good eats near zion national park

last month's vacation didn't only take us to las vegas. we rented a car and headed straight for utah, stopping first at valley of fire state park to check out the red rocks before continuing onto springdale and zion national park.

each year from about the age of twelve to eighteen my mom, dad, sister and i took a trip out west. (sorry dad, i can't remember the exact years and places we went each year with even half of the accuracy that you have. many of the trips blend together for me. which really isn't so bad, i just remember it all started with yellowstone and ended with the raft down the colorado, with mesa verde, taos, arches, canyon de chelly, and others thrown in.) every year around christmas the four of us would talk about where we'd go the next summer, what did we want to see, what did we want to do. and once decided, dad spent months pouring over books, calling far off places to make reservations because of course, the only internet we got at our house was through a phone cord strung across the kitchen floor, into the laundry room where the computer was kept. and we'd spend our time riding horses, hiking to arches, floating down rivers, looking at old churches, eating navajo tacos and watching the mittens through the rental car window in monument valley. i wouldn't trade it for the world. it's hard to believe it's been ten years since i've been out there.

las vegas: good eats edition

last week we spent three and a half days in las vegas for the very first time. we had some great eats and some not so good eats. below are the good eats, from best to good:






scarpetta, the cosmopolitan
jason and i often find ourselves watching chopped on the food network friday nights and have seen scott conant go crazy over chefs that cook pasta incorrectly. so we decided - since we were celebrating our anniversary on this trip after all - to have one night out in a swanky restaurant and chose conant's scarpetta. partly because we love italian food and partly because we had to taste his pasta!

brooklyn & little italy

though i've been to new york a number of times, i've never walked across the brooklyn bridge or really ventured out into any of the boroughs besides manhattan. so this time we spent most of the morning walking through the financial district and made it over the bridge into brooklyn. it was a beautiful day, but hot hot hot. lucky for me, lunch (and ice cream) was waiting on the other side.

jason checked out a few restaurants before we left rochester and decided we should check out grimaldi's or pete's downtown. we made it down towards both a little bit before noon and there was already a line at least a block long waiting for grimaldi's to open. there's no way we were waiting for that so we walked down to pete's downtown which was closed for a private party. bummer. we gawked through the windows at the pizza next door at ignazio's and decided to give it a whirl, especially since we hadn't had any pizza yet since coming to the city. we had a short, ten minute wait before we were seated and promptly ordered classes of fresh, homemade lemonade. it was probably the best lemonade i've ever had. ever. and while jason would have liked even less sugar, i thought it was perfectly tart.

and then there was the pizza. ah, but really, it's hard to find bad pizza in new york (i'm sure it's there, but i've yet to find it). another patron recommended the smoked chicken, so we had a basic margherita with smoked chicken on half. jason really liked the chicken, i didn't care for it so much, too much smoke. but the pizza was great.

since it was in the mid nineties, we made sure to save enough room for ice cream i spotted as soon as we made it to brooklyn. after lunch we walked across the street to the brooklyn ice cream factory. jason had chocolate and i had peaches and cream. his chocolate was good, but if i hadn't known mine was peaches and cream, i never would have guessed it. the pieces of peach were almost unnoticeable and it definitely didn't taste like peach either. what a disappointment.

after poking around the park, checking out the manhattan skyline, and watching the garbage barge go by, we made our way back across the bridge, walked through chinatown, and made it to little italy in time for dinner.

we walked all the way up mulberry street, through the menus and tourists, and sat in a park on the corner of mulberry and spring streets to escape the heat a bit. until i noticed this place - rice to riches - across the street. who knew rice pudding was so popular? not this girl. it definitely seems like an odd commodity. people were pouring out of there with small bowls of pudding (and eating them on the bench next to me), so they must be doing something right.

after marveling at the thought of mailing rice pudding to someone as a gift, we headed back down mulberry street to pick a place for dinner. and this is where i should have known better. little italy is one place i always always always look up restaurant reviews and have a couple in mind before i go. but not this time. this time i was too busy getting other things ready before we left that it slipped my mind. and jason, to no fault of his own, didn't realize how bad little italy can be if you don't do a bit of research ahead of time. case in point: positano.

we walked by, scoping out the strip - who's eating there? are they all tourists? what are they eating? does it look good? who has food left on their plate? are people eating the bread? - and settled on positano. it looked good on the outside - food looked good, good mix of new yorkers and tourists, and people were eating their food. so we sit. and we order. yes, we'll try the sangria, especially since it's still close to 90 outside. that's when we should have left - my sangria was red wine with canned fruit cocktail. really?! but we already ordered. so we waited for the food.

