I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Archives for February 2011

2.25- 27- How Martha Were You?

How Martha Was I This Weekend?

Friday Night-

Price made dinner- salad and perogis

watched the movie Match Point

Saturday-

up early to pack an overnight bag

driving down to Greenwich by 7.30am

arrived in Greenwich, see my mom

head over to my brother’s to see my 4mo niece Cara and have lunch at Famous Pizza and Souvlaki, stop by Petco

meet the new dog at home- Macaroni, a rescused Pomeranian

Dinner at Thai Basil, using a Groupon

Lounge back home watching shows with my mom

Sunday-

breakfast with mom at Glory Day’s Diner

stop by my sister’s to see family

start the drive back up to Boston

stop by my favorite scrapbooking store, Scrapbook Clubhouse

grab a late lunch at Gran’daddy’s Smokehouse and BBQ

arrive in Boston!

made dinner- pasta with clam sauce for me and pasta with red sauce and meatballs for Price

started a new crochet project while watching the Oscars

made air popped popcorn, mine had olive oil and truffle salt

During Morning Living on Martha Radio, the hosts hold a segment called How Martha Were You? every Monday morning where you recap your weekend’s activities.

Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive.

Cara’s First Christmas LO- Studio Calico 2/7 Sunday Sketch

Fancy_nancy-sketch

-2/7 Studio Calico Sunday Sketch-

Years ago, if you would have asked me if I ever would have done pages with 1 photo I would have laughed at you. My pages were filled with pictures because I wanted to be able to look back and see all the pictures we took documenting the event. It’s funny to see how things have changed. I definitely think this is for the better since I have distilled my pages to feature the best pictures, not all pictures.

This page features my niece, who was about 2mo at the time. Cara is such a sweet baby that I wanted to do a page showing her off, showing her first Christmas off. We had plenty of photos of me holding her, which I could have included, but I wanted the feature to be Cara, and not me. I captured my moments with Cara in my journaling, but let the picture I selected show what I was most interested in… Cara.

Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive.

The Circus is Coming to Towne- Yelp Event Recap

On Monday night Price and I went to Yelp Boston’s Elite event. This was the first non Elite only event of the new year, the first event to introduce the new Elite’s to the community. So there was no holding back!

The theme was “The Circus Comes to Towne”. Why TownE? Well it was held at te restaurant called Towne. This is a place I have been dying to get to but have been pushing it off since it’s really out of my price range… hello $25-40+ dinner entrées. Well, the chef owners, Lydia Shire and Jasper White, provided a fantastic venue, as well as the best food I have ever had at a Yelp event. Things ranged from tenderloin, curried cauliflower turnovers, caramel ice cream in pizzelle cookie cones, fried shrimp appetizers, hot dogs with a sweet pepper relish, Peking chicken tacos, and much, much more.

Plus, how can we talk about a Yelp Event without talking booze. I had one of the signature drinks, I believe it was called the bearded lady. They did not have a typical menu of specialty drinks, like usual, so I just had that one. Price, on the other hand, made it his mission to try all of the flavored vodkas that Hanger One supplied. In the end we think he rounded out the night with 8 vodka tonics. Hello Tuesday headache!

And of course, you can’t have a Circus themed event without cotton candy, popcorn and entertainers! I was head over heels in love that they had cotton candy!!! There were entertainers from The Boston Circus Guild that walked on stilts, did acrobatics, and some skillful hula hoop routines. There was also a guy doing magic! Lots of fun everywhere we looked!

Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive.

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum- Brugal Rum Tasting At The Urban Grape

I am definitely not one to turn down an outing with Price that involves cocktails and cupcakes. So when that exact opportunity presented itself last Thursday I knew that we would be heading to The Urban Grape in hopes of diving head long into some Brugal Rum.

