Life, As of Late

It's been raining and cold, but there have been dry days also. Nothing too unusual for this time of year. Wool coats, boots, scarves, beanies and gloves have been out in full force for a while now. It's been getting dark early so when there's a dry bright moment we take advantage of it, get outside and roam around for a bit. 

Via Tribunali

Yup, we were one of those customers. You know - HIGH MAINTENANCE customers. First we kept getting in everyone's way by the door while we waited in the tiny entrance; asked for a bar stool only to decide we could get better photos if we stood and continued to get in everyone's way; took up two precious seats at the bar for drinks only; turned down the table when it was ready because it was by the bathroom; only to return to the bar to dine and asked if we each could use a free pizza coupon. But it was worth it because Via Tribunali was terrific. I still don't prefer the charred-spongy Neapolitan dough to other styles of pizza, but Via Tribunali's pizzas were absolutely scrumptious, even if I left most of the crust on the plate. 

The 1000 degree pizza dome oven cranks out pizzas in 1 minute. This created a light and beautifully charred pizza crust that highlighted the perfect pomodoro tomato sauce well. Due to a stroke of luck or pure genius, we were able to each get a free margarita pizza, since we weren't at a table, so we decided to get the selection of Salumi's cured meats, fancy castelvetrano olives and grana padano (soft parmesian like cheese) and added it our margarita pizzas. It was decadent and delicious. We topped the night off with the best tiramisu we've ever had. Located in Old Town, the dark wood was cozy and comforting as the pizza was on a cold dark night. Bonus was sitting near the insanely gorgeous handcranked meat slicer, this machine was a true beauty.

Out and About

During the 4-day Thanksgiving weekend we did get outside for a little bit, as well as celebrate a friend's birthday at a torta restaurant we've been wanting to try. Here's how the rest of our Thanksgiving weekend was. We're already looking forward to our mini-Christmas-vacation next month!

Thanksgiving Weekend Eats

Thanks to Mike's beautifully smoked bourbon-orange-brined turkey, we had hardly any turkey left after Thanksgiving. In previous years we've turned the leftovers into pot pies, hot browns and many sandwiches. This year we had a few turkey bite-size snacks and that was it. But that didn't mean we didn't eat decadently the rest of Thanksgiving weekend.

Mike fortuitously took home albacore tuna, scallops and crab from the sushi bar and we feasted like royalty. With the flaked crab meat Mike made a snack of crab dip that was incredibly delicious due to the copious amounts of fresh dungenous crab. You could have spread this on an old shoe and I would have eaten it up!

Dinner consisted of making use of a bag of tomatoes, also rescued from being tossed out at the restaurant, albacore tuna steaks and scallops. Mike turned this into a Mediterranean feast utilizing leftover olives from our trip to the beach back in August!

The following night, after rummaging through the fridge for 5 minutes, Mike came up with the brilliant idea of using the chunk crab meat for Vietnamese banh canh cua, reminiscent of the bowl we had in Rach Gia, Vietnam a few years back. We had everything we needed and within a few hours Mike rocked out the most delicious bowl of this Vietnamese soup. I was very impressed.

Thanksgiving Long Weekend

I think I love Thanksgiving because we get a long 4-day weekend. In previous years I'm always disappointed that the weekend flew by so quickly and I realize that's because I always lose 2 precious days: one to making the whole Thanksgiving meal and one to cleaning up after. So by Saturday I feel as if it's just another weekend. At least we had a kitchen full of delicious food and plenty to be thankful for.

This year Friday was rainy and we didn't set foot outside once, which was really nice. We casually cleaned up, lit lots of candles and watched more movies than we have in awhile. Due to a kitchen faucet that trickled out enough water to wash one chopstick at a time, we were glad to have a leisurely day to clean because we needed it.

Leftovers day 1 snack: cheddar cheese, stuffing, turkey and gravy

Leftovers day 2 snack: cream cheese, cranberry sauce, turkey and gravy

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and even better 4-days off!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Every year we host Thanksgiving for our family. We smoke a turkey on the BBQ. We don't stray far from the traditional Thanksgiving meal because we eat this meal just one time a year, so we make it a good one! Hope everyone has a terrific Thanksgiving and an even better 4-days off! 

Feeling Better

Mike was sick for a solid 2 weeks! 2 weeks! That's a long time to be hauled up indoors moving from the couch to the bed. We're not sure what he had, it wasn't a cold (no coughing, stuffy head or chest issues), just aches and the chills. But he sure did have an appetite, so I played nurse-maid for two weeks and cooked. A lot. 

Before Mike got sick we had made a large pot of congee or rice porridge, which was Mike's savior the first week when he had no energy to do anything other than heat up a pot of the terrific ginger and black pepper soother. We ate lots of sandwiches, peanut butter and tuna. We cleaned out the refrigerator, starting first by turning  a pot of collard greens into pot liquor soup. Then we turned to the freezer and found some miscellaneous scraps of ground pork and beef, discovered half a box of spaghetti pasta and a jar of our home stewed tomatoes from the summer, and voila - spaghetti and meatballs to get Mike's energy up. By the second weekend Mike was feeling better and we immediately accepted a last minute invite to get some spicy seafood soup.

Even though it wasn't the funnest two weeks, we got much of the house cleaned and ate really well. Now Mike's energy is back just in time for Thanksgiving.