Coffee at the Borders at State and Lake: a chance to recharge my iPhone, my laptop, and myself.

Lunch at Potbelly's, a must-visit for me in Chicago, one of the few places I can get real hot peppers on a good sandwich. Though my appetite is still below par, I managed to eat a veggie sandwich (those are slices of mushroom, not salmon, a fact not immediately apparent) while reading a particularly engrossing section of House of Leaves.

This meal defeated me. It was also not very good.

On my last night in Manhattan, after an afternoon of work and a quick trip to Macy's to pick up the dress pants I hadn't meant to send home to Chicago with parents, I had dinner with Anne(@the57thStreetBridge) at Les Halles. The food was excellent, though my slowly-creeping sickness prevented me from fully enjoying it. I had the faux-filet borsco (second steak in a week), a tasty medium rare steak with house-made butter and French fries. For an appetizer, we had escargot, which tasted like garlic and their own texture. Finally, for desert, profiteroles, which I finished despite being essentially fully drained. I really liked the place and it was great to hear about Anne's life in Manhattan; next time I'm in New York I fully intend to take her up on her offer to check out some of Manhattan's top nightlife.

Emily and I had pizza at Lucali's, a highly-rated neighborhood pizza place in Brooklyn. (Funny, I think I've only had pizza in Brooklyn, nothing else.) The pizza was New York style, very thin crusts, but very good. We had, I think, mushroom and spinach, and I was seated next to a barely insulated (but labeled) hot pipe. The only thing really missing was beer, which they didn't serve. It was great to see Emily again, we had an awesome and very wide-ranging conversation.

A grasshopper cupcake at Crumbs near the American Museum of Natural History. Awesomely rich. I ate that with an apple cider as I read an analysis of the Navidson Record in House Of Leaves.

The 53rd and 6th Halal Cart: worth walking 20 blocks for,
or,
The 53rd and 6th Halal Cart: so good I was already almost there by the time my husband's first words to me were to go there,
or,
The 53rd and 6th Halal Cart: almost a döner.

After a long day playing outdoors in the snow on a warm day with Randi's kids -- kids are exhausting! but interesting in different ways at all ages -- we had dinner of hunter's stew and salad. It was very good; I'd never heard of the dish but liked it. We also got some turkey bacon cause Cole wanted some. After dinner when the kids went to bed, Randi and I talked for a long time about family and life. Good day.

My dad picked Murtha's Steakhouse off the hotel's list of local restaurants; at the time, I wanted pizza, but was too distracted trying to get an hour-long discussion of family history with my now-hundred-year-old grandma off my iPhone to find anything reviewed and approved by the Internet. At first, that seemed like a mistake -- we missed the restaurant the first time because the sign wasn't well lit and it looked like an Irish dive bar, not a steakhouse. When we got inside, we got trapped in the vestibule while a party went from the bar side to the restaurant side; despite calling ahead we had to wait at the bar, where there were no beers on tap since the compressor was out. At that point, I was thinking we were at a side-of-the-highway neighborhood place, nothing that should have tricked us into visiting when we wanted some good steak.

My first clue I was wrong was how crowded it was -- the bar was full, the restaurant was full on a cool Saturday night in January. My mistake started to sink in when I read through their quality beer list, and when they served my Smithwicks with a chilled glass, I switched my mode of thought from "two stars working up" to "five stars working down." They stayed up there at five for the rest of the meal. My dad got his martini served in a small bottle for him to pour himself, which I'd never seen before but gave him a generous amount to drink. At the booth, the bread dish came with these awesome garlic rolls -- oil and garlic pieces, so tasty it was hard to avoid filling up on them alone. I had a seafood bisque, steak (rare) and shrimp (scampi), all of which were very nicely done, along with sweet potato fries, which were good. It was enough to fill me despite having had little since lunch. I was pretty happy. The service was friendly and the interior was nicely done and welcoming. (My brother, it's worth noting, thought his burger was just okay, and my dad wasn't happy that his steak -- which he wanted well done, no juice -- he's my opposite in that -- was medium rare; my mom was happy though with hers and with her desert).

