Tag Archives: Photography

Weekend in the Catskills & Baby Time

22 Nov

Hi everyone!  I’m writing to you today from Massachusetts.  I took a bus from NYC yesterday and am enjoying some quality time with family and friends over the Thanksgiving holiday.  Looking forward to picking up Adam from the train tomorrow!  Thanksgiving is totally my favorite holiday.  Food, Fall, Family – what’s better?

Meanwhile, we had a lovely weekend in the Catskills at my friend Susan’s beautiful home this past weekend.  Adam and I are both craving a little country escape of our own – but for now, we have to rely on the kindness of our friends. :)  The weekend consisted of yummy food, keeping the fire going in the fireplace, Rummy 500, browsing the local shops and lots of couch sitting, sleeping and reading magazines.  Fun times.  Here are some of my favorite photos from the weekend:

Ruffles

In the Vault

Autumn Branches

Sun Reflecting on the Lake

Thanks for the lovely weekend away Susan!  The change of scene was inspiring.

And now – I’m getting my baby on.  I spent last night at the home of my close friends Faye & Mike.  They just had a baby five weeks ago – Jake.  This was my first introduction to baby Jake and oh my goodness… he is ridiculously adorable.  I got all teary when I first saw him… I mean – I’ve known Faye since we were eight years old!  It’s amazing.  I’m actually sitting on the couch typing away and he’s lying here next to me pooping.  Ahhhh… I can’t WAIT to meet our little guy!  But really – Jake is one of the cutest babies I’ve ever seen.  Here are a few pictures I took this morning.  Just look at that face.

Sleeping Jake

Jake in the Bath

More Jake in the Bath

Jake After the Bath

And now – I can proudly say I just changed my first poopy diaper.  Let the games begin.

If I don’t speak to you again before, I wish everyone a fabulously yummy and wonderful Thanksgiving.

xo

Shouldn’t we all wear flowers in our hair?

17 Nov

Wow – today is such a dreary, cold, wet day.  I am dragging!  Meanwhile, I totally forgot to bring my camera for our Hello Lonesome fondue/commentary session the other night.  Oops.  So no pictures from the other night – but man, the actors in Hello Lonesome are really fun and cool.  And the DVD commentary is sure to be entertaining.  And of course, the fondue was a hit.  Shout out to Harry Chase, Nate Smith and the darling, adorable and totally lovely Lynn Cohen (I’m slightly obsessed with Lynn… she’s just too cute).   You know, she often wears a real flower in her hair and when I pointed it out on Tuesday, she replied something to the effect of … “I am so lucky and happy… why wouldn’t I wear a flower in my hair?”  I like that mentality.  In that case, I feel like I should be wearing a flower in my hair too.  Maybe I’ll start.

Speaking of starting things… I was out to dinner with some friends last week and said friend (Anna) mentioned a yearly exercise she engages in for her birthday.  Each year, she comes up with a list of things she wants to do/accomplish by her next birthday.  The number of items on her list corresponds with her age.  For example – for her thirty-second birthday, she came up with thirty-two things she wants to do by the time she turns thirty-three.  I love that!  I asked her if she usually completes everything on her list each year.  She said no way!  It is imperative that you put some things on your list that are really difficult to achieve… things to strive for.  Of course, you also put some easy things – a nice mix of both.  By the end of the year, if you have not completed everything on your list (which you probably haven’t), you go through the list of unfinished things and determine if they still mean something to you… if you still have a desire to do them.  If you still care – then throw those remaining items onto next year’s list. Oh – and she carries that list around with her everyday.   Isn’t that great?  I’m definitely going to do that for my upcoming birthday.  It’s a fun way to determine who you want to be for that next year of your life… what you want to spend your time doing.  A roadmap navigating you toward your next birthday.

Thanks to Anna for sharing this inspiring idea.

Now – for a little photo love.

Here is a photo I took when we were in Port Townsend, WA for the Port Townsend Film Festival.  A wonderfully sweet woman named Sandy put us up for three nights in her amazing Victorian home (circa 1800 – something) during the festival.  I took this picture in the bathroom that was off our room.  The textured window pane with the light shining through filled me with joy every morning (as I sat on the toilet) so I wanted to capture it and share it with you.

Enjoy.

