Becky's photoblog

We didn’t know it at the time, but last year was our last Passover in the house I grew up in. After 26 years of two consecutive nights of Passover seders in our dining room in the old house, we made our old traditions brand new again in my parents’ new dining room in the new house. Quite predictably, it was strangely new and yet utterly familiar.

On Monday (the day of the first seder), I took the day off so that we could spend the day helping mom. We let the breeze in because it was absolutely gorgeous out, and the bright sunshine made our platters look lovely!

As always, we sat down to a delicious meal with family and friends, some who had joined us before and some for the first time, and we retold the familiar story of freedom.

Check out my other posts tagged ‘Passover‘

After a long day of playing games, we headed over to the South End for an early dinner at the Gaslight Brasserie (in the Summer of 2009, we became very familiar with the Gaslight, and their bathroom, since it’s right next to the SOWA Open Market).

We were pleasantly surprised to learn that they have an awesome prix fixe menu before 6:30pm, and also that they were willing to take a four-year old gift certificate, so we had a great meal!

We kept hearing that Frozen was supposed to be really good, and ‘Let it Go’ had been stuck in both of our heads for a while, so we decided to host a movie night after it came out on DVD this week. Mel offered to make dinner, and she loves cooking on a theme. For our ‘Frozen’ movie night, she made chili (get it?!), cornbread, frozen margaritas and a dessert that was intended to have icing (!) but ended up with whipped cream instead. Thanks Mel, for an amazing meal, and thanks Disney for being really awesome for a really long time.

I may be a bit of a tech junkie, but I also LOVE low-tech solutions. I found this cool little ravioli cutter that works just like a pizza cutter (not exactly earth-shattering, but I had never see this before). This works SO MUCH better than cutting the ravioli with a straight knife then crimping the edges with a fork. Also, my garlic and pepper seasoned pasta rolled out into sheets that weren’t quite wide enough for two rows of square ravioli, so I made triangle ravioli. Stuffed with butternut squash, of course. Delicious!

We love it when our friends invite us over and cook for us … and it happened twice this weekend, because we are super-spoiled!

We cranked out fresh pasta, and made two different sauces: pesto with roasted chopped pine nuts, and braised short rib sauce with fresh parsley. Delicious!

Our dear friend Becky is saying good-bye to Boston, and embarking on an adventure around the world. We hosted a send-off so that we could get a bunch of people together, and we spent a perfectly pleasant Sunday afternoon hanging out and snacking. Mel did it again with her delicious snacks … vanilla dipped strawberries and apricots, two different kinds of cheese dips and raspberry pie!

I just realized that I forgot to actually take any photos of our guest of honor because we were all distracted by the adorable toddler who provided the entertainment for the afternoon by repeatedly taking a running jump into the arms of any adult who would lift him up and turn him upside down  🙂

When friends need a hand, you can count on us to be there for them, even when it’s a lot to ask. We did our duty today, and headed up to Frederick’s Pastries in North Andover to taste-test several delicious cakes, fillings and icings to help our friends pick out their wedding cake. It was a rough afternoon, but did what had to be done. 🙂

 

Four of us devoured two of these at Blue Dragon. It’s a big melty chocolate chip cookie topped with ice cream and caramel sauce. Delicious!

 

Please click here for more photos from Thanksgiving and Hanukah

First attempt at making ravioli, and it went pretty well!

Fall is here and I’m working on perfecting my butternut squash risotto. Nailed it!

When three of your cousins have all moved far away from home, and they’re all home at the same time, it’s a reason to throw a party! We drove out to State College, PA for a weekend filled with family, food, farm animals, fire … and bagels! We also got an architecture tour of Penn State from my cousin, an architect who graduated a few years ago.

Click here for more family photos (password protected)

Alex is learning how to make bagels and she’s gotten really good at it!

Creamy pasta without cream!

For the first time today, I tried a recipe that I found on Pinterest, and it was delicious! This recipe is perfect for a girl who loves avocados, and also loves creamy pasta sauces too much. What can I say? I was raised on mac & cheese! Creamy texture without actual cream … why didn’t I think of this? I have a few ideas for enhancing this recipe with rosemary tofu and sun-dried tomatos. More on that another time.

Click here to check out my For the Love of Pasta board on Pinterest and click here to visit the recipe for 15 Minute Creamy Avocado Pasta on the Oh She Glows blog.

Tons of delicious food for a wonderful Mother’s Day Brunch.

Also, here’s some photos from a very memorable Mother’s Day 2011, when we got our parents and grandparents together for the first time.

