#flowertherapy might be right up there with #water #flowertherapy might be right up there with #watertherapy.  Love passing the time in secret wildflower patches. As you do. 🌸
I remarked how pretty that tiny sliver of the moon I remarked how pretty that tiny sliver of the moon was on the way home tonight, and my friend pulled over right away so I could grab a photo. That’s when someone really knows you! It was just too beautiful to resist. 🌙
Weekend photos in review, old school style. ✨ C Weekend photos in review, old school style. ✨ 
Context: 1/ picture perfect weekend, 2/ threw together a quick meal w udon noodles, steak and broccoli, so good, 3/ the sun reflections on this painting struck me today, looked like a cross 4/ it takes all afternoon but nothing like Sunday Gravy, 5/ six months old, 6/ when he wants some serious zzzz’s, he covers his eye with his ears, the cutest, 7/ breakfast pastries at @coniglios
I have plenty of reusable shopping bags since New I have plenty of reusable shopping bags since New Jersey banned the plastic ones last year. But when I spied this beauty for a buck, how could I resist? It just is so darn happy, which makes me happy. The little things aren’t so little. 💛
Cheers to the weekend! This may look like a staged Cheers to the weekend! This may look like a staged photo, but Lola just has ZERO boundaries and Clifford is exceptionally patient. 😂
I’ve been on a smoked salmon kick lately (it’s I’ve been on a smoked salmon kick lately (it’s so good for you), so when I saw that a local patisserie has a smoked salmon croissant available (weekends only), I added it to my list of things to seek out. I popped into @chocolatinenj early on Mother’s Day and was rewarded with this deliciousness. Layers of soft flaky croissant dough, tender smoked salmon, light whipped cream, thinly sliced red and green onion slivers and dotted with capers… it was every bit as amazing as you’d imagine it would be. If you’re local, don’t sleep on this one. 😋
Weekend photos in review, the belated edition. 1/ Weekend photos in review, the belated edition.

1/ hit up a few yard sales and snagged this beautiful pasta dish from Italy with my favorite color for a buck, 2/ and one of these printer trays came home with me too, 3/ pre Mother’s Day celebrations with 30 local moms, 4/ finished the weekend supervising furniture assembly
Today would have been my friend Cathy’s 53rd bir Today would have been my friend Cathy’s 53rd birthday. Unfortunately she’s not here to celebrate because she died suddenly at age 49. I think of her often … every Mother’s Day because we spent most of them together since her husband worked weekends … when I discover a new food adventure (we once did a day long donut crawl) … when I’m sharing a special time with my kids knowing that her then-11 year old is growing up without her. Before she passed, I always appreciated every day, but since then, even more so. You never know what the next day can bring, so relish in the sunshine, surprise rainstorms, making wishes over railroad tracks and all the wonderful randomness life can throw your way. Don’t waste a single second, say yes, live on the outskirts of your comfort zone, laugh often, tell people you love them, give eight second hugs, and squeeze every ounce of joy you can out of life. Do it for the people who can’t. ✨
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Sweetnicks

Food and Life

A Nice Start to the Week…

November 22, 2005 · Narrative

I got a head start on the week by making tonight’s dinner last night. It made for a less harried night, and perfect for a short work-week. I made Roast Chicken with Potatoes. I don’t use a recipe really. I stuffed the cavity of the chicken with chunks of cut up lemon and rub a mixture of grey salt, rosemary, cracked black pepper and garlic all over the chicken. Lastly, I slip some butter underneath the skin and drizzle everything with olive oil. I fill the pan with chunked Yukon Gold potatoes and chunked onions, drizzle that with olive oil and rosemary and cook everything in the oven for about an hour at 400 or so. Simple as that.

Here’s the picture of the Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage from last night’s dinner:

Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage

With only three ingredients, it makes for a great weeknight meal, and even better … it sneaks some green veggies into Nicholas’ belly. I hope you try it.

As promised, I’ve put some pictures from the Grand Midnight Buffet from our cruise last week to Bermuda. Some serious attention to detail goes into each and every thing they made – no surprise when you find out it takes the crew 300 man-hours just to assemble this one buffet!

