The Soon to be Formerly Decayed Gentlewoman

I'm getting married in 3 days! I really happy to have a little time to blog since I've been BUSY this week, but I'm going to keep it short for obvious reasons.
Wedding preparations are going great and I am so grateful to my darling fiance because he he has been incredibly involved and helpful throughout this entire process, but especially this week- he's been working his butt off to get everything ready. A girl couldn't ask for a more responsible, considerate or hard working fiance! I appreciate him so much and I'm so happy and excited that we're getting married this weekend! I don't want to get too sappy, but I can honestly say that before I met my darling fiance I couldn't have imagined that someone so perfect for me even existed. It was more than I even thought to hope for. I thank my lucky stars that I was able to meet and fall in love with him. :)
When I'm not busy stressing myself out over a million little details (because let's face it, it's kind of inevitable the week before your wedding), I'm really aware of how lucky I am and I feel so happy. I'm overwhelmed by the love and help and support that we've received from our families and friends and I feel so lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life!
I'm also really thrilled that we have so many people who care enough about us to come in from out of town for our wedding. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of people I haven't seen in quite some time (and some of my darling fiance's family I haven't gotten a chance to meet) and I'm so flattered that they've chosen to travel to share our day with us!
I can't wait for Saturday! I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, enjoying the celebration, and most of all, getting married!
I'll leave you with the music that will be played when I walk down the isle- Bach's Wachet Auf. Enjoy!

Birthday Boy

This weekend, I helped my darling fiance celebrate his last birthday as an unmarried man! On Friday night, we enjoyed happy hour drinks and $0.75 sliders at the American Sector, then hung out with our friends Steph and Brandon at our house.
On Saturday, we attended Hogs for a Cause and ate lots of Barbecue while helping to support pediatric brain cancer research. I had pulled pork macaroni, boudin balls, brisket sliders, and a salted fudge brownie. Stephanie and Brandon gave him a confederate flag belt buckle/beer opener for his birthday. I'm sure the people in Maine will love it. :P

What a beautiful day for a BBQ!

That night, we went to the LPO and saw Sir James Galway. Sir James Galway was awesome- incredibly talented, very Irish, and really quite adorable. I told my darling fiance that I want to take him home and keep him in a shoe box under my bed. (For the record, I also feel this way about Danny Devito.)

Wearing the Derby hat I gave him for Valentine's Day and sporting a seriously cute beard

Sunday was my darling fiance's 31st birthday. Of course, I chose to celebrate this momentous occasion with lots of food. In the morning, I made him eggs with black truffle butter, and for dinner I bought a pheasant from Rare Cuts for him to cook on the grill. The pheasant turned out really well- I butterflied it, rubbed it with honey and olive oil, and then he weighed it down on the grill with several cast iron skillets and cooked it for 30 minutes, turning it every 10 minutes (then every 5 minutes for the last 10, so it would be even). I served it with a side salad and mashed celery root with cranberry wensleydale cheese.
Dessert was a double peanut butter iced cake with chocolate ganache. It was a hit. :)
Hopefully, we'll have at least as much fun next year for my darling fiance's first birhtday as a married man! :)

Name Change

One thing about getting married again that I'm still torn about is whether or not to change my name. I don't like to write about my divorce very much, but one issue that was particularly emotionally charged for me was how long it took for me to get my name changed back to my maiden name. For whatever reason, it was a huge ordeal and I still have that old name on my cell phone and cable accounts because they make name changes particularly difficult. I felt really strongly about getting my maiden name back and found the difficulties in changing it back to be really upsetting. I still feel disgusted when I see my ex's last name on my cable and phone bills.
I came to value my name as something that was mine because I worked so hard to get it back and I'm not really psyched about the idea of changing it again. I've used my name professionally for a number of years and it is also on both of my diplomas- I think it would be especially difficult to try to go by a new name when potentially applying for jobs because all of my references know me by my maiden name.
On the other hand, it kind of goes against my sense of fairness not to change my name this time. My darling fiance doesn't care one way or the other, as long as our children have his name rather than a hyphen (which is fine by me). So he, at least, isn't concerned with the fairness of the act. (He does joke that the people at our kids' school won't let me pick up the children without calling him-haha.)
I've been putting off making a decision because I can't change it until after the honeymoon anyway due to my passport being in my maiden name. I'm kind of leaning towards not legally changing my name and using it professionally but not minding if people address me socially with my darling fiance's last name. Hopefully this won't cause undue confusion.

