The Sunshine State

I'm back from Florida and still recovering from a ridiculous sunburn. I don't understand how 2 grown, educated women do not know how to apply sun screen. I guess it could be due to lack of use? All I know is that I'm totally embarrassed by this burn and am shielding all parts of my body for the rest of my life!

Let's get on with the story of my friend T's move...

Day 1 - we drove (13 hours) to Savannah , dropped our bags at the hotel and quickly got on a shuttle to the city. I've been there numerous times before so we didn't have to waste any precious time finding our way around. I ate oysters at Bernie's, we both has slices at Vinnie VanGoGo's and drank beer at The Rail.




Day 2 - On the road again to Tampa. We arrived at her new apartment where she signed the lease and we then moved her stuff in. A trip to Target was next where she used loads of gift cards (what great "going away" presents!) to purchase some necessary apartment items - shower curtains, towels, garbage can, etc. That evening we went to Ybor City and visited the New World Brewery (fun!) & the Green Iguana (very touristy).

Day 3 - T went to work and I stayed at the new pad to watch cable, do some laundry, read and enjoy the pool. What a hard day!
After a long first day at work T was in need of some relaxing. We had dinner and enjoyed live folk music that evening at an Irish bar called Four Green Fields.

Day 4 - the day we had our meeting with the sun at Indian Rocks Beach. It was gorgeous weather, the beach and water were beautiful and we had a lovely time. That evening we visited with some other friends of mine that live in Tampa. They had a low country boil in their backyard that was completely devoured.


Day 5 - T and I both got up really early so we drove around a little and checked out an area called Hyde Park. We enjoyed brunch at a diner called Daily Eats. Both of us ordered the "Benedictine" - eggs benedict with shredded chicken, mushrooms and basil. I enjoyed a side of grits. Yum! I was very nervous about the airport. With all the security stuff that has gone on recently I had to check my bag. I insisted T drop me off at the airport super early and of course I was through security in 10 minutes.

It was a great trip with lots of memories. Good luck to T at your new job and in your new city!

Construction

Feels like I have not written anything in a long time. Things have been pretty crazy lately. My sister-in-law and her family came to Cleveland for a surprise visit (they live in Colorado), I got a huge job rejection, construction started on our house and I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Tampa. One of my good friends GOT a job there - hooray! I will be accompanying her and one very tightly packed Saturn on the 18 hour(?)drive. I'll be flying back on Sunday - hopefully with a tan and lots of pictures.

Anyways, I've been meaning to post for days about our home in Old Brooklyn. We live in the upstairs apartment. There is barely any paint left on the siding and the front and back porches are falling down. Looks like a great place to live, doesn't it? Well, the apartments are huge and in very good shape (really!) and it's a nice street to live on. So, it came time for us to get the outside looking good too.

We worked on getting the funding and the contractor together for months. It FINALLY got under way last week. Both the front and back porches torn will be torn down and rebuilt plus other misc work will be done to spruce teh joint up.

The back porch was torn down first. Here are a few photos.
before


day 1 - demo


day 4 - working on 2nd floor

Praying Mantis

My husband found a praying mantis hanging out on our cooler last week. He carefully moved it over to the hydrangea bush.



Can you see it?

According to OSU "They do not bite humans, damage household furnishings, nor spread disease. However, when handled, their spiny-like forelegs can be readily felt as a "sharp pinch." Mantids are most commonly seen in late September and early October either resting on a plant or "fluttering" through the air, sometimes mistaken for a hummingbird." Then I found this picture...it's not being mistaken for a humming bird, it's eating one!

Ty Fun Thai Bistro

With all of this heat lately, I can barely stand to be in our upstairs apartment (no a/c) and have absolutely no desire to turn on the stove. We've been grilling out a lot, but yesterday I was just too lazy to go to the grocery store and then cart all the groceries and grill stuff up and down the stairs a million times. So my husband, friend and I went out for dinner.

We really liked the pad thai and spring rolls that we tried from Ty Fun Thai Bistro at the Taste of Tremont last weekend so we decided to go there for dinner. I hadn't gotten a chance to peek in the place and check it out first. For some reason I thought it was going to be more of a take out place but it's really nice inside - cloth table clothes, pretty folded napkins & gold silverware. A new trendy Tremont spot for sure! It's kinda small inside with tables pretty close together. There's a row of 2 tops that run across the wall with chairs on one side and a long pillow covered bench on the wall. Tons of pretty pillows but not sure of how comfy sitting there would be. We had a table in the far back corner so I had a great view of the entire place.

