Life can be a real beach

Purdy

It takes balls to make corned beef

There is something about eating a huge Thanksgiving dinner that makes me crave a reuben sandwich and matzoh ball soup. So I made soup from the turkey stock, braised a corned beef in beer, made some matzoh balls and overate for the fourth day in a row. The sandwich was so good that I got confused while composing this blog, hence the out of order photos.

There's always next year

This cold and blustery January day at Simpatico, we were greeted by fresh hot coffee and a thirty minute wait. The former making the latter entirely acceptable. Even my 2 year old and ten month old waited patiently, as if they new good things were coming. Every once in a while you eat a meal surrounded by friends and family, that just makes you feel like it's all going to be OK. This same meal may also make you wish you hadn't of resolved to not eat too much fried food. Lucky for me, the fried food(perfectly pan fried chicken in this case) was served with a biscuit and sausage gravy. It is a little known fact that sausage gravy has the peculiar effect of nullifying any caloric trespasses that fried foods may commit. It has something to do with quantum physics and string theory, so it is over the heads of most people reading this, therefore I will not try to explain it. Just trust me. Ok?

Dessert for breakfast???

On a recent visit to Tasty and Sons, a local brunch spot, a lot of food was consumed. There were omelets that disappeared, biscuits and gravy that vansihed, and polenta with sausage ragu, mozzarella and a fried egg that was gone in the blink of an eye. Even the pork cutlets, shakshuka, french toast, chocolate potato doughnuts, and burmese red pork stew were only on the table for a short while. I should mention that all of the food is served tapas style, and that we were all exquisitely hung over. When all was said and done, and all of the coffee mugs were empty, a strange vibration shot through the table. Simultaneously, everyone at the table started thinking the same thing: "We should try the bacon cheeseburger." Hellza yeah we should. And we did. And it was poetry on a bun..

The simple things...

On a recent and all too infrequent trip to the beach sans children, we wandered into a small restaurant for breakfast. We sat at the counter, across from this "toaster." The waiter placed some bread on, closed the lid and walked away. There it sat for, no kidding, 15 minutes. I had no idea that miracles can happen in just 15 minutes. This glorious machine produced toast that was golden and crunchy throughout. Served with a trio of pepper jellies, and oddly enough, salsa. Salsa? Yes, salsa! Genius.

Tony, this next picture counts as one of your Christmas presents.

I Also Like Soup

Cold and rainy weather requires the intake of tomato soup. Really rainy and cold and windy weather requires the intake of spicy tomato and blue cheese soup with a dollop of creme fraiche, hazelnut and parsley salsa verde, a bacon chip, and olive oil fried croutons. May as well serve it with a fennel and apple salad.

But the real kicker of the meal of course, is the huge plate of chicken nuggets. Mmm, chicken nuggets.