What I really would like is advice from other women who haven't taken their husband's names. Did you have any complications dealing with things like signing loans together, getting on each other's insurance, etc....?

Old Lady Shoes

I ran 16 miles yesterday! It was actually a pretty painful run because my right hip and knee were really hurting during the run for some reason, but after the run and today, I'm just having some run of the mill soreness. I'm crossing my fingers that I'm not injured (I don't think that I am) and in the meantime, wearing a pair of Naturalizers that my mom gave me because they didn't fit her. It's seriously like walking on air! Three cheers for old lady shoes! (Not that my mom is an old lady- I'm just saying Naturalizers seem to have a certain cachet among those who are pushing 70. Mom has resorted to such shoes because she has arthritis in her feet.)
In other news, I am cooking a ton of Mark Bittman recipes lately. Partly because I got the Food Matters Cookbook for Christmas (Thanks, Tyler!) and partly because he's been putting some really good recipes online lately. Last night I made a version of the chicken, broccoli, and mushroom stir fry in the article I just linked. I used carrots instead of mushrooms (darling fiance does not share my passionate love of mushrooms), added some shredded cabbage when everything else was almost done cooking, and used some sesame oil to finish the dish. I was really glad I added carrots to the stir fry because they were perfect with the ginger and garlic that the recipe calls for. I'm also pretty thrilled to get back on the veggie band wagon.
As for the cookbook, I can't say enough good things about it. I've poured through the book and dog eared the pages for a TON of recipes I want to try. I really like the approach of using meat as a seasoning rather than the focus of a dish, and I think he's done a good job of making sure that his recipes, despite being low-meat are veggie focused rather than just giant servings of carbs (and the carbs in the recipes are also exclusively whole grain). I think that his recipes are very straightforward and there is a nice balance of ingredients that appeal to me and flavor combinations that I wouldn't have thought of on my own but am excited to try (like navy beans and butternut squash). I also love that he provides tons of recipes for beans!
As for the recipes I've tried out- I made Jook (asian rice porridge, basically- it's creamy, comforting, and full of veggies), red bean and collard green soup (southern, yet healthy!), and pasta with tuna, capers, and tomato sauce (I was surprised by how much I liked this one. Tuna in olive oil is amazing.)

What's your favorite cookbook?

Christmas Spirits

This weekend was SO busy! After the Christmas party on Friday (which went swimmingly), I attended an afternoon wedding on Saturday, the first of two family Christmases on Sunday (which involved a 3.5 hour drive each way), and a latkes party at Sarah and Jon's house on Mon. The holiday season is clearly in full swing! As for the rest of the season, I'll be seeing my friends Bonnie and Gabe (who now live in Sacramento) on Thurs. (and having a Reveillon dinner at Upperline- Yum!), spending time with my family (and eating Christmas dinner #2!) over the actual holiday, and seeing my friend Kristi (now living in San Francisco) the Monday after Christmas!
I promise I'll put up a few pictures from my Christmas party soon (my Mom sent me a fabulous homemade ugly Christmas sweater!) but to tide you over, I thought I'd post the drink recipes from our party.
The first year we threw a Christmas party, I made a list of the alcohol and mixers I thought we should buy for the party- basic stuff like wine, beer, rum, vodka, orange juice, and Coke. My darling fiance read my list, declared that screw drivers and rum and cokes were off the list due to this being a "Christmas party rather than a frat party" and sat down and came up with a list of fun holiday cocktails to make during the party. He even printed up a drink menu for our guests!
Since then, fancy drinks and a printed drink menu have been a big part of our Christmas party. Much like my food menu, the drink menu has evolved over the years- we keep the things that everyone loves and rotate out the drinks that didn't go over very well (this painful candy cane martini from our first party springs to mind- it went the way of the gougeres I made that everyone mistook for biscuits). Regardless of the drinks we decide to make, I think my darling fiance does a great job as a bartender every year, and I think that this year all the drinks were very good.
The classics that we've kept year after year are the Poinsettia Cocktails (my absolute favorite), Peppermint Patty shots (tasty and not overly alcoholic), Brandied Port (the gentlemen always love this one), and Brandy Milk Punch (a New Orleans classic).

