On Saturday night, since it was raining and cold, Chris and I decided to cook dinner instead of going out for pizza (our original plan). We picked up some groceries at Whole Foods and then headed back to make our pasta dinner. In the past, I’ve had a really bad experience with whole wheat (need I remind readers of the gnocchi incident?). This time, we tried fusilli pasta and it turned out to be a huge success. We picked up some organic sausage (mild Italian), bell peppers (red, green, yellow, and orange), a yellow union, mushrooms, organic marinara sauce, and Lorina’s sparkling raspberry lemonade. We added the bell peppers, onions, and mushroom to the marinara sauce, cooked the pasta, and then mixed everything together (adding in the sausage after the marinara was done). The result:

A really simple and easy dinner to make, but it was SO tasty that Chris went back for THIRDS! Our table:

I think the best marinara to use is Whole Foods’ store brand (it’s cheap - under $2 - and very delicious). The marinara from Whole Foods is also really easy to experiment with - we made a cream sauce using the marinara when we made gnocchi that was really delicious as well. After dinner, we watched the season finale of SNL (did they forget how to be funny?) and then watched the finale of The Office again (I LOVED the ending and cannot wait until next season!).

Today, my friend, John, offered me his extra ticket to the Yankees/Red Sox game (as long as I promised to cheer for the Red Sox) :). We headed up to the Bronx for the game and saw a lot of Japanese television crews at the entrance:

I knew there was a Japanese guy that played for the New York Yankees(his name isHideki Matsui, but I didn’t know that there were Japanese guys on the Boston Red Sox team (Daisuke Matsuzaka) AND Hideki Okajima). BOTH of them are pitchers for the Boston Red Sox! It’s definitely a HUUUUGE deal in Japan - there were a lot of Japanese people at the game because they wanted to see Matsui face off against Matsuzaka/Okajima.

The game was really fun to watch, especially with all of the interesting people around us. I never really knew Red Sox fans hated Yankees fans so much (and vice versa), but John explained to me the history of the longstanding rivalry. (If you want to know the full story, click here: Yankees - Red Sox Rivalry ). An abridged version (and probably somewhat wrong since I’m telling it) is that The Red Sox’s owner needed money so he sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees, the Yankees started winning all these games, The Red Sox started losing all these games, and there was supposedly a curse put on the Red Sox, known as the curse of the Bambino). Anyway, now it’s just funny to watch the Red Sox fans get riled up and vice versa. For instance, I witnessed at least 4 fights take place during the game…and that was only in MY area! Here’s another funny picture:

I’m not sure if you can tell exactly what the guy is doing, but if you look REALLY closely, you’ll see that he’s trying to light a Red Sox hat on fire. Apparently, some Yankees fan picked up a Red Sox fan’s hat, threw it, and another Yankees fan picked it up and started lighting it on fire. It was like a domino effect because all of a sudden it looked like it was raining Red Sox hats from the sky!! After the hat fell one level, another Yankees fan would pick it up and throw it over the balcony, and when it reached the other level, another person would throw it around some more!! Isn’t that horribly mean?!

The highlights of the game include:

3. Seeing THIS on a jumbotron:

His REAL name is COCO. And his LAST NAME IS CRISP! A. How funny is that and b. what were his parents ON when they named him?

2. Seeing guys bond like this:

So the story behind this picture - these two guys were sitting in front of us, drinking, watching the game, etc. I look down at the top of the 8th and I see this guy passed out in his seat! Now, I know that baseball isn’t THAT fun when the game isn’t close at all, but there were fights, riots, and lots of yelling and screaming! Of course, his friend had to mess with him by taking funny pictures with him (the passed out friend is a big Yankees fan, the guy that’s still awake is a huge Red Sox fan…how they get along, we will never know).

1. Hanging out with my friend John and watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees, 11 - 4:

Thanks again for hooking me up with the ticket!!

After the Yankees game, John and I headed to K-town (Korea Town) for some oxtail soup and kimchee. We went to Oam Ni Oak (I totally just made that up, but I *think* it kind of looked like that). They only serve a couple of things - oxtail soup, bibimbap, thinly sliced beef, and one other dish (no jigae, bulgogi, kalbi, etc). Even though they have a limited menu, they definitely make everything REALLY well, especially their Kimchi (which I think is a big deal, especially since Kimchi is such a staple in Korean cooking):

Their radishes are SO tasty and crunchy…and just the right amount of time spent fermenting in the ground!!

John and I both ordered the oxtail soup (it’s not flavored so you season it with salt, pepper, and scallions…so simple, yet so delicious):

Tomorrow, I’m running errands during the day and then spending the evening with some friends from school - I can’t wait!

On Friday night, my friend David had a college themed housewarming party at his new apartment on the west side (right by my old apartment, actually). I brought along Leo since I didn’t think I’d know many people:

We’re a matching couple! There was beer pong, taps, and lots of beer (just like a college party!). We didn’t stay too long since it was getting late, but I’m glad David moved into the city (finally) and that he likes his new Ikea-ed out apartment.

