Wii Would Like To Play

Happy Halloween from your friends Luigi and Toadstool:

You'll have to cut us some slack, we had absolutely no time to think of something creative for costumes this year so we went with convenient and fun.  My costume is actually a kid's costume that came with the hat and vest, which allowed me to buy regular sized clothing for the rest of the outfit. Andrew's mustache listed less than a minute before he abandoned it, since it was impossible to drink anything (or see his smile for that matter) with it on!

I told Andrew we'll have to make up for these storebought outfits with something super creative next year.  Some of the interesting homemade costumes we saw at my sister Amy's annual Halloween party were a cactus (it included marshmallows and toothpicks), a Chilean miner and a homemade Viking costume (complete with a beard expertly made from a spool of yarn), as well as my cousin Andrea's authentic appearance as - you guessed it:

Snooki!!

Foley's Backstreet Grille

October was a big month for birthdays - while we ended up celebrating Andrew's birthday on our cruise in Turkey, we missed our friend Phu's big 3-0 celebration while we were gone.  However, we did make it in time to celebrate Andrew's mom's birthday.  Through her selection, we were able to try a new restaurant - Foley's Backstreet Grille in Stoughton!

As I'm easing back into food blogging, you'll have to forgive me for my forgetfulness. For once, I was concentrating on eating food more than I was on taking pictures of it! I think it was all the meals on the cruise that made me lazy, since I got out of the practice of taking pictures of meals (you didn't think I would subject you to pictures of cruise food, did you?)  Anyway, I did take a few pictures, but this recap is going to be more on the overall impressions we got from the place.

Starters - I forgot to take a picture, but they serve these awesome homemade potato chips as a free starter at the table. Very salty but tasty.

For apps, we went with the calamari - nicely crisp without being too greasy, but missing some sort of dipping sauce:

And a gigando, I mean REALLY big, appetizer combo featuring boneless chicken wings, potato skins, onion things (that's what they call them) and ribs:

This was a great way to try four different menu items but I felt a little gross after eating it. As in way too much food, and the four of us couldn't even finish it.

For our entrees, we all went with choices of the specials menu.  Andrew and Tom went with the Seafood Angela (if I recall the name correctly) which was a seafood medley served over angel hair pasta.  They were both so stuffed at this point that they focused on eating the seafood, and pretty much left the pasta untouched on their plates:

Charlotte and I both enjoy a good slab of meat now and then, so we opted for the prime rib. I ended up having a small portion of this, and had enough left over for two more meals. That's right, two more!

Overall Impressions:

• Foley's is really on a back street - kind of tucked away on a side street and you would have to be looking for it to run across it. I think if you lived in Stoughton, you'd be going by it all the time but I have a feeling people aren't going out of their way to find this place
• The place was packed with families and old people. As in enough senior citizens that Andrew told me he thought that there was an assisted living facility nearby. To me, that suggested that Foley's was known as a family friendly place with reasonably priced meals.
• They had a cute theme going on with movie posters on the walls, which was echoed in the menu. Each section of the menu was named after a movie, so for example, Garden State listed their salads, Ocean's Eleven had seafood, etc.
• Homemade potato chips definitely a highlight
• Nice variety of menu options, all reasonably priced, but I didn't find any of the food to be stellar. It was definitely more homey, comfort food style
• They don't have a lot of choices in the way of beverages. Basically some wines, a few beers and a trio of malternative drinks (I think Mike's Hard Lemonade). Also, the birthday girl Charlotte who is a proud GRIT, didn't get to order her beloved Coke since it is a Pepsi establishment (full disclosure, I prefer Pepsi products, so this wasn't a bad thing in my eyes)
• They did take reservations (which probably saved us a 10 minute wait on a Friday evening) and I appreciated the fact that table had an actual "RESERVED" sign and was waiting for us when we arrived

Overall, I think it's not a bad place to stop by when you're in the area, especially if you're accompanied by kids and/or the grandparents, but I don't think Andrew and I will be going back on our own.

Sidenote: I should've taken a picture of Charlotte's birthday gift from us but it was a neat cartouche pendant that we picked up in Egypt with her name spelled out in heiroglyphics. It's going to be hard to top that for Christmas!

After Wedding Chop

One of the first things on my to-do list when we came back from the honeymoon? Getting a haircut.

I couldn't find a good solo picture of myself with my hair down, a clear sign that it was getting too long and unruly and that my only way to cope was to wear it up in a bun. The picture above is from our honeymoon, showing how long my hair had grown in the past year as I grew it out for the wedding.

So maybe I should phrase it this way - one of my first acts as a married woman was to chop my hair off to a more manageable length.  This picture isn't the best but I swear both my hair and I were bouncing down the street after I walked out of the salon. It feels liberating.

Just Call Me Mrs.

I know it's been ages and ages since I've posted.

It's been a crazy month and half and it included a little thing called our wedding. And a blissfully relaxing two week honeymoon in the Mediterranean.

It's going to take some time to get up and running again, and I have to warn my readers that it will be heavily focused on wedding recap for the next months. But hopefully more baking will creep in as we enter the holidays.

I leave you with one of the wonderful professional pictures from our wedding - husband and wife, and delightfully so!