Pop Up Market Downtown & Point State Park

Last Friday afternoon, I read a few tweets from the local food trucks I follow that there was a pop up market happening downtown from 6-11 PM. I texted Adam to tell him we were going for dinner. We were looking for something quick, inexpensive, and delicious anyway.

I wasn't sure what to expect exactly and I was pleasantly surprised when we walked up to see about 20 vendors (about half of them were food, half were arts and crafts) in a small lot just a block from the Theater District parking garage. It was an amazing night, so there were tons of people out taking advantage of the market and the Gallery Crawl, which they run in conjunction with one another (we overheard someone say there was free beer at a few of the galleries, no wonder it was so popular).

Adam and I decided that we would be sharing our food (we didn't want to eat too much) and we got in line for the Meat and Potatoes tent, which had smoked pork tacos. We grabbed 2/$7. Not too shabby.

Another booth we visited was BRGR, which we've been wanting to try forever. We got an Average Joe burger to share. The bun was amazing and the burger was really good too.

I promised Adam we didn't have to stick around too long, so we grabbed a few goodies from Bluebird Kitchen to go. We decided on the banana dulce de leche bar and the campfire cupcake. OMG the banana bar was sooo yummy.

After the market, Adam and I decided to walk down to Point State Park, since we were in the area, neither one of us had been there and it was a gorgeous night (and sunset).

A lot of the park is closed for renovations and restoration of the fountain, which is supposed to be opening again this June after 2 years of work on it.

We didn't really stick around long, just walked down to the river and then headed back to the car. It was getting pretty late and we were tired. I can't wait to check it out again when all the fencing is gone and the fountain is working!

Pittsburgh!

A few weeks ago I drove out to Pittsburgh to help Adam move from his temporary housing into his more permanant apartment. I've never been to the 'Burgh as an adult, the closest I came was driving through on our way to my parents place back in May after my lab mate, Stephanie's, wedding. 

My week there was spent driving around the city, getting acquainted with things, visiting IKEA, eating Indian Food from a grocery store in the park. I was tempted to not go back to Massachusetts.

One of the first nights there, we ate at a local burger bar called Burgatory. They have a milkshake list to be envied. We chose the PB&J, well, I let Adam choose the PB&J. I would have been just as happy with the coffee & donuts, the salted nutella crunch, or the campfire s'mores ones. We also ordered a "create your own" burger each. Delicious.

While I was in Pittsburgh, I actually had a lot of work to do, so I holed myself up in the Carnegie Library for most of the week. I didn't realize that you could see the dinos at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History from the 2nd floor stacks, until one of my last days there. I didn't get to visit the museum, but seeing those dinos got me excited to go!

I also spent a day at the Phipps Conservatory, which I'll talk about in a separate post. I couldn't fit all the beauty in this one!

My last day before driving home, Adam and I headed out to Cleveland to visit my parents. That's one nice thing about living in Pittsburgh, I'll be able to visit with them more often. I rarely see them and it's been that way for the last 8 years, since I moved away from home. Anyway, we walked into the garage, which has become my grandpa's boat building room. How amazing is it that he put this thing together from scratch (with some help from my dad and my uncle Brian)? All those little pieces, even I would probably have a tough time!

I always love visiting with my parents, because I get to see my favorite kitty, Ollie. 

On my drive home, I stopped in Scranton, PA to visit with my great aunts. I haven't seen them in over a year and I wanted to stop by and spend some time with them. When I left their house, I saw a beautiful rainbow. What a great ending to a great trip!

Boston: Second Anniversary Trip!

Our anniversary is coming up in a few weeks, but we decided to celebrate early because things are going to be hectic these next few weeks with Adam’s imminent departure. To be honest, we weren’t sure what we were going to do for our anniversary trip this year. We had planned to go to Boston, like we had done last year, but we were considering an apartment hunting trip to Pittsburgh instead. This is going to be a long post, so bear with me...

We had stayed at a Kimpton Hotel, Hotel Triton, when we were in San Francisco back in June (I promise that trip update is coming next!) and we had signed up for their loyalty program to take advantage of the free wi-fi they give. A few weeks ago, I got an email with some summer special rates at their three hotels in Boston. I forwarded the email to Adam and as soon as we decided that flying out to Pittsburgh, getting a hotel room, renting a car, and apartment hunting was not really how we wanted to spend our anniversary trip, we booked a room at the Nine Zero hotel in Boston. I’m glad we decided to do this instead.

