By looking through 260+ pictures I took, it looks like this weekend was as crazy busy as ever. But I can assure you – we definitely spent a few hours just sitting on the porch, soaking in the sunshine and catching up on books that have been gathering some dust over the past few weeks. And of course, we also ate well. Very well. Thank you, Jane and Jim, for being such great hosts! (I also cooked one breakfast and one dinner – cooking is what I love!). So how about a recap? Ready?….

We like breaking up trips that are over 2 hours with fun stops. This weekend was my first time in Potsmouth, NH where I finally got to taste the famous Flatbread flatbreads.

This adorable drawing pretty much says it all My choice of the carne special – pepperoncini oil, organic garlic yogurt marinated chicken, baby spinach, whole milk mozzarella, kalamatta olives, feta cheese, artichokes hearts and herbs was a very good choice. I can’t see it on my camera so here is Adam’s pepperoni + mushroom flatbread (also awesome!).

The place itself is also adorable, very fitting for a super cute town. I want to go back to Portsmouth asap!

The real eating commenced upon our arrival in Maine though…

HEALTHY HOME COOKED MEALS (over 4 days, in no particular order)

Ellie Krieger’s tricolore penne pasta with chicken (recipe here)

Stuffed peppers with eggplant (and parmesan cheese) – recipe here. I had no idea these were somewhat healthy. I limited myself to just one. I may need to recreate them soon to make up for lost time. haha

Dark chocolate bark with walnut and dried cherries (and crystallized ginger) – recipe here. I ate my weight in these. Addictive is an understatement.

Broccoli-cheese (and sausage) breakfast casserole – recipe here

Chobani with fresh strawberries, blueberries and mango

Chobani with wild Maine blueberries, fresh mango, Kashi GoLean crunch cereal + mixed nuts

+ some blackberries Adam freshly picked on the side of the road while I was eating breakfast

Breakfast casserole with mushrooms and asparagus (recipe here, I added more cheese, more veggies than the recipe called for + some fresh lemon juice)

Blueberry tea cake (Adam’s mom has been making it for years… from this recipe?)

Apricot-walnut cereal bars (recipe here, the recipe yields a lot more than 10 servings and they are very delicious!!)

Zucchini rice casserole (recipe here, we subbed broccolini for zucchini and corn – this tasted like sinfully creamy risotto – SO good yet healthy, although apparently time consuming. Thanks for making this, Jane!!)

On Monday night I offered to cook dinner (although it ended up being a whole family effort after all). What’s more Maine than lobster? Adam and I decided that we must eat it every time we come. At $4/lb, fresh out of the water, it doesn’t get much better than this!!

Adam’s dad steamed the lobsters…

I made the lima bean/corn/grape tomato and bacon succotash (based on this recipe, I used 6 corn ears, lemon juice and of course lobster!!)

Mmm, so summery… and so Maine

We bought 5 lobsters – Adam took the meat out of the last one and shared it with all of us. Good job, honey! Adam’s mom made this lovely pear tart from Ellie Krieger (recipe here)

Oh yeah, we ate quite well at home!

THE NOT-SO-HEALTHY MEALS OUT

A super special dinner at Primo. We’ve been dying to go ever since seeing Anthony Bordain go there. Vegetables served in the restaurant are home grown in their extensive gardens and meats, seafood and cheese are mostly local (we spotted some Italian cheeses – who can blame them?!).

The atmosphere was very cozy (read dark soft lighting) so my pictures would not do the food and presentation justice. Here is my favorite serving platter at the charcuterie bar.

The charcuterie board with homemade sausages was my favorite! Adam and I shared it as a starter and it set the right tone for what was to come – more delicious eats! This molten chocolate cake did not dissapoint either. Yes, I know – predictable… but I couldn’t help myself!

Pretty much the exact opposite of Primo was a plate of fried clams we got at Kelly’s on the drive back. I don’t know what was up with me – I actually got this craving. Adam and I shared this plate. You know who ate the onion rings.

OPEN FARM DAY

Food, as always, was kind of the main activity (well eating it at least) but the coolest part of the weekend was visiting 5 different farms all over Maine. There were dozens open for visitors this past Sunday. How lucky was I?!! These pictures should say it all…

This afternoon, before going back to Boston, we picked some wild blackberries for the road.

Slim pickings today. Does that mean we should come back in a few weeks?

The loot:

Another amazing weekend. I feel so fortunate!!

I had lots of time to destress and reevaluate my priorities. Some small changes will be coming to Healthy and Sane. Stay tuned.

