Grits in the City - Fitness. Family. Food.
Hope you enjoy all these as much as I do!
I ended up going with the “Super Pass”, which included early entrance, a Beco Baby Carrier, a BINGO card and a gift bag. Thanks to the BINGO card, I ended up going home with this Peg Perego Rialto, a portable booster chair perfect for travel. Baby Z will definitely put it to use once he’s big enough!
This Betty Crocker recipe caught my attention since it only has a short list of ingredients. Perfect for making even after a long day of work.
T and I went to Salvation Taco back when we signed our lease, so when a new restaurant by the same owner opened up (Salvation Burger), I couldn’t wait to give it a try. Didn’t hurt that a coworker of mine kept posting pictures. We made our way over on a Thursday night, willing to gamble for a spot at around 6:30PM. The wait wasn’t short, but it was significantly shorter than the 1 hour 30 minute wait times the hostess was quoting those arriving only 15 minutes later than us. [Read more…]
There is minimal prep, and it’s a perfect recipe to throw in and head out the door. Whereas some require some pre-cooking, the magic for this recipe all happens in the slowcooker.
Ingredients
This recipe is intended for a 6 quart slow cooker. Place the pork into the crockpot. Dust on the dry spices and the brown sugar. Flip the meat over a few times so that the spice mixture is on all sides of the meat. Next, peel the garlic cloves. No need to do anything special – just put them in spread around the crockpot. Add the Worcestershire sauce, mustard, honey, and cranberries. Finally, top with the bay leaves and pour in the beer. Note, if you’d prefer, you can use stock in place of the beer.
Cover and cook on low until meat shreds easily with a fork, typically 8-10 hours. I’ve done this two times and far preferred it when I let it cook for around 11 hours. The meat was so tender and shredded easily. The second time we had to crank up the heat to high to catch up for not having enough time to let it cook. Though it was still good, I definitely recommend allowing to cook longer, if time permits.
You can serve over rice or pasta, on your favorite sandwich rolls, or – like we did – in tortillas for tacos! We added sour cream, which might sound strange, but was quite good.
The weekend is fast approaching (not that I’m watching the clock, or anything.) This year, Valentine’s Day is conveniently located on the weekend – and not just any weekend, the weekend before a holiday. How’s that for timing?
For those of you still thinking on where to go, make sure to check with the restaurant in advance. Many New York City restos are doing prix fixe only for both Saturday and Sunday. Dislike. I found many restaurants did not necessarily have their websites updated to reflect that, so it’s worth a quick call to them just to make sure. There’s even a local pizza restaurant I found that’s getting in on the action, so no obvious assumptions on whether a restaurant will be doing this or not. Eater shared some last minute reservations still available a few days back – worth perusing as a starting point, though many have since vanished. [Read more…]
Sure, planning a wedding requires a lot of time and energy, but the thing which had me the most anxious was something entirely different: changing my name. With a maiden name that’s more commonly thought of as a woman’s first name, I’ve always had the intention of taking my maiden name as my middle name and changing my name upon marriage.
It wasn’t having a new name that had me worried. When I noted my intentions, I heard so many friends tell me this wasn’t something you could do in New York City. A number actually just kept their original middle name because they didn’t want to go through the process to change it to what they really wanted. It used to be that taking your maiden name as your middle name required that you petition the U.S. court system for a name-change. [Read more…]
Not able to afford the expense at the time, years went by after the class concluded without my visiting the restaurant. Since it opened its doors in 2004, Per Se has continually been on the various lists of the most expensive restaurants in the world. I’d always known that when I finally made my way there for a meal, it would have to be lunch, based on the price tag alone. At the time, in addition to the chef’s tasting ($310), you could go with a 7 course ($245) or 5 course ($205). We went for the 5 course which, as you can see below, kept the meal to a more reasonable amount for one sitting. With some of the recent negative coverage of Per Se, I thought it was time to finally hit publish on this post.
Recently I’ve been to a few restaurants which had crispy chickpeas as we waited for our meals. When I saw the recipe in Martha Stewart’s Fresh Flavors Fast cookbook, I thought they would make an excellent addition to the NYE line-up.
To start the year, T and I made reservations at Maialino. It had been years since I’d been and he’d only ever been for dinner. This holiday season, we’ve been dining out a bit more than typical, but it was nice to squeeze in one more nice meal out while the restaurants are still decked out for Christmas. [Read more…]