italian eats...

started all my followups this week…started with a sonogram which was all good! all good!!! what a great thing to hear. clear, nothing. boring is good :)

to celebrate i met my friend, michael at marea for lunch at the bar. marea has one of the grooviest looking bars…its a translucent marble i think that is lit from underneath…very modern feeling. and the food….we started with the 3 crudos - fluke, tuna and snapper - all clean and small bites but nothing that amazing. esca’s crudo’s are all better….

michael ordered the lobster, burrata appetizer which, if i go again, i am so getting. it’s a decadent way to start your meal and is memorable!

then i had the signature pasta - fusilli with bone marrow and octopus braised in a red wine sauce. kind of a new, modern take on a bolognese. again, i wouldn’t get that again - while it was good and i’m glad i had it, i’d go for something else next time. just a little weird and rich for my palate. michael had the gnochetti with ruby red shrimp and beans. it was delicious!

the dessert is what blew us away..we had the crostata di cioccolata. amazing.the

best part about the meal though, was catching up with my old friend who jets in and out of the states and seems to have a knack for being around after doctor’s appointments.

last night, though, i went to the cookery in dobbs ferry. is you live in westchester, you must go. ….i thought the food there was BETTER than marea’s….it’s a little more homier- dark wood and kind of pubby looking. i think the winner last night was the dirty rice - duck liver sauteed into rice with a poached egg that was dipped in panko and fried on top. omg …wanted to lick the plate. hard to beat their fried scarmozo cheese which is one of my favorite dishes but i think the dirty rice wins.

we also had the baby arugula salad, the meatballs and their special pasta - ricotta, squash and pancetta…and the stripped bass….and their dessert - butta nutta pie (??) was like a creamier version of milk bar’s crack pie.

i have to say i love the way they divide wine - it’s by price point - you have your choice of a $9, $10, or $11 glass of wine. perfect!

don’t want to go on too much about it, as it’s still accessible to the common folk and you can still get a table during the week!

also, so much more affordable than marea.

3 feet under

i thought i’d escape irene’s wrath but it was too much for our little house to take. we ended up with 3 feet in the basement. trying to look at it as just another excuse to purge but it’s the 4th time this house has flooded and i’m kind of done. more tomorrow.'

Margaret Mead

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

somehow i got all caught up in this year’s local elections. hoo boy. something about the way the other team was running their campaign irked me and got under my skin. i decided i had to act on that…spoke at BOE meetings and was on the local cable tv, wrote letters to the editor (got published ) and was quoted on the candidates website.

as no good deed goes unpunished, i was then asked to be co-president of the hs pta. i don’t even like pta’s!

being the sucker that i am to think i may actually be helpful i agreed…..hoping i don’t live to regret this one!

ma peche

went to ma peche last night w/ my college buds…we wanted to showcase something that we felt was indigineous to nyc for our boston friends. felt brave and ordered and ate the fried pigs head - of course i checked before to make sure it wouldn’t be presented as a head on a plate! that would have been kind of gross. instead it was presented more as a flat fried disc. the server said it was mostly cheek…it was really good but i had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t just the head. also had…

black rice w/ some kind of gooey, not pleasant thing on top

brussel sprouts which were awesome

asparagus w/ poached egg (thumbs up!)

scallops

fluke sashimi

foie gras (yum)

spring rolls (double yum)

veal

sole

calamari

if the servers had been pleasant it would have been a completely enjoyable experience. instead they were arrogant and pushy and not incredibly helpful….what a detraction from food that really is exquisite.

my friends were all good, though…even met a food blogger which i thought was kind of funny ….

memories...

traveling through all the colleges last week w/ emma i had a few deja vues…first at williams at the hotel…i am almost positive i stayed there with the soccer team when we had a tournament. the halls sparked some old memories….and the valley reminded me of that tournament days back when. at amherst, all the “game” kids were wearing their sweats/uniforms.

i remember doing that on soccer or lacrosse days…you had to let EVERYONE know that you had a game that day. funny that they still wear the same thing :).

