July | 2010 | strawberries in paris

1st Blogged Meal in Frederick: NOLA!

July 30, 2010 at 12:00 am | Posted in Dinner | 4 Comments

So excuse these bluuurrry pictures, apparently most of the time I don’t know how to use my camera correctly…. 😛 But I do know how to find a good place to eat in Frederick and so Cafe Nola was that place! Actually this was the third place I went out to eat in Frederick once I moved (Brewer’s Alley and Il Forno Pizzeria before that which were very tasty) and I would say its the “coolest” out of the three. Laurita and I got a nice cocktail, listened to some jazz music and were just so thrilled we had an awesome place to be able to walk to to eat dinner.

The walk home was not so favorable, because it was downpouring, but nevertheless it was still fun! Thank gosh the nice waitress at Nola gave me some nice compostable plastic bags to double tie my nice camera up in for our run through the rain! Now go check out the inside and some grub.

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Wordless Wednesday: Skylines Edition

July 28, 2010 at 12:00 am | Posted in Dinner | 2 Comments

Old Friends at One Eyed Mike’s

July 25, 2010 at 10:27 pm | Posted in Appetizer, Dinner, Travels | 2 Comments

What a fun day of blogging goodness. I’m so glad Dara invited me to speak at the Great Grapes Annapolis festival today. It really lit my blogging fire again to get back to my big backlog of posts I want to write! And it always makes me happy to see the ladies and hear whats the latest goings on.

So my good old friend Pinal was in town the weekend of the 4th of July and so we decided to get together and two of our other friends, Offie and Karen joined us! Offie really wanted to go to Fells point and so I started thinking about great places to eat down there. Ned had raved about the outdoor seating and exceptionally tasty food at One Eyed Mike’s in the past so I chose that!

The food was great, the service was great and I love how a hole in the wall kind of bar can have such a lovely outdoor patio and tasty things to eat! And they have lots and lots of grand marnier and that is always a good thing.

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Drinking & Dining at Diablita Cantina

July 16, 2010 at 12:00 am | Posted in Appetizer, Dinner, Entertainment | 2 Comments

I have a great group of friends that I know through Hopkins. Half of them are still at Hopkins and the remaining half is the better halves of some of those halves. :P. One of the better halves is Amanda. Amanda is a very sweet girl and she is an elementary school teacher. This summer she is doing a foreign teaching exchange in China. So to see her off we all got together at Diablita Cantina. Ned and I have been to Diablita once before, for an Easter brunch! I neglected to blog then, cause I was in no job not happiness land…. But now I have a great job, great house, great boyfriend, great family, etc! (Don’t I make you sick??) So anyways, other than my standard go to’s for verrrry good Mexican: Fiesta Mexicana and Baja Fresh (some of their dishes are very authentic, so don’t go bashing my Baja Fresh) this establishment does several Mexican things very nicely.

Go check out the decor and many things that we feasted on…

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Wordless Wednesday: New Beginnings Edition

July 14, 2010 at 12:00 am | Posted in Dinner | 6 Comments

Charm City Cookbooking: Surprise Baby Shower Style!!!

July 12, 2010 at 2:49 pm | Posted in Appetizer, Dessert, Dinner, Entertainment | Leave a comment

So this cookbook club planning started back in April, once we knew that Renee was pregnant and started innocently whining about how us CBC girls were not at her first shower and that it would be great to have another one! Well we took that whining and ran with it. 😀

So for our June cookbook club, Alayne hosted, and pretended to make a barbeque feast, and it was held at Joanne’s house!

But really, we all planned to make nice baby shower food and you can see it below! So the above picture is when she walked into the SURPRISE!!

This picture you can tell that shes very happy.

And here’s a nice one in her I’m the big mama chair!!

And here was our spread. The food was really amazing actually. To see it more up close go to our Charm City Cookbooking page!

Wordless Wednesday: Fells Point & Water Taxi Edition

July 7, 2010 at 12:00 am | Posted in Entertainment, Travels | 2 Comments

BlogLove at Zeke’s Coffee

July 6, 2010 at 1:50 pm | Posted in Appetizer, Dessert, Dinner, Entertainment | 3 Comments

The wonderful and lovely ladies (Chris Ann and Kristin) from LoveFeast Table hosted a blogging event two weeks ago and they named it nicely: BlogLove. Cause well, we love us some blogs!

Here below you can see all of the bloggers who participated! Chris Ann, Mary, Kristin, Jen, Carabee, Beth, me and Dara! I love these ladies, there are always so many interesting things to talk about and I’m glad I got to meet two new bloggers (Jen and Carabee!). Well so the premise of this party, unbeknownst to us, was to eat and greet and taste espresso! (well the espresso tasting was the surprise!). Chris Ann and Kristin are going to be selling one blend of coffee on their site and we got to help them pick which one we liked the best!

So we tasted, and snacked, and toured and ate some more and had a lovely evening. And we even got some fun gifts! First off, I won a gift card to Melting Pot, (which I already bequeathed to my sister Laurita) and then got a beautiful handmade fork magnet, a pearl BlogLove necklace and a sweet headband! I’m waiting until my Great Grapes Panel premiere on July 25 to break out the necklace, but I have been wearing this headband every other day since then! Now go check out some more fun pictures from that night.

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Going for Julia on Father’s Day

July 2, 2010 at 12:00 am | Posted in Brunch, Cookbooks | Leave a comment

Yep, I’m talking about Miss Julia Child. You know that lady whose quote is also listed on this website?? She pretty much started this whole thing known as cooking awesome food at home in American kitchens. And that is what I tried to do for dear sweet Abuelito on Father’s Day.

This all came from my discovery of a nice Father’s Day card that was mailed to Abuelito while I was relaxing after a tiring day from packing the pod and running around to finalize leaving my apartment and buying cute baby stuff for Renee! Actually the Comcast line was not so bad, so I shouldn’t complain too much… 😀 and Babies R Us is quite amusing to browse…

Grandma showed me the card Jen and Bobby sent abuelito for Father’s Day (and this was quite amazing, because somehow the card was mailed to him while THEY were on their honeymoon!) and I got to thinking, how can I do something nice for abuelito for Father’s day?? I opened the New Best Recipe cookbook and discovered the omelet, something so simple and yet so amazing (or so I’ve heard, did you know I detest eggs in that state??). So after my marathon movie watching later that night (Orphan and Away we go), I awoke with four hours of sleep and went mad in the kitchen! Below you can see my nice breakfast.

So making omelets reminded me of the passage in Mastering the art of french cooking that to practice making omelets one should take beans and practice flipping the pan to get those nice omelet folds perfect! So anyway, Grandma actually cooked the bacon for me, so that was cool. I stuck to the omelet making (I did two; one for the lady and one for the sir). Go check out more pictures below!

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