oh i'm back. always takes me a bit to get back into my regular routine. trip back east was great. lucked out with the weather...meaning it wasn't humid like it usually is, but was sunny and warm. during this trip i think i ate one of the best tasting burgers i've ever eaten at a backyard bbq...or as they kept saying (and i kept noticing) "a cookout." it was interesting to say the least, in how these burgers were cooked. i'm willing to go out on a limb here to say that the grill-man was not highly disciplined in his culinary expertise. the two clues to my conclusion was that one, i think a lot of the huge pieces of chicken that were thrown on the grill were not completely cooked, and two, the bbq grill was blazing flames the whole time things were being cooked...even when the thing was turned off. so back to the bbq. as i watched, the grill-man just ignored the huge flames ( my eyes kept shifting back and forth from the "blackened" burgers to the leaves behind the grill that were being singed by the fire) and kept flipping the little burgers over as fast as he could. anyway...who would have thought that these burgers wouldn't have tasted like little charred pieces of meat? they didn't. in fact, they were really, really good. texture was not tough or grisly, and the meat was so tender. i'm pretty sure this wasn't niman ranch stuff either. go figure.
okay, enough about burgers...though i felt the need to post about that b/c now i want to re-create that burger!
okay, really...i'll stop.
we were able to visit some good friends up in Connetticut. i love that you can drive for an hour and 40 minutes and be in an entirely different state back there. it was definitely too short of a visit, but a fun visit at that. which reminds me of this book that i lent to our friend whom we were visiting. such a good read if you love food. and yes...i love food. i'm not a fast reader by any means, but this was my kind of book. it's definitely an easy read, plus the author (and now restaurant owner) included some lovely recipes which takes up some pages, but if you're weird like me, you'll read through every word of those recipes instead of skipping over them to read the next story.
i am now really into books about food. right now i am reading this.
so to sum up our trip...good weather, good company in friends and family, good food.
when we returned, the little guy was invited to his cousin's birthday party over the weekend so my other half and i took the opportunity to head into the city to see this show. we also went up to the rooftop garden and admired the outdoor sculptures while we sat and enjoyed a cup of this. so, so, so good if you haven't tried it.
p.s. sorry about the coffee bean photo, but i didn't have an image of a burger at hand. this coffee really deserves a good post as well though. you can read about the guy behind it here.