Poinsettia

3 ounces cranberry juice, chilled
3 ounces champagne, chilled
1 ounce triple sec

Pour into a fluted champagne glass, stir, and serve.


Peppermint Patty

1/2 oz. crème de cacao
1/2 oz. peppermint schnapps
1 oz. cream

Stir with ice , strain into shot glass

Brandied Port

2 ounces ruby port
1 ounce brandy
Dash fresh-squeezed lemon juice (optional)

Shake well with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass; garnish with twist of lemon or orange peel.

Brandy Milk Punch

1 ½ ounces brandy
1 ounce simple syrup
½ bar spoon high quality vanilla extract
A couple ounces of Half-and-half
Cubed ice
Grated nutmeg

Pour brandy, simple syrup, vanilla extract and half-and-half into a pint glass. Add ice to a shaker and shake the concoction until well mixed and frothy. Add cubed ice to a rocks glass and, using astrainer, pour the mixture into it. Top with a bit of grated nutmeg.

The new drinks we tried this year were the Cherry Gin Sling (this one seemed to be the least popular, but I enjoyed it), the Rosemary Salty Dog (the Rosemary provided a delicious aroma and made this drink very Christmas-y), and the Elf in a Blender (which tasted like a really delicious strawberry daiquiri).

Cherry Gin Sling

2 ounces gin
1 ounce cherry brandy
4 ounces club soda
grenadine or Pom Cherry Pomegranate juice (optional)

Pour gin and brandy in serving glass over crushed ice. Top up with club soda and garnish with
maraschino cherries. You can also add a splash of grenadine or juice for a little added sweetness and color.

Rosemary Salty Dog

1 grapefruit wedge
Kosher salt
One 1-inch piece of rosemary sprig, plus 1 sprig for garnish
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 ounces fresh red grapefruit juice
1 1/2 ounces gin
Ice

Moisten the outer rim of a martini glass with the grapefruit wedge and coat lightly
with salt. In a cocktail shaker, muddle the 1-inch rosemary sprig with the sugar. Add
the grapefruit juice, gin and ice and shake vigorously. Strain into the martini glass and
garnish with the rosemary sprig.

Elf in a Blender

3 pounds strawberries, hulled and coarsely chopped
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons citrus vodka
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
Ice
1/3 cup chilled Riesling

In a bowl, toss the strawberries with the sugar and let stand, stirring occasionally, until
the strawberries release their juices, about 10 minutes.
In a blender, combine half each of the strawberries and their juices, the vodka, wine, and
lime juice with 1 cup of ice and puree. Pour into a pitcher. Repeat with the remaining
strawberries and juices, vodka and lime juice and 1 more cup of ice. Fill 10 tall
glasses halfway with ice. Pour the cocktail into the glasses, top each with about 1/2
tablespoon of Riesling and serve.

What's your favorite holiday libation?

Christmas Party Planning

Yesterday I mailed out the invitations to my yearly Christmas party which means it's time to start thinking about what I'm going to make this year!
Food I'm going to carry over from last year includes Baked Brie, Cranberry and Blue Cheese stuffed Endive, Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts (always a hit), and Rotel Dip (everyone LOVED this last year).
Additionally, I want to make meringues and either rosemary chocolate chip shortbread or Scottish shortbread for my sweets because they are all easy and can be made a couple days in advance. I also want to get a veggie tray. I enjoyed having pickled veggies last year, but I enjoyed a veggie tray at a Mardi Gras ball even more- so I think that's what I'll get this year. I'd also like to do some sort of bruschetta but I haven't decided what kind yet. Maybe fig and caramelized onion? I also think that this Beluga Lentil Crostini looks amazing but am not sure it would be a crowd pleaser... Cheese twists might be a fun way to use up the rest of my puff pastry left over from the Brie...

