Liv's First Birthday!!

Little Miss Olivia just celebrated her first birthday and does time fly! I feel like it was only yesterday that we were meeting her for the first time.

When her proud mama Jen asked me to make the birthday cakes/cupcakes for Liv's party, I really wanted to say no. I am not a cake person.  Baking sheet cakes, I can handle. Stacking cake layers is intimidating to me. And decorating cakes? I've got the passion and the ideas, but not the skills to match. So consider that an official to-do once I get my free time back after October 9 - I'm going to sign up for one of the Wilton cake decorating classes.

Enough about me, back to Jen's request. Jen is one of the most organized people that I know and also one of the most meticulous (although she may protest this fact since she's become a mama, I say it's still true). So that made it even more frightening to think that I would make something that wouldn't live up to her high standards. But in the end, I wanted to do it because I knew I wanted to do something to help celebrate such a special occasion. Plus, as I told Jen and her husband Rob, it was full circle since I had made ladybug cookies for Olivia's baby shower way back when.

So how did I do? While the cake looked good while I was stacking it (two different types of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting to boot in the middle):

It kind of sagged to one side at the end, which I ended up trying to cover with a simple border of frosting dots. Thank God that Jen has good "icing" handwriting, I was only to happy to leave her with an icing bag filled with extra frosting so she could write out the birthday message herself (apparently something she learned while working at a bakery):

Cupcakes are a familiar territory for me (small surfaces are less intimidating) so I did ladybugs and flowers. I forgot to mention somewhere along the way that these designs were an attempt to match out a particular ladybug pattern that Jen had picked out, which you can see on the tablecloth:

The piece de resistance? The ladybug "smash" cake. Who knew such a term existed? I know babies tend to smush around any slices of cake given to them, but who was the clever person that decided to give babies their own cake? This was obviously for the birthday girl:

I have to give a shout-out to Jen's creativity in setting up the scene - she even made origami butterflies out of napkins to go along with the theme:

While I missed out on actually attending the party (since we were in NJ for triathlon, more to come on that in a later post), Jen was kind enough to capture a few precious moments on film.  This what I consider to be Olivia's first approach into the cake. The moment where she spots it and decides she needs to investigate with her hands:

Aha! A moment of victory as she "smashes" into the cake and globs her first mouthful of it (I love the contrast between the messy cake eating and her dainty appearance):

As Jen titled this picture, the end result. We've got one adorably messy and satisfied little lady. And yes, those are little pink ladybugs on her green dress, whose colors match the napkins I mentioned above. Did I mention that Jen's detail-oriented? :)

While all three items looked cute grouped together with Jen's matching decorations, I think it's safe to say I won't be entering the cake-making business anytime soon.

While they may appear simple, it took roughly five hours of baking one night and five hours of frosting the next night to get this done. Not very time efficient. But oh-so worth it to make Olivia's birthday extra special!

Meeting Peter Bear

Not surprisingly, all this lovely warm weather we've been having on the weekends has led to a lot of gatherings and BBQs. We traveled to Plymouth to attend one such BBQ in Andrew's childhood neighborhood, in honor of old friends who were visiting from CA.

First, the food was pretty typical BBQ fare but I had to point out the cupcakes that were decorated to look like boxes of popcorn - you guessed it, this was the same neighbor that had made corn on the cob cupcakes for Memorial Day weekend:

But back to the real subject of my post, the highlight of the BBQ was catching up with Andrew's old friends and more importantly, meeting their seven-month-old son for the first time.

While it was fun to watch Andrew splashing about in the pool/trying to drown his friends under the guise of playing a diving game...

