Becky's photoblog

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.

I think this might be the start of a series. How gorgeous is this tree?

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

Finally found a moment this week to stop and smell the roses. Or whatever flower this is.

We spent the weekend at Cedar Lakes Estate in Port Jervis, NY for my cousin’s wedding. I didn’t get any good shots at the wedding (other than the shot on the right of the lovely table centerpiece), but we got a handful of lovely shots as we wandered around and explored the lake and the beautiful fall foliage.

Photo by Brian

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!

Photography is permitted on the first floor of the Gardner Museum‘s new wing, and I finally got around to snapping a few of my own photos. I have a ways to go because the new wing is gorgeous, but let’s start with the greenhouse. The first thing I see every time I arrive at the Gardner Museum is the new greenhouse. The flowers for the museum’s signature courtyard used to be grown and cared for at an off-site greenhouse, but one of the many gems of the new wing is an onsite greenhouse, complete with a greenhouse classroom for teaching school groups about Isabella’s gardens. And my favorite, purple orchids.

King's Chapel

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.

awww!

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 🙂

I had a groupon for a Cape Ann Whale Watch, and we used that as an excuse for an incredibly pleasant daytrip to the beautiful town of Gloucester, MA (click to see google map). One of the many things I love about living in Massachusetts is that there are gorgeous vacation spots right under our noses. Gloucester is right on the ocean, and the weather was picture-perfect.

First, we wandered around Rocky Neck, one of American’s oldest artist colonies. I went to art school, so I have some idea of what it’s like to be surrounded by artsy-types. This is much different. These are serious and talented artists running cozy galleries, and living the good life in quaint houses with incredible views.

Then, we crossed an item off of our list by visiting the Sargent House Museum. The house was built for Judith Sargent Murray (1751–1820), who was (among many other things), the great-grand-aunt of John Singer Sargent (one of the few artists that Brian and I can truly agree on). The house was lovely and the tour guide really knew her stuff, but we had to duck out before the tour was over because the whales were waiting.

We boarded the Hurricane II, and enjoyed the views, the wind and the salty air as we headed out to visit the whales. It was such a clear day that we could see Boston in the distance the whole time we were out there. Brian actually listened as the guide taught us about the different whales that we saw, so you’ll have to ask him. I just wanted to see something you don’t see every day — an animal so huge that it reminds you how small we are, in its natural habitat, an ocean so huge it reminds you of how little we know.

After the whale watch, we decided to take a little drive and ended up in Rockport, MA (click for google map), another great town with lots of galleries, cute shops and beautiful views. After some wandering, it was time to find some dinner. We had just stopped in to a small restaurant to try their chowder and their seating area was crammed with picnic benches and loud children. That’s exactly what I didn’t want for dinner, and I was getting frustrated with the tiny keyboard on my phone, searching among an overwhelming array of local options. So Brian said “let’s just try this place” and we walked in to the restaurant across the street.

I can’t say this enough: we are two incredibly lucky and fortunate people. The hostess at Brackett’s Oceanview Restaurant apologetically offered us the last available table at the restaurant – a tiny, out of the way, private room with a big window. The table was perfect, the room was perfect, the view was perfect, my drink was perfect, the fried seafood was perfect, the lobster ravioli was perfect and my husband is perfect.

Then we walked off dinner on Pier Avenue, just in time to catch a beautiful sunset over Sandy Bay.

Hungry Mother is an excellent restaurant in Kendall Square, Cambridge MA — we highly recommend it.

This right here — this is why you go to restaurants with 3 other people. So you can try 4 desserts.

I can’t name them all — I was far too distracted by the wonder that is basil ice cream (far right)

When a friend needs a hand with an arts and crafts project, and she offers to feed me too, how can I say no? Mo and I made paper flowers out of colorful tissue paper for her engagement party — we made a very pretty mess!!

Cannolli Nachos!! In celebration of our wedding, Brian’s parents hosted a wonderful party, featuring cannolli nachos and a phenomenal assortment of handmade desserts.

Another Passover, another beautiful table set for 20 of our nearest and dearest

Click here for my photoblog entries from

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

We had quesadilla-week to celebrate our new griddle 🙂 This is my first attempt at a chicken quesadilla with fresh guacamole.

We had some people over to help us finish the wedding cake, and we made stuffed shells to satisfy a few different food preferences.
Here’s my Stuffed Shells for Everyone recipe.

1. Start by cooking jumbo shells al dente, steaming some broccoli, defrosting some frozen spinach, browning some ground turkey (season to preference), and coating the bottom of your pan with tomato sauce.
2. In a mixing bowl, add some ricotta cheese and cut-up broccoli, then stuff a row of shells with the ricotta/broccoli mix (this is for our guest who doesn’t like spinach).
3. Then add some spinach to the mixing bowl, a little more ricotta, and stuff another row of shells with the ricotta/broccoli/spinach mix (this is for our veg-friendly guest).
4. Then, add the ground turkey and the rest of the ricotta to the mixing bowl, and stuff a row of shells on the opposite side with the biggest bits of ground-turkey (these are for your meat-lovers).
5. Then stuff the rest of the shells with the rest of the mix, cover with another layer of tomato sauce, garnish with parmesan or mozzarella cheese, and bake for 45 minutes at 350.

We treated ourselves to fancy sushi take-out using our beautiful new sushi set, and other pieces with the same pattern that I’ve picked up here and there.