Windowsill Whimsy

Tuesday’s Ramblings…

15 Nov

Good morning everyone.  I must be brief today as I’m running off to the nursing home for art class (I volunteer there on Tuesday mornings). I’m heading over today with a backpack of supplies as later this evening we’re recording a live movie commentary, which will be featured on the Hello Lonesome DVD (being released in the somewhat near future – stay tuned).  Anyway, there is a great scene in the film where two of the characters share a bubbly pot of cheese fondue, so of course, we’re fonduing it up tonight with some of the film’s stars as they watch the movie and chat about the experience!  We don’t need much of an excuse to make a pot of fondue around here.  So obviously, I’m in charge of fondue supplies.  I’ll bring my camera too and post pictures at some point this week.

Meanwhile, I had an ultrasound last week and for the first time, I could see our little baby kicking on the screen and I could feel him kicking simultaneously!  It was WILD!  For a few weeks there I kept wondering… “am I feeling it?  am I feeling it?”.  Now there is no question.  This little boy is kicking up a storm.  I’ve grown quite fond of the feeling.  It’s like he’s reminding me that he’s in there.  He’s saying hi.  I like it. :)  So far I’m really enjoying being pregnant.  I still feel pretty good.  I have almost as much energy as I had pre-pregnancy (although when I overdo it… I need a couple days to recover).  And everyone is so nice to me all the time!  I actually had a couple people get up and offer me seats on the subway recently.  I guess the bump is really starting to show!

Ok – so now I’m running late and have to go.  I’ll leave you with one more thing…

Here is a funny picture I took while walking around and exploring the neighborhood.  This little guy has such personality right?

Guard Puppy

And speaking of the neighborhood, my friend Yvonne shared with me this awesome NY Times article about our street in Fort Greene.  This gives you a good feel for where we live.

Ok – I’m out!  Enjoy your day.

A Little Show & Tell…

11 Nov

Happy 11/11/11 everyone!  I’ve always thought of eleven as my lucky number – so according to my calculations, today should be a blockbuster day!  Anyway, while I was on hiatus from blogging, I was also busy working on some fun projects.  Back in May, we shot that music video for Jones Street Station with Danny Pudi.  Here is a dorky picture I posted from the shoot.  I don’t think I ever showed you the finished product though, so here it is!  I didn’t shoot video on this project – but all the stills peppered through the project are mine!  Enjoy.

In July I did a fun photo shoot with our friend Dave.  Here are some of my favorites:

He’s a sexy dude – right?  All of the photos were taken inside our new apartment or outside in the neighborhood – and all with natural light and my Rebel T2i (along with some killer L Series lenses).  It’s exciting how much great light we get in our new space!  I’m planning another photo shoot with my friend Yvonne in the next few weeks.  We’re going to experiment with a seamless white backdrop (never done that before) – should be interesting.

Then – in August I helped out my friend Zita with her own blog project.  She has embarked on a year-long vegetarian cooking endeavor, where every week for a year, she will cook one of her favorite vegetarian recipes for the camera, edit and then post the video to her blog – Unnecessary Sweetness.  It’s a LOT of work!!  Zita actually told me that one of the inspirations for this project was my 365 photo project – so of course, I was eager to help a blog sister out.  This video was one of her first and was shot in our kitchen.  I was one of two shooters and I was using the Canon EOS 7D.  Most of the close-up work you see is mine.  I find it really fun shooting close-ups on food and cooking!  (makes sense I suppose).  By the way – this hummus and the couscous were both totally fresh and super tasty!  I highly recommend trying them out.

And last but not least, in October I worked with a small Bodega team on a web video for Microsoft Internet Explorer.  Adam directed and I shot.  We did 90% of the shooting in our apartment – all with natural light.  It was a blast!  Here is the video… I am very proud of it.  And Microsoft totally loved it!

This type of filming is fun for me – because it’s really just like photography.  I set up the shot just like I would set up for a still photo – looking for the light and the best angle.  I’m not moving the camera  lot – although I have been practicing a bit with finding the focus in shot (you can see in that final shot of the sparklers).  I’m going to start watching movies that are known for outstanding cinematography so I can study up on different shooting styles.  I do have a fantasy that one day I’ll shoot one of Adam’s movies.