On Saturday, since it was so nice outside, I went running in Central Park. It was absolutely packed! I’m glad that the weather has gotten a lot better - now I can finally go outside instead of hiding in my apartment. After running, Chris and I met up to go shopping in my area and went to Bloomingdales to try their frozen yogurt (Forty Carrots). We ordered the plain (not vanilla - they WILL correct you) and chocolate. The plain was actually really good and creamy, like Mister Softee (although Chris likes Pinkberry more). I like Forty Carrots more because:

1. Their portions are HUGE (we couldn’t finish a medium),
2. It’s cheaper than Pinkberry,
3. It’s creamier,
4. Forty carrots is closer to my apartment, which means I can walk there over the summer!!

After frozen yogurt, we went to Whole Foods to buy ingredients to make gnocchi with salmon and peas with salad. I pulled the gnocchi recipe from Michael Chiarello on foodnetwork. Since Chris eats really healthily, I thought it would be a good idea to buy whole wheat flour. MISTAKE #1. Look at our dough:

We also had potatoes left over from the previous week when we made Lobster and Chips, so we baked them and shredded them for the gnocchi (like it says in the instructions). People usually eye recipes, right? Well, we definitely did a really bad job eying the amount of potatoes we put in the recipe because we put around 3 pounds of potatoes into the gnocchi. Mistake #2. I was really frustrated because the dough was too sticky and we kept adding flour to the mixture, but it was really grainy because the flour was whole wheat, not regular unbleached flour. We eventually just gave up and started adding flour until the dough solidified and put the little gnocchi’s into the water to cook. While we were cooking the gnocchi, we were also poaching salmon, boiling water for peas, and making salad dressing. Here’s the final product of the gnocchi with salmon and peas:

It doesn’t look too bad, right? Maybe because I put an entire can of marinara sauce on the gnocchi to mask the taste. We bought the marinara from Whole Foods (the store brand) and made it a creamy marinara, which actually tasted really good! I think if we made it again, we’d probably just make a creamy sauce and angel hair pasta. Here’s the table set up:

Chris made the salad dressing this time and was very successful - one part lemon, two parts olive oil, one part red wine vinegar, and a pinch of salt and pepper. We also had mangoes (frozen and from Whole Foods, which we defrosted while we were cooking), which was probably the second best part of the meal (next to the salad Chris made :)).

So, are you interested in how the gnocchi tasted? Well, Chris said, “I’m trying to find the best way to eat AROUND the gnocchi because the salmon and peas are good.” Thanks. Actually, the marinara was great and I basically had a creamy tomato soup with peas for dinner (I didn’t even like the way the salmon turned out so I ate around THAT, too). On top of not liking the dinner we made, it took two and a half hours to make! We ended up watching Saturday Night Live while eating because it took so long to make everything!!

What we did with the leftover gnocchi:

Well, you can’t win them all, right?

On Sunday, I refused to leave Chris’ kitchen with the idea that I cooked an incredibly disgusting meal the night before, so we decided to have brunch at his place instead of going out. We wanted to recreate Balthazar’s waffles with berries and sour cream for brunch, so we bought brioche bread from Balthazar (available at Whole Foods), and made French toast with berries and sour cream instead (no waffle maker = no waffles). Since the bread was only a day old, it wasn’t as stiff as I would’ve liked (especially for french toast), but we worked with what we had. Chris was in charge of making turkey bacon, I made the French toast and the eggs, and we made the smoothie together from the leftover berries we had. Since we had some extra eggs leftover, I made some scrambled eggs AND eggs over easy. Check out our brunch:

AND check out our seats:

We ate on his patio! I definitely redeemed myself, especially with the scrambled eggs (which were perfect - not too runny and not rubbery at all). We spent the afternoon lounging around, reading magazines, and catching up for the week. For dinner, we headed to John’s Pizzeria and ran into some of my friends from work, so we had an impromptu double date. The pizza, as usual, was awesome and a great way to start the week. This Wednesday - lobster rolls!

On Thursday, we headed to our family friend’s house for a great Thanksgiving meal and board games after dinner. We played this awesome game, Ticket-to-Ride, and I WAS going to take a picture of the final board, but my mom threw all the pieces together so we couldn’t count who won (obviously it wasn’t her team). After Ticket to Ride, we played Cranium (David and I CRUSHED the competition because we’re so awesome at drawing with our eyes closed and spelling long words backwards). We didn’t end up going to the black Friday sales since we stayed at our family friend’s so late playing games, but on Friday, Shane, David, and I played tennis (Shane was my tennis instructor over the summer).

Initially, the weather in North Carolina was rainy and really gross, but then on Wednesday, the sun came out and it was around 70 degrees for the rest of the time David and I were in NC. When David and I arrived in NC, my mom started telling us about this cat that comes to the house and just walks around, telling her how beautiful the house is. I thought she was just making things up, but on Friday, look who showed up:

We nicknamed him Snowball and he really DOES talk! Everytime I asked if he liked the house, he would meow at me. We used to have cats back when we lived in Pittsburgh and for some reason, we still had catnip in our house, so we gave it to Snowball to see if he’d go crazy:

After we gave him the catnip, he kept coming back to the house for another fix, but we don’t give it to him for that long because he’s declawed (and an outdoor cat, how mean of his owners), so he is basically just rubbing his paws raw.