All for tonight. Tune in tomorrow to find out what’s making the Thanksgiving table. Until then…

Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage
12 oz. uncooked rigatoni pasta
1 lb. broccoli rabe, ends trimmed, stacked and cut into 1 inch wide pieces
1 lb Italian sausage, casings removed

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boil. Add pasta and cook as package directs, adding broccoli rabe 3 minutes before pasta will be done. Drain pasta and broccoli rabe, reserving about 1/4 cup of pasta water; return to pot. While the pasta cooks, heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sausage and cook, breaking up into large chunks, 5-7 minutes, until browned and cooked through. Add reserved pasta water. Cook, stirring, 1 minute to loose brown bits on bottom of pan. Pour over pasta mixture in pot; cook, stirring 1 minute to heat and mix. Top with salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese as desired.


The View from Above


Sushi Station


A Proud Dessert Chef


Cheese Platter


Swan Ice Sculpture


Caviar Station Ice Sculpture


Seafood Spread


Clam Shell Ice Sculpture Holding Peel-and-Eat Shrimp


A few simple desserts … ;)

And lastly, the unique towel creations we came back to in our cabin from our attendant, Lincoln. He’s quite the talent!


Scorpion


Hanging Monkey, our favorite


Stingray

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Posted In: Narrative

Comments

  1. Ana says

    November 22, 2005 at 3:45 am

    Wow! The buffet is awesome, everything so pretty, really lots of detail in there!
    I love the food sculptures, and what are those flowers in the watermelon made of, they look so bright and colorful!
    Cute towels too!
    Ana

    Reply
  2. Tyanne says

    November 22, 2005 at 4:09 am

    Oh, my, Gosh. The dessert table was amazing, the whole thing was amazing. I want to go so bad. I’m glad you all had fun. Maybe I can talk my husband into a cruise.

    Reply
  3. Sam says

    November 22, 2005 at 5:20 am

    that looks totally crazy, sweetnicks.
    I am going to hve to try out some of those towel folds next time I have guests!

    Reply
  4. Stephanie says

    November 22, 2005 at 5:34 am

    Fantastic!

    And I think we all know I’d have probably camped out in front of the sushi station…

    Reply
  5. JoAnna says

    November 22, 2005 at 6:08 am

    first of all, I want to go on a cruise just so I could see all those displays. I did stuff like that in Garde Manger in culinary school, but never enough. I love to carve me up some veggies into flowers and critters. so much fun. and yes, I do it at home for fun, because I rarely have time to do it for clients.

    Second, OMG, those towel critters would scare the bejeebus out of me. especially the monkey. I guess I have issues with stuffed animals and rolled up towels possibly coming to life and attacking me. eeeeek!

    Reply
  6. Cookin4Love says

    November 22, 2005 at 11:52 am

    Towel MONKEY? We thought ours was a plucked turkey! Never would’ve guessed a monkey–they should label those things!

    I am always fascinated by the beautiful, decorative ways with food. I’d LOVE to do that!

    Reply
  7. joey says

    November 22, 2005 at 7:06 pm

    That pasta recipe soudns really yummy…I love broccoli in pasta, and with italian sausage…yum! :)

    I must say, although all the food sculptures were amazing, my favorite were the towels…I almost fell off my chair when i saw the “hanging monkey”!!!

    Reply
  8. MeBeth says

    November 22, 2005 at 11:12 pm

    How did you ever manage to choose? I’d be standing in front of the buffet, jaw on the floor. Or, more likely, I’d eat myself senseless and pass out at the table.

    Reply
  9. Jeff says

    November 23, 2005 at 4:23 am

    Hahah – how funny, when I first browsed throught the towel thingies, I also thought the Monkey was a plcuekd turkey for Thanksgiving. Hee hee!

    How very cool all of this is! Talk about choices!!

    Reply
  10. Cate says

    November 24, 2005 at 3:25 am

    Ana – it WAS awesome! You’d be surprised how you suddenly get a little hungry when you see such a spread. At first I thought the flowers were from radishes, but now I’m not so sure…

    Tyanne – go for it! They’re really not that expensive if you go outside of peak season.

    Sam – aren’t those towels fun? One of our dining companions got a flying bat. That would be a great idea for when you have guests stay over. I’ve been meaning to do some online research to see if I could dig up some how-tos. We were all trying to perfect the monkey at the dinner table with our napkins … and were pathetically unsuccessful.

    Stephanie – it would have been all yours. One thing I don’t do is sushi.

    Chef JoAnna – you should go. You could consider it “research,” no? ;) The monkey definitely scared us since the lights were off when we came back and found him hanging from the ceiling. ;)

    Cookin4Love – I saw your write-up on the CL cruise – sounds like you had a blast!

    Joey – the pasta is great, and with only 3 ingredients, you can’t go wrong. The towels were definitely a hoot – and Nicholas got a kick out of seeing what was next.