We called ahead to confirm that they do not serve alcohol. We were told it's byob and needed a reservation. That night every table was full and people were waiting outside in the rain.

Let's get to the food...

Appetizer - I forgot the name but it it was 6 shrimp, each wrapped in a spring roll wrappers, deep fried and served with spring roll sauce. Be careful! These were piping hot and I think we all burned our mouths but it was worth it.

Soup - Thai hot and sour soup. Very good mix of flavors and very hot. Another warning! There are huge slices of ginger in the bowl that I thought were chicken. If you like to eat huge slices of ginger you will be happy, if not you will be surprised. Lots of smiling and watering eyes at the table.

Entree - The menu is large and we had a hard time choosing. I believe I ordered #59 off of the vegetarian menu. It was a type of curry made with coconut milk, red peppers, cauliflower, broccoli and tofu all cooked up in a banana leaf bowl. It was delicious! My friend ordered a vegetarian dish made with a tamarind sauce and my husband a duck dish.

Their presentation was creative. A sweet potato flower and other interesting sprigs of things garnish each dish. The rice is formed into a heart shape - cute! But the plates are enormous, blue squares that are too big for the table. When I was brought my plate my chest was nearly punctured with a sharp corner! 3 of these plates just barely fit on our table for 4. And they've also already acquired many chips - must be a huge pain to wash and handle!

Eating hot (temperature and spiciness) Thai food, when it's hot outside and you're trying to avoid cooking because it's too hot at home probably doesn't make sense, but I really enjoyed myself!

I am still full

Friday - girls' night out at Stan Hywet Hall. We saw a performance of Much Ado About Nothing. It was a really great way to spend a summer evening. Next month they're putting on the musical Always...Patsy Cline.


I have been wanting to put a picnic basket together all summer so I ran to the market at lunch and picked up my "supplies". I made 2 types of sandwiches on a french baguette - turkey, smoked gouda, spinach & mayo and ham, swiss, bibb lettuce & dijon mustard (combination was too salty). The turkey and ham are from that apple cured meat vendor. I had remembered this lunch meat being MUCH better than it was on Friday. Our side was a quick pasta salad - Ohio City Pasta pesto, fresh mozzarella and strawberry tomatoes. For dessert I bought some cookies and 3 slices of pie.

Saturday - Peninsula Farmers' Market in the morning & Bloggapalooza (I loved the red beans and rice from the Town Fryer) in the afternoon.

Sunday - Taste of Tremont had a full day of GREAT weather. My husband, brother and I sampled a lot of food...

La Tortilla Feliz - ceviche
Lolita - prosciutto cantaloupe skewers
Parallax - pulled pork sandwiches and noodle salad
Sokolowski's University Inn - pierogi and brat
St. John Cantius - stuffed cabbage and cabbage & noodles
Ty Fun Thai Bistro - egg rolls and pad thai

Ingenuity Festival Photos

Upcoming Events

There is so much to do around here!

This weekend:
July 13 - Movie Under the Stars (Wallace and Grommit)
July 13 - 16 - Cleveland Ingenuity Festival (made it onto the ReadyMade Blog!)
July 12-16 - Harborfest

And next weekend:
July 22 - Bloggapalooza

cell phones suck

Yesterday my husband dropped his phone in the drink. Well, it actually slipped out of his t-shirt pocket into the river as he helped his dad bring up their dingy. This trip was for "grown ups only" - we were just transportation. The raft and parents were launched near Lockkeepers and we then picked them up at Shooters. We will make this trip soon - can't wait!

So anyways the phone is gone and we are screwed. Rant begins now.

I purchased him a new phone a while ago, off of Ebay, because he couldn't hear on his old one and we were not eligible for any new phone "rebates". Who is actually going to pay like $200 for a phone that they give away? I called Sprint today and found out that I am eligible for a "rebate" but he is not. I guess switching the little card from the old phone to the new Ebay phone automatically renewed our contract for a year. Did not know that.

These are our options:
1. I get a new phone with a $75 "rebate" (paying the difference!) and give him my old phone. New 2 yr. contracts for everyone!
2. Same as #1, but I make them switch my number back to my phone, in the end my husband gets new phone and I keep mine.
3. Buy him a new phone at full price - we can not buy another Ebay phone because the his little card is gone.
3. Cancel his phone -$150
4. Cancel both of our phones -$300!!!