Anyway – that’s what I’ve been up to lately (among other things).  Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend if I don’t talk to you before.

nell’s kitchen

7 Nov

So I told you already that I’m getting all ‘nesty’ lately right?  I’ve been doing lots of cooking and organizing and even a little baking.  Last week I set a personal record for myself.  I cooked five nights in a row.  I seriously don’t think I’ve ever done that.  In fact – from Sunday brunch to Friday lunch I didn’t eat one meal outside our home.  That’s honestly kind of a big deal for me.  I think part of this is stemming from being pregnant.  I’ve just felt sort of cozy at home lately and it’s been fun trying out new recipes and playing with all our new kitchen gear (wedding presents that spent nearly two years at my parents house in Massachusetts because of our previously teeny apartment).  Besides that – our new neighborhood (though completely pretty and awesome) is sort of lacking in delivery options.  Back in the East Village – we had our regular spots that we craved every week.  Delivery was quick, cheap and easy – and we had just about any type of food available to us nearly twenty-four hours a day.  Fort Greene definitely has some good restaurants – but the delivery scene just isn’t really doing it for me quite yet.  So Adam and I have started trying to recreate all our favorite restaurant cravings at home.  It’s become a fun little project for us.

Craving #1: Quality Pizza

It all started with pizza.  For my twenty-eighth birthday party, I hired my good friend (and pizza maker extraordinnaire) Mark Bello to help me put together a pizza and beer pairing party at Beer Table.  Mark has since opened his own pizza-making school in the Lower East Side called Pizza-a-Casa.  He is a pizza guru and all around foodie and I am oh so happy to have him in my life.  Anyway, I got hooked on the fun of making pizza, so I registered for a pizza stone and peel as shower gifts, but I didn’t really end up making much use out of them over the last couple years.  Then recently, I discovered frozen pizza dough from Fresh Direct.  They deliver the dough in four little balls to you frozen and you just thaw it out the night before you want to make a pizza.   Thanks to my work with Mark, I have all these recipes and ideas for yummy pizzas to make at home – so lately Adam and I have been on a pizza-making kick!  With a few simple ingredients: good quality fresh mozzerella, pizza sauce (been using Mario Batali’s jarred pizza sauce from Fresh Direct – but simple good quality San Marzano crushed tomatoes from a can will also do the trick), fresh basil (growing on my windowsill), thinly sliced sopressata picante and a little freshly grated Pecorino Romano for a finishing touch (especially over the crust) and there you have it – a restaurant-worthy, super yummy pizza.  Plus – making it at home is so much fun!

Meanwhile, Adam got inspired by a breakfast pizza recipe he found on Smitten Kitchen, so he adapted it to our liking and it has since become our new favorite breakfast treat.  Last weekend (and the weekend before), we invited over friends and made breakfast pizzas – topped with scallions, chives, garlic, bacon, some ricotta, fresh mozz and then finished with eggs and some fresh-grated parm.  Stupendous!  Here is a picture of one of Adam’s specialty breakfast pies:

Adam's Breakfast Pizza

The eggs on this one were a little over-cooked… it’s more delicious when the yolks break and run over the pie – but you get the idea.  Isn’t it pretty?

Craving #2:  Indian Food

I often get a craving for super flavorful, creamy, spicy, saucy Indian food.  However the Indian delivery in this neighborhood has left me rather cold.  I mentioned in a previous post how I picked up some Indian spices recently so the other night, with my friend Robyn coming over for dinner, I decided to make an Indian menu.  I used a Cooks Illustrated recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala and a recipe for Matar Makhani – Green Peas with Creamy Sauce from Madhur Jaffrey’s Quick & Easy Indian Cooking book.  Alongside I made a simple basmati rice to soak up the yummy sauces.

Well – I must admit that the preparation for this meal took me quite a while (overall prep and cooking time was about three hours!) – however, it was SO worth it!  The flavors were incredible!  And it was rather pleasing measuring out all the beautifully colored spices and ingredients into my little ramekins (you know I have a love for ramekins).  These were the measured out ingredients for the peas… I had even more measured out for the chicken!

