Baptiste is HOT!!!

sound of music

this made my day!

facebook madness

Okay, I relented and signed up for a Facebook account. Well, actually it was Emmanuel who did it for me since he didn't want his name on FB. Today is the second day and I've got 12 'friends'. I like the idea of being able to let 'friends' know what you're up to and how you are feeling or what you are thinking. My friends who have FB accounts are addicted. So far, I'm not impressed. The home page is not very user friendly and is not laid out well. We'll see how long this lasts.

birthday dinner

yesterday was emmanuel's birthday. fortunately, he was able to get the night off and we had dinner at our new favorite neighborhood restaurant, Bellanico. for a rainy and cold night, the restaurant was quite busy. there was a wait for a table but there was room at the bar. we prefer eating at the bar since there is more room to spread out. we each had a glass of French bubbly whilst we perused the menu.


well, what did we eat? for starters, we shared the selection of cicchetti, basically bar food. served on a nice platter, it had fried sicilian green olives (just ok), crochetti di riso (crispy on the outside and cheesy on the inside), beet-gorgonzola and walnut crostini (wonderful combo), country pate crostini (lovely pork flavors), shrimps over white beans (rich, creamy and delicious), and a fried meatball with mint sauce (yummm).


then we shared a pasta course: lumache, wild boar ragu, treviso radicchio, grilled onions and ricotta impastata. what a dish! the bitterness of the radicchio went well with the richness of the boar ragu. my only peeve was that the ricotta was cold but otherwise a very good dish.

for our mains, i had the pancetta wrapped sturgeon and emmanuel had the pork loin chop. the sturgeon was moist and combined well with the saltiness of the pancetta. the pork chop was grilled perfectly, slightly pink closer to the bone.

nice wine list and quite reasonable. we ordered the Mirabile 2006 Nero d'Avola from Sicily. though it was listed under the 'Bold Reds' section, we found that it was not quite bold enough.

we've been here three times and each time we left happy and full.

Slumdog Millionaire

we saw this recently and we both loved it! great story, great soundtrack and dev patel is adorable.

Christmas Dinner

seared scallops in a tarragon cream sauce served with curried rice

Christmas nostalgia

Reminiscing about Christmases past, I remembered that Nanay would often make a chicken-macaroni salad as part of the Noche Buena. I thought that to pay tribute to my Mom's cooking, I will channel her and make my own version. My Mom used store bought mayo and poached the chicken. For our version, I used home-made mayo and store-bought roasted chicken. Instead of using elbow macaroni, we used cavatappi pasta. We added finely chopped onions and celery, sweet pickle relish, diced pimento and sweet paprika. The only thing missing is her glazed ham.

bittersweet

The election was a bittersweet victory. Obama was elected but Prop 8 passed. We were all hopeful that prop 8 would not pass but we knew that the race was going to be tight. I am happy that Emmanuel and I were able to have our moment but sad for the others who can't (for now). The fight will continue; it ain't over yet.

WHO IS TO BLAME? THEM

a change is gonna come

We finally did it! The citizens of good old US of A chose the right person to lead the country and make us be proud of who we are. We all have spoken that it's time for change and hope. I am so happy that this election will not be contested as to who the winner is, unlike the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Indeed a historic day! Cheers to us all!

with this ring I thee wed

the day finally arrived! i didn't think much of it but it was quite an emotional moment. as we did not really prepare nor plan anything, we both went to work after the ceremony. as soon as i got to work, i announced to everyone that i just got married. my boss got flowers, some were teary-eyed, a lot of applause and happiness for us. someone got a cake for the "bride" but, alas, since it was last minute, no wedding cakes were available only halloween cakes. they were joking that it was in some way fitting.

merci Jean Pierre for being there with us to share this event and taking these photos.