That's right. We have ONE contract with 2 phones that share minutes, but to cancel our contract (which I REALLY want to do at this point) they charge $150 per phone.

What to do?

Pennsylvania

We left New Jersey Monday morning (July 3rd) and arrived in Connellsville, PA at the Newmyer House in the early evening. We sat in the gazebo and finally got to relax a bit. This is a very small town and a holiday weekend so dinner options were mostly limited to a bar called Bud Murphy's (we at bad pizza both nights we stayed - ha!). This was fine, we were not there to discovery the culinary hot spots of the Laurel Highlands, we were there to discover the architectural ones!



This was our first ever stay at a B&B and we had no idea what to expect. The house was huge - 10,000 square feet - and had 4 guest rooms and 3 parlors. Our room had more furniture in it than our whole apartment. It was very clean and well taken care of but kinda smelled a bit like the antiques it was filled with. Very nice hosts who are trying to revitalize their little town with art and culture.

Morning one breakfast: yogurt with granola and fresh raspberries from the garden, blueberry waffles, ginger banana bread and cherry chocolate biscotti. Oh, and microwave bacon?
Morning two breakfast: cantaloupe soup, potatoes, goat cheese chive omelet, lemon poppyseed muffins, and almond biscotti. Oh, and more microwave bacon?

The owner/chef is a caterer and everything that came out of the kitchen was hot, fresh and delicious - baked goods were served just out of the oven!

Dear breakfast chef,
Why do you serve microwave bacon? It really is a sore thumb in your menu.
Curiously yours,
holly

On the 4th we visited Fallingwater, Kentuck Knob and Ohiopyle State Park. They all were amazing and inspirational. It was an absolutely lovely day.

New Jersey / New York

We got back from vacation on Wednesday. I love only having to work 2 days this week! Here's a little run down of the New Jersey / New York leg of the trip.

We didn't get in till after midnight on Thursday (someone ended up working a half day so we left later than planned). Friday after everyone woke up, showered and got lunch we finally made it to the History Museum around 2:30pm (they close at 5:45 - way to hustle people!). We looked at all kinds of stuffed animals, dioramas, dinosaurs and watched the planetarium Cosmic Collisions show. Robert Redford is the narrarator and I found that his voice made my eye lids very heavy. Well, either his voice or all the walking I did. We also went to Strand Books and strolled through Central Park - admiring all the New Yorkers with either their babies or dogs.


Saturday we went to Jersey City and went into a bunch of Indian grocery stores. They were really crowded with people so I couldn't get any pictures. Plus, all the fresh produce was covered in fruit flies which made me not want to get very close to any of them. Of course we didn't leave before stuffing ourselves with samosas and dosa (sans bugs) for dinner. Yum!


Sunday, our last day of visiting, was spent doing more shopping, eating and walking. We went to Chinatown and I fell in love with Pearl Paint - 5 floors of art supplies! Very inspiring. We ate a huge lunch at a restaurant called Il Fornaio located on Mulberry Street in Little Italy.



I left the city with a few souvenirs - art supplies, something from the Swatch store and a new pair of red and pink Pumas. My husband acquired a few new obsessions for double expressos and bottled sparkling water. Don't feel bad, he got a new pair of shoes too!

finally...a vacation

Tomorrow we're loading up the car and heading towards New Jersey. We'll be visiting family and spending lots of tourist time in the the city.

Thanks to a very good friend (and her generous wedding present) on our way home we'll be stopping for a few nights in Connellsville, PA to have our first B&B experience.

Have a happy and safe 4th of July!

Your Birthdate

Your Birthdate: January 22

You tend to be understated and under appreciated. You have a hidden force to do amazing things, doing them your own way. People may see you as strange and shy, but they know little. Your unconventional ways have more power than they (and even you) know. Your strength: Standing up for what you know is true Your weakness: You tend to be picky and rigid Your power color: Silver Your power symbol: Square Your power month: April

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Growing!

I took these a few days ago...before all the rain started.

4 of the 6 tomato plants have babies on them.




The hydrangea bush is just about to explode.


This is a "weed" that's growing in our honeysuckle.

