Fruits of His Labor

Last weekend was exciting for Andrew due to a delivery by FedEx - grapevines!

Two seedless Concord grape vines to be exact. That's right, anything can be delivered through the mail these days:

Andrew was very pleased with his selection. His inspiration? The grapevines his parents planted in the house he grew up in:

Like most boys, Andrew happily went to play outside in the dirt - I mean, dig manly holes in the yard for the vines while I heckled him from the deck above:

What you can't see in the pictures is the lattice that faces this part of the side yard. With the two vines securely planted, we're hoping they will grow and mature into a nice cover on the side of the deck, plus a great source of grapes that are well suited for juices and jellies!

In Bloom

We've brought a little bit of May's flowers inside with our new entryway rug:

It was a slight splurge, but I minimized the cost with a $20 coupon code and a free $25 gift card promotion that the company was running for Mother's day. I can't wait for it to arrive this week, just in time for Memorial Day weekend.

Choices, Choices

Although I've been avoiding making wedding hair and makeup choices, simply because the two frighten me (!), at this point, I'm pretty sure I'm going to wear my hair up. I think I may even have some sort of style in mind, but that will remain under wraps (a girl's got to keep some things a mystery, especially when her fiancé reads her blog every day). 

To veil or not to veil, and what type of veil is whole 'nother debate for another time.

But for the reception, I know I want flower(s) in my hair. And I'm leaning towards these two choices, with a slight modification - gray pearls or a gray/white pearl mixture instead to go with my color theme.

Choice 1: Meaghan - I love the cluster look and the varying sizes - it's feminine and dainty:

The second choice: Elyse (promise not to be influenced by the fact that it's not displayed in a hairdo).  It's more of your traditional one-flower look, but I love the slight lace accent on one side that would complement my dress nicely:

Both come from the same vendor, so I'm guessing the quality would be the same. After surveying Etsy's selection for a few hours, I just really liked the quality of this vendor's flowers and the fact that her prices were reasonable and middle-of-the-road.

So what do you think?

Nuernberg Wedding Cup

We received our first wedding gift over the weekend, courtesy of one of Andrew's thoughtful cousins who is stationed in Germany with her family.

A Neurnberg or German Wedding Cup!

What the heck is this thing other than a lady in a full skirt sculpted out of pewter? And believe me, it does have a surprising amount of heft to it.

The story that accompanied the cup states:

Centuries ago, in old Nuernberg, the nobel mistress Kunigunde fell in love with a young and ambitious goldsmith. Although Kunigunde's wealthy father (a powerful nobleman) did not approve of this pair, it was clear that she only wanted the goldsmith to be her husband as she refused many titled and rich suitors who asked for her hand in marriage.

Her father became so enraged that he had the young goldsmith thrown into the darkest dungeon. Not even his daughter's bitter tears would change her father's mind.


To her father's dismay, imprisoning the young man did not end his daughter's love for the goldsmith. Instead, he could only watch as his daughter grew paler and paler as a result of the separation from her true love.


The wealthy nobleman reluctantly made the following proposal: He told his daughter, "If your goldsmith can make a chalice from which two people can drink at the same time without spilling one single drop, I will free him and you shall become his bride".

Of course he was certain nobody could perform such a task...


Inspired by love and with skillful hands, the young goldsmith created a masterpiece. He sculpted a girl with a smile as beautiful as his own true love's. Her skirt was hollowed to serve as a cup. Her raised arms held a bucket that swivels so that it could be filled and then swung towards a second drinker.

The challenge was met. The goldsmith and the nobleman's daughter joined hands in marriage and with the bridal cup set forth a romantic and memorable tradition as charming today as it was originally hundreds of years ago.

To this day and to many couples the chalice remains a symbol.


Love, faithfulness and good luck await the couple who drink from this cup.

So how did Andrew and I become aware of this cup and come to own one? Through his mom's side of the family, Andrew is of Scandinavian descent (via Minnesota). We spotted one of these cups at his grandfather's house when we visited in January, and I was thoroughly charmed by the described tradition of using this cup for weddings (Charlotte can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Andrew's aunt Barbie used one at her wedding).

