Puzzle-ing

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Mel's Diner:


St Basil's Cathedral, Moscow

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEIEL DEC 28TH 2009

A Wonderful day with Jeremiah and Sabrina!

1. Breakfast as Zorbas

2. Rent snowshoes at Christy's

3. Snowshoe City Park Golf Course

4. Lunch at Swing Thai

5. Make-over at Garment District

6. Avatar Imax in 3D

7. Dinner and Sabrina's layered frosted Sara Lee pound cake

It doesn't get much better!

Best waffles ever!

-Mix 1 1/4 cup flour, 1 Tb. baking powder, 1 1/2 Tb. sugar.
-Add 1 cup milk, 2 Tb. melted butter, 1 beaten egg.

Variations:
-Substitute 1/2 cup canned pumpkin for 1/4 cup flour. Add 1 Tb. more sugar.
-Substitute rye flour for some of the white flour.
-Add cut up fruit or fresh strawberries or other berries.

Bolognese a la Jer

Curiosity does what to a cat?

Not much, but it does cover our floors with freshly tossed dirt! What IS in there anyway?

Happy Chanukah!!!

Looking forward to celebrating together in Denver. In the meantime...

Lazy Saturday

Me and Oscar grading final exams.


He obviously wasn't very impressed.


Thankfully I am-average is about 92% so far!

Literary Ladies' Tea

Four of the ladies (including the teacher) from 19th Century British Authors' class came to tea at 620 Cherry. We had a sun-filled dining room, good conversation, true English scones with jam, Victoria Sponge cake (chocolate version with red currant jam filling), egg salad finger sandwiches, gluten-free pear muffinettes, Grand Marnier white chocolate dipped strawberries (brought by Anita), and cuppas and cuppas of Typhoo tea.

Cooking with Roberto Donna

"Chef."

Our individual cooking stations in his kitchen.

The theme of the class was pasta sauces. Here, bolognese. Note my finely chopped veggies.

Check out his not very fancy range!

Making fresh pasta. It got much longer! Around the entire kitchen island.

Eating the goods.

The first course: pesto, puttanesca, and arrabiata. I forget the name of that tube shaped pasta.

Chef's tip: Make pesto but don't add the cheese. Put in plastic container. Let sit in fridge for 1 hour. Remove, top with olive oil. Place back in fridge. Will keep forever. Remove and scoop out desired amount to use, add cheese.

Thank you Sabrina for finding and to all for giving!

Click here to see all photos from the day.

Chanukah Dinner!

We had a big time Chanukah dinner tonight. Brisket and latkes. And then a ping pong game (thanks for the present mom!). I used a combination of recipes, including mom's, and mainly from this site (since it has brisket and latkes all in the same place).

Ingredients

* 4 large garlic cloves, smashed
* 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
* 4 sprigs fresh rosemary, needles striped from the stem and chopped
* 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 (4 pound) beef brisket, first-cut (I have no idea how big mine was)
* Coarsely ground black pepper
* 4 large carrots, cut in 3-inch chunks
* 1 large yellow onion
* 2 cups dry red wine
* Half a can of tomato sauce, 1 TB tomato paste (all I had!)
* Herbs (parley, bay leaves

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
On a cutting board, mash the garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt together with the flat-side of a knife into a paste. Add the rosemary and continue to mash until incorporated. Put the garlic-rosemary paste in a small bowl and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil; stir to combine.

Season both sides of the brisket with a fair amount of kosher salt and ground black pepper. Place a large roasting pan or Dutch oven over medium-high flame and coat with the remaining olive oil. Put the brisket in the roasting pan and sear to form a nice brown crust on both sides. Lay the vegetables all around the brisket and pour the rosemary paste over the whole thing. Add the wine and tomatoes; toss in the parsley and bay leaves. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and transfer to the oven. Bake for about 3 to 4 hours, basting every 30 minutes with the pan juices, until the beef is fork tender.

Turned out really good. I had to add some water along the way so it wouldn't be too heavy.






Then latkes!
Crispy Potato Pancakes (Latkes):

3 medium russet potatoes, peeled
1 medium onion
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 egg white, lightly beaten
1 chopped scallion
Vegetable oil, for frying

Using a box grater or food processor, coarsely grate the potatoes and onions. Put the grated potatoes and onions together in a paper towel and twist it to squeeze out the excess liquid. Put the dry potatoes and onions in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Fold in the egg white and scallion to bind the mixture together.

Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat and coat with 1/4-inch of oil. For each pancake, take about 2 tablespoons of the potato mixture and drop into the hot oil; gently flatten with a spatula so they fry up thin and crispy. Fry for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until golden. Remove to paper towels to drain; season with salt while the potato pancakes are still hot. Continue frying, adding more oil as needed, until all of the mixture is used up. Serve immediately with apple sauce, if desired.