On Saturday, we threw our own dinner party since our family friend’s invited us over for Thanksgiving. My mom cooked up a feast (as usual) and David and I made this bundt cake:

After stuffing our faces, we played another game of Ticket to Ride. This time, I was lucky enough to capture the final gameboard (only because my mom won and didn’t find the need to throw her board pieces everywhere:

According to amazon.com, Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure where players collect cards of various types of train cars than enable them to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America. We also played Scattegories (which I won) and poker, which I also won simply because Shane’s brother, James, helped me cheat.

Now I’m back to reality and it’s another month before Christmas break. We’re spending Christmas and New Years in North Carolina (I think we might head to Biltmore around Christmas to see the lights!)

If you’ve noticed, I only update in spurts these days (sorry!). Mostly because I’m too tired during the week to even THINK about updating. Also, it takes a while to upload all of my pictures, so when I update, I usually like to have something interesting to say. That being said, I have been doing some fun things recently! A couple weeks ago, my engagement partner gave my team tickets to the NJ Devils hockey game at Continental Arena. They played the Carolina Hurricanes and it was a pretty awesome game - it ended in a shootout after it was tied in overtime! Here’s the winning shot:

That week was full of happy hours; we went to a nice dinner before the hockey game on Wednesday, Thursday was a pre-night before interviews (open bar) and then our own happy hour, and then Friday was happy hour for our technology group. whew…so much drinking! On Thursday, my senior, Ray, invited us to a bar on 38th and Madison, that was rented out for a goodbye party:

David, me, and my senior, Ray. I’m actually thinking about chopping off my hair so it would look like what it looks like in the picture above, but I’m kind of scared. Maybe I’ll do it during my Christmas vacation and then start the new year fresh…I’m still contemplating whether or not it’s a good idea.

On Friday, we went to Bogarts, where we rented out the first floor for a huge happy hour with the entire technology department. Someone once said to me that it seemed like all I did was go out with my company, but in reality, that’s not entirely true. I just take pictures when we have our monthly happy hours, not when I’m sitting at a client site. I love going to the happy hours we have because since I’m never in the office, it’s hard to keep in touch with the people you work with. Everyone tries to make it to these happy hours to stay up-to-date with our co-workers. Here’s a picture of a bunch of the people in my department:

Michael, Grace, Remy, and me. Michael is working on a project with Maulin and Remy was my instructor during training in Florida! And another picture:

Me, Maulin, and Elsy. The three of us hosted a superday and went to Tao for lunch (the seabass is amazing there, the meat, not so much).

After that happy hour, Michael, Maulin, Grace, and myself went out and ended up staying out until 4AM. It was such a long (but fun) night!

Besides the large amount of happy hours I’ve been attending recently, I’ve also been keeping myself busy by going to see movies (Borat and The Departed), seeing Russell Peters perform (hilarious), and watching dvd’s (specifically The Office and Arrested Development).

I’m taking the week of Thanksgiving off and I flew to North Carolina on Saturday (November 18th). My brother also flew in for the week and it’s great to be home, even though it’s SO different compared to New York. On Sunday, we went to a Pottery Festival (umm…yeah). Here’s some of the pottery:

Actually, those are smaller than the size of my hand!

Needless to say, we walked away empty handed, although we did see a lot of country people, including witnessing an amazingly awkward auction that took place in an elementary school gym:

We had to drive about 45 minutes to get to this town because my mom read about the pottery festival in some newspaper or something. Anyway, we sit down for the auction thinking things won’t be that expensive, but the auctioneer started EVERYTHING at $50 (at LEAST). Some of the things, though, weren’t even worth $50 total. Most people, in my opinion, were thinking the exact same thing because when he started at $50, NO ONE bid. He had to bring prices to around $30 before people reluctantly raised their hands. In my opnion, I think most people ended up buying their own pieces.

Also at the festival was a broom maker, which reminded me of Arcola’s festivals from way back in the day:

Some things you just don’t see in New York City.

Today, we hosted a dinner party for some of my mom’s students. They recently had a baby girl, Miriam, and my mom invited her students and their family for a nice dinner at our house. Here’s the setup:

I made a butternut squash lasagna (it was DELISH), chick peas with curry, asparagus with shrimp, tilapia with pesto, and chai tea. I helped make everything for tonight’s party and everything turned out well. I was kind of worried about the butternut squash lasagna because it didn’t look great going into the oven.

Here’s a picture of Miriam, who is 4 months old:

It’s my favorite picture because it looks like she’s doing pilates. She really likes taking pictures (how cute) and I took a bunch of her after dinner. This week, we’re going to a party on Thanksgiving and then we’re hosting another party on Saturday. I head back to New York on Sunday morning and then it’s back to being a working girl (not THAT kind) on Monday. We might make a trip to Biltmore Estates, but I think that might be postponed until Christmas since we’re coming back again and we’ll have more time then. I’ll update with more pictures throughout the week!

PS - TopCoder has its Collegiate Challenge last week and I was looking at the pictures - it looked like so much fun!!