...my eyes kept getting drawn back to this little cutie.  Andrew and I had laughed over how his big his eyes were in pictures but I have to say from seeing it firsthand, yes, it's true that Peter's eyes have that "I've just stuck my finger in the wall socket" wide-eyed look:

He was a little charmer in person, and was happy and calm even as he was passed around from person to person.  Of course he was happiest when he was in his dad's arms:

Or being used as a fishing pole by his grandfather:

Or gnawing on his giraffe:

The only time those big baby blues closed was when Peter went down for his nap, and let me tell you, he fought it for a long time. In the end, he looks as cute and cuddly as his middle name suggests:

While Peter was sleeping, the big boys tried their hand at playing a game that we had never heard of before - Ladder Golf. Apparently it's huge on the West Coast and it seems to be making its way to the East Coast - the hosts of the BBQ had actually bought their (admittedly cheap) set at Marshalls, of all places:

I feel like this is one of the games like cornhole which appears to have been invented at some Midwest or West Coast tailgate and caught on in popularity.  Annoyingly enough, despite the fact that it was Andrew's first time playing, he was pretty good at it (I kept complimenting him on his form):

Popcorn cupcakes, an adorable baby and a new game? It was the perfect way to enjoy the nice weather and the company of old friends.

Join the Beetle Brigade!

It being almost two months out to the wedding, you'd guess that Andrew and I would be whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears and sending love notes to one another.

Instead, here's a look into a recent email from Andrew.

"Look at what I just found at top of the stairs leading into the basement. Do you think it's an Asian longhorned beetle?"

My first thought is "Ewww! How the heck did that thing make its way into our house." I really can't stand bugs, especially those that you know will crunch when you step on them (coming second only to bugs that bite and sting you).

My second instinct was to freak out. For those of you who don't live in Massachusetts, you've missed the recent headlines where the state has been obsessed with finding and eradicating these invasive pests. We're talking tons of stories, tracking maps and even worse, the destruction of massive amounts of trees in an attempt to curb the beetles' spread.

I was alarmed not only because the numero uno icky bug in the state was cohabitating with us, but because I pictured the park that is directly next door to us. As in old, stately, tall, lovely trees that would almost certainly be torn down if this ended up being the real thing.

So I spent the next ten minutes looking at pictures of beetles to see if I could identify "our" bug.  Although you can't tell from Andrew's hastily snapped iPhone pic, our bug also had white spots. Looking at the shape of the beetle, I was almost positive that it was a (non-Asian) longhorned beetle. Luckily, Andrew ended up calling the Asian longhorned beetle hotline number, and ended up talking to a member of the Asian longhorned beetle eradication society (seriously).

Although the lady responded with a horrified "OH NO!" (caps emphasis based on Andrew's description of the ladie's voice) when Andrew said he had found an Asian longhorned beetle in our house (way to calm us down, lady), she was able to get Andrew to describe some key characteristics of "our bug".  She concluded that what we had was a "white-spotted sawyer beetle" which are common this time of year. That stick shape coming out of its butt? She thought it was female getting ready to lay its eggs.  Um, was it possible for me to get even more disgusted?

So, crisis averted. The trees are safe. The beetle is now dead and disposed of (along with its butt stick of eggs). We now know that:

1) an Asian longhorned beetle eradications society exists. They actually have posters featuring the phrase that is the inspiration for my post title, and I consider Andrew and I to be honorary members of their "beetle brigade" and

2) there are a ton of ugly bugs out there that resemble each other.

Congrats Chelsea!

As most people on the planet Earth are aware, Chelsea Clinton just got married this Saturday. I followed reports of her wedding with interest, not only because I'm in the throes of wedding planning myself and because I'll also be 30 when I get married, but I've always felt an affinity with her. This comes from a memory of being 12 and remembering my father telling me that the President had a daughter that was the same age as me, which was the first time I became aware of Chelsea.

Anyway, not to sound too much like a crazy stalker, I was glad to see that some wedding photos got released so I could see her on her wedding day (although I feel bad about the pandemonium that surrounded her wedding festivities in NY).  She looked beautiful, elegant, and most importantly - in love - so I offer my congratulations and best wishes for a long and happy marriage with Marc.

Photo credit here

Not Your Average Chinese Dinner

Last year, I had the opportunity to join the MyBlogSpark network, which gives bloggers the chance to "review new products and services and participate in exciting giveaways, surveys and events." Through MyBlogSpark, I've been able to give away Pillsbury cookies and Stop & Shop gift cards and typically, get coupons to try different General Mills products.