Just look at that bed. I was in love with it and the awesome faux fur blanket. So plush. 

The room was nice and spacious, which was a huge difference from our room in San Francisco, which was more boutique-y (ie. smaller and quirky) than the Nine Zero. I was really impressed with the huge bathroom too. I was not expecting such large rooms for a hotel in downtown Boston!

The Nine Zero is in an awesome location right in the heart of the historic Government district and right on the Freedom Trail. For those of you familiar with Boston, we were about a block away from the Park Street T line. On our first night we ended up walking around near the hotel and had dinner at Boloco, which is Adam’s favorite burrito joint (the one near the hotel had one of those new Coke Freestyle machines, which is AMAZING). 

After dinner, we walked around Boston Common and Boston Public Garden. The big blue building that blends in with the sky is the John Hancock tower. On a clear day it almost disappears into the background.

I've been to Boston a number of times, but I've never seen the Make Way for Ducklings statues. They're actually kind of creepy looking if you think about it. 

It was a gorgeous night. We spent some time walking around near the swan boats in Boston Public Garden and even got to see a swan swimming around in the water. 

On our way back we passed by the State House. I think this is one of my favorite pictures from our trip. This fountain was lovely.

The next day, we headed out to the Food Truck Festival by way of Harvard. The building below is the Harvard Lampoon, the comedy publication that has a number of famous comedian alumni. I overheard a tour guide (in a historical costume, by the way) say that this isn't the oldest comedy magazine in the college circuit, Yale's is 4 years older.

After the Festival, we stopped at the Granary Burying ground, which is part of the Freedom Trail. Some notable people who are buried in this place are Sam Adams (as in who the beer was named after), Paul Revere, Mother Goose, and John Hancock. The big obelisk in the background belongs to Ben Franklin's parents.

 We could see this from our hotel window. Those big trees you see are located on the grounds of the cemetery.

The clouds were starting to roll in by this time and we wanted to hit up Mike's Pastry before the rain came. We walked down by the water in the North End and through Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park. I loved the arbors on this path all filled in with beautiful green vines.

The line for Mike's was crazy long, but we only waited about 15 minutes to get our pastries. I had read before we went that the lines inside aren't single file, so you better be somewhat aggressive or you'll be waiting forever to move up to the front. As soon as we were allowed inside (there was a girl acting as a bouncer at the door telling people outside when they could go in and where to stand) we fanned out (to make sure we had no cutters in front of us) and just kept moving up when the line moved. You can see how packed the place was and how necessary it is to do this. We ended up picking a lobster tail (which weighed like three pounds), a ricotta cannoli and a strawberry cannoli. Woah. I generally don't like cannolis because they're way too sweet. These were perfect. I was amazed at how light and delicious the filling in these were. The lobster tail was hands down our favorite, it's filled with a light and fluffy cream (similar to a cream puff) and the flaky pastry was perfectly crispy. We pretty much devoured that thing as soon as we opened the box.

On our way back we walked through the Haymarket Square open air market. I loved the metal newspapers and vegetables that are displayed in the cement outside the market. I've heard of the market, but never walked through it before. I couldn't believe how busy it was and how large it is. 

That evening we had torrential downpours so we had to stick with a restaurant near the hotel. We looked online and found that UBurger was just a few blocks away and had pretty favorable reviews. It reminded me of Five Guys, but the burger was surprisingly non-greasy and the fries were thin cut, which are my favorite. I would definitely eat here again.

On our last day we drove out to Cambridge to go to our favorite breakfast place, The Friendly Toast. We've been here a few times over the last couple of years and we've always had a good meal here. It's a pretty interesting little place. It's got lots of weird vintage finds, like a giant barbie mannequin that greets you at the door. Barbie's weave is looking a little ragged. Poor Barbie.

Even the tables are vintage. We had a Pepsi-Cola table with Spanish writing on it. I think it said "Ask for Pepsi". We both had the basic breakfast, which was two eggs (any style, we got them scrambled) home fries, and homemade toast. I also asked for a side of bacon. Yum.