As usual, my darling fiance will be in charge of the drinks. I've had one request for Brandy Milk Punch already, and I don't think it's a Christmas party without a Poinsettia Cocktail- but the rest is up to him!

Do you like to host parties? I love to cook for a party, but I get stressed out by all the cleaning and preparations before hand- so one big party a year is perfect for me!

Getting Medieval

The Louisiana Renaissance Festival on Sunday was a lot of fun! We at roasted turkey legs, scotch eggs, and Shepard's pie. We saw a skeleton puppet named Ded Bob do stand up, a wench show, a falconry show, a joust (which seemed to have taken a great deal of it's inspiration from WWE, and a juggling duel that involved the losing juggler rolling across a stage covered in mouse traps. The funniest thing about the festival was that there are apparently people (who own VERY elaborate costumes) who go to fair after fair, year after year. We definitely heard how Ded Bob was better when he was a strolling attraction who started out at the Texas Ren Fest, and met a guy who had seen the wench show "hundreds of times." I didn't wear a costume (just my sweet new old man hat), but my darling fiance wore a kilt, and my friends Sarah and Jon dressed up like a king and queen. I took lots of pictures, of course. Here are a few of my favorites.

Everyone watching the falconry show

Queen Sarah speaks softly but carries a big...hammer

King Jon would like to Axe you a question. :P

Scotland Forever!

My darling fiance's costume earned him lots of compliments!

Newsies, Merlin, and Braveheart?

Braveheart with Queen Sarah and King Jon (and Merlin)

Jousting!

Shelly's Christmas Gift Guide (Part 2)

I'm sure you all were waiting with baited breath for my gift suggestions for the gentleman in your life. (And if not, just leave me and my delusions of grandeur in peace.)

I really love shopping for guys. I think menswear is classic and appealing and timeless in a way that women's clothing is not (as an aside, I probably can't pull off these lady's wingtips, can I?) and there are so many neat gadgets marketed towards men! (On a related note, I gave up playing with girls toys when I was a little kid b/c my brother's toys were way more fun.) So overall, coming up with this half of my gift guide has been a lot of fun! (And right after I typed this paragraph, my friend Bonnie, who is apparently a mind reader, sent me a link to a great blog- Tomboy Style. Now I seriously want the wingtips!)

First I'd suggest you check out the new L.L. Bean Signature Collection and the new Land's End Canvas collection b/c I think they've done a good job of making these with an eye to a younger consumer. The styling is more current, and the fits are more tailored- but I think that they both have a lot of casual but classic appeal.

For dressier clothing, I'd check out Brooks Brothers and J. Press (home of the Chuck Bass scarf). J Peterman has some cool stuff if you don't mind the uncertainly of ordering something from an illustration (excuse me while I go drool over the lambskin flight jacket).

For a sportsman's kind of look- I'd go to Kevin's or Orvis.

And of course, there's always Jcrew. I've been really loving their men's shoes lately.

I'm also loving the ties and bowties from Southern Proper.

I've had good success giving men bags as gifts as well. Messenger bags, weekend bags, and shooting bags always come in handy.

As far as gizmos go, I'm always amused by ThinkGeek. I think that whiskey stones, fire starter knives, samuri sword umbrella, moleskin notebooks, a portable hammock, and a coffee cup power inverter, are all cool gifts. The entire site is worth pouring over and I think that they have a lot of stuff that's great for kids as well. I'll keep it brief, but their kitchen gadgets section alone is a thing of joy- who doesn't want a zombie head cookie jar, science themed cookie cutters, a brass knuckles corkscrew (true story I almost bought a clutch with brass knuckles as a handle at the thrift store last week!), a build your own crazy drinking straw kit, a pi ice-cube tray (okay maybe that's just me...), an egg cuber, or a pirate toast maker?