The whole meal:





The candles:





The after dinner exercise:

Belated Birthday Blogging

I meant to post and thank Jer for coming and Danny for planning a lovely birthday celebration last Fri. We started the night at Melody Lanes for an hour of bowling. I was on fire and bowled a 134!! Danny got second place and Jer won the award for the most stylish bowl.

Next stop was Tacos Matamoros a couple blocks away. The ten of us ordered tacos et al with abandon and the final check was only $100!! It was amazing. We topped it off (no one was still hungry but me!) with Rinky Dinks from Betty Bakery. Then we walked the 25 blocks home to make room for the rest of the Rinky Dinks. :)



And here is a fuzzy photo of Amy, Melissa and me in our Spa Castle uniform. :)

A coat!

Danny is a super star. He found me a coat. And not just any coat. The perfect coat. He shopped near near and far, treked to Bloomies THREE times. Yes three. But it was not in vain. Today he called me at work and said he had found it. We met at Bloomies amidst a sea of down coats and a 40% off sale. Sale!! He showed me the coat and it was clear, this was the one. We tried on a few more just in case, but there was no comparison. I was pretty amazed--Dan searched the city and found the perfect one. Stylish, warm, on sale. Perfect.







And then we ate dinner at Follow Me Caffe, one of mom's favorites and now one of ours too. :)

Yoga Nidra Weekend

Home from a wonderful weekend accessing Yoga Nidra with a true yogi Master - Amrit Desai at Naropa. Yoga Nidra is a place of deep meditation beyond consciousness accessible when the proper conditons are met. Proper intentionality, breath, posture and openness can allow one to go beyond the restrictions of the ego mind which essentially structures all of our thinking. Out of one's mind can be a good thing. And it was good.

UWS Hoop Dreams

Check out this NY Times article and video here (scroll down), about a Hunter H.S. Jewish point guard who transfers to Poly Prep in Brooklyn.

America's Crypto-Jews

A new article on this interesting subject, this one in Harper's. I oversaw a guy reading it on the Metro...

Sabrina's Birthday at the SpaCastle

We spent an amazing day at the Spa Castle in Queens! It was a bad weather day, so this was the perfect activity. And being outdoors in a warm pool with the cold rain coming down was fun!

This NY Times article and slideshow do a pretty good job of showing what it was like.

Unique aspects included:

- special shorts/t-shirts uniforms

- a variety of different style saunas complete featuring different aroma and high quality materials (in many of the saunas, you lay on the floor on cushy mats and lay your head on a wooden - curved - block!)

- the "Iceland room" for cooling off after a sauna with real snow for walls

- a quiet sleeping area with heated floors

- 2 outdoor rooftop shallow pools with dozens of different special seating areas with different style jets, a hot tub made of 300 year old pine wood for special aroma, and a waterfall area

- single-sex bathing areas with different temperature pools and individual "scrubbing" stations with mirror, hand-held shower, wooden buckets, soap, shaving equipment. I had to watch the Koreans to see how to do it right...

- And, of course, Korean food...but also ice cream, yogurt, smoothies, hot dogs, beer, etc.

Pop, you're next!

Puzzled!

We are stuck and oh so close.

Meditation Retreat

I leave this afternoon for meditation retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center. This, to work on a practice which has been important to me over many years. I will return Sunday midday and report to you of this experience.

He's so qualified!

Danny has completed his first set of qualifying exams and is enjoying a spinach, Parmesan, and truffle oil pizza and a delicious German lager at Tobys Public House in South Slope (sorry, fuzzy shot!).

Plus Ca Change

Too long ago even for me, but there used to be streetcars in Denver, Brooklyn, and cities across the country. The government, wanting to be modern or something, eliminated them all. Today Denver is proposing an innovation--a streetcar! The first one would go on Colfax Ave. They are advocated because they "provide higher economic benefits" than buses and are cheaper to construct than light-rail. 

Guess how much this innovation of putting a streetcar back along city streets would cost? $10-$50 million (quite a stretch there) per mile.

Source: Denver Post, 12-3-09, Modern Streetcar on Colfax?

Test run : Neiel's doings

OK , I think I am blogged in! My last 24 hours: Office meeting as we prepare to enter the new age of electronic medical records. Feels good to be part of this new technology and still engaged as medical practice transforms itself.

Nugget game with Howard seeing Denver demolish an inferior Golden State team. Chauncy was the spark that got the team going after a sluggish start.

Torah for Tycoons today as we discussed water distribution rights. Who owns it and what are the obligations for distribution as state and privately owned water - particularly the Colorado River runs downstream to California and then with very little left for mexico.

Still working on the puzzle - almost there.

Drum class tonight - African rhythms.

Blogging out.

Neiel

It's a Puzzle

It's puzzling how to do your birthday puzzle. I am near the end, with only about 10 pieces left. But they don't seem to fit in. Could the cutters in China have made a mistake?