After breakfast, we decided to take the T out to Newbury Street. On our way to the T, we found a Steve Jobs dedication plaque. Of course I made Adam take a picture with it, I mean, the guy is moving to Pittsburgh (and leaving me in MA) to work for Apple. :)

The main reason I wanted to check out Newbury St, was because Georgetown Cupcake had just opened a shop there. We've never actually been to one of their stores, but we've had the good fortune of eating their cupcakes a few times now. I follow them on Twitter and saw that their secret (free) cupcake of the day was lavender earl grey - one flavor we've never tried before. I also bought a plain vanilla cupcake.

We didn't end up eating the cupcakes until we got home, because we were so stuffed from breakfast. The lavender earl grey was so good. Probably one of my favorites from their shop!

It was a great trip and I'm sad we won't be able to visit Boston on a whim like this anymore when we move out to Pittsburgh. It's a great little city filled with so much amazing history!

Signing out. Until next time (YAY California trip!).

Carmelized Tomato Bruschetta

I'm preparing images for a post of a photo shoot I had with a lovely family this weekend, but in the mean time I wanted to post our recipe for bruschetta. So here goes!

For a quick and easy weeknight dinner Adam and I (well, Adam mainly) like to make caramelized cherry tomato bruschetta. We both don't like raw tomatoes so Adam improvised and made our bruschetta somewhat non-traditionally by roasting the tomatoes.

One carton each of yellow and red cherry tomatoes

5-6 cloves of garlic

8-9 basil leaves

Extra virgin olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Salt and Pepper to taste

To a medium bowl, add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and minced garlic (we use a garlic press). Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and add them to the bowl. Add a dash of salt and pepper and mix the contents of the bowl. Spread the tomato mixture into a roasting pan (we actually use a round cake pan to cook the tomatoes). Cook at 375º F for 35-40 minutes. Once the tomatoes look sufficiently caramelized, take them out of the oven a place them into a clean bowl and add about a tablespoon or two of balsamic vinegar and the chiffonade cut basil and mix well.

We serve this a few different ways. Tonight we cooked some chicken and added the bruschetta to the top similar to this recipe from the Pioneer Woman (this was sooo good!). Mostly, we toast some french bread in the toaster oven with a little butter and fresh mozzarella cheese and top it off with the bruschetta. It's an easy and delicious meal, especially during the summer when you can acquire garden grown tomatoes. Yum.

A Seuss-filled Day!

On Saturday, I met up with my friends Larry and Katie to go on a photowalk around Springfield, MA. I've never actually been to Springfield, other than to catch the bus or train, so I wasn't sure what to expect. We parked downtown near the government buildings.

We were so fortunate that it was a beautiful day and that loads of trees were in bloom or just starting to bud.

I was really loving the interesting architecture and the cool little details that we were finding.

We headed down towards the Mass Mutual Center and beyond. Fortunately, we had Larry as our guide. 

We walked past the old post office, now government building, and I couldn't help but take tons of pictures of the amazing windows and tree in front of it. So beautiful!

We walked up towards Mattoon St., which looked like it was transplanted straight from Boston. I was pleasantly surprised to find this gem in the city. The street was lined with beautiful, old brick homes built in the 1800's. Larry mentioned that in the summer this street has a craft fair, where they close the street to traffic and host the show.

We walked up and around and came back down towards the quadrangle, where the Springfield Museums are located. There's a small parking lot in front of a main ticketing center where you can purchase your admission to the 3 museums (the Science Museum, and two Art Museums).

Situated in the center of the museums was the Dr. Seuss garden. The first statue that you see when you enter is the Lorax. I had a nice little photoshoot with him and my friend Larry took my photo (thanks Larry!). 

Beyond the Lorax, was the main statue area. There was a large open bronze book, which was enscribed with Dr. Seuss's "Oh, the Places You'll Go!". Peeking out from the side was the Grinch and Max.

Next to it was a statue of Dr. Seuss sitting at his drawing table being watched over by The Cat in the Hat.

The main statue showcased everything from "Horton Hears a Who" to "Green Eggs and Ham" to "The Cat in the Hat". (and yes, the eggs were green!)

I had fun taking pictures of my friends taking pictures of me before we headed home.

On our way home, we decided to meet up with our families and go out to dinner at Michael's Pasta in the Pan. Larry suggested it as one of many places we could go and I can't say no to carbs. The cool thing about this place is that the pasta literally comes out to you in the pan it was cooked in. I had the Michael's Chicken Special and Adam had the Baked Scrod dish. Both were excellent and we'll definitely be returning!

It was an excellent day followed by an excellent meal with friends. I can't wait to do it all again! :)