jason had pasta with vodka sauce. not bad, but not the best. i had veal stuffed with mozzarella, prosciutto, and basil with pasta in a marsala sauce. one of my favorites. my veal was stuffed with breadcrumbs and breadcrumbs only. not a combination of bread and the others. not even a hint of mozz or prosciutto or basil. nothing. but soggy bread. but the pasta was good, right? not unless you like salt pasta. the only flavor was salt. it was awful. and at $30-something a plate, i'd expect way more from these guys. i learned my lesson again: always research before you go.

central park, chelsea market, and the best chocolate chip cookie

a couple weekends ago, i had to go to new york for work, so jason and i decided to make a weekend of it. we walked through central park...

and ended up on this bench. i hope if i have a bench dedicated to me, it's for the same reason.

we walked north through the park to the reservoir and cut west to 86th street. since we didn't have a map, we were more north than i expected, and walked about 10 blocks south to Levain. after i saw sugar plum's post, i knew i had to try their cookies.

it wasn't until we ordered and pulled up a stool to eat at the counter that i realized this was the bakery that beat bobby flay in the chocolate chip cookie throwdown! their cookies are no joke.

we knew the cookies were huge, but didn't realize how massive they are until we sat down either. one cookie can easily feed two people.

we got two cookies - a chocolate chip with walnut and chocolate cookie with peanut butter chips. served warm from the oven, the inside was still a gooey, chewy mess, while the outside had a nice, crunchy crust. the chocolate chip was perfect, while the chocolate peanut butter was a bit too raw inside and could have used another 30 seconds or more to bake.

after we gorged ourselves on cookies the plan was to head over to chelsea market for dinner. but by the time we got there, neither one of us was hungry enough for dinner. but walking through the heat and humidity definitely warranted a popsicle, a people's pop, that is.

two of the four flavors were sold out already - raspberry mint and something i can't remember - so i chose the raspberry basil over the strawberry rhubarb. and it was amazing. there were chunks of actual fruit, not just juice. the couple sitting in the window next to us had the raspberry and went back for strawberry. i don't blame them one bit.

we walked around the market for an hour or so, stopping in the fruit company to buy some spices that aren't as easy to locate at home.

and worked up an appetite for a piece of foccacia from amy's bread for our dinner.

after a long day of walking and snacking, we headed to the top of the rock to watch the sunset. too bad it was so humid and hazy, so the view wasn't nearly as great as it could have been.

food always tastes better outside

growing up, we spent a lot of time camping in the adirondacks. fish creek. rollins pond. golden beach. long lake. blue mountain. old forge. eighth lake. it's funny how i can picture every place in my head, yet if i had to tell you where they are on a map, i couldn't do it.

as a kid, i knew that you saw eighth lake out the right side of the car before you got to it. i knew water safari was on the main drag in old forge and that the adirondack museum is in blue mountain lake. but no idea what route the main drag is or what direction blue mountain lake is from eighth lake.

so last weekend we spent a long weekend camping at fish creek.

we drove up to lake placid and spent an afternoon walking around mirror lake soaking in the sunshine and lunch at the cottage.

on the way back to the campground, we took a couple detours. there were flowers...



and views of the olympic ski jump and bobsled tracks, and the mountains, of course.



and then there's the food.

steaks the size of my head.



last night's salt potatoes turned into this morning's breakfast potatoes.

sausages and pancakes to fuel a day of reading, canoeing, scrounging for fire wood, and catching up with family.

does everyone eat like this when they're camping!?

i don't know about you, but something magical happens to food when it's cooked and eaten outside. especially over an open fire. and it's best when served on a stick, and after a beer or two.



and now, after driving home via route 28, i realized how close everything is to each other.

and most importantly, the view of eighth lake is exactly how i remember it.

lilac festival

friday was the official start to the lilac festival, so this morning, like the last three years, we got up early, had our once a year egg mcmuffins and scoped out for a place to watch the parade. and after the parade, we walked through highland park to scope out the flowers.

on the way through, the smell of fried dough and sweets were calling us, so we made a pit stop for mcdonald's strawberry lemonade samples and my very first corndog. i didn't care for the lemonade so much, but jason was right about the corndog. it was really really good.

so we made our way through the crowd and into the park for the star of the show. the flowers. the lilacs.

since the weather had been so warm over the last couple weeks, i was worried there weren't going to be much left for lilacs. and really, a lot of the white, light blue, and light purple ones were way past their prime. the magnolia trees had already bloomed and gone without a trace and a lot of the other flowering trees that are usually bright and beautiful during the festival had already bloomed and gone too. i was surprised at the dark purples that hadn't yet bloomed and the azaleas and rhododendrons (i don't ever remember seeing those at the festival). regardless, it's a pretty magnificent sight to see - even martha stewart likes it. i remember a couple years ago (2007?) when that was the big news. i spied martha and her camera crew walking through the park while i was standing in line for a candy apple.

lilacs in all colors and sizes








azaleas and rhododendrons of all colors too