79 Lobsters

Good evening and happy Saturday night!  The last two days have been a constant go, go, go! , so please excuse the posting delay.

Last night, Ari and I had the pleasure of joining fellow bloggers (out of order, sorry!) Heather, Caroline, Liz, Olga, Danielle, Katharine, Amelia, Dierdre, Diana and Marina, for dinner at Candle 79.

While we were chatting about food and foodies, the restaurant staff brought out an amuse bouche: curried lentil dip with onions on a homemade tortilla.  Great start to a great night!

Ari and I split the Moroccan Spiced Chickpea Cake made with seasonal vegetables, red pepper-coconut curry, apricot-date chutney, and toasted almonds.

We also ordered the Wild Mushroom-saffron Ravioli with cashew ricotta, roasted tomato-truffle sauce, sautéed broccoli raab, and crispy capers.

The Chickpea Cake was my favorite, while Ari preferred the ravioli.  Worked out perfectly!

I also stole one of Liz’s quinoa-flax crisps, which reminded me a lot of Dr. Kracker’s.

It was such a pleasure to meet some of the ladies I’ve come to “know” so well.  Hope to see you again soon! Thanks again to Heather for organizing a fabulous evening.

After dinner, Ari and I headed down to The Living Room to see Ari’s friend John’s band play.  On the way there, we noticed a lot of people stopping in the middle of the street, staring at the sky and taking photos.  We were afraid there was some kind of apocalyptic happening going on, but instead we just saw these crazy clouds.

After the show, we went to a really cool bar for the after-party that was, back in the day, an authentic speak-easy. Pretty cool!

Then we headed to Brooklyn for the Swine Flu party.  Unfortunately, a lot of people ended up not being able to make it, so it was a pretty small gathering.  It was still fun, though, and the decor was awesome!

Cheese and raspberries were gobbled…

Notice the N1H1 cookies! Genius, right? So genius that I had to eat two

While Ari was in a deli picking up beer, I ended up finding some good bargains.  Cheap Chobani, 1 lb of fruit salad for $1.99, and the best: about 20 medjool dates for $2.99!  I’m such a dork, but I was really excited about that.

This morning I had a strawberry Chobani yogurt, fruit salad, and a slice of whole wheat toast with peanut butter and cinnamon.

I don’t remember ever having flavored Chobani before.  I was a little skeptical about a fruit-on-the-bottom-style Greek yogurt, but I ended up really digging it! If I can ever afford it again, I’ll be picking up the other flavors.

After breakfast, we drove to Connecticut for a surprise birthday/graduation party.  We stopped to pick up Ari’s parents at their friends’ house, and were greeted by a variety of Food Should Taste Good crackers and Sabra hummus.   I was very happy.

The lady of the house whipped us up a delicious mushroom pizza.

I had a small slice.

After our “snack,” we got back in the car to to go the party.  After arriving and saying our hellos, we made our way to the bar tent. There were coolers of red and white sangria:

Ari tapped the keg.

Over the course of the day, I had a cup of white sangria:

And a cup of red sangria.

I’m not usually a sangria person, but I wasn’t in the mood for beer.  It was actually pretty refreshing!

They were serving hot dogs, hamburgers, and lobster.  Guess what I got?!

Each mesh baggie was filled with steamed lobster, corn-on-the-cob, mussels, clams, and potatoes.

I made a huge mess, but it was amazing.

The birthday boy just graduated from dental school, so there was a red velvet “braces” cake:

There were also cute little graduation and birthday cupcakes.

The hat was too cute to pass up, so I had a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting.  (Ari was pretty enamored with the newborn baby.)

Ilana was also taken with Baby.

Beth & Abe had a blast.

The party was really fun, and it was so nice to get out of the city for the day.  Don’t get me wrong: I love New York and I can’t imagine living anywhere else, but I need a mental health break from it from time to time.

We ate around 4, so my stomach felt a little off all day.  I didn’t know if I should eat dinner, snack, or what! The perfect solution seemed to be fat free peanut butter frozen yogurt. Funny how that logic works, hmm?

All in all, it’s been a pretty great weekend. (Bonus question: how many times do I use “pretty” in this post? ) I have to be at work in less than 9 hours so I’m going to say goodnight and good luck!

Catch up with ya later, gators.