Murtha's is a bit of an undiscovered gem. I'm not surprised, given that it's out of the way in a less-than-welcoming physical locale. For anyone coming to visit Ronkonkoma in the future, whether you're here for your grandmothers hundredth birthday or something else, here's a review -- if you go to Murtha's, you'll know you won't be taking a chance.

The unhealthiest breakfast of the year: sunny-side up eggs, hash browns and corned beef hash, and bacon. Way too much food for me -- they were generous with the portions. (They have to justify the $12 price, after all.) I didn't eat all of mine, and neither did anyone but Ben; the server then generously only charged us for three portions. Good job, Hilton Garden Inn.

After Grandma's birthday party, the family -- Martin and Diane, my parents, and Ben and I -- had dinner with Randi and Bruce and their kids at their beautiful home. It was the first time in a very long time (probably since our bar mitzvahs) that our branches of the family had come together, and I had fun. After Shabbat prayers and challah, Randi served a light salad followed by pasta and chicken. It was extremely healthy -- very light on sauces and oils -- yet extremely tasty as well. (I'll have to look into that -- I suspect a lot has to do with extremely fresh vegetables.) For desert, we had excellent homemade biscotti and chocolate nut confections with tea. A large chunk of dinner conversation revolved around life in a family with three boys, and after dinner Ben and I, playing pool and video games with the kids, got our chance to learn firsthand what the three of us must have been like 15 years ago.

My grandmother's hundredth birthday cake. Hooray for her!

(The birthday party was one of the most unique I've ever seen: my grandmother and family and friends at the head of the room, facing a large audience of nonagenarians, all but five of whom were women, who mainly sat and watched us and listened to the singer. In what it was, it was very sweet. Sweet, but strange too. My dad put it well when he said he finally understood the use of a hip flask.)

My first meal in New York, a mediocre tuna sandwich Dad brought from the airport. It matched the quality of my hunger, pretty low even after 15 hours of fasting, though I think my hunger was less soggy.

Last dinner in SF (for a week) was a Märzen burger and an ale at Gordon Biersch with Tim, Sarah, and Alex. The burger was less exotic than the description implied, but was okay. For the first time, a waiter told me the cook wouldn't do medium rare and guided me to medium; ironically, Sarah's steak slices came out so raw that she had to send it back (another first). Okay food but it was fun -- we talked camping and books and our upcoming meeting for a wedding in Chicago. Once eight rolled around, though, it was time to haul my luggage out of its nook and roll it off to Oakland Airport. (It wouldn't have been there had I realized I wasn't going to SFO, but that mistake was corrected in time, luckily.)

Awesome dinner: nutty brown rice and gorgonzola-infused chicken. The former was brown rice coated in nutmeg and the butter used to sautee chopped mixed nuts. It turned out very well, with good learnings for next time (less butter, more salt, and the regular brown rice that our lake-side walk to Trader Joe's failed to unearth; we used jasmine brown rice). The chicken was cooked on the pan before being stuffed with gorgonzola and baked, then coated with a reduction of its juices, cheese remnants, and balsamic vinegar. Wow. It was as good as it sounds, and super rich (the sauce was amazing in itself). We had a sauvignon blanc with dinner, which was a great wine but too light for the meal. All in all, it was a wonderful meal, exactly the kind I'd want to have the night before a long trip. I <3 my husband.

Work from home means brown sugar waffles. Unfortunately, I didn't use enough brown sugar (two tablespoons for four waffles) so they tasted like regular waffles. Next time, more sugar! (Or is it going to be Alex's suggestion of a savory waffle with pine nuts and hot oil topped with cheese? Good thing I have two weeks to decide!)

Thai at Bangkok Express, where the noodle dishes are apparently just okay, but the green bean and beef dish I had was pretty good. It's an odd place; they have a big buffet area that no one's ever seen used, and their version of tea for the group is four glasses, not a teapot. Of course, who are we to complain? After the four of us sat down at a four-person table, Tyler joined us with a burger from Burger Bistro. _That_ got looks, but they were really good about it.

Tonight was a pizza night. Today was a long day.

Sample goodies from the caterer we're looking at for our wedding. The open house food was very good and I'm excited about the caterer and the venue we'll hopefully reserve tomorrow.

Alex made buttermilk buscuits and gravy -- very good -- while I worked on installing Windows 7 on the Mac Mini.