Tuesday, November 30, 2010

I'm Alive and Recovered from Thanksgiving!

It's been a long time since I got back here to post and I meant to write about all of the stuff I ate on Thanksgiving, however I think that for myself, I may have gone a bit too far...

First of all after weighing myself before and after the meal, I found that I shockingly managed to gain one and a half pounds in one sitting. I started to feel like Adam Richman for a bit. Even though I admire what he does, I'll leave the competitive eating to him for a while.

Second, for the first time ever in my family's Thanksgivings, I volunteered to make the fresh pasta (because what's Italian Thanksgiving without a first course of pasta?) since my uncle who normally rolls out the dough was just coming back from a vacation in South Africa and did not want to cook under any circumstances for that massive meal. I was originally going to make 3 pounds of fettucini, however, I made 2 and we still had leftovers. Overall the pasta was a success but a tiring ordeal considering that I haven't done it in a while. I would do it any time again because it is fun and that's one of the things that I'll do for fresh pasta.

Now let's talk about eating 1.5 pounds of food. It's remarkable to me because I didn't even notice it, yet, there was a lot of food in front of me and I kept shoveling it in without any point to stop myself. First course, my fettucini with a heavy mushroom sauce, I must have eaten about a quarter pound which isn't that much but there was still an entire dinner to go.

When the main course came my plate was filled with and emptied of: large amounts of turkey and homemade gravy, cranberry sauce, Italian stuffing (rice, provolone, mozzarella, and sausage), traditional stuffing and corn pudding. Then came dessert which was a bounty of desserts made by another uncle of mine including: pecan pies, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin cake with cream-cheese icing (that was my favorite).

Now its a bit obvious that it wasn't too hard for me to gain a pound and a half. However, I was so frightened by the fact that I gained that much so fast and jumped on the elliptical machine to start working it off.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The Stanton Social

I can't believe it took me so long to post about this. Saturday, we went out for my mom's birthday at Chris Santos' restaurant, The Stanton Social. The ability to sample so many things off of the menu was vast and amazing. We were able to share many dishes amongst ourselves and all of them were fantastic.
The six dishes we shared were:

1. The Potato and Goat Cheese Pirogies with truffle creme fraische.
I'm not the biggest fan of goat cheese, though, I have to say that I've never had any pirogies like that before. The creme fraische and the caramelized onions on top really sold them to me.

2. The French Onion Soup Dumplings
This is one of the restaurant's signature dishes and it just makes eating French onion soup so much easier. He makes the soup, "dumplifies" it, sticks a tooth pick in it, places them an escargot dish and melts gruyere on top.

3. The Lobster Pizzetta
I don't really know how to describe this one, however, it was really great. Truffles, lobster, bacon and herbs, it was just amazing.

4. The Beef Wellington
Another signature to the restaurant. It's a traditional beef wellington made with puff pastry, beef tenderloin, and fois gras mousse. Even though it was great, I can't seem to pick a favorite dish.

5. The Mushroom Risotto Cakes
I'm a big fan of mushroom risotto. To have it in a small cake didn't diminish anything about it at all, it just made it tapas style.

6. The Sweet Potato Ravioli
These were interesting, I only got a bite of them though. It was a combination of sweetness and pasta, really great flavor.

7. The Chicken and Waffles
This was a modern twist on a New York tradition. It had a lot of different flavors, like the spike of the balsamic vinegar.

AND THEN THERE WAS DESSERT
THE DOUGHNUTS!!!
These were some of the best doughnuts I've ever had and their going on the doughnuts of note page. They were warm, covered in sugar, and had three dipping sauces-raspberry, chocolate, and caramel. What else is there to say? They were great!

It was an amazing dinner and there were so many great dishes and you would think that I'd be full after that. I was, however, we still went out for cupcakes (just take a look at my previous post).

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Cupcakes Pt. 2

After an eventful and delicious dinner and dessert at Chris Santos' "Stanton Social" for my mother's birthday (which I will talk about in my next post), we went for second dessert at this place called "Sugar Sweet Sunshine" (I know, it's a really masculine name), however, going past the name I got to try some fantastic cupcakes which I am a huge fan of (which you would know if you have been reading my blog from the beginning).

I was pretty full because a lot of small plates can really fill you up eventually. Having said that, I still had room for two very different cupcakes. The first of the two was a pistachio cupcake. Nothing you would accept from a savory ingredient, a great amount of sugar and incredible icing which lent some more sweetness to the flavor of the pistachio which was as well quite prominent.

The second of the two was a red velvet cupcake. You may be thinking: "how is this unique?" Let me tell you, the Chantilly consistency of the chocolate icing on this cupcake made this the best red velvet I've ever had. Not only that, besides the fact that it was a red cupcake with cocoa flavor, there was a huge burst of almond flavor which made it massively unique.

Yes, I was hesitant going into a store called "Sugar Sweet Sunshine," though, that's not going to keep me from having a second dessert. Even though I felt like my masculinity was depleting every minute I was in there, it was so worth it.