Found my way to Sao Paolo yesterday. Three flights, many Miller Lites and a decent car ride in, I found myself in Faria Lima meeting up with Martin. The rest of the day was pretty low key, mainly comprised of caipirinhas, some walking around, more caipirinhas, a nap, a little work, even more caipirinhas, and a pariillada at the Argentinian steakhouse.
Martin took a few pics and I'll load later, but overall a pretty chill day. Weather is hot (completely different from what's going on back in Chicago), and I'll get more pics of the city and scene during the stay.
More to follow...
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Skipping ahead to 2011...
Over the weekend we hosted a NYE party with some of our friends. To kick off the festivities we started out with dinner around the corner at Graham Elliot. Amazing.
7 Courses. With pairings. Phenomenal meal. What a way to close out 2010.
Follow that with the party at our place, and I made three punches. The first was a spin on the Chatham Artillery Punch from David Wondrich. Essentially it is muddled lemon peels in sugar, lemon juice, and a ratio of rye, brandy, rum and sparkling wine along the lines of 1:1:1:3. It turned out very well; definitely better than the original trial.
The second punch was adapted from a bar in New York called Cienfuegos. The recipe for Hotel Nacional Punch involved rum, pineapple juice, apricot brandy, fresh lime juice and simple syrup. Lower potency, but tasted amazing. Topping off with a little champagne really did a lot for this punch.
The final recipe, for the non-alcoholic crowd, resulted in a concentrated syrup of cinnamon, clove, lemon juice, peppermint extract, slivered mint leaves and diced candied ginger. That syrup, poured over some carbonated beverage (either club soda or sparkling wine), was great.
On top of all that, around 20 bottles of wine, full bar, and a serious food spread for everyone. To be honest, I wanted to invite more people than Lauren was interested in hosting, but that's alright. We weren't sure how many people were going to come over, but at one point we had around 30 people in the place. With the weather unseasonably warm we were able to use the deck as well.
Hello 2011. Nice to meet you. Glad to start off on the right foot.
7 Courses. With pairings. Phenomenal meal. What a way to close out 2010.
Follow that with the party at our place, and I made three punches. The first was a spin on the Chatham Artillery Punch from David Wondrich. Essentially it is muddled lemon peels in sugar, lemon juice, and a ratio of rye, brandy, rum and sparkling wine along the lines of 1:1:1:3. It turned out very well; definitely better than the original trial.
The second punch was adapted from a bar in New York called Cienfuegos. The recipe for Hotel Nacional Punch involved rum, pineapple juice, apricot brandy, fresh lime juice and simple syrup. Lower potency, but tasted amazing. Topping off with a little champagne really did a lot for this punch.
The final recipe, for the non-alcoholic crowd, resulted in a concentrated syrup of cinnamon, clove, lemon juice, peppermint extract, slivered mint leaves and diced candied ginger. That syrup, poured over some carbonated beverage (either club soda or sparkling wine), was great.
On top of all that, around 20 bottles of wine, full bar, and a serious food spread for everyone. To be honest, I wanted to invite more people than Lauren was interested in hosting, but that's alright. We weren't sure how many people were going to come over, but at one point we had around 30 people in the place. With the weather unseasonably warm we were able to use the deck as well.
Hello 2011. Nice to meet you. Glad to start off on the right foot.
Photos to make up for lost time
This is an attempt to summarize some of our final travels from the summer and fall of 2010.
Staring down a pier towards Oakland in SF
First trip to SF togeter
The 'farm' outside The French Laundry in Yountville
Vineyards in Napa
Pebble Beach
Frog's Leap Winery - Napa Valley
Big Ben - London
Lauren and J at the Tower of London - Tower Bridge in background
Parliament and Big Ben from across the Thames
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
