Sunday on St. Simons Island

Saturday may have been rainy but Sunday ended up being nice and sunny and warm.


We headed back to St Simons island for a more thorough tour of the island. After a thwarted attempt to see luxury homes and The Cloisters (luxury hotel) on neighboring Sea Island, we stopped by the King & Prince resort to check out stunning beach views (and for Andrew, Amanda and Tom to reminisce about a past stay) - although clouds had started rolling in at that point, it was still beautiful out.




If you're noticing a funny expression on our faces, I think it's because it took Tom longer than expected to start taking the picture and we weren't sure when we were supposed to smile!

Next, we headed over to Coast Guard beach:

Can I say that it was truly amazing to wear sandals in January and be comfortable? Of course, this is January in Georgia rather than Boston, but it was still cool!


As my sister calls us, a nice shot of JoyceDrew and the beautiful weather behind us:



Amanda truly got into the warm weather, she kicked off her flats and walked barefoot on the beach:






I spent the whole time walking on the beach looking for sharks' teeth. Apparently, this part of Georgia is known for being a popular shark breeding ground (shudder) and Andrew, Amanda and Adam used to find teeth all the time washed up on the shore. Alas, I didn't find a tooth despite my efforts but I did see a jellyfish:


Our last stop before lunch was visiting the historic Christ Church, the second oldest Episcopal church in Georgia and where a famous Georgia novelist - Eugenia Price - is buried:


Again, the atmosphere was incredible, especially with the live oaks and Spanish moss everywhere:

We stopped for pictures in front of a mammoth tree - this thing looked like it had been around for hundreds of years!

I also managed to take a decent shot of Andrew with his family (all that was missing was his brother Adam!):

A passing rain shower convinced us it was time to head into the village part of St Simons to meet up with the rest of extended family for lunch.

Saturday in Savannah

Saturday morning found us eating at B&J's in Darien, Georgia.

Andrew's dad deliberately chose it since it's one of his favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants. He wanted us to get a taste of a real Southern breakfast complete with atmosphere, as in, everyone around us was a shrimper or a hunter in a camouflage clothing.

I think everyone definitely pegged us as out of towners, but everyone was friendly (in true Southern fashion). After all, who could resist our smiling faces?

Onto the food - we opted for the breakfast buffet since it let us try a little of everything. Keep in mind, I didn't even come close to finishing everything on my plate but I wanted to try everything.

It was totally a unhealthy (but delicious) meat overload - bacon, a hunk of sausage (one tiny bite of this convinced me to leave this alone), eggs, a sausage patty, gravy, grits, potatoes and a biscuit. I ended up making a mini sandwich with the sausage patty, gravy and the biscuit, yummy.

As you can see over Tom's shoulder, the rustic interior matched the casual vibe of B&J's. After dropping Andrew's mom at his granddad's place, we drove up the coast to Savannah. Since it was the one rainy day of the weekend, our tour of the city and its gorgeous historical homes was limited to what we could see from the car.

For lunch, we had the chance to eat at Clary's, a Savannah institution that appeared in the movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil":


The restaurant was hopping, and I was charmed by the stained glass windows, including one that simply said "Clary's Cafe" over Andrew's shoulder:

And the other showing the iconic statue "Bird Girl" that appeared on the cover of John Berendt's novel that the movie was based on:

The menu was incredible! The breakfast menu looked so good that I considered having another meal with breakfast foods. In the end, I opted for a light meal to leave room for dessert. No regrets on that front, my Greek salad was pretty ordinary (so not picture worthy) but the french onion soup was wonderful - tons of gooey cheese, flavorful broth and sliced onions:

Amanda followed the same soup and salad strategy for lunch, and enjoyed a creamy tomato bisque that she also deemed excellent:

I think one of Andrew's favorite meals in the world is eggs benedict, so for lunch, he had the crab cakes benedict with a side of cheesy grits - he signalled his approval of the meal by clearing his plate:

Tom went with a hot dog with all the fixings (I admit, I almost ordered this when I saw it on the menu) with a side of fries:

Now for the best part, the classic southern desserts!

The best key lime pie that I've ever tasted - I was the lucky one to have ordered this:

Amanda's pecan pie with vanilla ice cream (long story, Andrew had ordered this originally but once Amanda decided to get dessert, she decided that the pecan pie looked good and he decided what he really wanted was lemon meringue, so a switch was orchestrated):

Andrew made a wise decision to switch - the lemon meringue was again, the best I had ever tasted. A nice balance of sweet and tart with some heavenly meringue on top:

By the time we arrived back at Andrew's granddad's house, the whole family had gathered for a celebratory birthday dinner. I put the camera down for this part of the festivities, but let me say that the Moroccan chicken and couscous that Andrew's Aunt Mary and Uncle Dave made were delicious! I made sure to get a copy of the recipe and will definitely be making it in the future.