I learned a long time ago that when Mel has a good idea, you should just let her run with it. She wanted to host a family-dinner style potluck because friends and comfort-food are exactly what we needed after a crazy week of bombs and lockdowns. So she invited a bunch of people to our house, and everyone brought deliciousness, and it was awesome.

Passover 2013:

Click here for my photoblog entries from

• Passover 2012
• Passover 2011
• Passover 2010
• Passover 2009
• Passover 2008 1st night and 2nd night

 

A year after our wedding, we can look back and honestly say that we would not have done anything differently. Our wedding weekend was truly joyful, and we returned to the Hyatt Harborside to celebrate our first anniversary and enjoy those wonderful memories. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and breakfast at the Harborside Grill, and we still can’t get enough of that spectacular view! Brian’s family surprised us with a delicious antipasto platter and a bottle of champagne, which was a really sweet treat.

Brian planned a wonderful surprise of his own. He ordered a mini-version of our wedding cake from the bakery where our wedding cake was from, and we picked it up on our way to my parents’ house. He tried to get the bakery to decorate our cake with the same leafy design as our wedding cake, but it didn’t work out quite as he had planned. Instead, it was even better. They frosted the cake with the leaves of two full trees meeting in the middle. We had lunch with my family, and shared the cake with them.

Click here to see Maureen’s wonderful video slide-show from our wedding.

 

Look at this beautiful creature …

Trying a little experiment — this is pasta dough with herbs and spices mixed in
(salt, pepper, garlic and my favorite Italian seasonings grinder). It smelled amazing!

Now we’re getting somewhere … and I’m getting pretty hungry

You gotta love a machine that does its job perfectly every time, without being plugged in to a socket

Until we get one of those fancy drying racks, the backs of chairs will have to do.

An hour later, into the pot they go. Did I mention how wonderful this smelled?

Seasoned pasta with butter and parmesan cheese. Success!!

Who was I kidding when I considered giving up chocolate for lent? My sweetie and I shared a brownie with caramel, chocolate sauce, chocolate covered pretzels, and salted caramel ice cream for Valentines Day

Melissa decided that she wanted to bake, and we there is no better excuse than that to throw a party! Mel spent the afternoon in our kitchen making the house smell amazing, and then a lot of wonderful people came over to eat!

Spinach noodles in peanut sauce with garlic, onions, carrots, chicken and my newest favorite ingredient, ginger

My mom makes the best latkes in the world 🙂

To celebrate Other Becky’s birthday, we visited a few of our favorite bars in JP. This is the gorgeous Christmas tree at James’s Gate, and my sangria at Canary Square.

Brendan’s sister and her friend were in town during Canadian Thanksgiving, so they went all out 🙂

Four friends out to dinner on a Friday night, after a very very long week = four incredible desserts. Fancy chocolate mouse, brown butter tart, hazelnut cheesecake and … I forget the rest. It was amazing!

King's Chapel

Another groupon, another important item checked off my list. To honor the national holiday that is Mel’s birthday, we had afternoon tea and scones at a fancy cafe on Newbury Street (using a groupon).

Before that, we played tourists in our own city and crossed yet another item off my list — we visited a Boston landmark: King’s Chapel. Mel used to work at King’s Chapel, one of Boston’s oldest churches, so she knew the inside scoop, but she had never been on an ‘official’ tour. Only recently, they have started offering a special tour called ‘Bells and Bones’ — up to the bell tower and down to the crypt. I probably should have asked a few more questions to get a better idea of what I was in for, but instead I decide to follow along. First we went down to what is possibly the creepiest basement in Boston. Dead Bostonians in bricked-up vaults partially blocked by filing cabinets, rubbermaid bins of office supplies, clothing racks with Christmas pageant costumes and stacks of broken antique chairs. Also, it was extremely warm. Then, up a few flights of steep stairs to yet another flight of steeper darker dirtier stairs to the refreshing cool breeze of the belltower and a 2437 lbs. bell cast in 1860 by King’s Chapel parishioner Paul Revere.

Then we sat down for a nice cup of tea.

High Tea, with scones and other delicious treats, at the Royalton Suites' London Cafe on Newbury Street

London Cafe

awww!

This lovely lady just moved in with this handsome gent. We have a scheduling conflict for their housewarming party, so we spent the afternoon visiting them in New Hampshire. It’s hard to see your friends once or twice a year when you used to see them all the time, but if it’s seven hours or not at all, then I’ll take it! I’ve known her 22 years longer than I’ve known him, and we all got along like old friends. How great is that?

We were originally planning to help them with a project, but it was way too hot to work, so instead we ate all afternoon — starting with incredible cheese samples at Grafton Village Cheese Company. My friends really know me 🙂