Ramekins a plenty

This meal totally rocked!  Here is a photo of the finished dish (with peas on the side):

Chicken Tikka Masala & Green Peas with Creamy Sauce

Robyn showed off her fancy rice presentation skills by using a ramekin to shape the rice and sprinkling a little cilantro on top – another win for ramekins. :)

Chicken Tikka Masala with Basmati Rice

Craving #3: Turkey Burgers

When we lived in the East Village, we’d order from Westville almost every Sunday.  We loved the turkey burgers there  - though the turkey burgers from Zaitzeff also became a go-to for variety.  We’d both order turkey burgers with cheddar cheese, fries and then a side of hot buffalo sauce for dipping!  Now that we don’t have Westville or Zaitzeff around, I’ve started making weekly turkey burgers at home and I must say – I am beginning to master the recipe and they have now become just as satisfying as our favorite delivery burgers.  I once again use a Cooks Illustrated Recipe from the Light cookbook!  Instead of 93% lean turkey meat – I usually just buy ground turkey breast from the farmer’s market and keep it in the freezer until the night before I’m ready to cook the burgers.  Turkey breast can get dry – but this Cooks Illustrated recipe adds in ricotta cheese (use part-skim to make it lighter), which makes these burgers juicy and moist!  I add shredded cheese to each burger for the last five minutes of cooking, which melts the cheese perfectly – and I often serve these burgers on Bay’s Multi-Grain English Muffins.  Now we just need to figure out a hot sauce that completes the dish… I’ve heard Franks or Crystal tastes the most like buffalo sauce.  I’ll keep you posted on that.

(Sorry – no pictures of the turkey burgers just yet – but I’ll be sure to take one the next time I make them).

Meanwhile, other cravings on our list include:

  • Thai – I’d like to master a yummy Pad Thai recipe along with a curry (perhaps Masaman?).
  • Ramen – we sorely miss our visits to Minca in the East Village and are interested in trying out Ramen at home!
  • Mexican – I’d love to make Huevos Rancheros and Chilequiles Verdes
Oh – and I’ve decided, with so much cooking going on lately I should get an awesome “nell’s kitchen” sign made to hang up in our kitchen.  Right?  That thought makes me happy.

Ok… I admit it. I love TV.

3 Nov

When Adam and I moved to Brooklyn, we had some issues setting up cable.  Time Warner came to get us hooked up and then told us they would need access to our backyard to re-wire us for a signal.  Well – we don’t have access to our backyard (which is really the backyard of the apartment building around the corner).  Our building owner gave us the phone number of a random guy who lives in that building – but he never called us back.  Of course, I could walk over and try to connect with someone in that building to see if they’d help us out.  The only thing is that Time Warner gives you a six-hour window for when they’ll come.  It’s a really big hassle to coordinate a six-hour window on a weekday with a complete stranger.  Meanwhile, we never really liked Time Warner anyway, so we figured we’d look into other options.  I also felt it might be good for us to not have cable… we’d watch less TV and be more productive.  Right?

Now it’s three months later and I’ve had it.  I miss my TV.  I’m in complete withdrawal.  Adam’s been downloading episodes of our favorite shows from iTunes, which is helping us get by.  Direct TV uses a satellite and they can get us set up without access to our backyard – but they force you to sign a two-year contract, which I refuse to do – it’s the principle!!  I’m not signing a two-year contract with a near $500 penalty for a product I’ve never sampled before made by a company who’s service I know nothing about.  They can forget it!  (I’m stubborn.)

So here we are, still – with very limited TV.  The practical intellectual side of my mind says it’s good for us.  Watching too much TV is a waste of time – and so much of it is brain-sucking crap.  Take The Bachelorette for example.  I watched most of this last season on the internet and enjoyed every minute of it (while totally loathing myself).  I could be doing valuable things with those hours…  reading, cooking, learning a language, working on something creative, putting together our wedding album (yes, we were married two years ago and I have yet to tackle this one).  But I have to say… those hours spent lying on the couch watching TV – relaxing, being entertained, Adam rubbing my feet (I love you darling) – those are some of my favorite hours of the day.  I look forward to that time – we both do.   So while I’m a little disappointed in myself for being such a TV worshipper – I’m ready to face the facts and let it slide. I am who I am and I enjoy myself some daily TV time.

Any of you have guilty pleasures you’re not proud of?

Oh – and since I can’t stand posting something with at least one pretty image – here’s a photo I took a couple weeks ago at a little outdoor market in lower Manhattan.