- No doubt dinner at Bombay Club. We had a Groupon for $40 and that almost covered dinner with a half carafe of Pinot Noir! What a deal! Best of all – Bombay Club just made it to the top of our list of Indian restaurants in the area. There were so many creative dishes I’ve never seen before (and a giant selection of vegetarian dishes) that I had a hard time choosing. My final dish – Navrattan Korma (nine select vegetables cooked in a mild cream sauce with almonds and cashews) was really fantastic. The owner even stopped by to chat with us and the whole experience from service to food, price, music was just fantastic. I love Indian food!!

- Getting free basil at the farmers market. I love talking to the farmers!! After buying a bunch of stuff I noticed the basil on the side (which was also on my list). The guy “made” me take 3 bunches and didn’t charge me for it. He wasn’t twisting my arm too hard.

- Getting another sweat sesh in. I am feeling a million times better about my endurance compared to even a week ago. Yesterday was a spin class. My 3-2-1-1 plan is going great!

- Our carpet is 100% dry!! We’re going to have it professionally cleaned next Tuesday. Hopefully that will be the end of this nightmare.

Yesterday in pictures…

Indian pickled veggies – really weird. I think you have to be Indian to like them

Have a great weekend!! I’m off to work (and I already fit a bootcamp class this morning. Weeeee).

- It was my aunt’s birthday yesterday (thus leaving work early) – happy birthday, Dodina!!

- Roasted rhubarb is genius. I added it to my salmon/hummus/avocado wrap and it contributed a fun sour/tangy flavor to it. Yum

- Dinner at my first Persian restaurant, Lala Rokh, (remember it from here?) was not as great as I hoped it would be. Too much lamb, not enough vegetarian/seafood options as legit meals (lots of vegetarian apps though!).

- It is possible that I can get used to the taste of caramelized onions!!!! They were added to the bulgur with my dish and I didn’t even taste them. The bulgur was delicious! I need to research this one a little more. This could be a pretty awesome discovery (I hate my serious aversion to onions. Maybe there is hope for me after all )

- The look on my aunt’s face when the waiter brought out a giant chocolate cake that had her name on it (I pre-arranged that, brought one from Whole Foods) was priceless. I love surprising people with things I know they’ll like! Dodina is her nickname btw (doda = aunt in Hebrew, many years ago we just made Dodina into a word and called her that ever since).

- A spontaneous stop at Charlesmark Hotel for another drink with the hubs (because we were having too much fun on our walk home and didn’t want it to end) was one of the reasons I love living in the middle of a City. There is always something to do, you just have to get away from that office desk!

- Not randomly going for more food because I wasn’t stuffed (something I’m supposed to feel after a restaurant meal?) was my most proud personal accomplishment of the day.

- Bootcamp at lunch rocked (I’m getting better already!!). I told you I’ll make it there!

Thursday in pictures:

We shared the appetizers. The mushrooms and eggplants were phenomenal!

Have a great weekend! I’ll be working but I’ll definitely try to spend a little time in the kitchen so please stay tuned

- A good dress is powerful. I was tired, stressed yet I felt fantastic. That’s because I knew I looked good. No, I did not instantly drop those damn 15lbs but the wrap dress I had on today hugged me in all the right places and was very forgiving in others. I felt FIERCE. So fierce that when I encountered a very abrasive co-worker, I gave him the verbal equivalent of a middle finger and moved on. Three years ago (or even last week on a bad day) I would have probably cried in the bathroom (or at least wanted to). Today the dress gave me the power that I needed. Go dress! But since this is a food blog, let’s see what else I got going…

- b.good mango smoothie, blended with Amazing Grass chocolate powder, extra ice, milk and some gums makes for a kickass breakfast. I was impressed.

- Sometimes a brownie makes it all better. Today’s fudgy brownie from Whole Foods was not on my “planned” list but it was my one and only dessert. I don’t regret a single bite.

- Sushi bento boxes from Haru make one amazing dinner. I almost didn’t mind that I was eating it at my desk at 10pm instead of being at home with the hubs (not true actually but it was good). I hope I can expense that baby.

- No gym today. Nearly 14 hours of work and yet I feel like I got nothing done. I think my new goal is to hit it every other day. Those reports don’t write themselves and financial statements cannot be analyzed while kicking butt in bootcamp. I AM making it happen tomorrow though. Promise.

