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!

The Lost NY Weekend: Birthday Dinner at CraftBar

We accomplished a lot on Friday but Saturday was truly amazing! To mark her 30th birthday, Amanda chose Craftbar for dinner. As in, one of Tom Colicchio's restaurants. Anyone that has watched every season of Top Chef - like Andrew and I - knows Tom Colicchio. I expected a good meal because of this association but dinner was amazing - I'm still salivating at the memory of it.

As a group of seven, we scored a very comfortable booth that was offset from the main part of the restaurant.

From L to R: The birthday girl; Carli, a childhood friend of Amanda's; Adam; childhood friend Laura and her husband Mike; and Andrew and me:

We went a little crazy ordering appetizers for the table and had basically one order of everything and two orders of things like the Pecorino Risotto balls and the Pecornio fondue with honey and hazelnuts (yum!!) and full charcuterie plate - half the table was drinking bottles of Malbec wine and the rest of us (including me) were enjoying G&T's:

After the deluge of food, Andrew and I wisely decided just to split an entree - on the urging of our excellent waiter, we went with the pork special (I can't remember what it was called). He was telling us that the chef for Craftbar buys one organic pig a week from a farm in upstate NY and tries to use as much of it as possible in crafting the menu for the week. I also have to say that I was incredibly impressed by the service - knowing that Andrew and I were splitting the entree, our waiter brought us individual portions that were plated beautifully - it consisted of pork belly wrapped around a pork sausage. I'm not doing it justice on the basis of that description but it was incredibly good and filling. On the side, the most amazing and flavorful broccoli I've ever tasted. Little kids would be begging for broccoli every day if they tasted Craftbar's broccoli:

Amanda and Adam seemed very happy with their wine and meal choices:

What is a birthday without something bubbly to celebrate it:


Laura and Mike were adorable - in fact, the whole table was great at keeping up a lively conversation (including a debate on the artistic ability of Lady Gaga):

Then it was time for dessert - Amanda's "birthday cake" was an olive oil cake with orange-cardamom ice cream, pear and spiced walnuts:


I loved my dessert and was very satisfied with it - a butterscotch pot de creme with caramelized apple and creme fraiche. It sounds simple but think of a very decadent, thick, rich butterscotch pudding. And I could eat buckets of the crem fraiche:

We linger at Craftbar for over three hours and enjoyed every minute of it. It was easily the most expensive meal I've ever had, but was so worth the experience!

The evening didn't end there - for those who live in the Northeast, this was the weekend that a HUGE snowstorm hit right before Christmas. So as we dined outside, it was snowing like mad outside and we were about to walk right into it.

The Lost NY Weekend: Friday

Andrew and I spent a fun weekend last month in NYC to help celebrate Amanda's birthday - unfortunately, I'm missing most of the pictures from Friday morning to Friday afternoon, but Andrew's dad pulled a Christmas miracle and managed to recover most of the pictures from the weekend directly from my camera's memory stick. Here is my attempt to describe what the missing pictures captured, and what the recovered pictures show!

Driving up on Thursday night left us with enough energy to fall asleep immediately, which had us rising bright-eyed and busy-tailed on Friday morning. We walked over twenty blocks to meet Andrew's friend from college (and groomsman) Eric for lunch at his office in mid-town Manhattan. I had a great time observing and taking pictures of Christmas decorations New York style, which means they were literally larger than life! I had a great shot of Eric and Andrew posing by UBS gigantic nutcrackers that I am still mourning, along with a shot of Andrew and I in front of gigantic ornaments. That shot was special because of the woman who took it - she got very excited when she saw my engagement ring and told us to savor this special time together and, hysterically, to soak it all in and walk very slowly down the aisle as she did! Judging by her southern accent, I don't think she was (or acted like) a native New Yorker. :)

After catching up with Eric, Andrew and I played tourist for a bit since we were right around the corner from Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. Insert more pictures of these touristy sites. We then hopped on the subway out to Brooklyn to meet up with Camie (one of my bridesmaids). We got to a first hand look at the high school where she teaches, including the amazing architecture. Insert missing pictures of her gigantic classroom. We walked across Park Slope to meet up with Camie's husband James back at the apartment (as well as get some play time in with their dog Frederick) and then we headed around the block for some authentic Brooklyn pizza (complete with fresh mozzarella, yum!) before heading back to Manhattan to meet up with Amanda.

Andrew's brother Adam flew in that evening and surprised us at the apartment door with a celebratory bottle of champagne to toast Amanda's 30the birthday (yay, the pics are back!):


Here is a nice shot of all three siblings together - something that only happens a couple times a year!

A shot of Andrew and I enjoying champagne with Amanda, with Adam manning the camera:

Andrew and I were stuffed from our pizza dinner but joined Amanda and Adam at an Argentinian restaurant around the corner as they ordered dinner and we enjoyed drinks. As full as we were, we did take the opportunity to try the bread (fresh baked and great!), the fabulous crispy calamari with an incredible dipping sauce (which Adam added into an impromptu sandwich with some of the meat from the meat plate and the bread):

For the life of me, I can't remember what Andrew and I ordered, but Adam was drinking Argentinian beer and Amanda had her usual wine:


A close up of my delightfully fruity drink:

Amanda hit the hay afterwards to rest up for her big birthday night next door, while Andrew, Adam and I headed to Auction House (a bar around the corner from her place). We fondly have nicknamed this bar "Vampire Bar" due to its dark atmosphere, velvet curtains and paintings on the wall:

Andrew and Adam were having a great time, especially after we received a free round of drinks made with the latest, hip vodka:


I was tired enough to appreciate scoring chairs halfway through the night, although they put us in uncomfortable proximity to a couple that was in a full blown makeout session (and no, wiseguys, that couple was not me and Andrew!)

We had a great time catching up on each other's lives and the hours just sped away:

Finally, we tore ourselves away from the bar knowing that we also needed to get a decent amount of sleep to participate in the birthday festivities the next night.