Thanksgiving Photos

We cooked all day, and stuffed ourselves in 15 minutes of gluttony. We really enjoyed the turkey, gravy, stuffing, mash, peas, biscuits and Pinot Noir (gabe only) and of course pumpkin pie. However, we both agreed it just wasn't the same without all the people to socialise with. We were reminiscing of times with family and friends and wishing we could be part of a big Thanksgiving gathering. All the food and dessert helped those longings fade as a wave of laziness swept over the both of us.

Pictures from today:













I hope everyone had a brilliant Thanksgiving!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving to All! We've just finished watching the parade on the telly, the pumpkin bread has been made (and is missing a slice) and the turkey is in the oven. Mmmmmmm!

It is unusually warm today, 61 degrees which is perfect for the parade. Tomorrow it's supposed to drop to 39!! Cold cold cold!

IT'S SNOWING!

We woke up on November 19th to some lovely white flakes falling out of the sky. It wasn't snowing very hard but it's technically the first snow day of the season. When I walked outside to go to work, the snow was very wet and melted when it hit the ground but it was SNOW nonetheless :-) Last year snow didn't come until January so this is very exciting!

Autumn in New York - Part Two

I went out for a nice, chilly walk today in Central Park. I bundled up with my long coat, gloves and a scarf and crossed my fingers for oranges, yellows and reds! Needless to say (but I'll say it anyways!) I brought my camera. :-)

Autumn in Central Park

Michelle and I took a nice long stroll through the park today and down to 34th street to do some shopping. We had lunch at a pizza place we've been wanting to try for some time and really enjoyed it. The park is beginning to resemble fall but it's still on the verge of breaking out. I witnessed more fall colors in Chicago than I have here. However, I still took a couple of nice, fall photos. I am hoping more will come next week.

The day was absolutely perfect: a brisk 40 degrees and bright blue sunny skies. Couldn't have asked for a more gorgeous day!

CHOCOLATE SHOW!

Alright, so if anyone doesn't know how ridiculously addicted I am to chocolate, you know now. One could imagine how exciting it would be if a new chocolatier popped up in town or some tasty chocolate was ordered online. No, no, nothing like that, I'm playing with the big kids now and they put on entire shows devoted to chocolate! When I heard about this, it immediately when on my TODO list. Sadly, I missed it last year but it wasn't going to pass me by again! I grabbed a few friends and off we went to the chocolate show spectacular!

Man, what a day! There are samples of all kinds of chocolate all around! I was in chocolate heaven, simply blissful. I tried chocolate truffles, chocolate covered toffee, chocolate infused red wine, chocolate bars from all over the world, earl grey chocolate, dark chocolate peanut butter, more truffles, mint chocolate coffee dipping sticks and much much more.

We stuck around to see a demo of Jacques Torres creating some thanksgiving chocolate treats which consisted of a chocolate turkey, homemade marshmallows in the shape of turkey eggs and white chocolate straw. It was pretty cool!

Here are a few photos from the show but take a look at the rest on flickr:

Chicago Trip and NY Cold Weather

I'm back in NYC after being in Chicago for almost a week! I had a brilliant time with Michael last weekend and the conference and working from the Chicago GS office was a great experience as well.

I departed last Friday afternoon, Nov. 2nd and spent Friday and Saturday with Michael. We ate dinner and had a few pints at The Red Lion which is an English pub in Lincoln Park. I absolutely loved it! It was so homely and quaint and they had BOTH Boddington's and Speckled Hen. Oh yeah! And to make it that much more of a British evening, I ordered bangers and mash for dinner. Quite good, I'd say. I'm a fan!


On Saturday, we toured around Chicago and took in the city, the brisk air and oranges and reds all around (no, this doesn't include me!). Naturally, I took a gazillion photos and Michael was very patient about it. Thanks, old chap!

Well more to come later, I'm off to the Chocolate Show! Yep, you heard me, an entire show devoted to chocolate which pretty much equals my heaven! :-)

Ok, back to Chicago.

Restaurants I visited:
Giordano's pizza
Great deep dish pizza but I like Gino's East better.
Chicago Chop House
Absolutely magnificent steak dinner! I had a great time here with Michael and it is the best steak I've had so far. SO GOOD!
The Red Lion
Loved this British pub and wish we had something like this in NYC
Jimmy John's
Good sandwich shop for quite cheap (relative to new york prices)
Adobo Grill
Excellent Mexican food. They definitely have a different way of preparing it and I was skeptical at first but the food turned out really really well. They also made guacamole tableside which was TOWTALLY AWESOME!


I've only listed a FEW of the pictures from Chicago, take a look at the rest here. There are at least 30 more than this! Feel free to leave a comment on flickr if you like a particular photo. I always love feedback!












On to the next topic which is the chilly weather we've been having! For the past 4 or 5 days, it's been hovering in the 40's with overnight lows of mid-30's!! Man, compared to last year this is quite a surprising drop in temperature. Then again, last year what quite an anomaly with temperatures not getting really low until January. Maybe this a proper weather for this time of year? The 10-day forecast shows temperatures staying roughly the same with a few higher temps that what we've seen in the last couple of days. I'm stoked!! I love the cold! Bring on the snow, duuuuuuude!