David Burke Townhouse Restaurant Degustation

I am back in NYC for a few days on Easter Break, the first thing I do is go out to eat in the city with my little sister. I have turned her into a foodie like me, and we were going to try out Lavo which is in midtown since she was there...walked right back out when I saw how crowded it was and didn't realize it was also a nightclub/restaurant...those usually suck. 

So thanks to Yelp we found another spot that looked interesting, as we were walking there I saw David Burke's Townhouse...I have wanted to eat here for awhile and we were able to get in without a reservation so I told her hell ya let's go for it.

Ended up getting wine by the glass instead of a bottle, since the sommelier kept pointing to the $100+ bottles of wine. There is no way that I would ever pay that much for a bottle of wine, regardless of the occasion just because I drink so much at great wine and home and know that the price of a bottle has nothing to do with the quality...so I'd say $60-70 is my MAX. I had a lovely Sangiovese by the glass though, and it was still on the high end but this is Manhattan I had to keep telling myself so $14 for a glass of wine is the norm.

Back to our tasting that we did, as none of the second courses were calling to use we did a few first courses and desserts as follows (and yeah I know I don't want a food blog but food is a huge part of my life so it's going to get in my posts more often than not)

Butter on salt block, I thought it was cute so I took a picture

Amuse Bouche of Red "Spaghetti", cocktail shrimp and artichoke soup. It was a good small taste to start us off

Scallop "Benedict" - Potato cake, scallop, chorizo and quail egg with lobster foam. I enjoyed it, thought the quail egg could have been runnier, but the scallop was cooked perfectly and the salty chorizo balanced it all out with the potato cake being a nice way to get everything together on my fork.

Duck and Rye Gnocchi. The duck was seasoned great which balanced out the gnocchi which was not as seasoned so it was a good pairing.

Angry and Crispy Lobster. My favorite presentation of the night, came out on a bed of nails and already broken apart, crispy onions and chili and basil sauce made me go mmm as I was eating it.

We were quite stuffed at this point, but said why not get another thing...it'll be small right? So here comes the pretzel encrusted crab cake. Probably my favorite of the night, there was the chutney and honey that complimented it perfectly with the crispy coating.

Gluttony strikes again when we decide to go for dessert. The waitress said we might feel like Homer Simpson eating a donut with this, so it sold us. I enjoyed the cute contraption it came out on. There were three chocolate covered strawberries. The donuts were plain and had a chocolate baileys, salted caramel, and strawberry daiquiri sauces. We boxed this one after a taste.

We got a parting gift, some chocolate truffles in a little gift box. I thought it was a very sweet ending to our amazing dinner. Overall it ended up being about $200 with tip, but that was also with three glasses of wine. It can be a moderately priced meal if you are smart about it, but I never am :)

A pirates life for me

Pirate show + dinner = argsome!!

Jumping off of a Cliff Swing in a Lawn Chair

I am going to slowly post things from my trips at the rate I am going, but this is what it looks like right before you jump off of a 400 foot cliff swing in a lawn chair in New Zealand, that the sadistic guys that work at the tour company managed to convince you somehow was a great idea:

Farewell to a little bad dog

I collect pets and leave them with my mother back in NYC while I am still travelling for work. She has three rescue cats, two rescue dogs and Hercules.

Hercules was the first dog I have owned, I got him from a breeder when he was 12 weeks old weighing in at a whopping 2 lbs.

Hercules passed away two weeks ago, he was diagnosed with diabetes and fought a good fight for about three years but his poor little body couldn't deal with it anymore. It has not sunk in for me since I am not going back home until next week, my mother was completely devastated being his main caretaker the past few years.

I remember bringing him home from the airport, and watching him slowly come out of the carrier unsure of this new big strange world he was in. I knew he would be a handful when I caught him trying to scale the baby gate because he didn't want to be contained in that little space.

Over the years, we had a love/hate relationship...he was a miniature pinscher and to say he was headstrong is an understatement.

He had a love of chocolate, and would scheme to get a candy bar left unattended and then make me chase him around the house trying to force feed him activated charcoal and making him throw up before he went into toxic shock...that never stopped him every time, but I love chocolate as well so I can't blame him too much.

If he was scolded and didn't appreciate my tone, he would drop a load by my bed when I was sleeping so I could step in it...I swear I can't make this stuff up.

You couldn't say his name if he was a stranger to you without him growling, he always had to get muzzled at the vet with the tiniest muzzle I have ever seen...I think they nicknamed him Jerkules because of that.

He was fiercely loyal to those within his inner circle, some days I was lucky enough to get some doggie kisses and I appreciate it now.

Towards the end, he mellowed out - going blind does that to someone I suppose. He still kept his feisty nature even while becoming skin and bones. My dear Hercules, you were truly one of a kind...and I thank you so much for the 11 years we had with you, even though you left us too soon. And even towards the end, you waited until my mother could make it home for work before passing away in her arms because you knew how much it meant to her to be able to say goodbye to you. We thought we had more time with you, but we were blessed to have what we could get.

Farewell my friend, enjoy your dog bed in the sky eating as much chocolate as you want now :)

Be careful of what's in your pantry

On another note,  I looked in the back of my pantry to see this little guy...it grew some legs and antlers and was trying to walk away!

This is what happens when I go away for two months apparently.