Today’s eats….. (oh and last thought of the day - I hate my tripod!!… you’ll see why)

Ok, I have a 7am conference call tomorrow so I’m off to get my beauty sleep. It never stops, folks. Seriously. See you with a Thursday recap tomorrow night. I’m kind of liking this format for super busy nights. You?

As you may have guessed, we spent most of the afternoon/evening trying to clean up the mess. We extracted over 10 gallons of water just out of our carpet in the hallway. Thankfully Adam built up this little barricade between the living room and hallway so at least it prevented the water from going too far into the rest of the place (our bedrooms are dry). Our living room floors are 100% okay (we are still trying to figure out whether there is a risk of mold growing under there, but the carpet is soaking wet days later. The shop vac is unable to extract that much water at this point so we’re not sure what to do.

Anyways, we’ll get through it, I’m sure. Maybe we’ll at least become friends with our new neighbors out of this. They were extremely helpful – unclogged the sewer drain, brought lots of towels and around 7pm on Saturday even brought us dinner, fresh out of their oven. How incredibly nice is that?!!!

We weren’t going to stop until the mess was cleaned up, but when she came over with a hot pan of lasagna and meatballs, we realized we were actually starving. Talk about a random act of kindness. Adam and I couldn’t get over this. Definitely one of the nicest things a stranger has ever done for either one of us.

By the way, my laptop charger got submerged in water and is not currently working so I’m using Adam’s laptop which is painful (switching from a mac to a pc is not as easy as one might think), so I’ll try to keep it brief. Basically, this whole flood in our condo is a metaphor for my life. It been ridiculous at work, I feel like I can’t catch up with anything at home and the last drop in the bucket which I can’t ignore is that I gained so much weight recently that it’s affecting everything from how my clothes fit to my fitness level at the gym and how I generally feel about myself. I stepped on the scale last week and let’s just say that I haven’t seen that number in 4 years (!!!). I’ve been ignoring this issue since then but it’s time to clean up the flood mess!! I am not going to feel bad about myself, I’m going to do something about it. The plan of attack:

- Plan meals for the week and stick to the plan!! It’s ok to make minor adjustments based on taste preferences at the moment but I will stick to 3 meals + 2 snacks + 1 dessert (in moderation) equation until some progress is made in the weight dept.

- No mindless snacking/eating. My hours at home are going to get all out of whack over the next few weeks as I spend majority of my time in the office. That usually means stress eating. As mentioned above, I will make sure to stick to the pre-planned meals and snacks only. When life gets crazy like this, structure should be a good thing. I can do this!!!

- Continue making exercise a priority. I’ve been pretty good about this recently. I hope I can continue to keep it up despite the longer hours at work. I usually need a mental break mid-day anyways. A good sweat session should kill 2 birds with 1 stone (or something along those lines that’s less gross ).

How does this sound? I think it sounds good. I did A LOT of prep work last night for the next few days. Hopefully this builds up the momentum I’ll need.

So since I haven’t blogged in a few days, here are the highlights of this weekend’s eats.

Iggy’s ww bagel with olive jalapeno cream cheese and tomatoes

These tasted like sugar cookies with a pomegranate twist. Amazing!!

Beet/pesto/goat cheese and pecan panini + leftover b.good southwestern chicken salad

Spinach/artichoke hearts and mushroom calzone from Mangia (a treat on Friday night)

It was really delicious. We’ll definitely order from that place again!

I had the leftovers for lunch on Saturday. Yum!

+ Carly’s Confection 7 layer bar with a twist. So much white chocolate goodness. Another amazing treat for sure.

Sunday brunch at Sel de la Terre

Virgin bloody mary (I had to go to work!)

I had 2 of these. They weren’t very spicy but were definitely delicious.

Bread basket - I helped myself to a mini cinnamon roll and a cracker

For my entree I ordered the brioche French toast, strawberries, honey roasted almonds and vanilla butter.

It was really fantastic!! I removed that big butter blob and didn’t use any maple syrup because it was already rich and flavorful on its own. The strawberries were amazingly fresh and sweet as well. The sides of the french toast were perfectly grilled and the middle was kind of goey (souffle like) which normally would gross me out but it was so tasty that I didn’t care about texture. I would order this again in a heart beat (I ate half for brunch and then ate the other half later in the day as a “snack”).

Garlic/thyme smothered pork chop over qunoia and roasted rhubarb (adopted from this recipe).

It was great having a home-cooked meal again! Adam and I ate every morsel of our plates and I can’t wait for leftovers which I plan on making into a sandwich tomorrow.

