Grits in the City - discounts and faves

Hope you enjoy all these as much as I do!

a wintry afternoon in the east village

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I’ve said it before, but I’m getting super nostalgic for all my NYC favorites. Every day that passes is another day closer to our move out of the city. Being back in Manhattan has made it even easier to revisit some of my faves with Baby Q in tow, even if sometimes getting there is a bit of a walk. I bundled up Q, put him in our Ergobaby 360 carrier zipped up inside my new Modern Eternity 3 in 1 coat and we were off!

While it might be chilly, I find everything in NYC even more enjoyable while NYC is dolled up in its holiday best. You’ll find “Christmas tree farms” sprinkled across NYC’s street corners and every store from boutique to bar decorated with all things red, green and sparkly. [Read more…]

overnight oats

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After two months home on maternity, I’ve learned that making a proper breakfast with a hungry baby is harder than I’d thought. I also figured that my maternity all-carb diet needed to change somewhat post-baby. I was reading about the fabulousness of overnight oats. The idea of prepping something at night that can just be pulled out of the fridge and that’s healthy? Win-win! [Read more…]

last minute brunch at greenwich project

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This post is from a few months back, but just now getting to sharing it. Makes me ready for brunch, round next!

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I’ve been doing lots of “one last” this and that’s, just so I did a few little things for me before Baby Z’s arrival. Being in NYC, one of those was obviously a nice weekend brunch. The question is not if there’s somewhere good to brunch, but where. I felt compelled to use this opportunity to try another new spot out of the pages upon pages of options from OpenTable.

Greenwich Project - West Village

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the art of surrender

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Lara Ziobro - Grits in the City - NYC Blogger - Mommy Blogger - LIfestyle Blogger

Seven weeks. What a difference seven weeks can make. There’s nothing magical about seven weeks aside from that’s where we are in our journey. It was just over seven short weeks ago that our little boy made his way into the world 10 days early (or one day prior to the induction planned with my OB). Even before he arrived, he was calling the shots.

I knew that things would change once he was here, but I didn’t even come close to estimating all of the ways. Since early this year, we’ve been reading books. So many books. And taking classes. Long classes on topics such as feeding, infant CPR and childbirth. I even joined a weekly expectant mom’s group through The Moms Groups just to talk through all of the ongoing things we were sorting through in the months leading up to the big day. In general, T and I spent as much time as we could to prepare.

Nothing though fully prepared me for that first moment when everyone left the room and it was just me and baby Q in the hospital. I remember being so sore and tired post-delivery – and absolutely terrified, having never even held a baby younger than 4 months. And while I know we’re supposed to help to teach him a number of things along the way, here are four things he’s taught me in these first few weeks. [Read more…]

energy bites for mama

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I feel like I am a pro athlete in training. I can’t stop eating. Between all of the added work of nursing and the added hours I am up in the day, my body is continually hungry since Baby Z arrived a week ago today. A friend of mine recommended that I check out this recipe for No-Bake Energy Bites from Smashed Peas and Carrots, and she had me hooked at “peanut butter.”

I’m learning that having things prepared to eat off of for days, or even weeks, is the key to keeping your energy up for the long haul. T made a double batch of these for me and I’ve been eating off of them for the past several days.

The great thing about this recipe is that there are so many great little ways to tweak it to make it a bit different each time. The recipe yields around 18-20 “bites”, depending on how big you roll these. [Read more…]

hospital go-bag essentials

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The countdown is on to Baby Z’s arrival – either next weekend or sooner. In order to be prepared, I’ve been spending lots of time over the last month looking into what I should bring and what I should leave at home. Some folks say bring the Boppy. Others say don’t do that – Boppy abuse! Leave at home, since it’ll just get ruined. I’ve ready the same for your personal pillow. How do you know what to bring?

Here’s the rundown of some of the items I decided I had to pack. I’ve had the bag out now for almost a month, and the contents have continued to grow over the weeks. Just for fun, I’ll be revisiting this post-delivery to let you know what, if any, of these items I decided was unnecessary! [Read more…]

breakfast at the smith, midtown

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It’s pretty rare that I’m trying to find a reservation to eat before 11am on a weekend. When my friend A came in town, she needed to be uptown for a Yankees game early enough that we were looking for a spot for “brunch” on the earlier side. 10:30. No biggie, right? Wrong. Most sit-down restaurants in Manhattan don’t start serving until 11 or 11:30, aside from coffee shops and diners.

Grits in the City - Lara Ziobro - NYC Blogger - Food Blogger

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restaurant week at virginia’s

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Restaurant Week is one of my favorite things in New York City. T and I made reservation the moment it launched for River Park, a restaurant he’d been really wanting to try and one I’d been wanting to return to. I also was at the point of receiving a $100 check from OpenTable for having made so many reservations. The stars were aligning for a pre-baby nice date night out! Except that River Park’s listing was subsequently updated to note lunch only for Restaurant Week, and OpenTable updated their rewards program to only apply to a limited subset of restaurants. Such a bummer all around. Since our dinner was that night we had to figure out an alternative option pretty quickly. I read some great things online about Virginia’s, so we decided to give it a try.

Lara Ziobro - Grits in the City - Food Blogger - NYC Blogger

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