Nada - Too Much Hype?

Last night my family and I went to Nada, in downtown Cincinnati for dinner.  I was pretty excited as I have only heard good things about this trendy little place.  The decor was bright oranges and reds - really fun and exciting.  My sister, Lizzie, and I got there first and we started off with some drinks.  I had the fuzzy margarita which had peach puree in it - it was quite delicious.  Lizzie had a non-alcoholic pink grapefruit margarita which was also tasty.  They brought us some chips, salsa, and guacamole to munch on while we were waiting for everyone else.  The chips were salty and fresh and the guacamole was chunky, with the perfect touch of citrus.  It was so good we went through two rounds before everyone managed to get there and we ordered appetizers.

For starters the meat eaters ordered the Nada sliders and the ceviche.  According to Lizzie, the ceviche was presented well in a martini glass, and it was fruity and citrusy.  Lizzie also says, "the sliders had a nice golden buttery bun with a good kick of spice."  I had the mexican mac and cheese, which was served in a cute little pot.  The mac and cheese was super creamy and had poblano peppers mixed in which I found very innovative and really brought the whole flavor medley up a few notches.  It was my fave dish of the evening.

After the great drinks, delish chips and guac, and starters I had high hopes for my main dish.  There was only really one vegetarian main on the menu, the vegetarian soft tacos, so that's what I got.  The tacos came and were stuffed with a puree of black beans, mushrooms, and cheese.  And there's not much else I can say about them.  I felt completely let down.  Nothing tasted bad, but for a classy mexican restaurant the flavors were extremely bland.  I know that some chefs don't feel that inspired by vegetarian food - but why bother putting something on your menu that doesn't live up to every other item your producing?  It seemed the chef put no effort whatsoever into that dish - there was nothing creative or exciting about it.  To be perfectly honest, I can get better soft tacos at Chipotle for less than half the price.

The bottom line : What's Nada got to offer for us vegetarians?  Notta!

Fondue Party 2009

My family's fondue party tradition started when I was pretty young.  My mom would usually invite the neighbors around for a small, intimate gathering sometime around Christmas.  However, they started happening less regularly and my sister and I decided that we loved fondue parties so much that we needed to make sure they kept happening.  We had our first non-parent organized party last year and it was a big hit, so we planned another for this year.  We chose to have it at my sisters house, and wanted it to have a "Classy to Trashy" theme.  Meaning we planned on starting off with good food and drinks and maybe get slightly intoxicated as the night went on.

Because of my mad housewifing skills, I took care of most the food items, while my sister (who has more college drinking skills than me) took care of the beverage items.

We used two of my vodka infusions jars from the wedding to make mixed drinks in.  One was a pomegranate vodka drink made with pomegranate liquor, vodka, pomegranate juice and 7 up.  I thought this tasted a bit like medicine, but it was empty by the end of the night.  The other was filled with vodka, cinnamon sticks, and apples and left to soak overnight - we then topped it up with apple cider the next day.  This was certainly my drink of choice for the evening.

Judging by the inebriated state of many individuals at the party... these were a BIG hit.

I also made and decorated Christmas sugar cookies (I used the recipe for sugar cookies from the Joy of Cooking).  Quite festive - wouldn't you say?

I figured we needed something that was kinda healthy / green to really complete the food options so I made Christmas Guacamole.  I used two bags of avacados, about a handful of red grapes (cut into quarters), one lemon, and one pomegranate.  This was super tasty...

The main event was the Fondue of course, and for this I used eight pounds of cheese, mostly emental and some other cheaper swisses.  I basically followed the Joy of Cooking recipe for this too.  For the wine I used a big bottle of Yellow Tail and we added some of my great uncles homemade kirsch.  Fondue is pretty much fool proof, and this one didn't disappoint.

Here are some classy people enjoying the fruits of my labor...

My sister was pretty confused about the effort I put into the food, she kept saying she didn't think I realized what kind of party this was going to be.  I soon understood what she meant because not long after this picture was taken the night took a quick turn for trashy.  Let's just say it was a lot more drunken college shenanigans and shot taking than Martha Stewart-esque cultured and well organized dinner party.