Next came the gift opening portion of the night - we were celebrating granddad's birthday in addition to Mary's 60th birthday:

That's all of Andrew's cousins (plus significant others) watching the gift opening with a few of Andrew's uncles and aunt in the background:

That's Mary in white, closest to the camera, with the rest of clustered in the back (you can just see my head poking out from behind Amanda) - this picture is courtesy of Andrew's dad Tom, which is why you don't see him in the picture!

Andrew, Amanda and I take a few seconds to mug for the camera, with the beautiful toile carpets swags in the background:

And one of the highlights of the evening, a family shot courtesy of the timer on Tom's camera:

Peachy Keen in Georgia

I know I've been MIA for nearly a week but I had a good reason, if you couldn't guess from the title - Andrew and I took a long weekend with his parents and sister Amanda to head down south for his granddad's 91st birthday!

We flew into Jacksonville on Friday morning and drove an hour north to hit St Simons island. St Simons is where Andrew's granddad and mimi used to live for years so Andrew and his family have tons of great memories of the island.

Our first stop was lunch at the Doug Harris Fireside Cafe, where Andrew's granddad is known as a regular and a fan of their peach cobbler a la mode. This isn't a good shot of the restaurant itself but I wanted to highlight my first sighting of Spanish moss - I definitely knew I was in the South once I started seeing Spanish moss and mistletoe in the trees, as well as Winn Dixie's and Piggly Wiggly's as grocery stores!


Spotted inside the restaurant - a chameleon! Although it looked like the geckos I had grown up with in Hawaii, I was assured that it could indeed change color:


After a quick driving tour of St Simons Island, we drove further north to Darien, where Andrew's granddad lives now, still on the shore with gorgeous views of the marsh.

It was great getting to know granddad better and for a treat, he played the piano for us:


Another reunion Andrew was looking forward to - seeing granddad's cat Thor:

Thor was a sweetheart and loved to be pet, most likely since he was content as a well-fed cat - this cat was not lacking for food!


After a late night catching up with grandad and some of Andrew's aunts and uncles, we drove back to our hotel anticipating a busy weekend.

Yay For Sisters!

I love this newly discovered picture of me and Amy - my dad's cousin ("Uncle" Charlie) took it while visiting us in Hawaii. I think it must've been around 1984 or 1985. Amy looks sweet, I look mischievous and we both have messy hair. I think it's one of the only pictures that show us holding hands. Love it!

New twist on an old favorite

Is it possible to reinvent the Tollhouse cookie recipe? According to Alton Brown (of Food Network fame), yes, and he tweaked it three different ways to produce "The Thin", "The Puffy" and "The Chewy". I had been intrigued by the concept ever since reading about the recipes on Beantown Baker's blog. I decided to go with "The Chewy" since that's my favorite texture for a cookie or a brownie.

Ingredients
2 sticks of butter
2 1/4 cups of bread flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
t teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract (my addition, I love almond extract in my chocolate chip cookies, a tip I learned from my friend Z)
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips


Instructions

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.

Pour the melted butter in a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and the sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons of milk, vanilla extract and almond extract - mix until well combined. It will look like this in consistency:


Slowly incorporate flour mixture until thoroughly combined:



Stir in chocolate chips. Chill the dough (I chilled it for an hour in the fridge) and scoop onto parchment lined sheets (I used my Silpats). This is where my cookies veered away from Alton's - I used my medium sized cookie scoop but they were clearly a lot smaller than Alton's since he describes six to a sheet, and I was able to fit your typical twelve:


Resulting cookies were good, and had a nice, shiny sheen to them - not sure if that comes out in the pictures. But in my opinion, they weren't anything special - not that they were bad in anyway but I think regular Tollhouse recipe works just as well. I was expecting to kosher salt to come out more, you could really taste in the raw dough but it faded in the final product.

I may have to try "The Puffy" next to check out how those turn out. And buy a bigger cookie scoop!

Meet the Kitteh

Andrew's parents are welcoming a new member of the family after we get back from Georgia this weekend:

The picture's a little fuzzy but the kitteh is clearly very cute!

Andrew has suggested that I ask my readers for names for the kitteh - post your suggestions in the comment box. Kitteh needs a name!

