Am I in Belgium?

As everyone who knows me, I celebrate my birthday the whole month!! So I treated myself to a post birthday breakfast!

I had not even taken the Belgian waffle maker out of it's carton - it was time. It was pretty simple to prep. Take machine out of box...wipe clean...plug in - voila!

I put in 2 cups of the Maple Pecan mix from Nikki along with egg, butter and milk. Immediately upon stirring with a whisk, the batter was beautifully incorporated!

I had read in the directions (yeah...I know...I normally don't do that - LOL) that the first waffle cooking might emit a smokey odor so should discard. Heck, I didn't want to waste my precious Maple Pecan mix! So I quickly made a batter of a quickie pancake mix that I had and as soon as the waffle maker lit ready green, I ladled the batter on and closed the lid and set it to a medium heat. Then like a native Belgian, turned the "plate" 180 degrees. Exciting. When it was ready, I flipped it back and lifted the lid carefully and wow!! It was an actual Belgian waffle!! It worked!

I ladled in the real stuff. Sadly, first try is lady luck because the second one got stuck in the center! I knew I needed to adjust the temperature. I scooped out the malformed one and nibbled on it. It tasted great, just didn't look so pretty. The third one was much more to my liking and gets to be photographed!


Third time's a charm


Ready to enjoy!

I made another to eat on another day. Or later. Whichever comes first! "-)

No...Maybe Today is the Best Day..Ever!

Today is my birthday! And the first day of Spring! So for me, it’s always a good day all around. I awoke to many Face Book birthday wishes, emails, & e-cards.

Nikki called to set up a time to meet for brunch in Brooklyn. Between getting ready and leaving, Ronna & Izzy called to wish me a Happy Birthday and to chat. I had to really hustle to make it to Prospect Heights in time!

We had planned to go to a place called Beast but it was packed and so we ended up at an Italian eatery...pizzeria and wine bar named Cataldo’s. They offered a brunch menu made up of Frittatas and poached eggs in sauce. It looked decent and more importantly, no wait for a table.

Tom & I ordered the Fritatta Florentina (eggs,spinach,prosciuto,cheese) and Nikki went with the Quattro Stagioni pizza which had tomato, mozzarella, mushrooms, artichoke hearts olives and parmigiano. I also had an ice coffee…my first of the season and omigosh…for some reason, it was like having dessert and I didn’t even put any sugar in it!!


My Frittata and iced coffee




Nikki enjoying her pizza

It was lively and fun conversation…great company…and good food. The breeze wafting in from the outdoors was just so...perfect.




My excellent companions

Later in the day, I received cards in the mail and more phone calls. As I posted on FB…this gorgeous weather is almost enough of a gift! But luckily I got "stuff" also!!! Nikki gave me a maple pecan waffle mix for my new Belgian waffle maker and a $50 gift card for Williams-Sonoma. All in all...glorious!


My sweet goodies!!

Best Day...EVER!

Today is a month since the first day of Chinese New Year and the first chance that the family was able to finally get together to celebrate. Kathy & Tony have been away in Florida and then there was the blizzard weekend and then the Oscars weekend that it got pushed to March. And since March is both Nikki and my birthday month, we decided to just do it all in one shot.

Nikki wanted to “surprise” me by getting me doughnuts at The Doughnut Plant located on Grand street - LES. Since I am not exactly a huge fan of doughnuts, I wasn’t very excited but I know Nikki has raved about these “little bit of heaven” as she calls it and I was willing to try it. Well…as I bit into my first coconut cream flavored doughnut…OH-MY-GOD….yeah…calling out a little bit of heaven! WOW! It doesn’t taste like a regular doughnut…it is simply…amazing!!


My Doughnut Birthday Cake

My gift to Nikki was a Louis Vuitton mini address book. As I said to her…this was to start off her collection. This item was actually mine but I already have one and I supposed, have been saving it for this particular occasion…Nikki’s 25th birthday! It is now a collector’s item since LV doesn’t produce this item any longer.


Nikki's First LV

After the gift exchange and the doughnut tasting…Kathy made an announcement. Nikki, Kris, Miranda, Evelyn and I were now at a “party” that Kathy was hosting…right then and there. It was a “Coffee and Cheese” party. Two of Kathy’s favorite things…NOT! Maxwell House Coffee and Velveeta cheese to be exact. She passed out $1 off coupons for the cheese, coupons for free coffee and spatulas for...ahem…cutting the cheese. LOL Let’s just say that this “party” reference never got old…we teased Kathy all day long!


Kathy and her party favors

Dinner was a 9 course Chinese banquet . We had…an appetizer platter of crispy salted fried tiny fish…cuttlefish & duck’s tongue among other things. The duck’s tongue did lead Evelyn to comment to Mark that he had just entered the Amazing Race! We also had Winter Melon soup , breaded shrimp with mayo, broccoli and walnuts, peppered short ribs, braised eggplant, garlicky young Chinese cabbage shoots, bird’s nest of shrimp and veggies, a veggie mix stir-fry and crispy skin chicken.


The cousins at the restaurant

We went home to have the yummy Boston Cream Torte cake that I got for Nikki’s birthday. Nikki used the “cheese spatula” to cut the cake. My mom originally thought it was a shoe horn. It did make for a lot of laughs!! So thanks - Kathy!!



Make a wish!!