For entertainment, I like to give boxed sets of movies and TV shows as gifts. Star Wars always seems to be appreciated. (As a bonus, here's a really funny video on Talking to your Kids about Star Wars that my darling fiance sent to me last night.)

I'll wrap this up with some outdoorsy gift ideas. I shop for the hunters and fishermen in my life at Cabela's (Pretty much the only thing that makes my dad happier than a gift card from Home Depot is one from Cabela's). Sigg water bottles are great, useful gifts that come in a lot of cool colors. It's always a good idea to check out the deals on things like camping gear at Overstock.com. (Right now, there's a pretty good deal on cast iron skillets, for example.) I also think this telescope is really cool. (I think this would be a good gift for a guy with kids- my dad bought me and my brother a telescope for Christmas one year and we all looked at the stars together for years after that!) And if you live somewhere that actually has a winter- snowshoes could be a pretty cool gift as well!

Halloween Treats

Two posts in one day! My goodness!
I wanted to post a quick and easy Halloween goody that I made for my friend Sarah's Halloween party on Friday. I made "ghosts" buy piping vanilla frosting out of a plastic bag (just snip off a corner and don't seal the top unless you want to pop your bag) onto store bought 2-bite brownies (I'm obsessed with these things) and adding mini-chocolate chip eyes. So if you need something quick to bring to a Halloween get together- give this a try!
And now, as a bonus, our costumes. I was a ninja and my darling fiance was a retired General McChrystal, now endorsed by Bud Light Lime. (It's an inside joke but I love his costume, especially since I sewed the better part of the outside of a case onto that thing!) Enjoy!

Ottolenghi

My friend Kristi gave me the Ottolenghi Cookbook for my birthday and I promised to let her know how the recipes were. I decided the best way to do so would be to blog about it!
I wanted to make my darling fiance a fancy dinner and this seemed like the perfect excuse. After pouring through the cookbook several times, I decided to make two of the side dishes and serve them alongside roast chicken (b/c for some reason, side dishes and apps are always more appealing to me than entrees).
I decided to make roasted golden beets (the recipe called for mixed golden and red beets, but there were only golden ones at the store) and caramelized endives with Serrano Ham (I used prosciutto instead though though).
I made these dishes over the course of two nights. On the first night, I peeled and roasted the beets in foil and caramelized the endive halves in sugar and butter. The next evening, I assembled the roasted beet salad (using the herb mix from Whole Foods, along with sunflower seeds, and the recipe's maple dressing) then topped the endives with cream, cheese, thyme, breadcrumbs, and ham and baked them for 20 minutes.

Golden Beets Look Cool

Especially When You Peel Them

Halved EndivesCaramelizing Away- I Can't Even Describe How Great This Smelled

Ready to be Topped and BakedCompleted Salad with Beets, Sunflower Seeds, Baby Greens and Herbs

Endives Out of the Oven

Dinner is Served!

A few notes:
1) I washed the skillet after Pancaked stepped in it prior to cooking my endives. :)
2) The lighting in my kitchen is lousy, I cook at night, and my camera is old, so please excuse my picture quality.
3) The recipes I picked out were easy to follow and resulted in an excellent meal. My only issue with the cookbook is that all of the units are Britsh- so Celcius, ml, and grams. I did conversions for the stuff that seemed important but I was a little too lazy to figure out how many grams of salad I should have used and just winged it on things like that. Everything turned out fine, but if you are nit-picky converting everything could prove to be time consuming.

Overall I loved these recipes and I'm excited to cook more things out of this book. (I have my eye on mushrooms with barley and preserved lemons for this week.) Thanks for the awesome present, Kristi!