“Brugal Rum is the Caribbean’s number 1 selling rum, to the point that it is almost a national obsession for the people of the Dominican Republic. It is the only rum produced by a large distillery that is made from molasses in the same manner that it’s been being prepared since 1793. There is even thought that rum dates back to just after the time of Christopher Columbus, when Caribbean colonists were the first to distill the juice from sugar cane.
So how is traditional rum made? Sugar cane is produced into molasses. The molasses is then diluted with water and left to ferment for 24 to 48 hours (using yeasts). The fermented juice is then sent to be distilled, where it is heated to temperatures that allow for vaporization. Brugal Rum is distilled two or more times, resulting in a smoother, more refined product. The liquid is then sealed into oak barrels and left to age.
Brugal’s Blanco Rum is the least aged of the rums, at only one to two years. The Anejo Rum is aged for five years. Brugal ages rum for up to 30 years, to produce a sipping rum more akin to an aged scotch or tequila. The Brugal family still produces all aspects of the rum, and boasts five generations of maestros roneros, or “master rum makers.””- The Urban Grape blog

Hadley and TJ, owners of the Urban Grape, partnered with Brugal Rum to host an evening of rum cocktails and rum infused cupcakes. The 2 cocktails on hand were mixed by Bill Codman. Bill can be found out the Woodward at The Ames Hotel, which is a great thing since you definitely want to have him make you another drink. There were 2 Anegjo Rum based drinks, one including some champange and the other with pineapple juice. I would love to get these recipes to make them again, especially the pineapple one.  And the cupcakes were made by Kickass Cupcakes. I have never been a huge fan of their cupcakes but this changes everything.

Price and I left with a bottle of the Brugal Anejo so we could create our own cocktails at home. Also, we left with a pass for the 2 of us to see “No Strings Attached” compliments of Mix 104.1, who were there to play some house music. Definitely a great Thursday night.

The Urban Grape

7 Boylston Street
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

617.232.4831

Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive.

2.18-21: How Martha Were You?

How Martha Was I This Weekend?

After the last few weeks I have been having I decided to take Friday off from work so I would have two 4 day weeks in a row separated by 4 days off.

Friday-

Up early to give Price a ride to work at 6am.

In the morning I did dishes, laundry, and prepped the dough for a  batch of cinnamon rolls from The Pioneer Woman

Met friends for lunch in Chinatown for some Dim Sum

Back home, made a 1/2 batch of cinnamon rolls, let rest in pie plates

Got my hair cut, over 6″ gone!

Back home to bake the cinnamon rolls so they would be hot for the poker game.

Drop Price off at Poker

Went to Whole Foods for some weekend food shopping

Made Annie’s Gluten Free Mac and Cheese for dinner

Veg out with some DVR’d shows, took a nap

Picked Price up at poker around 12.30am

Saturday-

Made the rest of the cinnamon rolls, gave 1/2 to our neighbors, froze some too.

Mopped the kitchen floor

Went to a Boloco focus group to help some Emerson graduate students for a marketing project

Back home to meet Price and meal plan before running our errands

Went to Costco and Petco

Made Sausage Meatball Subs for dinner (recipe to be posted soon)

Watched Inception with a

Sunday-

Morning cleaning around the apartment- we did laundry, dishes, vaccuming, moving furnitture to clean under it, etc

Trip to CVS to develop photos for scrapbooking

For lunch we went to Wild Willy’s for burgers!

Watched Daytona 500!

While watching Daytona, I scrapbooked several layouts using my Studio Calico kits

Made fun spritzers with seltzer, coconut rum, lychee syrup, and garnished with some lychee’s

Made roasted 2 chickens for dinner and lunch

Had dinner of chicken breast, roasted potatoes, and salad

Monday-

Made breakfast of scrambled eggs and hashbrowns

Spent the morning cleaning and packing the office/craft room

Went to the grocery store for ingredients to make chicken salad

Made BIG batch of chicken salad for lunches (chicken from 1 1/2 chickens I roasted on Sunday night)

Spent the afternoon downloading pictures from 3 camera cards and filing them in folder on my computer.

Got gussied up to go to the Yelp Elite event