PRIDE !

The Empire State Building lit up with rainbow lights !

The passing of New York's gay marriage bill could not have had better timing ! The last weekend in June is always PRIDE weekend in NYC and usually conveinently coincides with my dear friend Peter's birthday aswell. I took all of these circumstances as opportunity to make a trip down to NYC to celebrate. Sunday morning I picked up my best friend Frank in Connecticut and then we continued onto Astoria, Queens, where Peter's apartment is. We hung out and drank combination of champagne, vodka, and orange juice and then we got on the subway and headed into Manhattan. After meeting up with another group of our friends, we made our way down to the Meat Packing district - NYC's gayborhood. The first party we hit was at the Gansevoort hotel. The club was on the penthouse level and there was a beautiful terrace and roof top pool ! Swimming in the pool was soo fun and some people even decided to play the game catch the glowstick :P The terrace was a perfect viewing spot for the firework display over the Hudson River. After leaving the Gansevoort we made our way to a club called Greenhouse, where there was a Japanese DJ spinning classic anthems including an awesome remix of Madonna's 'Like a Prayer'. Peter and I absolutely did not want to leave the club but when it was about 4 AM we decided it was probably time to go. It was such an amazing celebration for so many reasons and was a great way to spend my last night out in NYC !

PARTY PEOPLE !

Belated Father's Day Pizza

Because I was in Chicago for Father's Day, I told my Dad I would make him dinner sometime in the following week and tonight was the night. I made two pizzas from scratch and they turned out great ! I used a simple recipe for the crust from allrecipes.com. I followed the directions closely except substituted wheat flour for white flour.

To start out I mixed 2 1/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast - I used one that was advertised to work especially well with wheat flour - and 1/2 teaspoon of brown sugar with 1 1/2 cups of warm water, and let it sit for roughly 10 minutes. This is to allow the yeast to hydrate and grow because after all - YEAST IS ALIVE ! Its a fungus. After 10 minutes I added 2 1/2 cups of flour and stirred to combine the mixture. Then I put the dough ball on my floured counter top and began kneading it with the palms of my hands adding more flour by the handful until the ball was much less sticky. I then put the dough ball into an oiled bowl (I thought I used too much oil, but there was no problem with the end result), covered it with a towel, and let it hang out in there for about 1 hour.

After 1 hour, the dough had risen and grew to twice its original size. Unfortunately I was too eager for the next step that I forgot to take a picture of the risen dough. Pretty much right after I removed the towel and saw my large airy dough ball, I PUNCHED IT DOWN !


Then I cut the dough in half and stretched it onto two cookie sheets. The first pizza I made was with a tomato basil sauce, shredded 2% mozzarella cheese, and cooked ground beef. The second pizza I made had a red theme and was much more creative. Rather than traditional pizza sauce, I used red pepper and cheese spread. Then I added slices of a fresh tomato, roasted red pepper pieces, and sun-dried tomatoes. I used crumbled sun-dried tomato and thyme feta cheese. I was nervous that I hadn't used enough cheese and the toppings might burn in the oven, but it turned out fine !


I then preheated the oven to 425 degrees and let the pizza sit out while I was waiting for the oven to warm up. The recipe suggested this - to let the pizza stand with toppings on for 10-15 minutes before baking if you were not using a pizza stone. Once the oven was heated I put them in the oven together for 15 minutes. Because the crusts weren't that thick and they looked sooo good, I took them out after 15 minutes. After cutting them up I realized maybe 2-3 more minutes in the oven would have been beneficial. But they still tasted amazing !!

Chicago !!

I just returned from an amazing trip to Chicago for my best friend's - Taylor Waterman - college graduation from Northwestern ! I am just so proud of her. We became so close senior year of high school and it is so crazy that its been 5 years since then ! I had so much fun spending time with her and her family, and I am so grateful they included me in their celebration.

The trip started a little rocky - while waiting at the Waterman's house for a car to come bring us to the airport, I realized I had forgotten my dress for graduation, toothbrush, deodorant, and BOARDING PASS ! uhhhh...whoops :P luckily I have the best brother in the world and he was able to quickly run home and get my stuff before we had to leave ! Things took a turn for the better when Taylor's mom - DMa - and I decided to get 2 pounds of fudge in the airport terminal while waiting for our flight ! They even cut each large piece into 6 smaller pieces, which was nice but did not stop us from quickly devouring it.

top row : rocky road, coffee toffee, coconut creme
bottom row : penuche with nuts, choclate peanut butter x 2
(bottom row definitely dominated in the taste category !)

When we got to Chicago, we met up with Taylor and she brought us to the restaurant she worked at called Tommy Nevins. To quote Taylor - "Its pretty much Irish Chili's." Nevins is an Irish pub serving tasty comfort food and boasts a wild night life scene ;) One of the most interesting menu items I saw was called 'Pint o Bacon' and was literally a pint glass with bacon strips and french fries spilling over the top. Niceeee ! We stayed at Nevins all night watching game 7 of the Stanley Cup championship series cheering the Bruins to victory !! yeah B's !

Some other highlights of the trip were :

- a bookstore/wine cafe called Book Cellar. It was a very cute bookstore made all the better by serving wine, cookies, and other treats. While I was there I bought a small Moleskin notebook that I know will come in handy in my upcoming travels. We enjoyed many glasses of wine and great conversation in the outdoor seating section just in front of the store. I also found this book there : Useless Japanese Inventions. I didn't buy it, but it gave me a good laugh.

Mr. and Mrs. Waterman in the cute outdoor seating section of the Book Cellar.

- dinner at The Girl and the Goat, a brillant tapas restaurant with head chef Stephanie Izard, the only female to have ever won Top Chef ! The restaurant was great all around : the interior design was very cool - raw and industrial and our waitress was so sweet and friendly which made the dining experience very comfortable and unpretentious. The food was AMAZING !! It was served in small portions so we ordered 10 dishes for the table (it ended up being too much food but we were glad we got to try so many different things) The freshest ingredients were prepared in unusual yet ingenious combinatoins, which not only made for delicous food, but also a great table converstation discussing the dishes and our favorites. Some of my favorites were:

Goat Chorizo Flatbread with ramp pesto, rhubarb, ricotta cheese

Crisp Calamari with rabbit ravioli, spring onions and bacon

Sugo (aka meat sauce) with homemade linguini, rosemary, and cape gooseberries

- a day in Oak Park, and getting a chance to see many homes designed by notorious American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Touring around the neighborhood, all of the homes we saw were absolutely spectacular. We also took a guided tour of Frank Lloyds personal home and studio. It was amazing to see first hand how visionary he was for his time and the innovations he mastered. For example - to save space and add to the open floor plan of his family's play room, he place the baby grand piano, not just againest a wall, but THROUGH the wall. He literally cut a hole in the wall and had the piano hanging through and into the starwell just behind the wall, while it was being suspended by an iron hook. It was so cool ! Unfortunatly we couldn't take any photos in the home but here is one of my favorites from the neighborhood. I love the round turret :)

Now that I am home, it is time to get serious about prepping for Denmark !! mentally, physically, spiritually, financially, etc.... AHHHH ! well its a step in the right direction, I have almost 100% secured housing yay !