Anniversary Weekend

This past weekend, my darling fiance and I celebrated our anniversary. It's a little early b/c our first day was actually right before Halloween, and we got engaged on Oct. 16, but this weekend worked out to be the best time for us to get away together. This is also technically our last anniversary in October, and we won't have another anniversary until April 9, 2012! (I did promise that I would make a cake next October anyway.)
On Saturday, we drove up River Road to Napoleonville, La and stayed at the Madewood Plantation. It was gorgeous! Having been a tour guide in an Antebellum home in Natchez (Rosalie), I've always wondered what it would be like to actually live in one and this was a little taste of that.
Our stay included a candlelight dinner with the other guests (as well as breakfast in the morning) so we knew that we would have to dress up for that. My darling fiance decided that he wanted to dress up all weekend, and so I followed suit. I must say, it made for some really fun pictures.
On the way home we drove down River Road on the other side of the river, so we saw lots of refineries, small towns, old cemetaries, and historic plantation houses (a strange combination, I know) on both legs of the trip.
After we got home on Sunday we decided to grill out. I bought Buffalo steaks out of curiosity and they were really tasty. We ended the night drinking Sazeracs because I bought my darling fiance the ingredients as part of his anniversary present (we celebrated our engagement last year in the Sazerac Bar, after all). The other part was the orange tie he's sporting in some of the pictures below- it's from Southern Proper and has shotguns on it. So of course he wanted to wear it immediately (hence our dressing up all weekend.)

Our Room- The Master Bedroom

Relaxing after our Car Ride

Our room led out to the veranda
My handsome fiance

Prior to Dinner we had wine and cheese and chance to explore the house- this was the ballroomAfter dinner there was coffee, brandy, and a slightly creepy portrait in the parlor

Exploring the grounds on Sunday
There were lots of other buildings on the property. Some were rather grand (like a riverboat captain's house that is being restored) and some were modest creole cottages like this one.
The separate kitchen was open for us to explore- I thought that this old stove was very picturesque.
Replicating Senior Pictures on the porch- haha!This is supposed to be my Southern Bell look- I think I just look skeptical. But you can see the pretty sapphire necklace my darling fiance gave me for our anniversary in this shot! :)

Book Binge

I have a lot of reading to do.
Currently unfinished are Mrs. Darcy and the Blue Eyed Stranger (a book of short stories that is, thus far, excellent- I'd recommend it especially to people raised in the South. My darling fiance gave it to me for my birthday.) and The Orphan's Tale- In the Night Garden (This one has an overall plot but is also composed of a series of short stories- these are more like fairy tales though.) I've enjoyed both so far and intend to finish them.
However, I also need to read The Girl Who Kicked in the Hornet's Nest (because it has been loaned to me by my friend Margee), Stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantino (a birthday gift from my darling fiance's brother and his girlfriend), and Pope Joan (for bookclub, although my friend Steph just finished it and didn't like it, so I'm not incredibly excited to read it now).
So of course it's completely logical that I just bought The Secret History. In all fairness, it's been on my wish list since it was mentioned in an article on Jezebel, by one of my favorite of their writers, Sadie. (I really enjoy her taste in books and movies).
On Tuesday, my darling fiance found out that Donna Tartt is doing a book signing at the Ogden on Sunday and passed along the information, saying that The Secret History was one of his favorite novels in high school. His copy is apparently worn to bits from his reading and re-reading it, so I decided to buy my own. I also greatly enjoy his taste in books, so I am looking forward to getting the book, which will arrive this afternoon.
I feel kind of neglectful for planning to read it before all the others that are waiting patiently in line.

What books do you plan to read soon?

Birthday Recap Part III: Portland

Thank you, dear readers, for hanging in there while I took my sweet time writing up this recap. I've spent the weekend prepping the house for my darling fiance's return (because of course, I didn't get around to any of the cleaning I'd planned to do while he was gone. I seem to have spent all my extra time watching episodes of Community on Hulu. Oops!)
Anyway, he's back now (so happy!) and has reminded me that I need to finish my recap, so here it is!
On Tuesday, my darling fiance had to work during the morning, so I woke up early and walked from his dorm in the West End of Portland down to the Old Port District and enjoyed a chocolate croissant and a cafe au lait in a little coffee shop called Morning in Paris. Once the shops in Old Port opened up, I did a little shopping and enjoyed a green veggie juice from the California Juice Bar. (It really hit the spot after the previous night's bacon fries!) I quickly discovered that Portland has a Lululemon!!! I'm so jealous since we don't have one in New Orleans! I have a few pairs of pants and a top from Lululemon that my darling fiance has given me, but I've actually never been to one myself. I immediately hit the sales rack and picked up an adorable running skirt. It looks a lot like the one I linked, but is a lighter shade of blue and has grey trim on the back. It's really cute and I've worn it comfortably on two long runs. I love it! I also picked up a purple headband. Happy Birthday to me!