Marilyn At The Market

Three and a Half Months Later…

1 Nov

Well hello my long lost friends.  Happy November 1st.  I know – I said “blogging will resume” back in July and now it’s almost four months later!  I owe you all a big apology.  I dropped off the face of the earth without so much as a warning or a note that I was alive and well.  But here I am… alive and well and I’ve missed writing and connecting with all of you.  So I hope you forgive me and my crappy communication.

Meanwhile, I have exciting news to share, which I hope makes up for my long absence!  Adam and I are now the proud parents of this little guy:

Baby boy at 16 weeks

That’s right!  We’re having a baby.  I’m currently five months pregnant and feeling great!  The pregnancy has been quite smooth thus far – absolutely zero morning sickness, energy’s remained pretty high and as far as we know – baby is doing swimmingly.  For the most part, I haven’t been turned off or turned on by any weird foods – actually… just milk.  I’ve been craving tall glasses of cold milk, which is definitely a new thing for me.  Though you all know my obsession with dairy products, so I guess it’s just heightened a bit.  Other than that, I’ve been eating like I always eat – while trying to keep it a little healthier by cooking more and adding in extra fruits and veggies.

In this ultrasound photo the little babe’s chilling upside down.  He looks pretty happy – sort of looks like he’s smiling right?   And just look at that spine and those skinny little legs!  CRAZY!  At our twenty-week scan last Wednesday we saw him sucking his thumb and just this past week I’ve started feeling him moving around a little.  What a trip.

As for me, I’m totally getting all ‘nesty’ already.  I’m finding myself cleaning, cooking, organizing and doing more laundry than I’ve ever done in my life.  I’m enjoying settling into our new home in Brooklyn and my domestic goddess is emerging in full force.  I even bought myself some Indian spices the other day and experimented with a lovely silken chicken recipe from Madhur Jaffrey. It came out delish!

Now to fill you in on the last few months… I’ve worked on some fun projects and actually earned some money, which is quite exciting!  I did some head shots, worked at a commercial casting session and shot my very first spot as Director of Photography (with Adam directing) for a major brand (I’ll post it on the site and give more details once it’s officially wrapped up).  We also took a fantastic trip to the Canadian Rockies, Calgary and Port Townsend, WA for the Port Townsend Film Festival, where Hello Lonesome took home a Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature – HOORAY!  Here are some of my favorite photos from our trip to Banff and Jasper National Parks:

Crazy-looking flower

Another crazy-looking flower

Glacial Lake along Icefields Parkway between Banff and Jasper

View over Jasper after taking the gondola up and up and up

Adam daydreaming on top of the world

Adam and me on top of the world

What's up chipmunk?

Canoeing on Patricia Lake - Jasper

Dragonfly

Maligne Lake - near Banff

Lake Louise

View from the Teahouse above Lake Louise after hiking 3.5 km straight UP! The tea was gooood.

So friends… that’s all for now.  I am glad to be back and hope you are all doing well!  Feel free to say hello.

xoxo -

nell

Glorious Light

7 Jul

Thank you all for your loving and supportive comments on yesterday’s post. It’s been a rough couple days but writing and sharing about Shana and connecting with old friends has made it a little more bearable. As always, your support means a lot to me.

To lift the mood a bit I figured I’d share with you some beautiful light-filled photography from the past week.

Here is one of my favorite pictures from the pillow photo shoot I did with Amie in the garden:

 

Doesn’t it have such a magical feel?  God I love lens flare.

I took this using a 10mm-22mm wide-angle lens and then I cropped it and enhanced the blacks a bit using Lightroom.

And here are some pictures from the Fourth of July:

The sunset Monday night was pretty out of control.  I would take a picture of the gorgeous sky and then go sit down and then two seconds later it would be even MORE gorgeous so I’d get up and take another picture and so on.  It was one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen.  A nice sendoff for us as this was one of the last evenings we’ll spend on our roof in the East Village before we move to Brooklyn.

Exquisite right?  It was like a watercolor painting with the most intense color!

And finally – a few of my favorite fireworks shots.  Our view was less than stellar this year (they used to be practically right over our heads before the city moved them to the Hudson River) – but I still got some fun shots.  This first one is my favorite.  It’s a very whimsical firework right?  And I like how the Empire State Building is in the background in red white and blue.

