Flavors 518

Now I have talked before about not having good breakfast ideas (I'll still maintain that cold pizza is the king of breakfasts), and the slightly depressing thing we all do which is eat lunch at our desks . I quickly learned at my first Archives internship working at the show Democracy Now! how prohibitively expensive it was to go out to Quizno's for a sandwich everyday. You really want something cheap, healthy, and tasty that won't make a mess. Now some of you out there may offer up a sandwich, but a whole slew of not very exciting elementary school sandwiches with soggy bread ruined that option for me. Let's revisit breakfast first. I listened to an interview with the woman who runs Tastespotting on Homefries.com, and I got really into Tastespotting this weekend. It is so much better than Pinterest because it is carefully curated. Tastespotting can give you some great ideas. Have you ever thought of eating a breakfast salad? Have you thought about eating quinoa...

My friend at work was telling me about the baby animals at Hancock Shaker Village . She also said the cafe was amazing, so I really wanted to go. I loved seeing the baby animals in past years at Indian Ladder Farms , but my husband was not as impressed (though he may deny it now - in his defense it was a cold and rainy day that I wanted him to stand around and listen to me say "look how cute the little baby ducks are!!"). So it was good my friend Elizabeth agreed to go with me. Here is the part where I say to you "Look how cute the animals are!!" Here is the Round Stone Barn that holds the animals:  Then we went to the Village Harvest Cafe. My friend really recommended it, and they grow their own vegetables so it sounded like a great choice. Here is the menu . I had the "Open Faced Roast Beef on Grilled Farmers Bread with Shaker Mushroom Sauce, and Crispy Shallots", and lots of hazelnut coffee that I really enjoyed. The mushroom sauce was ...

It has been a long running joke between Scott and me that we have too much pasta. He ate pasta a lot more as a bachelor, and I have always felt like we had pasta coming out of our ears, pasta falling out of every cabinet, pasta taking over our lives. So I put it all in airtight containers and mason jars, and then he said he didn't know how long to cook all of it because they weren't in their boxes anymore, so now we just have tons of pasta we don't use. He used to love Raffetto's in NYC , and never stopped talking about how he could not find a place to buy fresh pasta in Albany. So partially as a pasta joke, and partially for practically reasons, I bought him a class at Different Drummer's Kitchen for Christmas to learn how to make fresh pasta . Then, we had a coupon to Different Drummer's that we got from having our wedding registry there, and with that we purchased a pasta making machine . Pasta making turns out to be the most fun ever. I used Mario Battali...

I am generally not a fan of "restaurant weeks,"  which are theoretically a good deal but in my experience tend to offer 1)a prix fixe of the least interesting items on the menu at only a marginal discount (and if, like me, you generally are indifferent about and skip dessert, no discount at all) or 2)reduced portions of the least interesting items on the menu.   But our friend Jessica R. was organizing a Restaurant Week outing and there were a couple good options (although I agree having it at a tavern sort of defeats the purpose.)   So we decided to try the Brown Derby , which we had wanted to visit for a while but hadn't yet. The meal was very good, and epitomized what Restaurant Week can be at its best.   It was, first of all, a genuine bargain, a three-course meal that certainly didn't skimp on portion sizes for less than the usual price of the entrees alone.    Even for those of us who can almost always take or leave the dessert, that's a...

Today we went to Hattie's Restaurant in Saratoga. Scott wanted to buy some music, I like PaperDolls , and we both enjoy the Saratoga Salsa and Spice Company (and Marie Sharp's hot sauce they sell there). So first of all, this place is adorable. They have roosters everywhere, including on a large shelf across the top of the walls. I took a picture. My grandmother was not from Lousiana, (she was from Detroit), but she definitely had a very similar aesthetic including the red check tablecloths and roosters everywhere. I don't mean to brag, but my grandmother had a lot more roosters than they do. I, too, have adopted the rooster interest, but I like to think of it as "French Country". I couldn't find a picture of her roosters or red checked tablecloths, but the wallpaper here, the curtains, and her awesome lipstick can give you an idea (also you can tell how much fun it was being around her by the look on my face). Anyways - on to the chicken. It w...

Tonight we had a very healthy dinner of cod with lemon quickly sauteed and roasted purple potatoes. We also had some Benzinger white wine, where we visited on our honeymoon . Then I started paging through some cookbooks for dessert, since it is the weekend after all. Check out carrot cupcakes above from Ad Hoc at Home (one of my all time favorite cookbooks).  Things I think about this recipe: There is no beating cream cheese frosting. Seriously, is there anything better? No, I don't think so. Oh my goodness. What is the difference between cupcakes and muffins? I didn't find my paper baking cups until after I was baking them, and my husband was shocked I was just baking them in my muffin pan that I had rubbed with butter and drizzled with some flour. He said he thought the difference between muffins and cupcakes was the paper baking cups. I think the difference may be the texture. You can just yank muffins out of the pan without losing half of it, but cake you want to...

Now, I realize despite Pinterest 's total addictive quality to a certain type of woman that not everyone knows what it is. The Brooklyn Museum Shop is on there, and when I tried explaining to our shop manager what the site could do and why she should get on there too, it didn't go very well. "Strangers can discover a cake I made last July and 300 people read the post in one afternoon!" Now that is power. But I read on Jezebel yesterday that not all the Pinterest power is being used for good. This is not surprising since I saw pro-anorexia videos on YouTube years ago. Maybe Instagram is next . What is interesting is all the backlash on the site itself. Here are some good ones . And a story on Business Insider . Another story on Jezebel . A selection of some of the pins . And finally, Huffington Post . More of the anti-pins here . My favorite was this one: Now, you can't police the internet. I wrote about pressures to lose weight while I was planning my...