everyone has to take a silly picture like this...