Picture this tilted sideways with the groom drinking from the chalice formed by the woman's skirt, and the bride drinking from the swiveling cup on top.

I think between Charlotte and Aunt Barbie, Andrew's cousin Karla somehow came to hear that I had admired the cup and was able to send us one as a gift.

I can't think of a more unique way to bring a tradition from Andrew's side of the family (the non-Portugese side!) and have a beautiful keepsake to admire afterwards.

Six Down, Two To Go

Some things are just meant to be.

After Andrew and I scored the table we were lusting over for a ridiculously low price at the Wrentham Outlets, we were having problems finding the right dining room chairs. We didn't like any of the ones we saw at the Restoration Hardware outlet, plus, they ranged in price from around $200 to $500 each. Which could make one chair cost as much or more as our table.

After keeping an eye out in furniture stores, Andrew spotted this chair in Marshalls of all places.
A genuine leather Parson chair for a VERY reasonable price.

The only problem was that the Marshalls we were in only had two in the color we liked. And they couldn't locate the chair in their other stores via computer system; we were told the only way to find it was to individually call other stores and ask them if they had them. Andrew used his iPhone to call 8 - 10 stores while we stood in the store but could only locate one more in Hingham, even after expanding his calls to include Home Goods stores (Marshalls, TJ Maxx and Home Goods are all owned by the same parent company).  So despite my urging to just go for it and buy the three on the hopes we could locate five more, we walked away from the chairs. This was on a Sunday.

Come Wednesday, I was returning home from a business trip and was promised via text message that Andrew hoped he had a surprise for me. When I walked into the house, I saw SIX of the chairs in our dining room. Andrew had apparently called THIRTY stores earlier in the day, and after expanding his reach to include TJ Maxx, had hit the jackpot. He found four of the chairs at a TJ Maxx and returned to the Hingham Marshalls to get the first two chairs we had found. At this point, the one in Marshfield had already been sold.

All that's left for us now is to locate another two chairs or find a similar style "arm chair" to use at the head of the tabe. But it definitely feels good to have gotten such a great deal on chairs that we love. Even looking online at retailers like Overstock.com, they were selling faux leather chairs for much more than we got these chairs for. It's finds like these that totally make it worthwhile to take our time furnishing the house, rather than rushing to buy things simply to fill the empty spaces in our house.

UPDATE: As of tonight, we have the last two chairs! I happened to walk into a Waltham TJ Maxx during lunch and found the last two waiting for me. After fitting them into my trunk and my backseat, I have to state that I can't believe Andrew was able to fit six into his car at one time.

Tool Time: Toro Blower/Vacuum/Shredder

I thought I would take the time to share something I've been experiencing since we've moved in.

Andrew showing off yet another gadget that he's deemed necessary for the house and/or yard.

Note the look of glee on his face. I have to point out that I haven't seen him get this excited about wedding planning (except maybe the cake tasting portion of the process):

I believe this was about the point where he's promising me all that he can get done with a tool that has three different functions:

To his credit, he did manage to clean the deck and our paved backyard quite nicely over the weekend before we had family over for lunch.

Weeds vs. Plants

Can you tell which is which?

We really couldn't, even after consulting the landscape design blueprint the previous owners had left behind:

But using the map as a guideline, we methodically took out any type of plant we guessed was a weed. We started off doing the weeding by hand, but really got going once Amy discovered the garden claw in our garage (a relative had given it to me years ago and I had forgotten we owned it):

Of course, Andrew wanted to get in on the garden claw action:

Success! We were amazed at how big some of the root systems were for the weeds:

Afterwards, we admired a neat and trim perimeter.

I think doing yard work really made me feel like a homeowner. Andrew's been handling all the yard work for the past couple of months (even putting down grass seed a few weeks ago that is sprouting nicely) but this was the first time I got out a few hours to get work done. I probably accomplished around 5% of the work, but feel inspired now to plant flowers and vegetables in some of our newly cleared spaces.

It's Just a Little Rattling Noise

I'll admit. I'm not the best of car owners. I'll get my oil changed on a semi-regular basis and take my car to the shop only when I hear something that sounds out of place.

