The last month or so in pics/rambles

[kate]

So we made limoncello - sort of. We decided to try a number of citrus fruits (grapefruit, orange, lemon, meyer lemon, lime, key lime) and two different alcohols (super high proof vodka and everclear). You let it sit for 40 days and then add sugar/peels and bottle it up. We haven't tasted any yet, but the everclear definitely seemed to pick up more from the citrus fruits, and the grapefruits were (surprisingly) the least picked up of all of them. My guess is the lime is going to be gross (and possibly the key lime too) and only the lemon and orange will even be drinkable. This was our Christmas plan, and I think we'll probably end up sticking with the regular lemon recipe. We'll see, though - I'll report back once we get to taste them all.



ALL THE GROOT! So, my wife found this free Groot pattern on the internets and I immediately forwarded it to my sister, who then made it for me. \o/



And then I saw this... I think at Great America when I was there.



I've been to Six Flags Great America four or five times over the last couple months with my sister and her kids (and next weekend with two of my sisters). This one isn't terribly awesome, but it amused me enough to post it. There's Winchester stuff all over the place and it makes me giggle every time.



Does this mean it's bigger on the inside?



And tonight capped my whirlwind tour of Philadelphia awesome restaurants. Or maybe tomorrow will.


Rice and Mix.

So, the weekend I ended up staying alone in Philly, I wandered up Market street on Saturday, and ended up near where I was working, and I found this AMAZING Korean restaurant called Rice and Mix, where I had the most delicious bulgogi.



Fork

And then, Sunday night, I made reservations at a nice-looking establishment named Fork. It was fancy schmancy, and I was way underdressed (this is a theme for me), but I took pictures of almost every course (only remnants of the cheese plate) and they were all deewishus. NOM NOM.

Champagne something something drink



Apple salad where the apple was one super-long thing strip. Awesome and tasty!



Pork 3 ways (can't remember what they were, except the burnt one, which was some flowery ash, which sounds gross but tasted amazing!).



The remnants of my tasty cheese plate. (I always order the cheese plate, if there is one. ALWAYS.)



Morimoto

And tonight, we went to Morimoto. We should have taken pictures of everything, because it was all gorgeous (the ambiance was nice, too), especially the Morimoto sashimi plate. But it was too good to be interrupted for pictures (except for the gorgeous and delicious desserts). Next time omakase, I think. We just wanted to be sure to get things we liked this time.

Milk chocolate pot de creme (so smooth!) with a chocolate financier and quenelle of banana... goo.



Black sesame flourless mousse cake with a tiiiiiiny black sesame macaron (which you won't see because I ate it before I took the pic, whoops). AMAZEBALLS.



Also, I had three delightful pear-ginger martini drinks and was delightfully drunk. Just coming down from that now. It was an excellent meal.

And two things that have been sitting on my desktop forever, which I'm throwing out there in the world because I don't want to wait anymore.

Voice posts! A couple of leftovers I never got to posting from that voice post meme.

A ramble about Dean Winchester's POV. This was a prelude to something else I can't remember and never got to.

The first one of dungeonmarm's requests: my shampoo bottle blurb. Sorry I didn't get to the rest!

I'm no longer drunk (sadfax) but I am tired, and I have to get up early tomorrow, so that's it for a sleepy Kate. Hope you enjoy!

Comments

[mrshamill]

Baby Groot! I found one of those patterns too. If I were better at crochet, I'd try to make one, they're so CUTE!

[kate]

That's why I sent it to my sister! I suck with yarn. :)

[kinetikatrue]

...I may need to try and reverse-engineer that sea salt/black sesame/dark chocolate mousse cake thing. I made a similar all-chocolate cake once, so I bet I could do it. And it sounds AMAZING.

[kate]

Oooh, good luck! The sesame was just sesame flavored, not chocolate, and that's what made it so amazing - that sesame middle was so light. It was super tasty.

[bethctg]

GROOOOOOT! And flourless mousse cake, and YOU. Makes an awesome post. :)

[kate]

<33333!

[adafrog]

Yay for good food!

Also-GROOT!

[kate]

Groot! I love Groot!

[dromomaniac]

Are you infusing the whole fruit? I only use the peel, but I use a whole orange to make quarante-quatre so it's not like the idea is totally outlandish or lacking an evidence of deliciousness. I am curious to hear how they come out.

[kate]

Yeah, we put whole fruits in there (all the instructions/recipes we saw called for the whole fruit). Do you know, these are all done and sitting on our kitchen counter, still, because we haven't cared enough to try them? I don't really think any of them will be any good except the lemon, and maybe the Meyer lemon, and I just... ugh. It was a lot of work and the end result is less than inspiring, I gotta be honest.

[dromomaniac]

Real bummed to hear that :-( I hope the lemon was ok at least.

I like to make a quarante-quatre over Lent (I've convinced myself that the 44 days from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday, plus Lent starting in the neighborhood of orange season, is the reason for the numerology. This may just be fancy, but now it's tradition), which uses a whole orange and is pretty nice.

My recipe is: 1 orange, 44 cloves, 44 teaspoons of sugar (a little over 3/4 c if you don't feel like counting that out), a liter of your favorite rum (I like to use the Cruzan white rum because it's way cheaper than it tastes and because USA and unincorporated territories #1), a jar with a mouth wide enough to accommodate an orange with a bunch of cloves sticking out of it (this is important)

Stick cloves into orange. Place ingredients in jar. Every day or so tilt the jar around so the sugar mixes up a bit. Repeat until day 44. Enjoy :D

[kate]

Oh, yours sounds way better than ours! None of it was any good. The Everclear batches could've peeled paint. The Vodka ones smelled okay, but were still to damn strong. I think our experiments in limoncello are at an end. It left sticky shit all over our counters and cabinets, too, so... probably not. But that recipe sounds amazing - we added our sugar at the end, and it just never mixed up properly. We also don't have the... um. Well, we're bad at doing anything at a daily basis (like tilting the jar) since I'm only home half the week and soleta is... not a daily habit sort of person. Well, that sort of habit. She does exercise daily, which is better than I can manage most of the time.