Busy!
The cold...it took. Cloudy head, stuffy nose. Thankfully we'd brought back a few boxes of Samahan from Sri Lanka.

I LOVE that stuff!!!

Dissolve into hot water, and drink! It doesn't taste bad either and it gets the cold moving right along.
5 days later I'm left with that linguring dry cough but not much else. Yeah! What have I been up to (aside from planning my next trips -- San Diego & Hong Kong both for work starting later this week...more on that later.)
In no particular order...

I bought these:
plants for my garden after finally singing up for Zipcar! My first experience with Zipcar was stellar indeed! I rented Terry the Toyota Tacoma pick-up truck for 4 hours and dashed up to the Matterhorn Nursery thirty some miles up the Palisades and back, unloaded and returned the truck to the lot from where I picked it up.

Friday night we checked out a French Caribbean restaurant called "A" on Columbus between 106th & 107th streets. I popped my head into this wee little spot (seats perhaps 24 people?) and was greeted with a smile. I reserved a table for 15 minutes from then and dashed to the liquor store up the block for a nice bottle of wine.

Let me state here how MUCH I like BYOB restaurants!!!

If you go, also note that it's also CASH ONLY so hit the ATM before you arrive! Upon my return, Sebastian, the owner, greeted my smile with a big one of his own and showed me to one of the four open seats in the small room. Upon popping open my wine he suggested a few dishes on the petite but lovely menu that would go well with my wine selection. Dan was running a bit late while he wrapped up a school deadline and encouraged me to order a little something while I waited. So I did...the baked Shrimp with rum curry special.

Let me interject here and say there will be no photos of the food as the lighting was very dim and I couldn't get a single one that did the food justice. The kitchen is very tiny and part of the dining room.

The music, mostly 80s favorites, came from a stereo atop the fridge and everyones heads bobbed as you looked around the room. Smiles too. No one looked at me oddly when I pulled out my knitting and sat knitting and people watching until my dish arrived.

Upon Dan's arrival, we ordered two more appetizers, the baked pear with raw honey and Gorgonzola and the pate. Yums all around! We followed that with the chicken and duck entrees, bith served with a nice couscous - yums again!

I was FULL...but when they threw in a dessert I had to eat it up! YUM! He had gotten the Chocolate creme brulee (which he commented was less cremey and more puddingy but good none-the-less) while I enjoyed my French apple tartin - very buttery and not too rich. I can't believe it's been in the neighborhood for seven years (as I have too!) and this was my first visit. Shame on me! I'll be back! Yum!

I also had a lovely meal at Mama Mexico's, after our mani-pedi date, with Jennifer and a tasty meal with Linda and Michelle later in the week at Gennaro. It was a good eattin' week!

Back to that fun word above... KNITTING... I have cast on a new project for my weeks of travels ahead. I'd stopped into Yarntopia this week and decided I HAD to have this beautiful BRIGHT TURQUOISE (#204) yarn - Artyarns Ultramerino4 and a hank in a bright apple green too!

What am I knitting?

The Undulating Rib Socks (pg 93 in the Favorite Socks book from Interweave.) I'll do the heels and toes in the green. Yum! The photo doesn't do the color justice at all!! I'm knitting them both at once on two Addi-turbos. Weeeeeeee!


I'LL BE TEACHING
I also found out from Dona at Yarntopia that I'll be teaching a class on Intarsia in August at the store, and likely one on socks in the fall. So, hop on over to the store website and sign onto the email list and she'll email out the entire class schedule list later this week. Oh, and her downstairs knitting lunge is NOW OPEN! Yeah! It's a great color too! Walls are a Raspberry and the floor is a pretty rusty orange. Fun!


Cooking -- I think I've perfected the steamed Chinese fish. Yum!! I've made it a few times these past few weeks.

It was amoungst the dishes of July 4th. Also Mango Salsa (yum!) and a stone fruit cobbler of sorts. Although I've been enjoying trying out many new restaurants, our wallets and tummies haven't been as happy. So I've been trying to fit in cooking some meals...difficult when I can't use my own kitchen... although I've been told the job will be DONE Tuesday...I have hope!!