Next Wednesday we move so our apartment is filled with boxes and I’m beginning to get a bit sad to leave this cute little one bedroom.  We’ve made a lot of memories here.  But alas – change is exciting and we’re moving on to bigger and better things.  It’s a packing extravaganza for us all weekend – so I’ll catch you next week.  xo

 

 

A New Cheese In Town…

30 Jun

Yes, that’s right.  New York City is the proud home of a brand new cheese palace called Beecher’s Handmade Cheese.  Beecher’s comes to our city from Seattle’s Pike Place Market, where it opened in 2003, becoming the first artisanal cheese maker in Seattle!  Now we’re lucky to have their second retail store in the Flatiron district of Manhattan.  The shop opened on Monday so of course I HAD to go check it out this week!

Beecher's Handmade Cheese on 20th and Broadway

As I walked in the door I was greeted with a sample of delicious fresh cheese curds made in house that day.  Cheese curds are super yummy – with a simple, mild cheesy flavor and a springy/rubbery texture.  They sort of squeak when you bite them!  I read that in the midwest, it is common to find fried cheese curds at carnivals and local food joints.  That sounds divine – like mini mozzarella sticks (yes, mozzarella sticks are my weakness from back in the day.  I was always a cheese lover – even before I had access to all these fancy cheese shops!).

Cheese curds made fresh in house!

Anyway, cheese curds only stay fresh for a matter of hours, which brings us to the coolest part of Beecher’s… they have a cheese-making facility right inside the store where they will be making their Flagship cheeses (but with fresh milk from Albany).  It’s awesome that cheese is now being made right in NYC!

The cheese-making facility inside the shop

Here’s a peek at the cheese-making room.  They weren’t making anything when I was there so I’ll have to go back for another visit soon.  In fact, they have little stools set up so you can grab a sandwich (or some cheese and crackers), plop down on an old milk container and watch them make cheese through the glass.  Sounds like an excellent way to spend an afternoon!

Pull up a milk container and watch the pros make cheese!

PS… I kind of want milk container stools in our new apartment.  Aren’t they cool?

Here are a couple more pictures of the very well designed retail space:

Cheese cases

Sweet chandelier

The Cellar - cheese lounge downstairs

Even more amazing… they have a little cheese lounge called “The Cellar” downstairs, where they serve a full menu along with wines and spirits.  They also use the “Cellar” to age their Flagship cheeses made upstairs in the cheese kitchen!  Awesome.

Ok – so I did my browsing… it was time to head over to the cheese counter and make a selection.

Nice little cheese bounty

Right away I told the cheese monger that I’m obsessed with Cabot Clothbound Cheddar (which they sell at Beecher’s along with a variety of cheeses produced all over the United States) – and I wanted to try Beecher’s Flagship cheddar to compare.  My monger, Emily, was a delight!  She put together a little Beecher’s tasting for me to allow me to taste the subtle differences between a few of their specialties.  I tasted:

  • Beecher’s Flagship – a semi-hard cow’s milk cheddar aged eighteen months with a delicious nutty flavor
  • Beecher’s Four-Year Aged Flagship – the same as the original – just aged longer – developing a richer, flavor with more depth
  • Beecher’s Flagship Reserve – made with the very best of the milk and wrapped in cloth to age, which results in the cheese losing about eighteen percent of it’s moisture and the flavor being even more concentrated!
  • Beecher’s Flagsheep - made in similar fashion as the Flagship but with the addition of sheep’s milk and then clothbound and aged to nutty, sweet perfection!
All of the cheeses were DELICIOUS … and all very different in flavor than the Cabot Clothbound.  I think I’ll just have to alternate. In the meantime, I brought home two cheeses:  The Four Year Aged Flagship and the Flagsheep.