That is why I was surprised to see an email from MyBlogSpark offering a special event for bloggers, including a four course dinner at Myers + Chang, free drinks and even a gift card to cover gas/travel expenses for me and a guest - um yes, please! I was excited at the thought of attending my first blogging event and even more excited by the fact that I could share the experience with Andrew (really, hide behind him if I felt too awkward at the event!)

I didn't know what to expect from the event, but the day of, I ended up checking Yelp for ideas on what to order and checked Myers + Chang's website and menu. While on the site, I noticed that the whole restaurant was going to be closed to the public for the MyBlogSpark event, which made me anticipate what was going to happen that much more.

We were one of the first to arrive at the restaurant.

The first sign of things to come was the waiver they had us sign handing over rights to any picture and video taken. That's right, video, since there was a camera man and sound man setting up in the corner. I was a bit confused since we had signed a waiver via email beforehand but after consulting with my attorney, I was given the go ahead to sign.

When we got to our table, I was charmed by what I found. In addition to Myers + Chang's usual decor (Chinese newspaper table mats and chopsticks at the table), we found little fortune cookie place card holders describing the four courses and options we had for each. 

Sign number two that I should've paid attention to - I recognized the options for the first two courses but remember thinking and telling Andrew that I didn't remember seeing family-style entrees on Myers + Chang menu online. Again, I didn't think much of it since I assumed I had was looking at a special event menu.

Our waiter was pretty friendly and chatty, and was willing to snap a picture of us at the table. At this point, I was grinning in anticipation of the meal ahead of us.

With a list of exotic drinks with Asian ingredients to choose from, it was hard to make a selection:

I decided on the Lotus Blossom, since it included ingredients I knew I liked: St. Germain Liqueur, sparkling chenin blanc and soda - it was light and refreshing as it looks:

For our first course, Andrew went with Mama Chang's Pork and Chive Potstickers - the dipping sauce was deceptively spicy, as in it took a few seconds for the heat to hit your tongue but it was GOOD!

I easily could've ordered the potstickers myself but decided to go with another favorite of mine - Crispy Spring Rolls with garlic chives, bamboo and shitake mushrooms:

Did someone say second course? Andrew went with the wok-roasted mussels with lemongrass and garlic grilled toast. Andrew said these were the most flavorful mussels he's ever had (also spicy) and the two times he had mussels since (sorry Publick House), it's paled in comparison to these:

I went with the chilled dan dan noodles with fresh peanut and chili sambal - I love noodle dishes and this one didn't fail to deliver. Since it was also spicy, I love how the spicyness contrasted nicely with the cool chunks of cucumber:

By the time the third course rolled around, we were pretty much already stuffed. Perhaps it was because we were marveling at our good fortune to be eating all this good food for free, but suddenly, Andrew remarked that wouldn't it be funny if General Mills had planned to trick us by serving us one of their meals instead of something from Myers + Chang. Note, this was as we were just trying the first bites of the orange chicken that Andrew had selected (meals are served "family style" at Myers + Chang, which means they are delivered to the table as soon as they are ready). As soon as the words left Andrew's mouth, we looked at each other and realized how much sense it made. With this in mind, we were trying to be analytical as we tried the sweet and spicy shrimp. I have to admit, I had my doubts on whether Andrew was right. The vegetables were crisp and didn't have the typical "frozen food" texture. The same for the shrimp. I felt like the rice wasn't frozen, but Andrew noted that it easily could have been served on rice from within the restaurant. We agreed that the details that made us suspect it could be frozen included its overly sweet sauce which was not as delicately balanced as the previous courses. What do you think? (Apologies, we were so involved with figuring out the frozen vs. fresh dilemma that I forgot to take any pictures until we had already dug into the shrimp dish):

The problem was, how could we verify our suspicion? We were tempted to ask our waiter but didn't want to come across as insulting if we were wrong - "Excuse me, your restaurant's food tastes like it's frozen - can you verify this fact?" Plus, we were one of the first tables to get the entrees, so it was hard to gauge the reaction at the other tables.