    MeBeth – a little bit of this … a little bit of that …

    Jeff – I don’t know how you guys are seeing a plucked turkey … ;) we thought monkey right away, but we did double-check, just to be sure. :)

    Reply
  11. grace says

    November 25, 2005 at 11:50 am

    everything is amazing!!

    food are so cheerful! :-) and great ideas on towel folding! Hmmm.. its really really brilliant!!

    Reply

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#flowertherapy might be right up there with #water #flowertherapy might be right up there with #watertherapy.  Love passing the time in secret wildflower patches. As you do. 🌸
I remarked how pretty that tiny sliver of the moon I remarked how pretty that tiny sliver of the moon was on the way home tonight, and my friend pulled over right away so I could grab a photo. That’s when someone really knows you! It was just too beautiful to resist. 🌙
Weekend photos in review, old school style. ✨ C Weekend photos in review, old school style. ✨ 
Context: 1/ picture perfect weekend, 2/ threw together a quick meal w udon noodles, steak and broccoli, so good, 3/ the sun reflections on this painting struck me today, looked like a cross 4/ it takes all afternoon but nothing like Sunday Gravy, 5/ six months old, 6/ when he wants some serious zzzz’s, he covers his eye with his ears, the cutest, 7/ breakfast pastries at @coniglios
I have plenty of reusable shopping bags since New I have plenty of reusable shopping bags since New Jersey banned the plastic ones last year. But when I spied this beauty for a buck, how could I resist? It just is so darn happy, which makes me happy. The little things aren’t so little. 💛

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#flowertherapy might be right up there with #water #flowertherapy might be right up there with #watertherapy.  Love passing the time in secret wildflower patches. As you do. 🌸
I remarked how pretty that tiny sliver of the moon I remarked how pretty that tiny sliver of the moon was on the way home tonight, and my friend pulled over right away so I could grab a photo. That’s when someone really knows you! It was just too beautiful to resist. 🌙
Weekend photos in review, old school style. ✨ C Weekend photos in review, old school style. ✨ 
Context: 1/ picture perfect weekend, 2/ threw together a quick meal w udon noodles, steak and broccoli, so good, 3/ the sun reflections on this painting struck me today, looked like a cross 4/ it takes all afternoon but nothing like Sunday Gravy, 5/ six months old, 6/ when he wants some serious zzzz’s, he covers his eye with his ears, the cutest, 7/ breakfast pastries at @coniglios
I have plenty of reusable shopping bags since New I have plenty of reusable shopping bags since New Jersey banned the plastic ones last year. But when I spied this beauty for a buck, how could I resist? It just is so darn happy, which makes me happy. The little things aren’t so little. 💛
Cheers to the weekend! This may look like a staged Cheers to the weekend! This may look like a staged photo, but Lola just has ZERO boundaries and Clifford is exceptionally patient. 😂
I’ve been on a smoked salmon kick lately (it’s I’ve been on a smoked salmon kick lately (it’s so good for you), so when I saw that a local patisserie has a smoked salmon croissant available (weekends only), I added it to my list of things to seek out. I popped into @chocolatinenj early on Mother’s Day and was rewarded with this deliciousness. Layers of soft flaky croissant dough, tender smoked salmon, light whipped cream, thinly sliced red and green onion slivers and dotted with capers… it was every bit as amazing as you’d imagine it would be. If you’re local, don’t sleep on this one. 😋
Weekend photos in review, the belated edition. 1/ Weekend photos in review, the belated edition.

1/ hit up a few yard sales and snagged this beautiful pasta dish from Italy with my favorite color for a buck, 2/ and one of these printer trays came home with me too, 3/ pre Mother’s Day celebrations with 30 local moms, 4/ finished the weekend supervising furniture assembly
Today would have been my friend Cathy’s 53rd bir Today would have been my friend Cathy’s 53rd birthday. Unfortunately she’s not here to celebrate because she died suddenly at age 49. I think of her often … every Mother’s Day because we spent most of them together since her husband worked weekends … when I discover a new food adventure (we once did a day long donut crawl) … when I’m sharing a special time with my kids knowing that her then-11 year old is growing up without her. Before she passed, I always appreciated every day, but since then, even more so. You never know what the next day can bring, so relish in the sunshine, surprise rainstorms, making wishes over railroad tracks and all the wonderful randomness life can throw your way. Don’t waste a single second, say yes, live on the outskirts of your comfort zone, laugh often, tell people you love them, give eight second hugs, and squeeze every ounce of joy you can out of life. Do it for the people who can’t. ✨

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