Beecher's Flagsheep and Beecher's Flagship reserve cheddar aged four years

Mmmmmm.  I’m sitting here tasting bites as I write.  Here’s what comes to mind when I smell and taste each:
Four Year Aged Flagship – smelling it, I am brought back to the toasted cheese sandwiches they used to serve for school lunches… the best part, was when the cheese melted down the side of the bread and got extra toasty and sort of caramelized.  This smells like that.  Yum.  When I pop a piece in my mouth, I am overwhelmed with flavor.  The texture is firm but creamy with the little crunchies that I love.  It’s salty and tangy and nutty and rich.  Wicked tasty.
Flagsheep - this one has a milder, nutty, sheepy smell (not barnyard sheepy – but that lanolin kind of sheepy).  Tasting this one – it’s a little more subtle than the four-year Flagship.  I can taste the sheep’s milk – it’s still nutty and tangy (but less tangy) and the finish in my mouth is sweet – like the sweet taste in your mouth after you drink a glass of fresh milk.  Mmmmm.
Wow.  So excited to go back and try more!  And I can’t wait to go to the Cellar for dinner.  They have a super appealing menu with six varieties of mac & cheese, a whole mess of artisanal cheeses, charcuterie, veggies, salads, soups and main courses.  Anyone want to join me next week?
Finally – on a non-cheese note, Amie and I are doing the pillow shoot tomorrow, so I have no pictures to share today.  I got hired for another photography gig – shooting photos of an apartment for the broker who found us our place!  I did it today and had a lot of fun!  It was stress-free, I was able to get great results from the equipment I have and I love getting a sneak peek into new apartments!  Maybe I can turn this into a little side gig.  As for this fourth of July weekend… we are in pack/organize/purge mode! So enjoy the weekend and the fireworks everyone!  And goodbye June – hello July!

 

 

Recuperating from Bachelorette Madness

27 Jun

As I sit here blogging, a woman from Flat Rate moving company is sitting on our couch making a list of all our belongings that will be accompanying us to Brooklyn next month so she can give us a cost estimate.  Ahh… moving.  I can feel the anxiety begin to bubble inside.   There’s so much to do… sort, purge, pack, change our address, get cable and phone hooked up in the new place, buy some new furniture, measure, blah blah blah.  I did a search online today for a “moving checklist” thinking I’d be all organized and start crossing things off early.  Well according to Real Simple, I should have started this all two months ago!  Oops. Oh well – just like every other big task, it’ll all get done and before I know it, we’ll be settled in our new apartment.  I can’t wait!

As for the bachelorette bonanza this past weekend… I had a great time!  It was full-on Sex & The City-style NYC action starting with dinner in Chelsea Friday night at a new Spanish/tapas restaurant called Selenas.  There we ordered one of my favorite new (to me) bar snacks… Shishito peppers with sea salt.  Have you ever had them?  They’re mini sweet/hot green peppers from Japan – not too spicy, but every once in a while you’ll pop a hot one in your mouth!  They’re super delish.

Here are a couple pics from Friday night:

Pam (Bachelorette in red) and her bridal party minus me.

The metal grate behind the girls was the inspiration for my color scheme in this photo… I wanted to give it a music video/grungy/urban vibe.  It’s fun to mess around in Lightroom.

 

And here is Steph (bridesmaid), Pam (bride) and me – being a goofball… trying to do a sexy face… but definitely more goofball than sexy. :)

The party continued Saturday night with a ridiculous hotel suite at the Bryant Park Hotel, where we pre-partied and then slept over. Dinner followed at a crazy scene of a restaurant called Beauty and Essex and at midnight, we left the restaurant to go dancing at the hot, sweaty alphabet city spot No Malice Palace, where we proceeded to shake our butts for three hours.  I have to say… I’m pretty much over the whole hot, sweaty bar/club scene (wine over dinner out is more my speed these days), but I do love myself some hip hop and it was fun getting my groove on.  Plus, I got to show off my rapping skills.  Really – in this little head of mine I’ve managed to store every word to hundreds of hip hop songs from high school and college and for a white girl from Massachusetts, I’ve got some serious flow.  Anyway, we got back to the hotel suite at four in the morning.   A crazy night for sure.  It’s nice to know I still have it in me every once in a while!

Meanwhile, I must have left my contact lenses in for too long and not slept enough because today my eyes are all watery and sore.  And you know how when your eyes tear, your nose starts to run too?  Like when you’re crying?  Well I’m a total mess today.  It’s not pretty.  I’m all stuffy and I’m in my glasses and I’m afraid to go outside because it’s super bright out.  So I think I’m going to continue to hibernate for the rest of the day.  A girl’s gotta rest after a weekend like that right?

Later this week Amie and I are planning another photo shoot with her beautiful Guatemalan pillows.  This time we’re going for an organic, overgrown natural look and we’re setting up shop in a little garden on our block.  I’ll report in on Thursday and hopefully I’ll have some shots to share with you then. Bye for now!

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