After getting my oil changed at a Jiffy Lube a couple of weeks ago (long overdue, I'll admit) I started noticing a faint rattling noise to accompany the slight squeaking in my breaks. Andrew could hear it in the mornings as I pulled out of the driveways. So I made a mental note to bring into the dealership when I got a chance, but it didn't stop me from driving all the way to Bridgeport, CT and back for a business trip last week. Didn't notice any problems and the rattling noise was slight and you could only hear it occasionally.

Which is why I wasn't worried when Amy borrowed my car this weekend to drive down to Westport for a bachelorette party (touring the wineries).  I warned her about the noise she would hear but didn't expect anything to come of it.

What I didn't realize was that the rattling was actually my muffler bouncing around. It got so bad while Amy was driving that she pulled the car over, looking underneath and couldn't find anything wrong. When she pulled into the parking lot of the inn she was staying, my muffler fell completely off the car! Thank goodness she wasn't on the highway when this happened.

So when she returned the car today, this is what was sitting in my trunk:

So yeah. I'll be in work late tomorrow since I'll be dropping my car off at the closest dealership to work. Now I'm afraid of what else they're going to find wrong on the car.

Sushi, New England Style

The one bummer about our new town is that Andrew and I have not been able to find good takeout food that is close by. You've already heard me whine about the lack of decent Thai food. There isn't a good Korean restaurant nearby - in fact, we tried Apgujung's sister restaurant in Canton and it just wasn't the same, even though it had the advantage of being a BYOB establishement, so we decided that it was better to simply drive all the way back to Newton when we get a craving for okdol bibimbap.  Chinese, I don't tend to crave at all since compared to all the other Asisan cuisines I love, it seems to be the unhealthiest and least tasty of the bunch.

However, we struck gold with a Japanese place, Ichiro sushi,  that is miles within our house. Better than that, it delivers! We've already ordered from them twice in the past couple of weeks.

One of our new favorites? The Red Sox maki roll (pictured on the left with spicy tuna on the right):

It comes with lobster, asparagus, avocado, cucumber, lettuce, tobiko and spicy mayo the inside:

That's a good-sized chunk of lobster! And I know it sounds weird to be eating it in a sushi roll, but it actually tastes amazing with the spicy mayo.  Not pictured is their deliciously crispy tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet) that I've gotten Andrew hooked on. We're definitely putting this restaurant on speed dial and we'll actually have to dine in one of these days.

Julian vs. Korean Food

Another thing that occupied my time this week? Dinner with our friend Julian on Monday. You may recall Julian from this post but may not recognize him without his "kit" on.

Poor Julian had biked over to our new place the week before but neglected to tell us he was coming over. His surprise visit was truly a surprise for him as well, when he pulled up to our house and realized we weren't home! After calling us to express his surprise (in true Julian fashion), we made "official" plans to meet, with the goal of 1) having Julian try Korean food for the first time and 2) see the inside of the house (after having ample time to examine the exterior on his own!)

Thus, I give you my photo montage which I think adequately shows Julian's personality and reactions to dinner at Apgujung (dialogue supplied is my own creative thought, just imagine thought bubbles over his head).

"What?! There's no fork on the table? How heck do I use these things? And where did that camera come from?"

Here, Julian realizes that salad is tough to eat with a fork but he learns that he does like the Asian ginger salad dressing:

"What the heck are all these small dishes? Am I expected to try them all?" To his credit, he was brave enough to try a piece of kimchi:

Finally, Julian happily eating his entree of chicken bulgogi and rice which I had helped him choose as an extremely safe choice for his first Korean meal:

The verdict? I think Julian could be persuaded to eat Korean food again. And most importantly, he liked the inside of our house as much as outside and seem particularly enamored of our three season porch.

Why, Hello There

Yeah, I know it's been a long time!

It's been another crazy week, one that included an all day training class for work and a short business trip to Long Island.

Tonight, I'm want to finish an art project (of sorts) that I've been working on.

But I've promised myself that I need to put a few posts before I forget about them.

Thanks for hanging in there.

P is for Pizza

I don't know why I'm so proud of this pizza but it's one of the best looking ones I've made. And best yet, it was so simple to pull together.

