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Tag Archives: surprise

Nature always finds a way

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by laurieanichols in postaday, postaday2015, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

bulbs, gardens, postaday2015, surprise

          

When we arrived at my mother’s, I was surprised at how many daffodils were in bloom and there are a few tulips poised to bloom later on as well. My surprise comes from the fact that last year, my mother hired a professional to landscape her front garden, he did a beautiful job, but part of the original concept was that there would no longer be spring time bulbs, it was supposed to be an orderly and manicured garden with the blooms appearing later on during the summer months.

   

   

As you can see from these pictures from last year, he did a gorgeous job, my only criticism was that he had not taken the time to go through the soil and weed through everything that was undesirable; simply turning the dirt over doesn’t really change the composition of the garden, the shoots won’t go away, they will simply sprout somewhere else in the form of SURPRISE!. As the sage idiom goes “nature always finds a way”

A successful surprise after all

22 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by laurieanichols in postaday, postaday2013, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

family, get togethers, postaday2013, surprise

Our cousin ended up being surprised after all so our road trip to Canandaigua was a success. We were very happy that we took the weekend to make the trip because if we hadn’t come, it wouldn’t have worked out to be much of a surprise after all. Carly’s boyfriend by mixing up the date had essentially guaranteed a very low turn out of friends and my hubby’s cousin’s other siblings couldn’t make it so Carly had us, her parents, her brothers and her boyfriend as the surprise givers. She was completely blown away by our presence.

Her older brother decided that the best way to surprise Carly was to bring the surprise to her, so we waited until right before the kitchen at the restaurant where she works was closing and we went in for dessert. The look of absolute surprise and happiness was more than worth it. Her smile lit up the room and our baby girl grabbed her in a big hug, it was heart warming to see the two girls so happy to see each other.

On another note, Jack is turning out to be a wonderful traveling dog. He met our cousins bigger dog Gabby and after several minutes of working through the dog appropriate sniffing and assessing, they got along famously. We had a quiet night in the hotel room, Jack didn’t bark at every noise so he wasn’t a disturbance and he didn’t have any accidents as of yet. This is a great sign for future trips.

Happy wedding anniversary to my hubby

17 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by laurieanichols in postaday, postaday2012

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

good food, NYC, postaday2012, Restaurant, surprise, wedding anniversary

My hubby and I are celebrating 22 years of marriage today and my hubby has spoiled me. He surprised me with a weekend in New York City at the Intercontinental Hotel at Times Square. After the decades of spending so much time on the road in Holiday Inns, my hubby is considered a platinum ambassador guest and that gets us special rates at all hotels under the Holiday Inn umbrella so here we are, at this lovely hotel.

We are sitting in bed after having come back from an excellent restaurant called La Silhouette, recommended to us by the hotel concierge. Both the food and the service were top notch, what I especially loved were the small portions, what’s funny is that we hadn’t really known if the portions were going to be small when we ordered, we ordered two appetizers each because there were too many appetizers calling to us, so when the plates appeared with small portions, I was very happy. The main courses were just the right size as well so we didn’t leave the restaurant stuffed and uncomfortable.

My two appetizers were very different in taste, texture and type. My first course, if you will, was a heritage poached egg on a bed of truffle infused white polenta with braised mushrooms. The dish was as light as a cloud, as fluffy as a custard and tasted creamy and earthy. The poached egg, when I broke the yolk blended beautifully with the polenta and the braised mushrooms provided a satisfying base to the light and fluffy eggs and polenta. My hubby chose a country pate studded with pistachios and raisins, it was a wonderful execution of the French classic and the way it was served, with coarse grain mustard and celeriac remoulade, it was delicious.

Our second courses came, I had the seared foie gras on a bed of caramelized diced pineapple and smashed plantains, in my humble opinion, seared foie gras is one of the silkiest and smoothest things that one can ever eat. It is often paired with a sweet compliment and an acidic component to counterbalance the rich and sweet nature of the seared foie. It was heavenly to eat. My hubby’s second course was equally lovely, large shrimp sautéed and presented on a bed of roasted root vegetables and served in a complex seafood broth. He was very quiet eating this course, that is how delicious it was.

At this point, we were still open for the final course and at least in my case, I was still very curious about my third course. I had ordered sea bass and lobster with a butternut squash and hazelnut risotto and I couldn’t wait to see what the creative mastermind in the kitchen was going to wow me with. My hubby had ordered seared sea scallops served on rutabaga and other root vegetables. Were we blown away by the delicate yet intense flavors of both our dishes? Oh yes we were, the marriage of the root vegetables and the butternut squash with the seafood was perfection. There was not a single flavor out of place or un-complimentary. I love butternut squash, it goes with everything, you can make it into anything; soup, mashed, gratin, sautéed, cassoulet and even pie. In the case of both of our main courses, the butternut squash played the supporting role in the dynamic of the seared scallops and in my dish, the seared sea bass and poached lobster. It was tremendous.

We didn’t get dessert or coffee because we were perfectly satisfied. Now we are going to continue watching t.v and enjoy playing hookey from home.

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