Nikki cutting her cake using the famous spatula

So - Happy Birthday, Nikki (on St. Paddy‘s day)!!


Some of my most favorite people in the world!

We ended up having a "SUNNY" day despite the torrential rains! :-)

The Best Sisters' Club!

I want to document March 4, 2010. It was the day that the next Sister’s Birthday Club met again. This time to have an early celebration for moi.

Kathy, Winnie & Connie had received a coupon for a free tote at Tanger’s. I didn’t get the coupon but was told I could get a free tote by presenting my membership card. We all decided to make a day of it.

First we chose to go to the new Tanger’s Outlet at Deer Park, Long Island. Not as big as Riverhead but certainly much closer. On top of that, there is a Regal Cinema on the premises so we were able to kill many stones with this one visit!

We opted for Valentine’s Day and Tanger offers a movie discount with membership. The movie started around 1pm and we arrived by 10:30 giving us some time to shop and browse.

The day prior I had picked up my weekly packet of circulars and was flipping through them when I came across a coupon for a $10 gift card at Tanger’s Deer Park!! What were the odds?? I quickly went and retrieved 3 more coupons and knew this was meant to be!

The drive took about 40 minutes. It is a beautiful outlet designed in a Tuscany decor. It was empty and quiet. I think it had to do with it being the middle of the week, it was kind of chilly out and is a virtually new mall.

But parking was easy and we stopped first for our totes, discount coupon booklets, movie tickets and the $10 gift cards. Once we got all our goodies, we set out to do some damage. Winnie,Connie and I settled in Le Gourmet Chef where we noshed on their samples of dips & salsas. The 3 of us picked up things there using a 20% off coupon from the booklet and our $10 gift card. All I had do to was put up 30 cents!

I went on to the Factory Brand Shoes store where I immediately found a pair of my beloved leather Keds. I also had a coupon for $5 off $50 and needed to spend another $11. Kathy joined me and I spotted a pair of 4 inch pumps with mary jane straps. Even though they were ½ a size too large, I had to try them on and because of the straps…they fit very nicely. And the price of $15 was too tempting to pass up. I also saw a pair of suede boots and had to have those too which worked out since Kathy found a pair of loafers she liked and so her paying for one of my shoes allowed her to use her $5 off $50 coupon also. When we went to check out, I discovered that my $15 shoes were lowered to $5!!! OMG! Happy Birthday to ME!

The movie was cute and sweet. We all enjoyed it. The drive back to Queens was great and we made it to our favorite sushi restaurant still in time for the lunch special. Our waiter, who we adore, surprised me with a candle in my ice cream and I got my first rendition of “Happy Birthday to You”. It was all just my kind of a perfect day! Thanks to my “Sis-tas”!!!



Winnie being a great sport and indulging me in some silliness!



The CLUB


Enjoying our meal


Birthday Girl

Really Rare!

Sometimes it doesn't take much to make me giggly happy. Finding really rare roast beef at a deli counter would do the trick.

The other day I had such a craving for it. I stopped at my local Key Food's deli counter and asked to see the roast beef. The counterman showed me what looked to be red beef in the center. Good enough but I still only asked for a quarter pound. When I got it home and really looked at it...I practically swooned and could have kicked myself for not getting more. I made my perfect sandwich using lightly toasted Ciabatta bread...crusty on the outside...light on the inside. A smear of mayo, field greens, thin slices of tomato and some slices of American cheese. Lightly salted the slices of beef and at first bite, did a happy little jig.

I went back the next day and ordered half a pound. Same results.

The third time I showed up at Key Food, the deli man smiled like we were old friends. I had to tell him I loved his roast beef and ordered another half pound. He said he had to ask me if I ate it just like that or did I cook it? COOK IT?? I was horrified! And it showed on my face. Blasphemy! But he said he couldn't ever eat it that rare but he found many people did ask for it. So after trying to sell pre-roasted meat from Boar's Head - he found it was always too well-done for most of his customers. He decided to buy the meat directly and roast it in the store himself and I said he made it perfectly. I think he's going to be one of my best friends!

Is it Spring yet?

When I had looked at my car the day of the snowstorm - I was sure I would be stuck there for at least a week! I thought about digging out but it was tiring just to think about it so I left it alone. I hiberated all weekend. A plus to that was I didn't spend any money.

This morning, I knew my exile was over. I needed to go out and buy groceries having eaten everything in the house. I didn't even exercise knowing I would get a really good work-out cleaning off the car and all the snow and ice around it. I geared myself up, dressed warmly and gathered my strength for this chore.


To refresh your memory...this was the car on Friday:



This was the car when I went out this morning:



WOW! I swear...I never touched it! I spent about 5 minutes chopping at the snow by the door and tires which came apart very easily. I slid into the driver's seat and amazingly...just pulled out. There wasn't even a moment of wheels churning in the snow which I thought might happen since there was a small pile in front of me and my car is so low to the ground.

What a difference a couple of days make!

Spring Can't Come Too Soon!

My street at 2pm


The front of my building. Johnny and Jose (my super and porter) did a good job cleaning the walkway



Side of building's landscaping


Across the street from my building


Towards Queen Blvd. Still snowing


Austin St. behind my home


An honest to goodness snowman


Can that really be my car?? I don't even recognize it!


My Car BURIED!! Guess I'm not going anywhere!
I can't even open the door to get the brush or scraper so I can clean off the car.