A ball of pizza dough from my local Stop & Shop, stretched on a greased pizza sheet, brushed with olive oil and topped with a little fresh ground black pepper and sea salt. I ended up throwing on some odds and ends from the fridge, which included mozzarella cheese, chunks of roasted tomatoes, a few slices of bacon (the precooked slices, cut into small pieces) and my absolute must have on pizza, feta cheese.

I feel guilty for making this on a Sunday night when it's a perfect weeknight dinner (as in, too tired to make anything complicated) but Andrew and I definitely feasted on it. We will definitely be working out all next week to make up for our gluttony today.

Mother's Day Brunch at Tupelo

Celebrating Mother's Day with a member of the GRITS club (if you're a non-Southerner like me, you won't know that it stands for Girl Raised In The South) called for a special brunch at Tupelo.

Andrew and I were excited to return to Tupelo and try their special brunch menu, which offers different items from their dinner menu and more importantly, share the restaurant with his parents.

Although this is not my usual type of breakfast choice, due to the dozens of positive Yelp reviews, I decided to go for their fried chicke and waffle combo with bourbon maple syrup and spiced cream - it lived up to the hype with great fried chicken. The waffle and syrup I thought were good, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Both of Andrew's parents opted for the smoked sausage and roasted veggie hash with scrambled eggs, french bread and jalapeño aioli - I had a bite of Charlotte's dish and it was delicious! The aioli was too spicy for her liking, but Tom eagerly ate his serving and her's as he loves spicy food:

A look at Andrew's crazy plate, which was an Oyster Po'Boy sandwich with jalapeño aioli, house pickles and slaw:

Here's a look at Tupelo's grits served two different ways - the fried grits special is on the top, which the waiter described as "polenta-style". We dipped the piping-hot cubes in hot sauce as an appetizer. Andrew got a serving of the cheddar grits as a side-dish.  Growing up with a Southern mom and plenty of trips to Georgia in the summer has definitely influenced Andrew's taste for grits - me, I'm still not a convert.

We almost didn't get dessert since we had another White's Bakery cake waiting at our house but Tom wisely convinced us to split one of the dessert specials - a slice of Mississippi Mud Pie with Bourbon ice cream on the side. This hefty slice was enough to feed the four of us. And honestly, may be one of the top five restaurant desserts I've had. I don't even like chocolate desserts usually since I find them overtly sweet and I feel like they don't usually taste like chocolate. This was more like a cake in texture - it very moist sections and chewiers sections and the taste was just so balanced and so good. The bourbon ice cream on the side was the perfect touch.

A shot of me with the guest of honor - Charlotte, who I am very blessed to have as my future mother-in-law and a mother figure in my life.

Our dining partners - Tom and Andrew, both looking pleased at the wonderful meal we experienced.

It was a bit of decadent afternoon of food, since we grabbed a pint of Christina's coffee oreo ice cream to enjoy with the cake as a second dessert back at the house. Can you say food coma?

A special thank you once again to Charlotte for being an excellent mom for Andrew, Adam, Amanda and now me! And another thank you to my own Mom, who was in a good mood despite being woken up by me with a 7 am phone call (darn time difference between the US and Japan).  I hope everyone took the time to appreciate all the moms in their lives today!

Vanilla Oreo Cupcakes

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had a chance to try a new cupcake recipe from Beantown Baker when I was trying to think of something out-of-the-ordinary to attract donations for the Walk for Hunger. I had made an earlier version of the same recipe for a previous bake sale at work, and I knew people would rave over the oreo bottoms.

For me, one of things that I liked about the recipe was the fact that it had a vanilla cake base rather than a chocolate one - I felt like this would really allow the Oreo flavor shine.

Without further ado, I give you Oreo Cupcakes.

Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour, plus 2 Tbsp for the Oreo chunks
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 2/3 cup sugar
3 large egg whites, at room temperature
1 pkg Oreo Cookies (~45 cookies)

Directions

Preheat over to 350F. Insert liners into a medium cupcake pan.


Twist apart 24 Oreos. Place the wafer with filling on it, filling side up, in the bottom of each paper liner. Cut other wafers in half. Save 24 halves to place in the frosting. Crush the other wafer halves, also for garnishing. (I somehow overlooked this step and I'm not going to lie, I ended up eating the extra halves so there wasn't anything left to crush!)