Personally, I may or may not have ended up at Ramundo's Pizzeria around 3:30 am with no ride home.  It's also possible I ate 3 slices (but who's counting) of pizza while walking home in the sleeting rain with my husband and a boy who may have been carrying a large metal pot stolen from my sisters kitchen to be used as a barf bucket.  I can honestly say the night ended a bit more trashy than I anticipated.  Was it a success?  I'll let you be the judge.

A Day At Findlay Market

Since I'm in Cincinnati now I've been doing all sorts of nati-type things.  You know like eating a large variety of regional food, trolling large suburban malls, and bonding with the fam.  My sisters and I are planning a fondue party for Saturday night so my Aunt Suzy offered to take me to Findlay Market to stock up on cheese.  (More on the fondue party later)

I'm ashamed to say it, but I've never actually been to Findlay before this visit.  For those of you who are not Cincinnatians, Findlay Market is a food market in Over-the-Rhine, and according to wikipedia is Ohio's "oldest, continuously operated public market."

Suzy is definitely a good Findlay Market tour guide so I'll let you know where she went to stock up.  One of our first stops was a sausage stall, Kroeger and Sons Sausage.  This stall had a huge variety of weiners - all shapes and sizes - but mostly German.  Now of course I don't eat this stuff, but if I did it would look pretty enticing.  See.....

Man, talk about a sausage fest!

Next up was Colonel De Ray's spices.  Apparently he, "takes the common and makes it uncommon."  And he sure had a wide range of spices.  My mom instructed me to pick up herbs de provence and south western spice for her, but when I asked for southwestern spice they asked me which type.  Apparently they have 3 different kinds!  So of course I called my mom and told her asssistant to interrupt her meeting due to this "life and death situation."  She needed Debbies Southwestern spice - CRISIS AVERTED!

Last but not least we went got to the big cheese, literally.  I mean I bought over 8 pounds of cheese.  The woman behind the counter at Silverglades was very helpful, and we came up with an assortment of mostly emmental, and some other baby swiss cheeses (which mostly help to cut the cost - fondue isn't cheap!)

We finished off the day with two tasty crepes and some good conversation.  Findlay Market is such a neat little Cincinnati treasure I'm shocked I haven't been sooner.

Christmas Shopping in London

On Saturday Nick and I went into London to buy a few Christmas presents before flying to the good old US of A.  Despite the fact that there were a million people on Oxford street and we could barely move, we ended up having lots of fun.

We walked down the other side of the street then I normally do, and wow what a difference switching sides can make.  Here are some of the amazing Christmas lights I missed last time...

We also stumbled across this funny little christmas market.  They had booths selling all sorts of little things.  I'm not really sure what the theme was because everything seemed so random... there were wooden ties, and jewelry, head bands, and wind mobiles.

My favorite was the hat booth.  I have this secret wish that someday I will have a very extensive hat collection and when people come to my house for fancy dinner parties they'll sit around the table wearing various hats.  This one was our favorite...

Of course a market is useless without food, and there was plenty of it.  Williams-Sonoma makes an ebelskiver pan, which is probably my favorite totally unnecessary but super cool kitchen item.  Basically it's a pan with small wells that you pour batter and filling into, making super delicious stuffed pancakes.  Needless to say I was super excited when we came across the most massive ebelskiver pan I'd ever seen.

Obviously I had to see if they were as good as homemade, so I ordered a batch.  I guess because they were doing them for so many people they didn't bother to fill them since this would take longer, but they topped mine with cherries.  Unfortunately, it was a cold day and the cherries were cold, so that took away from the delicious warm goodness that they had the potential to be.

Then Nick decided he needed a massive hot dog.

I think he liked it!  What a fun little Christmas market!

Today is My Birthday

It's the Birthday curse.  I have seriously disliked my Birthday since the age of 11.  On my 11th birthday I got pretty angry at my little sister, Lizzie, for something, I can't remember what now, but I was so angry at the time I punched her.  She was only 5 or 6 and I socked her pretty hard so my mom grounded me.  I'm sure I deserved to be grounded, but at the time I thought this was totally unfair.  I thought on my birthday I could do no wrong.  I'm not even sure I did actually get grounded, because my parents were never really good at the grounding follow through.  But they did tell me I was grounded and it probably lasted 2 hours max.  But that day I decided birthdays sucked.