Motorcycle Momma

This past weekend I took a motorcycle safety riders course. I have never ridden a motorcycle before,  I just recently rode on the back of one this past summer with my co-worker... that's about the extent of it.

Somehow after a few rides,  I decided that I wanted to buy my own motorcycle!  I got a little discouraged from doing that outright so this was my compromise.

It was intimidating,  since I have zero skills to start with and everyone else in the class has rode on a bike before but I persevered! At one point through the riding evaluation, I got nervous when I had to stop short and laid the bike down... that's an automatic failure,  my instructors let me re-do when everyone was gone so I wouldn't be so nervous (I was also the last one to go so my anxiety levels were up there)

All in all, I have had quite a few accomplishments in my life...not bragging but my life has been especially awesome the past couple of years as I'm slowly rediscovering who Angie really is after getting out of an oppressive relationship. Anyways, my point is this is a highlight of my life right now!!! Cheers to not letting myself get the best of me and finishing something I never thought I could!

Next step, what bike am I gonna buy :-D

Here is the amazing cake they got us for our "graduation" ceremony.

A snow day in southern California

I have gotten soft to winter in my time at California and quickly forgotten what it was like spending a winter in South Dakota before I got here.

We got a few inches of snow, roads and highways are closed...its mass mayhem.

Southern California suffers from bad drivers on a good day, this was just a shit show! At least it has all melted a few hours later.

Healthy eating can agree with me

While I don't want to turn this into a food blog, I love taking pictures of what I cook and at restaurants....yeah I'm one of those.

My creation last night! If I could change anything it is to bake the chicken less, it was a bit overdone.

Baked chicken, quinoa pilaf with spinach, mushrooms and goat cheese, chickpea salad with grape tomatoes and cucumbers marinated in rice wine vinegar:

A pancake made of oatmeal

I went to the allergy doctor last year because it seemed that everytime I ate something,  I broke out in hives.

Turns out I'm allergic to so many foods that I considered just hooking myself up to an IV! But a few months later, I realized that breaking out in hives was due to my roommate situation at the time.

One of the things I am allergic to is wheat...not gluten mind you but wheat. I was woefully unprepared for how many things actually contain wheat when I started reading food labels!

Luckily I am not so allergic to all of the foods I have allergies to that I can't tolerate them. I've been generally naughty with that though so I'm making more of an effort to avoid eating anything on my stuff to avoid list.

Back to oatmeal pancakes! I got this from a biggest loser page, I'm not going to repost a recipe since its not mine but Google works great for that. Its only got a few ingredients though...rolled oats, egg whites,  cottage cheese, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. Cook em like you would a pancake (in my case make a test pancake til you figure you're pan needs to be hotter) and voila! Pancakes I'm not allergic to, that don't taste half bad...I'm going to eat them with maple syrup, I can't be too healthy now.

Liver lover

On a more positive note, here's some food porn!

Monkfish liver in citrus ponzu sauce with some chili accents. Imagine a divine melt in your mouth, buttery, rich morsel of meaty goodness that is lightly accented by the sauce it is bathed lovingly in without having an overpowering liver aftertaste. Oh yeah...it was that good for me.

This week kicks off my biggest loser challenge making healthy food fun for dinner (thanks to pinterest)...so I am going to post on that to keep motivated to lose the whopping 15 lbs that I need to in order to keep up with my weekend drinking and eating bad habit.

On being a crybaby

So I work with all men, I'm somewhat of a sensitive soul...this used to lead to many days crying in one of these things because of hurt feelings after I thought someone was being mean to me (which was never the case 99% of the time):

And yes that's a portable toilet for those that haven't been fortunate enough to use one. A few years later, I am still working on dealing with how to not take things so personally. I can say I haven't visited one of these things to excrete from my tear ducts in over a year!

The road to self improvement is something that someone who truly wants to be a better person will realize is a lifelong journey. One thing that I have learned so far in becoming self-aware of the fact that I am a work in progress, is that like someone that has suffered from any kind of addiction, it is quite easy to regress to what I was before...a negative and angry little brown girl with a chip on her shoulder who can give honey badger a run for its money.

Ever seen "Bridesmaids"...well last year I hit rock bottom, I was a mess emotionally and physically. I essentially let someone bring me down to that point, and even though it seems obvious on how much this will affect your life, you never quite realize how much of a changed person you are until someone else points it out to you finally.

I found a website that summarizes exactly how I felt and I think many women get to this point in their lives:

75 Most Empowering, Inspirational Quotes for Sassy, Kickass Women 

There was a time I wasn’t.

A time when I didn’t think I was worth much. A very confident and happy child turned into a rebellious, angry teenager who couldn’t see how amazing and wonderful she was and would never have believed it even if you told her.

Sad.

It took years of being a grown up to get that confidence and self worth back but there are still days that I get caught up in challenging situations and forget.

2013 is going to be the year that Angie does her damnedest to get her awesome back!

The Return to California

So, I spent the last week in Minnesota going to some training for work. I was quite fortunate that the weather was not as bitterly cold as expected, I attribute it to the fact that I brought the warm weather.

I got my hotel room cleaned and left the girl a tip. I came back at the end of the day to this note left on my table:

Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I have a feeling my shoes got worn by someone else other than me...I am trying not to think about what else might have gotten a test run!