Cut the remaining Oreo cookies into quarters with a sharp knife. Toss with 2 Tbsp flour and set aside.

In a large bowl cream the butter until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add the milk and vanilla and mix to combine.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Add the dry ingredients to butter mixture. Mix until integrated. Stir in sugar. With an electric mixer on low speed, beat for 30 seconds. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and beat for 2 minutes. Add the egg whites. Beat for 2 more minutes.

Stir in the quartered cookies.

Fill the cupcake lines three-quarters full. Once I hit this point, the dough was so full of chunks, I was honestly afraid there wasn't enough batter to balance out the cookie. I tried to get a scoop of mostly cake batter to cover the cookie on the bottom of each cup and then place a scoop of cookie-filled batter on top of that:

Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of cupcakes comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in the pan. I was happy to see that the cupcakes were noticeably still full of cookie chunks albeit a little flat. I had made the error of grabbing an unmarked stick of margarine for this recipe instead of butter, so that's my best guess for why these ended up flatter than I would've liked.

Frosting

8 oz cream cheese at room temp
1 stick butter at room temp
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
3-4 cups powdered sugar

Directions
Cream butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Add vanilla extract. Slowly add powdered sugar until desired consistency is reached.

Once cupcakes have cooled completely, frost with cream cheese frosting. Sprinkle with crushed Oreos (I skipped this step for the aforementioned gluttony) and place 1/2 of an Oreo on the frosting of each cupcake.

Pretty attractive, if I do say so myself and they accomplished my goal of attracting donations.

The verdict? Unfortunately, I managed somehow not to try one of these. I was trying to keep as much of the batch to sell for donations and I ended up setting some aside to give to our neighbors' children as well as Andrew's coworkers. I will have to base my opinion on Andrew's reaction, he said he really liked them because it had such a strong Oreo flavor and so many cookie chunks. Admittedly though, I might end up using a doctored cake mix next time for simplicity's sake and to get the attractive domed tops that I like in my cupcakes (although that does make them harder to frost evenly!)

Fundraising for the Walk for Hunger

Looking back at my posts for the past month, one may think that I didn't do a lot of baking in April. It's true that my days were filled with the usual combo of work/house furnishing/wedding planning craziness but I did manage to bake three Thursdays out of the month in order to bring in baked goods for my individual bake sale to raise funds for the Walk for Hunger.

Instead of soliciting family, friends and coworkers for money (except for my parents, thanks dad and mom!) I took a more passive approach - in true Virgo fashion - and solicited donations in exchange for baked goods in the kitchen area that was closest to my department. This was done with the official permission of my manager. The original plan was to have something available every Friday but I ended up skipping the third Friday because I was too tired from the Earth Day activities I participated in, plus I figured most people would be out of the office during a school vacation week Friday.

The first Friday, I made banana chocolate chip muffins. I was a little disappointed at how well they "sold". Although 20 ended up going by the end of the day, I didn't like the fact that there were two muffins leftover. I attributed this to the small size of the muffins, plus as Andrew comforted me, the muffins are the type of thing that doesn't sound very exciting until you get a chance to taste one.

Second Friday, I made a special effort to pick a crowd-pleasing dessert and the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies did not fail me - the majority were gone by lunch time and I ended up selling most of a batch of Muddy Buddies (8 bags sold) with Andrew eagerly eating the two bags that were leftover.

Third week I skipped, so to make up for this, I made two more items for last Friday's sale - Vanilla Oreo Cupcakes (the newest recipe courtesy of Beantown Baker) and a batch of my chocolate chip cookie bars.

I spent hours laboring over the cupcakes (later post on this effort to come) and whipped together the batch of the bars as a last minute effort. You can see from the display that I always made attractive signs announcing the which items were available and how the donation woudl benefit Project Bread's efforts to eradicate hunger in Massachusetts. Surprisingly enough, the bars were gone by lunch time while the cupcakes went more slowly (despite my sign's promise that they were chock-full of Oreo chunks) and I ended up having one leftover.