As a kid I also hated what I like to call the "double whammy".  The double whammy occurs when your birthday is near Christmas (or perhaps Hanukkah if your Jewish).  I'm sure all you Christmas babies can relate to this one.  A double whammy involves you getting one present for two occasions.  On the card of the gift there will probably be a message that reads something along the lines of, "Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!"  Um hello they are two different gift giving occasions requiring two separate presents for my spoiled brat self.  It's not like your killing two birds with one stone here.

When I got to highschool I hated them because of this silly tradition at St. Ursula, my all girls Catholic high school.  On someone's birthday all their friends would get them a balloon and tie it to their back pack.  The popular girls looked like that French kid at the end of The Red Balloon (check out this picture if you don't know what I'm referring to).  Anyways, while I had plenty of friends in high school and I did have balloons I always felt self-conscience about the number of balloons I had... lets just say I wasn't in any danger of floating away.  Then on my 16th birthday I got a package just the right size to hold car keys.  My parents joked that maybe there were car keys inside.  As I opened it I envisaged the car my parents must have bought me sitting in the drive-way.  In the box... just a key chain.  I blame the fact that I went to school with girls who actually got cars for their birthdays for my lofty assumptions, but I was definitely shattered about that stupid key chain - like seriously what good is a key chain if you have no CAR KEYS for it?

I hated my birthdays in college for the simple reason that they always occurred during finals week.  No one including myself ever had time to celebrate them.

That brings me to this year's birthday.  Today is my first day of unemployment since starting my job.  I'm not sure whether I technically quit or was let go, but I'm currently jobless.  I took the job based on the hours they told me I'd need to work, and during my interview discussed with them that I'd need to get the tube both to and from work (important because the tube runs silly hours).  Anyways, they now want me to work past the time I could get the last train home.  Since I'm unwilling to take the hour and a half journey home transferring between 3 sketchy buses when I would leave work at 1 am or later they said I can't work there anymore. I'm pretty appalled at the way they have treated me and other employees, and this just epitomizes the poor management they've been doing since the beginning.  But I guess I'm better off without them.

On a positive note, I'll have more time to look for a real grown up person job, and until I find one I'm back to being a housewife.  I'm sure you can expect some baked goods posts in the next couple days since I'll be eating my feelings.
 

Back in Action with Pumpkin Gnocchi

Hello Friends.  I feel like it's been ages since I've posted but it's really only been 3 days.  I'm sure that is a long time for those of you who lust after vegetarian recipes and quirky London tidbits.  What have I been doing?  Well the truth is mostly just working.  Nick and I have been really bad at playing house lately which means our house is in the college dorm state and we spend most our days off remedying that fact and doing DIY.  (pictures will come when we finish!)  Anyways... I wonder when we'll really be adults and be able to keep our house in a state of mature cleanliness and not university student mess.  When does this change happen?

I have two days off in a row though (which hasn't been happening much lately) so that means I am house wifing hardcore.  You know this is almost an extreme sport.  I mean I'm carrying 3 loads of laundry up and down the stairs while hopping over various obstacles, doing the dishes while listening to Britney Spears only to find out our dishwasher is broke... (but I fixed it don't worry) lugging a vacuum that weighs 100 pounds because it was probably purchased back in the 1920s or so, painting our guest room so it no longer has a bright orange ceiling (Nick has GREAT taste) then of course the main event - making dinner in perfect time for the husband man's arrival home. Whew!

So here it is Pan Fried Pumpkin Gnocchi... which I stole entirely from Steamy Kitchen

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup ricotta
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan 
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup all purpose flour sifted, and extra for dusting
• 3 Tbsp butter, divided
• 2 Tbsp olive oil, divided
• 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 3 sprigs fresh sage

First off, preheat your oven to 150 C or 300 F.  Combine 1/2 cup ricotta, 1/2 cup pumpkin, 1/2 cup parmesan, egg yolk, tsp of lemon zest, 1/2 tsp salt, and half of your sifted flour in a large bowl.  Mix until ingredients just come together.  Then lightly flour your counter, dump the mixture onto the counter, and mix the remaining flour in.  Knead for a minute or so.

