Long Time No Blog

I have no excuses. I just was uninspired for a little while there. Now I'm back with lots to report.

The hubby and I went to Pizzeria Orso, which is touted by some as having the best pizza around, and since we're partial to Neapolitan-style we thought it imperative to check it out. The hubby had pepperoni and I had white pizza topped with clams, capers, and hot red pepper flakes. Both were really good but not the best. I think they lacked salt, mine especially, and the clams were a little off-tasting. Two Amys still tops our list, though we have yet to try Pizzeria Paradiso and Seventh Hill Pizza (owned by the same people as one of our favorites, Montmartre).

We had the pleasure of going to the Columbia Room speakeasy inside the Passenger bar. Derek Brown is the barkeep and, since there's only 10 seats, you get to interact with him one-on-one. In my case, this meant discussing Italian aperitivos like Aperol and Campari and getting free samples. We did the fixed price option, which meant three drinks and two small plates. It was so amazing that I made a second reservation the minute we got home.

In the realm of recipe-testing, I decided to give homemade mozzarella another chance. Fail! I even had the hubby check that I was reading the instructions correctly. I was so we concluded that one of the ingredients is old or bad. The milk was fine so I blame either the citric acid or the rennet tablets. I plan to order fresh stuff soon to try, try again.

Now that I'm re-inspired, more cooking and some baking to come, including that layer cake I mentioned a while back.

Finally, I have to relay this...I'm not tooting my own horn...One of my yoga instructors told me out of the blue that he bets I'm "amazing" in the kitchen, that he just has a feeling about it. This was without knowing about my love of food or this blog or anything. I don't have a clue how he arrived at his conclusion. Maybe during meditation I chant "lamb" instead of "om." All I know is this made my day, well, my week (or more) actually.