Overall, I raised $111.10 over the three Fridays, which gets doubled due to a generous company match. Was the hours of baking, decorating and cleaning worth it in the end? For $222.20 to help combat hunger (the thought of any child going without food truly kills me), it was well worth the trouble. Especially considering that this set-up worked on the honor system and my coworkers did not fail to be honest and generous in what they took. There was a lot of work projects that kept me from doing much this year, but I'm hoping to expand my efforts next year by hosing a larger scale bake sale.

We Survived.

It was my fifth year participating the Walk for Hunger (five years fundraising, four years walking since I skipped the third year due to rain) and I had a large group of family and friends to keep my company.

The morning started off early, with some bag balm (apparently originally used on cow's udders) to lubricate feet (foot model is my cousin Andrew) - I stuck with a double layer of socks:

Did I mention that the day started off early (hence the bleary-eyed expressions)? We were at the Common at 7 am and started walking at 8 am after registration and a group picture with my company's team. Our walking group (L to R) consisted of Amy, my cousin Andrew, my uncle Rich, me, Andrew and our family friend Jeff:

The Walk has a rolling start but it was packed at 8 am with people like us who were trying to get a start while the weather was still reasonably cool and comfortable:

Our walk tradition always has us stopping at Dunkin Donuts on Beacon Street close to Mile 3. Due to water crisis, every Dunkin Donuts we passed was closed this year and we had to settle for breakfast sandwiches from a Starbucks (open but not serving any hot drinks).

This was around Mile 6 around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and before our "secret" bathroom stop at BC (a yearly tradition) - that section of the reservoir you see roped off is where the City of Boston was sucking out water to use as a back-up water supply during the water main break:

We had a surprise visit from a mysterious man in blue while heading toward Newton Center (I think around Mile 7 - 8) - our friend Julian, fully outfitted in his kit, had finished a short race in Milton and biked all the way to Newton to see if he could find us along the walk route. He slowly pedaled the bike alongside us for a couple of miles before speeding off in the distance:

Did I mention that the weather was sunny, hot, humid and in the eighties for most of the day? By Mile 15, we were hot, sweaty and sore. On the plus side, there were tons of water stops and food giveaways, if you couldn't guess from the sandwich stufffed in Andrew's face:

But we were happy because 1) we were close to the finish line and 2) there was a nice breeze coming off the Charles:

What kept us walking at the end when we could barely move our feet? The free ice cream we knew they'd be handing out in Boston Common at the finish line (also a Walk tradition) and the thought of an icy cold gin and tonic at the Parish Cafe afterwards. Of course, we weren't sure there would be ice available for drinks at Parish Cafe, but apparently, they brought in ice from Gloucester (an unaffected community). Despite the fact that our muscles were cramping up, our sunburns were making an appearance, and the fact that we were way underdressed compared to the restaurant's other patrons, we were ready to dive into the Parish Cafe's signature sandwiches, including Andrew's favorite, the Rowdy:

And my new favorite dish, the white bean hummus plate:

By the time Andrew and I got home around 5 pm (having finished the walk in approximately six hours at 2 pm with time for lunch and a ride home on the T), we had just enough energy to shower in E-coli water. Nothing was going to stop me from being clean at that point, plus I figure the water is as clean as bathing in a stream, which I have done in places like Thailand. With some aloe slathered on my shoulders and the back of my legs, I was good to pass out at an unusually early time, Andrew equally burned and sore next to me.

New Bedtime Routine

It's not often that I use the stove as a part of my routine to get ready for bed.

Tonight, we boil water to have clean water to brush our teeth in. Why? A break in the pipe - that I had never even heard of - that brings water into the Boston area from a major reservoir in Weston.  An estimated 30 communities and two million people (including me and Andrew) are impacted. You can read more about it here. On a funny note, they'll be using water from the Chestnut Hill Reservoir (right next to BC) as part of the backup system. When my roommates and I were in school and heard stories about people skinny-dipping in the Reservoir, we always thought that the water was too dirty (as in, filled with geese poop) for that purpose, not to mention as a source of drinking water.

Just another one of those life moments when you realize that clean water is something you should never take for granted. At least we are OK to bathe in it, which is extremely important since we will be spending 5+ hours walking in 80 degree weather for the Walk for Hunger tomorrow. Which means, I will definitely need to shower.