i was pleasantly surprised to come home last week to a thriving vegetable garden in our church backyard. let’s be clear though, i didn’t do any of the hard work… which was done by our friends the stefanuts, and in particular, their amazing romanian grandmother. lucky for us, we get to help eat. it really read more
on canada day i went to visit jp and louisa… who surprised me with a belated birthday party. yay! we may be over 30, but you can never be too old for hawaiian leis and yellow bday balloons. pre-dinner activities involved eating gummy bears and making a pooh bear. we made bbq pizza from scratch read more
this weekend we went to ‘taste of randolph’, a street festival on the west-side of downtown chicago. we wished there were more food stands, especially since it was supposed to feature more of the upscale restaurants in the neighborhood, but we did try some ahi tuna tacos and a very juicy pulled pork burger. just read more
a greek-inspired burger with a side of yam fries. the recipe was adapted from a recipe by susan mello, winner of the bigger better burger competition in CA, so i figured it must be pretty yummy. it tasted as good as it looks.
farmer markets are starting to open, including one in our neighborhood. for some reason i’ve never managed to check it out in previous years, so we dropped by today. it was small but friendly. we also walked through the 61st street community garden. i was very impressed by some people’s vegetables… i wanted to eat read more
happy easter! we hosted a lunch in the parsonage for our church today after the service. i opted to try and cook most of the food myself this time which was a challenge; figuring out fine vs. coarse crumbles, a couple days of marinating, and a lot of chopping was well worth it. it was read more
after watching an episode about moules frites on the food network, we developed a serious craving for some. googling led us to find “Hopleaf”, which makes belgian specialties, including moules frites! two pounds of moules frites with a mayonnaise aioli we also tried the grilled duck reuben sandwich (slow-roasted pekin duck with cranberry cream cheese, read more
our gracious hosts, kimu, angie and boo, before a steaming hot pot. we got to open christmas crackers which had a christmas hat inside. here is auntie sherwin, in baby heaven. boys being boys. group pic. it was a happy night, seeing our friends with their growing families.
we spent american thanksgiving over at tom and anne’s place. they made an impressively juicy turkey while the guests each contributed a side dish. we brought a “spinach and cheese puff”, which was a spinach casserole recipe i found on martha stewart recipes. anne’s mom baked an amazing pumpkin roll cake… i wish i wasn’t read more
as part of my birthday celebration, we spent the afternoon at ‘taste of chicago’ in downtown. with food tickets in hand, we visited the different booths and tasted a few things. we were also excited to see stevie wonder perform…although when i say “see”, i mean we saw him on a jumbo-tron from a distance. read more