So I ordered another drink (the house Shanghai sake sangria) which to be honest, was blech in my opinion so thank goodness it was free. I seem to have problems liking any drinks with pear liquors in them. But it pretty to look at (note, picture was taken before I tasted it):

As stuffed as we were, we definitely saved for dessert since we knew that they were supplied by Joanne Chang's Flour bakery (Joanne obviously being the Chang in the restaurants name) - Andrew was a bit undecided but was convinced by the waiter's recommendation of the chocolate and cocoa nib terrine with Vietnamese coffee sauce. Since I'm not a big chocolate dessert fan, I'm not able to give an expert opinion but Andrew liked it:

My coconut cream pie with lime whipped cream was DIVINE. Truly worthy of all caps. It had a delicious shortbread crust and I loved the touch of toasted coconut on top. I don't recall tasting the lime in the whipped cream but the whole package was amazing. Andrew wasted no time in helping me clean the plate and thought it was definitely his favorite dessert of the two:

After our desserts were served, the MyBlogSpark and General Mills representatives in the room passed around fortune cookies bearing a special message:

That's right, Andrew's suspicious were right. Our entrees were really frozen meals from General Mill's new Wanchai Ferry line. I have to say that the meals were good enough that I don't think I would've guessed that they were frozen on my own. Not as good as the first courses, yes, but not frozen.

So thanks to MyBlogSpark and General Mills for an evening of good food and mind games. I'm praying that we don't somehow end up on a commercial for Wanchai since Andrew and I were stiff as boards in front of the camera. In fact, I think our conversation went like this: "This is good."  "Yeah." It wasn't quite the mix and mingle I was expecting. Iin fact, I missed out on the opportunity to meet one of my favorite bloggers, Beantown Baker since she was seated in the one location in the restaurant where her back was to me, and I didn't see her. However, you can still read her account of what happened at the event.

And in case you were wondering, yes, Andrew was smug the whole ride home (the whole day after, in fact) about being right. I hate when he's right.

Ming Tsai. Need I Say More?

I've been out late the past two nights, last night to celebrate my sister Amy's first full-time job offer (yay Amy!) and tonight, I had a work dinner at Blue Ginger in Wellesley. Which I've always wanted to try and I got the full experience tonight.  More to come in a later post but I wanted to share the highlight of the night - I got to meet Ming Tsai!!

Can I tell you that I was (quietly) shrieking after he visited our table the first time, and did a little dance in my seat after he came back to take a picture with us.

PS. Andrew's bachelor party (random sidenote: these are called "stag" parties in the UK) is this weekend, so I should have plenty of peace and quiet to catch up on my posts.

Care Package Of Sorts

Ugh. The past week has just been crazy. And most of it wasn't wedding related, yikes! So if there are any readers left, I promise you I have an extensive backlog of posts and pictures. But they're not going up tonight, I chose to workout for the first time in weeks over blogging (extensively).  Maybe tomorrow. If I catch up on sleep.

I leave you with this shot, one of the highlights of the past week - a care package from home. Actually, a box from my parents that contained the MOB (mother-of-the-bride) dress that my mom didn't like, shipped to me so I could return it. The packing material my mom used?

Package upon package of Japanese "Asparagus biscuits". Which is a complete misnomer since they are not asparagus-flavored (just shaped like asparagus) and are a type of slightly sweet cookie instead - I know the British call their cookies biscuits, but we're talking about Japanese cookies getting consumed in the US. Most of these were a gift from my mom to Andrew's parents, since she remembered how much they liked them from her last visit to the US. That's not to say that Andrew and I didn't indulge in a few packages, there were certainly enough to go around!

Blue Eggs Bring...

...baby robins! It was only a couple of weeks ago that I was peering down at two eggs in a robin's nest but this past weekend, Andrew's dad Tom parted the grapevine leaves so I could take this shot:

They're not very cute or cuddly but for a lack of better words, it was very cool to see baby birds up close and personal! I think it's moments like this (chipmunks also get me very excited) that I realize that I'm more of a city girl than I realized.

