Category: birthday

Birthday

I’m officially at the point where I’m no longer talking about my age, which makes the fact that my boyfriend is in his early 20s even better. :] This was a great birthday in so many ways – if you had told me a year ago that this is what my life would look like, I never would have believed it, which makes being here better than I ever could have imagined. Over the last year I’ve really tried to put into practice 3 things: patience, presence and gratitude. This week was a celebration of all of that with some of the people I love the most.

Me and my Dad as babies…same little rosebud lips!

AC at dawn

Guess where this is?  Lucy the Elephant  <3

Ebbit Room dinner

Mad Batter, which I’ve been going to since I was a little girl and has the BEST BLUEBERRY PANCAKES IN AMERICA.

winter beach days…lovely.

Some of the prettiest flowers I’ve ever seen from my family. Love you guys and thanks for another wonderful birthday!

Spinach & Artichoke Dip

I love everything about this. Artichokes, creamed spinach, a little mozz, a little cream cheese, a little sour cream – it’s so delicious, it’s gone before you know it. And it reheats really well too. I hosted my friend Missy’s birthday party this past weekend, and threw this together before all the girls showed up for the night…at 3pm. Older, but probably not wiser. :]

SPINACH AND ARTICHOKE DIP (serves a pack of 13 “ladies”, if you include 4 pizzas, another veggie dip, mini cupcakes, a couple cases of CLs/ALs, infinite wine and champagne and a total lack of shame on any of our parts).
– 2 8 oz. packages of creamed spinach (the creamed part is key)
– 2 cans artichoke hearts, drained really well and chopped
– a package of shredded mozzarella cheese (A whole package. Yes, I know.)
– 1/3 C. cream cheese, softened
– 1/3 C. sour cream
– 1/4 C. parmesan
– 1/4 C. mayo (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Cook creamed spinach according to package directions. Put into a bowl.

3. Add chopped artichoke hearts to the spinach and stir to combine.


4. To the spinach/artichoke mixture, add the cream cheese, sour cream, mozz, parmesan and optional mayo.  Stir it all together and spread evenly in an oven-proof serving dish.


5. Bake at 350 until cooked, approx. 15-20 minutes.  Remove, let cool, and serve with tortilla scoops or chips. 


andwhatiate.com

 My birthday was on Monday, and my little sister bought my domain name for a present!  So we are now…

ANDWHATIATE.COM

Such a great gift – I was so excited.  All the old links will still work, but now it’ll be easier to access the site instead of typing in the longer address I used to have. I feel so official now. Thanks Colly Doll!

So B and I decided to head down to Philly for a late birthday dinner at Amada, one of our all-time favorite restaurants.  The space somehow manages to be enormous but cozy, the tapas they serve is out of this world, their sangria tastes like Christmas morning, and the “little plates” give you an excuse to eat a LOT of some of the best food I’ve ever had:

A ridiculous meat & cheese plate: chorizo pamplona,  serrano ham,  & salchichon; then aged manchego with truffled lavender honey (!!!), ersmesenda with chocolate hazelnut puree, and a garrotxa with a garlic dulce de leche

Ensalada Verde with avocado, asparagus, favas, and green beans/  a spanish flatbread with artichokes, wild mushrooms, black truffles and manchego
parmesan artichokes and lamb meatballs
Grilled calamari with spanish pesto
“Mother and child”: chicken breast, fried egg, mojama & truffles

Combine that with a delicious “breakfast” (yes I know that’s a reuben) at the Downtown Deli, then lunch at Carl Von Luger’s with my Mom, and it was one of the best dining days I’ve had in a while.


And February itself has been pretty great in general: 

Yoga Dance party in one of the rooms at the gorgeous Scranton Cultural Center, hosted by Mission Yoga; The Dinner of Love at The Colonnade to benefit the Sant’ Andrea Society; a weekend yoga workshop with the amazing Pradeep Teotia at Balance (during the Northeast’s biggest snowstorm in decades, which ended up making it an even more incredible experience); a weekend at Moosic Lake with my girlfriends; Philly for my birthday; and a great yoga mat carrier from Green Being Scranton, among other things, to cap it all off.

34 and 2 days…

we went to Union Trust for dinner, which was incredible. The food actually outdid the space, which upon walking in I thought would be tough to do: I think it used to be a bank. We were so hungry that I completely forgot to take any pictures until the end of the meal.

Creme brulee might be my favorite thing to eat ever.