Strange Brew Tavern

On what felt like the coldest night of the year, Andrew and I hit the road to visit Andrew's friend (and groomsman) Matt in Manchester, NH for the first time.

After admiring his studio apartment's prime location in the heart of Manchester, we walked a few chilly blocks to Strange Brew Tavern, as Matt and their website told us, is rated the best place to have a beer in NH.

This is where Andrew and I did a very bad thing. We have been eating healthy all week and getting great use out of our treadmill. We took look one look at their appetizer menu and realized it was 1/2 price appetizer night, and any thoughts of eating healthy flew out of the window.

The three of us decided to split orders of their chicken chili nachos, buffalo wings, "beer" cheese with crostini and fresh veggies, and...


...their appetizer platter with buffalo tenders (Andrew insisted on tenders, Matt and I were wing fans), jalapeno poppers, mozzarella sticks and potato skins. The funny thing is that the waitress actually asked us if we wanted bacon on the potato skins - um, yes please! Who asks NOT to get bacon on their potato skins?

Needless to say, we dove right in. And I'm still feel gross over it today. But it tasted good in the moment and we had a ton of food left over. It's such a great deal and I can't believe they would run a special like that on a Saturday night!

We moved into the bar area after eating and managed to score some stools (which was quite a coup considering how packed the place got while we were eating). The next few hours were spent reminiscing and people watching, as Strange Brew attracts a wide variety of patrons of all ages, including students to Harley Davidson types to swing dancing elders. It was fun to hear Matt and Andrew catching up and laughing over stories from their high school days:

At one point of the night, a few of Matt's friends joined us for drinks. One of them asked Andrew if he was Matt's friend from high school. Andrew replied yes, that he was his friend from high school, from middle school and from elementary school - I loved how this illustrated their long history together (that's the envious Army brat coming out in me).

Here's a better shot of our gracious host:


It was fun hanging out, although it was a long drive home back to Boston at midnight (despite the nearly empty roads). Next time, we'll have to convince him to drive down to Boston!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

This recipe truly combines the best of both worlds - once I read about Cookie Dough Brownies on Beantown Baker, I knew I had to try the recipe. It combines the ooey-gooeyness of raw cookie dough with the chocolate goodness of brownies. Plus, it was unique enough that I knew people would be excited to try it. Motivated by the desire to make something special for two coworkers, one recovering from cataract surgery and the other celebrating a birthday, I was sufficiently motivated to give it a try!

The original recipe used a brownie recipe from King Arthur Flour, which looked good, but I decided to go with my default brownie recipe since it has a nice dense texture that I knew would work well with the fluffier cookie dough frosting. However, inspired by Beantown's Baker lesson on what creates a shiny crust on top of brownies (dissolving as much of the sugar as possible), I switched things up a little bit by adding the white sugar to the butter and chocolate mixture on the stove top.

Presto! A shiny crust - although it would get covered up by the cookie dough topping, at least you and I know it looked good to begin with:


I let the brownie pan cool for an hour on my stove top before moving it to the fridge for another hour of cooling.

Next came the cookie dough topping.

Ingredients
3 sticks (yikes!) butter, softened
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
9 tbsp milk
3 cups flour
3 cups mini chocolate chips (I went with regular chocolate chips, since I have gigantic bag of them from BJ's)

Directions

1. Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in milk.
2. With mixer on low, add flour and mix until well combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Easy, right? Next came the critical step of combining the two elements to create one magical dessert. And it wasn't that hard. I carefully applied the cookie dough mixture on top of the brownies with a spatula:

In fact, I ended up with around two extra cups of the cookie dough left over, since I figured I had already applied enough. I promptly froze that extra dough with the intention of using it with a future batch of brownies:


Chill the brownies to give the cookie dough some time to firm up. I refrigerated them overnight.

Sliced, these beauties were a work of art. To quote our real estate agent - whom I had saved a few for - the brownies were "obscenely decadent" and claimed that she could "feel the ounces of fat getting ready to rumble." I think that means she liked them.

I think you'd like them too - I highly recommend the recipe! And as I told everyone that tried them, you don't even have to worry about eating raw egg, as the topping replicates the texture and taste of cookie dough (with a slightly fluffier texture) without the fear of salmonella.

Wedding Countdown: Nine Months To Go!

Next thing to scratch off our to do list?



A DJ! We're meeting with one on Monday. Fingers crossed that he works out, as he doesn't believe in cheesy stuff and is reasonably priced. I'll keep you posted, of course!