*thank you Gloria for identifying my "weed" as a Sweet Pea!

first ATC swap

I finally put together my "Fairy Tales and Fables" ATCs and envelope last week. They were even mailed out a few days early! Now, I'm anxiously waiting to see what I get in return :)

Participants were instructed to make any kind of an mailart envelope so I decided to keep up my personal theme of atlas envelopes. I recently aquired quite a lot of old atlases and have been thinking about them a lot and using them for many little projects. It's interesting to match swap recipients up with their respective atlas pages. I get to find out where exactly these swap strangers live.

So here's my first ever attempt at making ATCs and my mailart envelope:

Strawberry Cobbler

Lucky me! Someone very sweet gave me a quart of strawberries the other day. They are one of my favorite things about summer. I wanted to make a classic strawberry shortcake but found a cobbler recipe in The Best Light Recipe. Instead of using 2 STICKS of butter, this only called for 3 tablespoons. There's some corn meal in the batter which really gave it a great little crunch and sweetness. A few bites out of the pie pan was my breakfast yesterday morning!

My Tuesday night Culinary Adventure

I went to Legacy Village. I don't really like going there; it makes me feel like such a consumer. But when my iPod breaks or I need to look at pretty furniture the need must be met!

Anyways, Tuesday my need was to attend the Michael Ruhlman book signing at Joseph-Beth. We arrived a bit early. It didn't seem like the crowds were pouring in so we got a cup of coffee and I read about celebrity babies. Close to 7pm people started gathering in the signing area and Ruhlman decided since it was such a small crowd we should just go to the bar. Ok!

We pulled chairs together to form a circle and ordered some drinks. At first it was a bit intimidating – sitting there with a group of self proclaimed foodies and a local food author/celebrity.

Then he looks at me and asks – Why did you come tonight? What did you like about my book? Or something similar to that, I can’t really remember because I was totally panicking.

Um, well, I haven’t actually read any of your books. Ha ha ha. I met you at the Chili Cook-Off and read somewhere that you were having this book signing…

I = Loser

He was really nice didn’t give me a hard time about it at all – thank God.

The conversation started off a little slow but by the end of the hour there were about 10 people talking over each other about making corned beef or kielbasa from scratch, how much they hate or admire Rachel Ray and who’s actually eaten at The French Laundry. Yes, he was the only one.

I found it very ironic that as we walked back to our car there were crowds, tons, lots! of people sitting outside, on the restaurant patios, having dinner. They all seemed to be enjoying the weather and their cheesecake or pasta, but they could have been experiencing a genuine culinary event, just a few doors away. I actually felt lucky that not many showed up – that’s what made the whole environment and conversation so intimate and enjoyable.

If you don't have any of his books either you can ready Ruhlman's article from last Sunday's NY Times Magazine - he was delighted that his name was listed on the cover! Also his newest book "The Reach of a Chef," was reviewed in the NY Times Book Review (special food edition) 2 weeks ago.

ChickCAN

Photo Documentary on using a ChickCAN Beer Can Chicken Rack.

Product Description: Are you ready for Beer Can Chicken?! Our ChickCAN rack will hold beer and bird steady while your beer can chicken cooks to a moist seasoned perfection. Includes cooking directions. (usefull things like - don't touch the can because the can and the beer are HOT and don't get too wasted and catch something on fire)

Put beer and chicken on rack, and plug with a potato keep her juicy! Hey, she's looking pretty happy here. Wave to the camera!

Grill on indirect heat from 1.5 - 2 hrs

See you in a bit birdie.

OMG! Has it already been 2 hrs? Oh, wait I think it's been more like 3 hrs!

Oh honey, your potato head is burning!

Poor little chicken that literally fell off the can, burned in half. NOT juicy at all :(

Memorial Day

This week has been really busy at work and I have not had a minute to update this little blog. The weekend has finally arrived and I have a minute to post about last weekend when we celebrated Memorial Day.

Saturday was the Great Lakes Fiber Show.
Lots of alpacas, llamas, bunnies, yarn and fiber to see. I bought 2 skeins of yarn to add to my growing stash - I need to start using the yarn instead of buying more. I think these guys look like they're wearing helmets or something. They have the most beautiful eyelashes!















Sunday we cooked out at our house. I made a summer vegetable pasta salad and my friend made a gorgeous mint julep tray - we drank and played bocce ball (in our tiny backyard) into the wee hours of the night.
















































Monday we went to my in-law's house for more bbq, bocce and the added bonus of slip-n-sliding with protective sunglass goggles!