All right, time for work! I apologize in advance for my random blogging schedule. I’m thinking of doing a picture collage at the end of each day and noting how my plan of attack is working so far. What do you think? Are you up for it?

I’ll be back with a bang in a few weeks. I have some giveaways in the works and a few posts that just need a little more research time. Happy Monday!

b.good hooked us up, I tell ya! We had every kind of mini-burger: veggie, turkey, beef and chicken.

Burgers as far as the eye could see…

Everyone waiting patiently for me to take photos

Table #2:

Southwestern chicken salad – my favorite!

Sweet potato fries – these guys went fast!

Fruit shakes: mango and banana/strawberry

Ok…. go!

Brian (Bridget‘s husband) and Alicia

Melissa and Josh

Brian, Lauren, Bridget’s butt (hehe), Shannon and Alicia

My plate:

I finally tried the veggie burger!!! It has onions in it but I couldn’t taste them. I’m super happy about that one because sometimes I really do prefer a black bean burger vs. a meat one. El guapo is my favorite burger combo at b.good.

After eating and chatting, we eventually settled down on the couches. That’s pretty much the only thing I like to do on a full belly.

[Kyle and Tiffany are on the left (I think they're the only ones that I haven't covered yet ) although perhaps Bridget should get a real introduction as well (she's second from the right) ]

Everyone was relaxing… except Adam. He was doing some intense entertainment apparently.

This dinner was a great way to spend some time with my blogger friends. The food was healthy and delicious, we have minimal clean-up (just some wine glasses, oh yeah – I had Yellow + Blue savingon blanc which I liked and some Y+B rosse which I didn’t) and we have plenty of leftovers for the next few days. Now that’s a party that accomplished quite a few things!

Thank you, b.good, again for offering to cater this dinner and thank you Lauren, John, Melissa, Josh, Bridget, Brian, Shannon, Alicia, Tiffany and Kyle for coming!! If you don’t know these awesome bloggers already, check out their blogs (linked above) – they each offer a unique food blogging perspective and even some fashion talk.

And just to make sure we cover all the bases, here are my eats from earlier in the day…

BREAKFAST

Banana oats with Barney Butter and cherry preserves.

Yes I’m crazy. I ate hot oats on a hot summer day. No, you won’t see it again for a while.

WORKOUT

50 min spin + 10 min stretch. I was drenched! I think that means I was using my time wisely.

LUNCH

Mixed greens, tomatoes, roasted beets, CEiMB pesto potato salad, pinto beans and goat cheese + 1T goddess dressing. I could really drink that stuff. Ok, that’s gross…. but I kind of could.

SNACKS

Shelling peas (I ate 1/2 of the bag)

+ banana with Barney Butter (unpictured)

Good day. Time for bed.

Have you ever had a party catered? I could really get used to this kind of luxury.

This was risky for sure, but it seemed to make sense. Neither one of us met anyone to-date that tried tart frozen yogurt from the likes of Pinkberry, Berryline and Red Mango and didn’t completely fall in love. In fact as the days were starting to warm up, our own experience showed that trips to froyo shops were becoming more and more frequent… and Northampton (in fact Western Mass in our knowledge) did not have one single froyo shop! Molly and Alex wanted to do it the right way too – use local ingredients as much as possible. Northampton has a really strong local culture so we both agreed this would not have been lost on their customers. After long hours at the tasting facility and a trip to Northampton where they found the perfect spot for their shop, they were off. Just like that.

Fast-forward to yesterday, when on our trip back from our little getaway at the Old Inn on the Green in New Marlborough in Massachusetts (which was overall a very disappointing experience – I’d rather just move on instead of talking about it here. The food was the only thing that was good. Let’s leave it at that.) we stopped by Amherst and Northampton. We drove around our old UMass campus. It was actually quite timely because Adam and I met there. We drove by our first dorm, then our sophomore year one and reminisced about the old times. It was somewhat incidental, though, that the trip there fell on our wedding anniversary (July 5th) because you probably guessed by now what the main destination was – Molly and Alex’s 7-week old froyo shop in Northampton – Go Berry. Seeing it was surreal and I nearly hopped inside after seeing the gorgeous, clean store front.

Let’s take a peak inside…

It was a lot larger and more spacious than I imagined. I loved the giant windows and all the natural light they allowed. (M&A agree that the space is larger than they currently need but this was an old Cold Stone location that they couldn’t pass up, and hopefully if they expand into a few other offerings, like waffles, the space will be utilized).