Then cut into four equal parts, and roll each into a log, about an inch in diameter.

Then use a knife to slice these into bite size pieces.

In a large pan, heat one tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat.  When this is hot, add your gnocchi to the pan, cooking for a minute or two on each side until golden brown.  You'll probably have to do 3 or 4 batches so when they're brown place on a baking sheet and pop em into the oven to keep warm.

When all the gnocchi is cooked, discard butter and clean pan with a paper towel.  Add 2 tablespoons of butter and one tablespoon of olive oil to your pan  and put it back on the heat.  When hot, add sage and cook for a few minutes until it's nice and crispy and smells delish!  You can remove the sage at this point or keep it in - depending on whether you like fried sage or not.  Then add 2 tbsp balsamic and whisk for a minute over low heat.  Pour this over your gnocchi and serve.

This is a pretty good dish and is easy to make, even though it looks pretty fancy.  I accidentally used salted butter and I think this added too much salt so I would be sure to use unsalted next time.  I really appreciated the crunchy outside and soft fluffy inside, as well as the bite the balsamic adds.  Something did taste a little too bitter though - perhaps I put in too much zest.  Oh and they say this recipe serves four - maybe we're just lardy but we ate the whole thing between two of us in one sitting.  Fattys.

Dress to Impress

Have you ever heard the saying, "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have"?  I'm sure this phrase or something similar has been uttered to you by self-appointed role models throughout your life - you know, the teacher and parent crowd.  This type of advice usually goes in one ear and out the other (to use another parental phrase) - that is until you experience it.

The restaurant/hotel I'm working at has literally just opened, which means everything is in some type of state of organized chaos.  For example, a few days ago we were issued uniforms.  The waitress uniform was grey pants, a white shirt, and an apron.  Typical waitress attire.  I was wearing this uniform for two days, until the General Manager of the hotel came up to me and told me this wasn't actually my uniform.  Since I am a floor supervisor, I have a supervising outfit.  The GM helped me find a suit jacket, however, the only one left was two sizes too big.  Also, we have to wear our hair pulled back.  This results in me looking like a butch mature bird in a baggy power suit.  You know the look, like Hillary Clinton....

Nonetheless, I must admit I am absolutely amazed at the difference the suit has made in the way my colleagues treat me.  Since wearing the suit, people come up to me, asking me for directions and advice.  This definitely wasn't happening in my waitress uniform - they were more likely to boss me around than listen to anything I had to say.  While I've heard many times that dressing in a certain way can influence how people act towards you, I have never experienced the change so strongly.  Now I am a believer in the power suit.  You know, while everyone was making jokes about Senator Clinton's pantsuit uniform, she was probably the one laughing the hardest because she knew the secret of success.  You don't see skinny bitches in miniskirts and push up bras running for president after all.  

Christmas Lights on Oxford Street

Oxford Street is London's equivalent of Chicago's Michigan Avenue.  Long straight road of consumer's paradise.  In November, Oxford Street lit up with millions of tiny lights - ready and glowing for the Christmas season.  While I've always loved Christmas lights,  I think that November is too early to get into the Christmas spirit.  But today is December 1st!  Wooo Hoooo!  Christmas is upon us!  Enjoy my pictures of Oxford Street all decked out.

There are dozens of christmas light umbrellas hanging over the middle of the street.  I guess that's because in the winter it rains all the bloody time.

Sometimes the lights go out... must be a Grinch looming nearby...

All the stores have Christmasy window displays too!  Selfridge's usually has my favorite everything, and they definitely take the cake on window displays this year.  They are all fairy tale themed.  This one is little red riding hood.  I don't think she's realized that wolf is eying her up like a rare piece of sirloin yet.... sneaky little bastard.

This one is Snow White - except they replaced the dwarfs with well dressed children all in Stella McCartney's kid's line.  Oh Britain you are so politically correct.

Well that's all the Christmas decorations for now.  I think this is going to be a very festive fun filled month!  Only two weeks until we fly to Cincinnati for the holidays and I think we'll be cooking, baking, and partying up a storm.  I can't wait!