Baby It's Cold Outside

It's late March and the weather is still cold and, wait for it, snowy. What?! I'm having flash backs to living in upstate New York where it's winter 9 months out of the year. I moved away from there. But, none the less, here we are with a late snow day. I was so optimistic for spring last week that I packed away the snow pants and boots just to drag them back out again today. At least I did find a pair of mittens that actually stay on Lincoln's hands. A small miracle, really. Where have these been all winter long?! And do you think they'll still fit next year? They are really stretchy.






After coming in from the cold, it's always nice to have something warm and yummy to drink. I grew up on hot coco, of course. But being the somewhat neurotic mother that I am I decided that was far too much sugar and, gasp, have you ever read the label on those instant packets? Yikes! That's definitely not real food so I came up with a rather delicious alternative: Warm Vanilla Milk. I just heat up some milk (raw, of course) in a sauce pan with a couple drops of vanilla extract (organic of course) and a touch of honey (also raw)(of course). It's actually very good and the kids love it. Add some fun mugs to drink it out of and you have yourself one cozy childhood memory.

Of course, if warm vanilla milk isn't your gig you can always try watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood while lounging on the floor and sucking on a maple syrup bottle (cap on)....How did he even get that out of the fridge?

Zahav And The 2 Chambers

Dinner Club has been rekindled! While I feel like I'm cheating a little bit on Laura, I'm grateful to have found, in Jill, another friend who is as enthusiastic about dining out as I am. Possibly more so. She also has excellent taste in wine which I also appreciate...though I should probably appreciate it a little less next time. This month we went out to Zahav, an Israeli restaurant that I have been trying to get to for years, it feels like, but something always comes up and I have to cancel. I was starting to think I had a Zahav curse which was manifest that night by my 1 hour late arrival. Very unlike me (I, of course, blame it on my husband).

Zahav's menu is the type I enjoy the most; a bunch of small plates. I think we ordered at least half the menu. (Not a joke.) Little did we know that everyone is started with a complimentary array of salads. We loved the spiced carrots the best but they were all pretty amazing. Perhaps the best part of the meal, as a matter of fact, until the hummus came out. OMG! Let me say that again: OMG! I never would have thought something as commonplace as hummus could be transformed into something so amazing. I'm not sure what they do with it, but it probably involves crack. It was that good.

We also got a little daring, as is the rule of Food Club, and ordered the seared duck hearts. Looking

back on the experience, it was probably the bottle of wine that got us to even try it but I'm glad we did. It's always fun to try knew things. (Side note, remember when I used to be a vegetarian? Oh how far I've come.) It was, how shall we say, fibrous. And rather chewy. And since Jill and I met in the ICU caring for patients after open heart surgery we decided this dish just wasn't for us. But we did enjoy taking note of the 2 chamber anatomy.

Moving on, we enjoyed a couple of lamb dishes for the entree part of the meal. Both were very good but nothing compared to the hummus. We were also very involved in our conversation so I don't remember every detail of the end of the night except that we closed the place down and the valet parking attendant had to come into the restaurant searching for me! Oops. Guess Jill and I shouldn't wait so long to see each other again next time!

Luckily, next time is already planned....Stateside!