We hugged, got a quick tour of the back area, where one of the workers was chopping fresh strawberries for toppings, and then got to tasting. Original, strawberry and coconut were flavors of the day. Each was amazing – creamy and delicious just like froyo we all learned to love. Molly mentioned that many shops add water to their recipe to bulk it up – at Go Berry they only use skim milk, fat free yogurt, sugar and natural emulsifiers. No water = creamier texture. Adam and I agreed – this was perfect (I’d compare it to Berryline – our favorite froyo in Boston)! Now that we confirmed that the yogurt was good, we moved on to the toppings – there were so many of them, and some I’ve never seen before. I love froyo!!

Adam always gets the same thing: small original with strawberries and oreos. He was a happy customer.

I almost always get a small original (or half with nutella or coconut – if available) with mango and pecans. This time there were so many toppings I couldn’t wait to try that I went all out. Here is my beast (the girl needed to use a medium cup to fit all my toppings in )

Half original/half coconut frozen yogurt with fresh mango, walnuts, toffee and toasted coconut (the 2 last ones were toppings I haven’t seen before and I loved them both – they really made this taste like an even more special treat)

See, there is some fruit over there

I ate every single delicious bite and could keep eating if we didn’t have dinner plans later on. You know that natural fat-free froyo can be a meal, right?

Photo time with the owners. Say cheese

Nope. One more time…

Ok, got it!

It was amazing to catch up with Molly and Alex and see their dream come to fruition. The shop is gorgeous, the yogurt is amazingly tasty and they seem to continue having a blast together despite the hard work that owning a small business obviously is (oh and their wedding is just 2 months away!).

If you are in Western Mass area, definitely swing by Northampton and give Go Berry a try. I am obviously biased but I give you my word – it’s good!!

What’s your favorite froyo flavor? What’s your favorite topping?

PS – Molly reads my blog, so if you have any questions for her, I bet she’ll be able to answer them soon.

So here we go, nice and simple today. Work is crazy but I still found time to take a minute and mindfully enjoy some very delicious foods.

BREAKFAST

Breakfast started with a little help from this weekend’s trip to the City Market in Burlington, VT. This is a community-owned grocery store, which means that many products from small local producers were available (for a few pictures of what it’s like inside the market, check out my previous post – you can click on the pictures to enlarge). I came in to find Liz Lovely cookies, which I discovered just days prior to our trip to Vermont through the Foodzie blog (which is very dangerous by the way, I’m a sucker for all the cute stories of small producers) and ended up clearing out their dessert bar. Ok, this may be a slight exaggeration but you better believe that the only thing that stopped me from doing exactly that is the expiration dates on the products. They were freshly baked and clearly should be consumed asap. One of the products that I just could not resist was this package of Butterfly Bakery raspberry apricot breakfast scones.

I absolutely adore apricots and these plump cookie-like scones (looks-wise) were a love at first sight. The first bite sealed the deal for me. Soft and buttery, with real raspberry and apricot chunks – this is the best scone I’ve ever tasted and I don’t think any future scone can stand a chance. These are perfect! I think I may freeze one and see how it preserves, because I’d love to stock up on a future trip to Burlington. And there will be a future trip. I’m obsessed.

I enjoyed the scone with coffee and an oikos (this batch is the best for some reason – so fluffy!). I didn’t end up eating the strawberries until dinner time. This was one good breakfast!

LUNCH

Lunch was pretty special too. I had a lunch date with Lauren and Shannon. It’s been forever since I’ve seen Lauren and I’m so glad that Shannon keeps popping in during lunch to my neck of the woods because that means we can see each other more often. Caffe Jaffa was our meeting place.

Look who I spotted already at the table… hi, Lauren! (hehe, I was trying to be sneaky but she noticed me)

Caffe Jaffa features American and Middle Eastern fare. I wanted nothing more than hummus. So that’s pretty much what I ordered – a hummus plate that came with a Greek side salad.

The lettuce was fresh, the feta and dressing (which I had on the side and just dipped my fork into) were both delicious. A great simple starter!

Mmm, hummus! Standard stuff (maybe even a tad too grainy for my liking). I ate about half with a warm pita.

The girls both ordered the hummus/baba ganoush/falafel platters (which is SO the way to go!) and I snuck a taste of Lauren’s baba ganoush and had one of Shannon’s falafel balls. Both were outstanding! The baba ganoush was very creamy, the falafel was flavorful and not at all greasy (although of course, it is still deep fried so one should enjoy such things in moderation).

