When your favorite fruit is prepared

Peaches from Caitlin KS on Vimeo.

Oh, Georgia.

Caits

A little Reunion

Saturday was The Meatball Shop in West Village.  After craving basically the entire menu for a week, Emma, Kayla, and I got our fix. Earlier in the day I caught up with an old friend from Newport, who has recently moved to the city. We started our day at The Green Farmers Market in Union square, then we headed over to some other shops, and made sure to hit the huge sample sale going on at Chelsea Market, which ends on the 17th.

Anara and I went to high school together, and I hadn't seen her since junior year! It was so nice to finally catch up. 

We walked thirty blocks. We deserved this. I had the espresso ice-cream with brownie walnut and ginger cookies. Yum. 

Kayla and Emma sassin it up metro style.

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Brunch at Prospect

On Easter sunday Kayla and I had delicious brunch at Cheryl's Global Soul. We had so much food- and mimosas, orange juice, coffee and tea, to go along with it. at 236 Underhill Ave in Brooklyn, right by Prospect Park. 

We arrived at 11, and thankfully just beat the crowd. We barely had to wait, but people who arrived just about fifteen minutes after us had a two hours.

I got buttermilk pancakes with a mixed berry compote and chantilly cream- they were perfectly light and fluffy.

Kayla ordered a bowl of red zinger tea.  

She had the salmon hash with poached eggs and hollandaise. 

Outside of Cheryl's, we had a great people watching view. Dogs-as well! There were so many cute ones. I think there was a really cute lab with a cast on its tail, just right out of frame to the right. You can just imagine the cuteness of that.

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Christmas Cookies

A week back, we made some deliciously crispy christmas cookies with Anja and Thomas. Anja is a member of the Berlin circus. She does the trapeze(!). Our crispmas cookies- this batch was especially crispy

You can't bake in the kitchen without a little music. Just like you can't bake in the kitchen without watching a funny youtube video. Or two. Or three...

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'Round the Christmas Table

 On Christmas eve we enjoyed a lovely meal of potato soup, and smoked salmon with horse radish and lemon with family friends. The family friends were enjoying the food with us, they weren't on the menu (just to make that clear). 

The table was set....The guys made the last preparations in the kitchen. Our stomachs were very happy, very full. Everyone got a bit silly

Merry Christmas from Berlin

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Lets Talk Breakfast

 

Based in Los Angeles, Noelle from http://xobreakfast.com shares her tasty breakfast favorites with readers on her daily blog. Her recipes are full of flavor, and being based in California, naturally include a lot avocado. My favorite(!) The photography of the finished products make everything all the more tempting, too. Take a look , its heavenly -

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Gymnasium + Pralines

 Went to school with Fritz today- this is always fun for me to do-going to school in another country is actually an enjoyable activity for me. However, waking up in the morning I was not so sure I liked the idea of leaving the warm bed, but- Im glad I did!

 Anyways, school started late and got out early, and both of his teachers were fine with me there, so everything was good. After we came back home, relaxed a bit, then made some marzipan pralines with pieces of cognac soaked apricot pieces inside.

Mmmm. Perfect thing to do in this cold weather! Now we are chilling at Rons with some friends- tomorrow, we get the Christmas tree!

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In Berlin

  So, I am in Berlin now! After a bit of a delay in Brussels airport, and a popped airplane tire- yes, the airplane's back left tire popped during our rocky landing onto the runway in Berlin Tegel, I am very happy to say I have safely arrived.

our post-landing deflated tire
The landing was quite scary, a second or two after the landing there was a huge noise the plane jumped up, and was slightly lopsided afterwards. I was just thinking- let me off of this plane. After the delay in Brussels, I was only thinking of the worst case scenario- the bang we heard from under us would trigger some type of spark, and we would be engulfed in flames. Thankfully that didn't happen. (:

Now for the good that came out of the delay I had at brussels. I found Speeculos Pasta- a sweet spiced belgian spread  you can put on almost anything. Its made from speculoos cookies, which are a  carmelized christmas spiced cookie with a gingery cardamom taste to them. The spread is comparable to Nutella- and it is amazing!

We went to a Christmas concert yesterday featuring talented young musicians from all over Europe, with Ron. It was the perfect start to my Winter in Berlin. 

Best of all- is that I am finally here with my sweets! Together again <3

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Snip Snip

I got a haircut the other day! Im not sure if anyone else will be able to notice it but me; it was just a trim. It definitely feels shorter though- Last night we went out for my birthday dinner to a really wonderful Italian restaurant called Graziella's over in Westchester, NY. I ordered Gnocchi with vodka sauce + shrimp & lobster. It tasted amazing as it sounds.

We completed our meal with a cappucino- decaf, and dessert. I ordered the chocolate cheesecake, and other desserts of the table were tiramisu, and chocolate lava cake. We of course had to do a little rotation, and have a little taste of everyone's selection. They were all so good!

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Busy in the Kitchen

Happy Thanksgiving! I am stil up tonight because I am just preparing the sweet potato dish for tomorrow- or well, today. It had 8 more minutes to go, and then it'll be done! It smells so good. Im making the dish now because we will be spending 'tomorrow' at our friends in the city, so we will just reheat it at theirs. Currently listening to Changing Partners- by Patti Paige; its a nice song to cooke to. Ann showed me it when she was in ny last week an I just havent been able to stop listening to it since. I also made cranberry orange walnut bread- simply delicious.


Today was busy, full of grocery shopping, picking up things, etc etc. Our Austrian friend taught us how to make popovers tonight too- I've never tried them before now, either. I dont even know how to describe them. I guess you would say they're somewhere between the cross of a biscuit, muffin, crepe, and pancake? This is including the texture & taste; they are shaped like a muffin /biscuit and they taste a little bit like a pancake or crepe on the inside. Theyre really fluffy and airy, and they just pop out of their little muffin tin- hence the name, pop over.

The ones we made turned out great- but I wouldnt say they're exactly my favorite. I found that they taste really good if you ignore the hard outer part, and take out the thin lines of inside pieces that resemble pieces of crepe. You then take nutella, put it on the inside of the crepe-like piece, et, voila !


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Friday with the Aussies

Amanda will be leaving us to fly back to Brisbane on Sunday, so Eka, Amanda and myself spent the day in Upper Eastside. We strolled along Madison and went in and out of shops and stops. We spent some time at Dean&Deluca and came across some really yummy Chocolate Toffe and Crembrulee almonds....Mmmm

 It was also imperative Amanda try Lauduree's Macaroons before she left, so we waited in the line- which was an hour this time- to receive our parisien friends. We welcomed them graciously. At Tiffany's later A found a beautiful necklace. I didn't get the chance to picture it, but  it fit her perfectly and it was just a great everyday piece. 

For dinner, we went to Sushiya, a Japanese restaurant in Midtown East. The hot green tea was the perfect thing to warm up our cold bodies- the wind really picked up at night and it became pretty chilly. I also tried Agedashi Tofu for the first time, which was also delightful for this cold night. A.T is basically fried tofu topped with spring onion and served in tentsuyu broth made of daishi, mirin, and sho-yu. I wasn't sure if I'd like it at first, but it was a pleasant surprise!

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