Red Mango

It'll come as no surprise for readers that I am a huge frozen yogurt fan. I've tried Chill in Cleveland Circle, BerryLine in Harvard Sqauare and in Kenmore, Berry Freeze in Coolidge Corner, Pinkberry in NYC, even Razzleberry in Japan and now can add Red Mango to the list.

While Andrew and I were out and about on Saturday, our errands took us to the Natick mall (I refuse to call it the Collection) and to our surprise, we saw Red Mango on the second level:

Which of course, was our cue to zip right in and order some frozen yogurt! Despite some intriguing flavor options, we stuck with our favorite, the original flavor. Plus, it gives us a good basis for comparison against the other chains.

While we sat down at the stools while we were waiting for our orders to be taken care of, we ended up eating the frozen yogurt at a seating area in another section of the mall since it was so crowded inside Red Mango:

Our assessment of Red Mango? I think Andrew's medium sized serving illustrates a couple of main points. Of all the frozen yogurt places we've tried, Red Mango was the skimpiest in terms of amount of frozen yogurt and toppings. We could actually see a manager instructing an employee on the proper way to swirl the frozen yogurt so it was tall and skinny. A charitable person would say that was to leave room for the toppings. However, based on what made it to the top of both of orders, I don't believe that was the case. When we've visited places like BerryLine and Chill, and even more recently, Pinkberry, they've all done their best to pile on the toppings so it's spilling off the sides:

As for the flavor? While it still had the tanginess that I enjoy, it was definitely more cream cheese in flavor than its competitors. Don't get me wrong, I love cream cheese, but for frozen yogurt, BerryLine and Pinkberry are still tops for flavor in my book.

So while I'd probably get Red Mango the next time we walk by it in the mall (I mean, it's still healthier than most of the food that you find in a mall), it's definitely not something that I would drive to in order to fulfill a craving.

On a sidenote, while we were eating the frozen yogurt in an open seating area, we realized that we had missed a special wedding event (WE's Wedding Mall Tour 2010) by a few hours:

I was a little disappointed when I thought all the people on the poster had been at the event, since I watch David Tutera on "My Fair Wedding" (one of the many wedding shows that I watch). However, Andrew was observant enough to read it was just Ron Ben-Israel that had visited Natick on the sign:

While he is a fellow baker, at this point, wedding cakes are one of the things I don't have to worry about!

Wedding Bling

I've never been one to enjoy using the term "bling" when referring to jewelry but I can't think of a term that's more appropriate when you're talking about wedding jewelry!

We had checked out Long's Jewelers a couple of weeks back, and while we were impressed by our salesperson's knowledge, I wasn't impressed by the smaller selection of rings and I didn't see anything that felt right with my engagement ring. Barmakian had gotten rave reviews from the Boston Knot brides, plus a few friends that had gotten their rings there, so it made our list of places to check out. We decided to visit the Framingham location (which was pretty impressive) and make it a day of running errands at the various stores in the Natick/Framingham area.

I think it ended up taking us around 30 minutes to pick out a wedding ring for me, and to my surprise, I ended up walking out with it in hand. For some reason, I thought they would have to order away for it but the ring was a good fit. Our saleswoman recommended waiting a little bit before deciding whether or not to get it resized, since it's hard to get a good gauge on fit when the weather is this hot and humid outside. I thought this advice was spot on, since my engagement ring got resized around this time of the year, and I swear that it's slightly too big on my finger for most of the year when the weather is normal.

Back to the wedding ring, my saleswoman told me I could come back before the wedding to get it resized for free if I wanted, and to get both my engagement and wedding rings cleaned and polished. Sweet! They also cleaned my engagement ring that day and I must say, it was sorely needed. Nothing like trying on squeaky clean and shiny wedding bands to help point out how dirty your engagement ring is.

Do you want to see what it looks like?

Not quite yet - this is another surprise that gets unveiled at the wedding. The band is super simple, and without sounding too obnoxious, I actually ended up going with smaller diamonds than I originally anticipated. I wanted something that would complement, not outshine, my engagement ring and to tell you the truth, anything too big and shiny just looked weird on my hand. I heart the ring and I can't wait for Andrew to put it on my finger!