This lunch was so fun! We chatted for a while, only stopping to take bites of our food. It was hard to go back to work, I’m not going to lie.

SNACKS

Before heading back to the office, Shannon and I did stop by the Copley farmers market. I bought more shelling peas. I think I have a problem (good thing they’re just nutritious peas).

Snack of champions!

DINNER

Since we’ve been out all weekend, there was not much in the fridge for groceries (I bought beets and greens at the farmers market – these would take too long to cook for a weeknight). I’m still impressed with how I pulled dinner off. And it was a good one, let me tell you!

About 3 weeks ago, Jen posted this recipe for salmon with strawberry and tomato salsa that I’ve been dreaming of ever since. The only problem is – wild salmon is expensive. I was waiting for it to go on sale but the day never came. Strawberries are only going to be in season for a few weeks and I happened to have some amazingly sweet ones from Quebec on hand. We also had half a container of grape tomatoes in the veggie drawer in the fridge and wild salmon burgers in the freezer. Hey, how about a salmon burger with strawberry and tomato salsa? Oh yeah!

The strawberry tomato salsa is the prefect balance of sweet and savory with balsamic vinegar’s acidity balanced out by the smooth and creamy laughing cow cheese I topped the ww burger buns with and of course by the incredibly juicy wild salmon burger (the burgers were from Whole Foods by the way – I highly recommend them!). Adam and I couldn’t get enough of this – so unique and fresh. Summer fare with a twist. This recipe is definitely going on the favorites list!! Thank you, Jen, for the inspiration!

Dessert was another City Market purchase.

Think 7-layer bar but better. I ate 1/2 of the package and it took a lot of will power not to go back to the kitchen and finish the rest. The white and semi-sweet chocolate chunks worked beautifully with walnuts, almost short bread-like crust, and of course the toasted coconut. I’m stopping now because the kitchen is not that far away.

The little pleasures in life. I don’t hate this.

Have a great day! And say hello if you have a second to spare. I was feeling a bit abandoned earlier but something tells me these yummies will bring you back.

I’ve been to Montreal many many times. My first trip was my senior year of high school. Most of our class went as we were right about 18 and that’s the drinking age in Montreal. I was maybe 2 weeks shy of my 18th birthday but that didn’t prevent us from getting in to most bars and having a blast. The other trips were all during college. I would like to think that they got slightly more sophisticated with time but the truth is that I don’t remember much of them. Just bits and pieces as I’m strolling through the City now. Yes, those trips were also mostly alcohol induced. Oh college…

So this time around, we’re traveling “foodie-style.” I think I haven’t mentioned this – the trip is actually my birthday gift from Adam. He is providing “transportation and lodging” i.e. paying for gas and the sweet hotel he reserved for us. I took pics. Let me know if you’re interested. It’s super modern and we love it! Anyways, this long introduction is basically me saying that although I’ve been here before, I feel like I’m in a brand new city and I love it.

Last night after a really fun drive over (more on that in a separate post) we quickly changed in the hotel and started making our way towards Prince Arthur street. A few blocks of it are blocked off from cars and there are lots of BYOB restaurants. Isn’t it adorable?

[Side note: the city has these bike hubs all over so you can just grab one and drop it off at a different "station." Very cool. Too bad I can't ride a bike so I'm relying on my leggies. ]

Back to the Prince Arthur street…

We ended up choosing this spot. Greek sounded amazing to me for some reason that moment.

First we stopped by a mini-mart and got a random bottle of wine. It grew on us (don’t buy it though!)

So many things to choose from…

Oh well hello.

We started our meal with tzatziki – traditional spread made with fresh yogurt, finely chopped garlic and cucumber, lightly seasoned with fine herbs.

The pita was warm and this was pretty yummy. Nice and creamy.

For my entree I ordered the butterfly shrimp and scallops, which came with a caesar salad to start. I ate most of it. I never ever eat caesar salads because I think salads should have more veggies than just lettuce and dressing but I do like them. This was nothing to write home about but was still a fun treat of sorts.

My entree (served with potatoes, rice, steamed veggies and garlic butter (I didn’t touch the butter). Ick, sorry for this photo. This was a hard plate to photograph and I was hungry.

The shrimp was great with lots of lemon, the scallops were just edible and the rest of the meal was pretty forgettable (I didn’t eat much of it – the steamed veggies were downright nasty). That means I left plenty of room for DESSERT.

Here is the spot we chose (um, amazing!).

The place was so modern, spacious and just gorgeous.