My darling fiance got done with his work obligations and met me for lunch. We went to J's Oyster house and split a seafood plate (it had two raw oysters and two huge raw scallops, along with some crab meat, steamed shrimp, and steamed lobster claws) and a bucket of steamed clams. It was delicious.

Scallops are yummy!

Afterward, we walked around for a while and he bought me a birthday present- a Butter by Nadia dress. It's an infinity style dress which means that it has long bands on the top that can be wrapped a ton of different ways. Mine is dark purple, incredibly flattering, and wonderfully comfortable. I love it! After that, we walked back to the dorms so that I could take a nap. Once I was rested, we walked all the way to the other side of Portland to see the East End, Munjoy Hill, and the Portland Observatory.

Wearing my dress and enjoying the sunset at the East End

The View from East End
Portland Observatory

We ended our night with panini's and more french fries at Duckfat. I've eaten at Duckfat both times I've visted Portland and it is one of my favorite places. This time, I got the special panini with roast pork, sauerkraut, spicy mustard and cheese- along with duckfat fries with garlic aoli for dipping. So good!

A "Yaycation" indeed!

Finally, we walked back home and enjoyed some wine we'd picked up at the Cellardoor winery on Sunday. I also figured out that I'd walked a total of 9 miles that day!

I had an amazing birthday trip and I'm really glad I got a chance to visit Maine again. It's definitely one of my favorite places to vacation! Of course, I'd love to go back because there is still so much I haven't done!

What's your ideal birthday? Where do you like to spend your vacations?

Birthday Recap Part II: Camden

Sorry for the long delay! Work has been insane this week! I've basically been wrapped up in a 3 day meeting and I'm pretty wiped out.
However, I don't want to wait too long before writing about my birthday trip.
On Saturday (Aug. 14), I flew to Portland, Me to see my darling fiance (who has been doing an away rotation up there) and to celebrate my birthday by enjoying temperatures under 90 degrees! I got in at 10:30 pm, but wasn't too tired to stop by a really nice pub called Novare Res. The next morning, we had amazing toast for breakfast at a coffee house called Arabica, then picked up lobster rolls to go from the Portland Lobster Company.

This toast was amazing

We ate them on the way to Camden, where we stayed at the Hartstone Inn.

Our room at the Harstone

Prior to arriving at the Inn, we stopped at the Cellardoor Winery to enjoy a food and wine pairing. We really enjoyed the wine and were excited to try BBQ bear (!!) prepared by a local cookbook author (I feel bad but I can't remember her name). I was surprised to find that bear tasted like a cross between venison and lamb and was much lighter than I thought it would be.

Enjoying the view outside the winery

Of course, I saved room for dinner, and happily, we were able to eat at Hartsone after all! (We had been on the waiting list.) We had lobster tortellini, salad with peaches and a peach/orange dressing, blueberry sorbet, lamb medallions with asparagus and an artichoke, feta, and pine nut tart, and a mudslide souffle with Bailey's Irish Cream Sauce. YUM!!

29 never tasted so good!

The next day was rainy and a little chilly, so we couldn't go on a schooner tour like we'd planned. However, we had a really nice time walking around Camden, Rockport, and Rockland, just sightseeing and enjoying the ports.

Beautiful Camden Harbor

We saw the famous Galloway Cows in Camden and visited the Puffin Museum in Rockland.

Look! Cows!After that we drove back to Portland and went to Nosh for dinner, where we thoroughly enjoyed eating bacon crusted french fries dipped in chipotle mayonnaise.

Pretending that salads totally make up for bacon-fries

We ended the night with wine and chocolate cake with salted caramel icing at The Bar of Chocolate. It was wonderful!

So stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to my birthday recap, in which I spend the day shopping in Portland and eat lots and lots of food. :)