What about Andrew's ring, you may be thinking? He actually realized at Longs that all he wanted was a simple domed ring. We were quoted a very high price for a low-weight platinum ring, and he found the same ring online at medium weight for nearly half the price. We're fine with the whole online thing, since Andrew actually ordered my engagement ring from an online retailer (James Allen) and we've both been satisfied by the quality. Andrew looked over the (very extensive) men's seleciton at Barmakians but didn't try on a thing since it only confirmed how much he liked the simple style he had settled on at Longs. So after we got home on Saturday night, we purchased Andrew's ring online from White Flash. Ordering my ring online would've been nearly impossible with all the subtle differences women's bands have and getting a sense for how well it fit next to my engagement ring.

Regardless, we're excited to have made an important decision and feel confident in our choices. Plus, I've got a nice sense of relief from getting yet another big wedding thing crossed off the to-do list.

Date Night In Dorchester

It's been a while since Andrew and I made the effort to go out somewhere decent for dinner (i.e. something different other than our weekly Bertucci's fix) but we were still feeling a bit lazy, so we picked something within walking distance on Thursday night.

While I had the chance to experience the Ledge soon after we had first moved into our house, this was the first time that Andrew got to eat there (not counting the fact that he had eaten my leftovers from my first meal).

We went with one of our traditional favorites, calamari. I have mixed feelings about Ledge's version of it. It didn't seem to have very much calamari (in the sense that there were numerous tiny bits of calamari with a thick bread coating). However, it almost wasn't a bad thing since the coating was very nice and crunchy. The dipping sauce was definitely meh, Andrew and I both agreed that it tasted like honey water (in flavor and consistency) so we avoided it for the most part. Full disclosure, we did end up cleaning the plate:

I had a hankering for seafood so I went with scallops accompanied by green beans and mashed potatoes. Everything was delicious and perfectly cooked and seasoned, so this was plate #2 that got cleaned completely. Andrew and I always joke at how restaurants give you a miniscule amount of scallops (we had guessed beforehand how much I would get and I had optimistically said at least five) but these were very big and tasty and I ended up slicing each one into four or five bites.

Andrew also went the seafood route, getting one of his favorites, fish and chips. Not much to say on this front except that he liked it and said the fries were surprisingly crispier than one would expect for steak fries. Since I'm not a fan of fries that are this thick and was stuffed from my own meal, I didn't even try filching a fry from his plate:

For dessert, we skipped the Ledge's menu and decided to try the ice cream shop that was on the same block as the restaurant:

What I didn't realize initially was that this was the type of store that does the Coldstone Creamery model - it had pretty plain ice cream flavors and you could pick mix-ins to get smushed up with the ice cream. The ice cream was good but I was disappointed by the lack of fruity mix-ins and missing almonds (most New England ice cream shops seem to avoid almonds). So I just ended up getting a plain scoop of chocolate chip ice cream. It was good, but I think I would've preferred an ice cream menu with more elaborate flavors. Andrew wasn't as picky as me, and really liked his vanilla ice cream with heath bar mix-ins.

We both ended up feeling uncomfortably stuffed for the rest of the night, so lesson learned - we'll skip the appetizer the next time we know we want to have dessert! But it was nice to slowly stroll with our ice cream in hand, enjoying the comfortable weather that seems to only come around at 8:30 pm these days.

Orzo and Tomato Salad with Feta Cheese

I'm really much more of a baker than I am a cook, but I was motivated to make something more on the savory side for the BBQ.

Thus I present to you, my first orzo dish which was surpisingly easy - Orzo and Tomato Salad with Feta Cheese.

In my book, anything that calls for feta rocks!

I'm going to take the lazy way out and provide you the recipe link here.

I left out the dill (just because I didn't have any), used grape tomatoes sliced in half instead of a whole tomato, and added yellow peppers.

I'm also happy to report that I was able to use fresh parsley from my window sill plant (From L to R: Thai Basil, Chives and Parsley) - hello green thumb I never knew I had! I just need to find some recipes that call for using some of the other herbs.

But back to the orzo salad, it's definitely best to make it a day before you intend to serve it, since the flavors intensify overnight.