Before finally deciding to sit down, I heard: “Excuse me, are you from Boston?” Why yes I am. This was Meg (my new reader) who just happened to be in Montreal this weekend too. We said hello to each other, chatted for a few minutes, but she and her boyfriend were not really interested in dessert (they just went inside because they saw me) so we said our good-byes and moved on. My first real “celebrity sighting” and it was in a different country!! So funny. Meg, thanks for not being shy and actually coming up to me! So fun. I took a quick picture of her so she can get a few minutes of fame too… you know, because it’s on the Internet. lol

Adam and I then sat down and had the super hard task of deciding what to order. Seriously, everything looked fantastic. At the end, the (second) special just sounded too good to pass up… how’s your French?

This was their intense brownie with a scoop of ice cream and nutella chocolate sauce. Holy deliciousness! I think this deserves a few pictures.

Can we say food porn?

After dinner and dessert, Adam and I stopped by the jazz fest area to check it out. The city is just electric! So much energy!!!!

This guy was super good (it was hip hop)!

When we were close to our hotel, we decided to have just one more drink before bed. My dad recommended Les 3 Brasseurs and these are all over Montreal. I ordered the Peach Blanche beer cocktails (their Blanche beer with Peach scnapps). Yum (I drank about 1/2 of this half pint). Adam especially loved his beers (he had a pint of the Amber and then a pint of the Blonde beer) – both are brewed on location and were very smooth (Belgian style).

Eventually we realized it was after 1:30 am (!!!!) so we headed back to the hotel and almost instantly fell asleep. I’ll talk about Saturday in my next post. I’m having high hopes for tonight’s dinner. It just looks incredible from the website.

Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend. See you tomorrow.

Now, let’s talk about something a little more exciting – I’m going to Montreal TOMORROW. Yesterday the entire day I kept thinking it was Thursday, and getting more and more excited about our trip. Nope, I have to wait just one more day. Silly, Elina. This also gives me one more day to plan everything. Hopefully the internet is back up tonight and I can research my little heart out (I did make reservations for an awesome dinner… you’ll have to wait until Sunday to read about it ). Also, I guess Jazz fest is this weekend as well (completely coincidental). Hopefully it’s not too crowded.

I don’t have anything too insightful to talk about today so let’s dive in to yesterday’s eats. Some were good, some where… well, we’ll get there in time.

BREAKFAST

Good! Siggi’s vanilla yogurt with strawberries, kiwi, TJ’s American trek mix and Kashi GoLean cereal

This was my first time trying Siggi’s vanilla flavor and I absolutely loved it. Definitely my favorite. It tasted like real vanilla beans were added, not just vanilla extract. Now I see why the stuff ain’t cheap. Have you ever purchased a whole vanilla bean? Last time I had to buy one, it was $6.99 for ONE. Yeah, that’s how you get $2.79/yogurt.

Did I mention this bowl was awesome? Oh right. I did.

MID-MORNING SNACK

WORKOUT

Did anyone notice I haven’t been running lately? I haven’t really (just maybe as a quick warmup before a class if I’m early). I just don’t really enjoy it anymore so I stopped. At least for now. I still feel like I should be running. That was my primary cardio source (with spin usually once a week) and I‘m still trying to figure out how to stay fit without it. Any tips? I can’t really see myself spinning every other day either. I guess I just don’t love cardio in general. Give me weights and I’m a happy girl though. Is that weird? I feel like most girls (at least in the blog world) are really not into strength training. I loooooove it.

Anyways, yesterday was spin day. I love the instructor on Wednesday so I reminded myself this when I was having second thoughts about going and already started working up a “plan B.” “Just do it” mentality came to the rescue this time and the class was great. I’ve been feeling out of shape this week for some reason but I guess that’s why I’m there, right? Practice makes perfect.

LUNCH

Mixed greens, heirloom tomatoes, avocado, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, sauerkraut, pine nuts, hummus and feta. Say that 10 times fast.

This was a great loaded salad. So many textures + flavors. I was even too lazy to go to the kitchen at work to grab a dressing and ended up eating it without it. The hummus + feta + sauerkraut actually coated all the greens and the dressing was completely unnecessary. Awesome!

Oh yeah, I did pack a cookie-to-go. And yes, I ate it.

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

Leftover shelling snow peas. I still can’t believe I ate nearly 3/4lb the day before.