was so bummed that i got what i think was the stomach virus that has been going around when we were in providence. i’ve wanted to go to al forno for years….so i took emma there even though at that point i was on the verge of throwing up at any minute. couldn’t eat any of the food :(.. so hard for this girl to just sit there while the food was coming. emma had the grilled pizza and their apple dessert for 2. i tasted wee bits and they were both delicious but i couldn’t make myself eat them. would have been disasterous i think!

woozy mri

the mri was totally uneventful. easy, actually. i popped an ativan right before and it hadn’t worn off when i was driving home and i almost fell asleep at the wheel. i should not have been driving! sleepy sleepy sleepy. came home and passed out.

going to one of my favorite places, tarry lodge, tonight, with my gal pals and then passing out again! need to get through this weekend happily and not worried about next week.

clean clean clean results….think positive.

pandora’s box

f-me f-me f-me. i went for a regular check up for my insides and the technician saw a cyst on my pancreas. i don’t even like saying that part of my body. the pancreas. can you survive without one? when i went on the internet (always a big mistake) it said that most cysts are benign although sometimes they can be precancerous. if it is, i guess the good new is that i got it very early / small. the technician said it was the size of the head of a pin. my ob onc didn’t really go into too much detail. in fact, i think she informed me about it while she still had her finger up my butt . not good. not a particularly caring way to tell an ex cancer girl that they didn’t like something on the sonogram!

it’s like my plastic guy said, though. if you start looking for something, chances are high that you are going to find something. everyone’s got something that just isn’t 100% - the question is whether it’s dangerous to your well being. this i think is one of those things that will be ok ultimately but oh how i hate having anything else to look at.

6 month check up and brooklyn fare

while it’s been a long time, i can’t say a lot has happened to me. i just had my 6 month check up and i think in a way i was waiting to make sure that all was good.

and it was :)

the bigger question was whether or not to enter a clincial trial that my oncologist thought might be good for me…after going over it with her and my other bc “gurus” i’ve decided it was worth a try. it’s a double blind placebo so i won’t (theoretically) know if i’m getting the drub, neratinib or sugar but the neratinib is supposed to cause severe stomach pain and diarhhea so i’m guessing i will know. it seems like there’s no real down side as it’ll just involve more thorough following of me which in a way is good….i think!

i just got back all my labs and everything was so normal that i don’t need a scan…that is supposed to be great. less radiation and no sign of any cancer showing up anywhere….yay me!

so now onto food. i had an amazing food experience last night - went to brooklyn fare….i was supposed to go with one of my bc girls and her friends but she had to xl as she was sick last minute. howard & i were not sure whether we should still go as the group was really her group but i was convinced that i couldn’t miss out on this experience….she insisted and her husband went so we decided to jump headfirst in. so glad we did….

we got to brooklyn early enough to go marketing in the retail store that is next door….what a great store. they had everything from toilet paper to organic baby food - kind of a combination of whole foods, tarry market and fairway all wrapped up into one store in brooklyn.

then we went to the restaurant itself…we had all brought wine as it’s still a byob…the maitre d directed us to our seats as we all enjoyed our first glass of wine - meursalt i think.

upon seating us in the horseshoe like counter, they started with their amuse bouches…this was in addition to the 20 small plates we would be eating! the first amuse was a warm / cold pea soup with parmigian. omg. it started out warm as a rich velvety thick cheese enhanced pea broth. so smooth…as i continued to drink it, it turned cooler - so that i could really taste the peas…yum. spring peas.

then we had a daikon radish with lemon that was so vibrant i continued to think of the lemon throughout the evening. there were so many sashimi / raw items after that i wish i had written them down as they arrived. salmon with caviar, uni w/ truffle, snapper. my least favorite (depsite the rave reviews) was the oyster. i honestly thought, spoiled girl that i am, that 11 madison’s was much much better. i also wasn’t crazy about the soy ocotopus….

highlights were the king crab and the duck, the shrimp that i was encouraged to suck the head of (only way to go) and the cheese course - 3 cheeses all with a little bit of sweet to offset the cheese…teeny tiny bites - and the dessert. so refreshing…a greek yogurt with raspberry (i think) and chocolates on the side.

all so decadent and served so well. the food was continuous yet after 27 (i think) small bites, i still was not full!

weird thing is i never would have been included had i not befriended my cancer girl so in a way the timing was perfect for a 6 month toast to my health!