bear

Happy belated birthdays, hotsauce and stevieg!

SO GORGEOUS OUT ALL WEEKEND. So glad to spend this time out in the sunshine with people I love. :)

- aforementioned shindig to celebrate david_grana defending his dissertation

- hosting a barbecue Friday night! Learning *how to* actually go about barbecuing, thanks to the visiting rustnroses. ;) jennifer and david_grana brought over Brawl; stevieg and elyssa joined up in time for ice cream at Christina's. :)

- hyounpark wakes me up Saturday morning with, "It's absolutely gorgeous out, let's go have lunch at Judie's!" Judie's is out in Western Mass. We have to be back in Allston for Seder at 5:30 pm. We drive out anyway. Viva Pioneer Valley Food Runs ;)

- richenza has reset the bar for Seder food rather high. *g*

- Her friend T. makes really freakin' funny faces; when I have resolved camera-computer issues, I may share some of those expressions. ;)
- Not enough yarmulkes, so the two rabbis' sons in the room declared the roof a blessed head-covering for all of us. *ggl*
- We failed to MAAAAAAA at fractalspackle this year during Had Gadya. :(
- craftattack_rss made horseradish jelly, which was actually pretty damned good. I'd eat it on all other nights.
- The Manischewitz shots *bounced*. Next year, we'll go one better - make them in Star-of-David cookie cutter molds, so we'll have properly Jewish Jello Jigglers for Pesach Time.
- sandboxdiva was the only newbie this year and thus the only one required to eat gefilte fish, though amusingly enough, said fish is popular enough that we actually didn't have enough. Buh?
- No, you can't have Peanut Butter Pesach Time if you're Ashkenazi and observant. ;)

- Brunch at Z Square Sunday morning before mrieser went back home to DC. Making horrible duck puns on a "Make Way For Ducklings" postcard being sent out to an absent friend.

- Bestowing cider donuts from Atkins on rustnroses, knowing she had a six hour drive to be endured.

- Puttering around Cambridgeport yesterday afternoon - finally dropped that book off at jennifer's that I've been meaning to for awhile; visited with jpallan and acerbic and camieal for awhile and had girly time that resulted with me learning how to put my hair up in a French twist.

- Second Seder at Craigie Street Bistrot last night. YUM. When local asparagus comes in, I am so duplicating the asparagus dish I had last night; I'll just need to learn how to make gribenes. Which tasted rather like chicharones (fried pork skin, about as nonkosher as you can get!) to me. *ggl* (noghri and other local hungry Jews, they are offering a vegetarian version as well - don't know if they've still got spaces open for tomorrow, the other night they're doing this, but if you've got the time, it's well worth it. :) )

*

I've also gotten to catch up with many others this weekend via the amazing device known as a cellular telephone. Dear self, stop being neurotic about thinking you're interrupting your friends' lives and being intrusive when you want to call. And also worrying about not being a conversationalist. Srsly.

*

7/2/23: It is so delightfully fun reading between the lines here, with the secret hyounpark and I would be holding onto for a few more days. Mostly at my request, because there were people I definitely wanted to tell in person, or at least on the phone, before going public. But "let's go to Amherst for the day!" "Um, we have to be back for Seder and Chris found Passover Coke in Brookline so I was about to go meet him ..." Ha!

And then glowing, glowing, beaming at each other, sitting through most of the seder with the new sparkly on my finger waiting to see who would notice first if I was subtle enough. (My memory says Steve was the first to notice, quirking an eyebrow and wistfully smiling at me, but Micha was the one who, basically as soon as we were two cups in and dinner had been served, went, "Do you possibly have some news to share?" :D Though it's been long enough my memory might be mistaken!) Seeing more friends at Z Square Sunday morning who hadn't been able to make it to the seder the night before; squealing with them. More girly squee with the spr0tties; Heather shrieking as I ostentatiously handed her a bag of cider donuts with my left hand and she noticed the new adornment.

It was a good weekend. :)

Happy birthday to my most beloved of beloveds, hyounpark :)

Tuesday, we celebrated our two year anniversary at Craigie Street Bistrot with the following: ( cut for drooling )

This, of course, means that the rest of the week we've mostly been eating mangos and mangos and more mangos (we bought a case last Saturday for $8). Currently attempting to chill a mango and chocolate mousse icebox cake (thanks to soufpawed for linking me to the icebox cake recipes on Epicurious; I'm trying to combine this icebox cake with this mango mousse as filling!). In open tabs, I've got recipes for mango lassis, mango chutney, a brie and mango quesadilla, and scallop mango tartelettes.