DINNER

Dinner was quite the adventure. We had another Groupon to G’Vanni’s expiring on Friday, and since we were going to be out of town, we decided to have a mid-week date at the North End (Boston’s Italian neighborhood). Sounds good, right? I made reservations for 6:30, thinking we’d have plenty of time to have dinner and do our usual mid-week post-dinner errands, including planning the rest of our trip. Well, North End is notorious for this – regardless of whether you have a reservation or not – you’re going to wait for your table. We arrived at the restaurant early, the hostess checked our name off and suggested that we go to a bar around the corner to have a drink while we wait for our table (which supposedly was going to be ready in 20 minutes). Ok, drinks it is.

I had a glass of Riesling, which was sweet and fruity (no picture – the bar was tiny and I would surely bump into someone with my camera). Twenty minutes later we decided to go back and check on our table. The hostess was a complete scatter brain… she definitely did not have a grip on who’s there and who’s going to be seated next (and as we found out later, whether tables were even ready – there were empty tables for way too long while we were eating, and people were still waiting outside!). After nearly 45 minutes (in total) we were finally seated.

G’Vanni’s has been around for 30 years, and the decor was definitely not updated since opening. Everything about the place felt and looked like a tourist trap. There were cheesy puns (“a veally good deal,” “taco bella antipasti” really?), Adam’s menu actually had a cover of a completely different restaurant in Rhode Island (I’m guessing they own it too?) and then the specials menu had a whole line of completely unrecognizable symbols (like their printer freaked out on them and they just left in there). Yeah, classy. So we decided to just laugh everything off. It was going to be quite the experience. We were ready!

Did I mention the super red lighting? Here is what our bread basket looked like. I kid you not.

I played with my camera, adjusted the white balance and did a little bit better this time (although more natural looking, that’s not what it really looked like to us).

The bread was soft and quite nice actually. I had a little piece. Adam finished the rest.

We also ordered a carafe of house Chianti. It was the same price as 3 glasses so we figured it was the way to go. Apparently a carafe is nearly 1.5 bottles!!! They kept re-filling our glasses nearly to the rim (and these are large glasses). Again, classy. The wine was quintessential house wine – totally drinkable but nothing to write home about.

For my entree I wanted a seafood pasta. I asked the waitress for a recommendation and she highly recommended the shrimp guiseppe – angel hair pasta with jumbo shrimp, organic tomato, prosciutto, white wine butter sauce. To be honest, it didn’t even sound great to me but she hesitated when I asked for another suggestion and after re-assuring me that it was not greasy, I ordered it after all.

Sorry for this atrocious photo. It was dark and the lighting was just washing everything out (read: made everything look one hue of red which I adjusted but it was still pretty much one hue of gray now…). So how did it taste? Blah (not bad but not good for sure). It tasted like buttery noodles with a few add-ins. Trust me, I wasn’t expecting something fancy or overly complex but I thought the food would be tasty. G’Vanni’s consistently has lines out the door, it has good reviews online, and the place has been around for 30 years surviving fierce competition in a neighborhood with 99% Italian restaurants. And it’s not cheap. In fact, it’s especially expensive for the quality of food you get. This dish was $26. Yeah, disappointing to say the least. I should say that Adam’s chicken dish (he actually doesn’t even know what he ordered – chicken with penne and spinach…) was pretty awesome. He gave me a few vegetarian bites and I really did love it (as he did, he polished the whole thing off). If we ordered the same thing (his), I’d write a different review I suppose. But this was the waitress’ recommendation!! Is this the best they can do with seafood?

We had enough of our entrees (I picked off the topping and left most of the pasta) and still had way too much wine to finish. I didn’t have high hopes for dessert (and the waitress admitted they were not home-made) but Adam encouraged me to get something since we were going to be there for a little while (and I did want dessert!). I very hesitantly ordered the tiramisu (because that’s what I was craving… although one waitress suggested the molten chocolate cake and another the mudslice pie. Again, can you say tourist trap?). Here is what we got:

Sorry, I forgot to adjust the lighting again (it looked fine on my camera, haha) but it was actually really good. I’m sure they get it frozen and then just dump a bunch of cinnamon on top and a dollop of whipped cream but hey, I couldn’t tell from the taste and that’s what counts.

This dinner was over $100 (we paid less with the Groupon) and I can definitely say it was NOT worth it. I am still shocked at how crazy busy it is (seriously, the lines are insane!!) – I even ran into 2 different people I know there (they were not together!) – that’s how popular it is. Clearly I’m missing something. Or maybe I’m a proper snob at this point. Haha.

How was your hump day? Did I mention we’re going on a mini-vacation TOMORROW? Oh yes, I did.