Date Night in San Francisco

I was in the Bay Area for a wedding this past weekend. After six grueling hours on the plane where I was constantly thinking up of ways to entertain my very curious toddler, I was quite relieved to finally see the tarmac at San Francisco airport. My mother, seeing me drenched in exhaustion took pity on me and quickly offered her babysitting services so that the hubby and I could get some quiet time. It had been a while since we had had date night so I swiftly accepted my mum's offer.

We had a car fully equipped with a GPS (how did we ever get anywhere before the GPS???). But where to go? Should we do the touristy thing and hit up Fisherman's Wharf? Be a culture-hound and go to the SF Moma? Drive around aimlessly and look for a whimsical coffee shop? Ultimately we decided none of the above and instead I succumbed to my inner cupcake-lover! I remembered that Elizabeth Faulkner (a constant fixture on the Food Network) owned a cake shop in San Francisco. After a quick Google search we were on our way to Citizen Cake!

As we approached Citizen Cake I saw a long lIne snaking outside a neighboring pizza joint. This piqued my interest. A line outside a restaurant is usually a good sign! 

 Pizzeria Delfina was quite a find! It had a laid-back, hipster vibe but, at the same time it had an inviting aura about it. 

The hubby and I shared two pizzas: The Clam Pie...

and the Porcini Pie..

Can you tell we enjoyed them?

Next stop was Citizen Cake!

We were told the restaurant was fully booked and so were seated at the bar. Not a problem. Except that the restaurant was two-thirds empty when we got there and stayed that way for the remainder of our time there. Anyhow!

The center of the restaurant housed a glass case containing an assortment of exotic sounding desserts..

..which included, but was not limited to, the Retro Tropical Shag! A rum-soaked genoise with passion fruit and mango mousse!

Yum!

The hubby felt like getting a sundae, so we chose the Red Forrest sundae: Chunks of red velvet cake sticking out of a mound of vanilla ice cream, and dribbled with chocolate sauce and cherries.

It looked pretty good but the verdict? Disappointing. The cake felt dry and did not go well with the vanilla ice cream. Next time I am trying the SF Sourdough sundae. Grilled sourdough ice cream anyone?

Question: What is your favorite thing to do or favorite place to eat at in San Francisco? Next time we are going to come a little more prepared!

Rear-Facing Car Seats and Other Nuisances

Air travel with an infant is bad enough but a 12 and a half hour flight is especially bad. Add to that the usual flight delays, excessive taxi-ing on the ground and all that good stuff and you have a very unhappy infant and an even unhappier mom. I am a slightly over-prepared sort by nature and so I had been researching the whole how-to-fly-internationally-with-an-infant for weeks. You can do one of three things:

1. Ask for a seat with an attached bassinet (Won't work as my baby is too big for the bassinet)

2. Hold your infant in your lap for the entirety of the flight (12.5 hours? Are you kidding me?)

3. Buy another seat and attach a car seat for the baby to sit in.

To make my life a tad bit easier I chose option number 3. My car seat is airplane-compatible however, because I have a 7-month old this means I need to use an infant car seat, which by definition is rear-facing. I soon learned that this rear-facing nature would become the bane of my existence.

Rear-facing car seats are recommended for infants upto the age of 1 by the American Academy of Pediatrics and recently the guidelines have been revised to include children up to the age of 2. This is based on data assembled from car crashes and it has been shown to be the safest way for babies to travel.

I lugged this car seat all around the airport, along with a stroller, a diaper bag and a handbag (thank goodness for strength training). I pre-boarded (hey, I have an infant. I can do these things now), attached my rear-facing infant car seat to the airplane seat and breathed a sigh of relief. Phew. I survived.

Not so fast.

Within fifteen minutes a host of flight attendants swarmed around me.

"Maam. This car seat has to face forward."

Me: Um, no. It's rear-facing.

Stewardess: No, maam. It has to face forward.

Me: It is an infant car seat. They are all rear-facing. Forward-facing car seats for infants do not exist.

Stewardess: No, maam. It has to face forward.

Me (in my head): Are you not listening to anything that I am saying, dammit?

Me (out aloud): Okay, let's try to place it facing forward.

Obviously it did not work. These seats are designed to sit stably only when rear-faced. Forward facing will quickly result in toppling forward. Which it did when I succumbed to the stewardess' pressure.

Stewardess (seeing the topple): This won't work

Me: Ya think?

Stewardess (thoroughly confused): Hmm. What should we do?

Me: Look, I have used this seat before on flights. Please let it stay rear-facing. It is stable.  According to the manual this is the correct way for the seat to attach.

I was starting to get scared that she would take away my car seat and I would have to hold my squirmy, does-not-like-to-sit-still little guy for the entirety of this fast-becoming-quite-miserable flight. I put my game-face on to show that I meant business and that this seat was going to stay.

Compromise achieved. Game-face was a success: Hold the baby in your lap for take-off and landing and he can stay in the seat during the remainder of the flight.

I'll take that.

I came home and started Googling to see if I had done anything wrong. Turns out that I had not. Apparently this happens all the time. Airlines, especially international airlines, see rear-facing car seats and their knickers get all twisted. Most people opt to carry their infants in their laps and only use forward-facing car seats once their kids are old enough. As a result airlines are just not used to the concept of infant car seats and are thoroughly perplexed when they make an appearance. So annoying! Moral of the story: When wanting to install an infant car seat in a plane, have your facts ready and be persuasive.

I am flying back next week and am anticipating a brawl. Better get my game-face ready.

An Artsy Sunday Afternoon at the Dia:Beacon

I love Manhattan but once in a while I feel cabin fever-ish and need to get out of the city. Today was one of those days. The temperature was still in the high 80s so the idea of doing anything outdoorsy was quickly scrapped.

When I was little my father would always take us to the major museums in whichever city we were visiting. As a result of this practice I love museums and make it a point to visit a few whenever I am in a new and unfamiliar city.

Many years ago I went to see the Dia:Beacon with some friends and so I decided it would be fun to revisit it and expose seven month-old baby Z to some contemporary art. I kid- it was because the museum is super stroller-friendly and that has become a key feature in determining where all we can go together as a family!

The Dia:Beacon is a museum located along the banks of the Hudson River in Beacon, NY, a 90-minute drive from New York city. It was once a box-printing facility and since its conversion houses a wildly interesting contemporary art collection from the 1960s to now.

The museum has a strict 'no photographs' policy with regards to the exhibits and so out of fear of being yelled at in public by the museum guards (I always chuckle when I see it happening to other people!) I did not take any of my own pictures. I do want  to show some not-to-be-missed highlights and so I am linking back to the museum's website. I am not an art critic so there are no deep explanations on what each piece means. I just liked them so I have listed them!

Highlights:

1. John Chamberlain's scrap metal sculpture installation.

Source

2. Dan Flavin's fluorescent light installations:

Source

3. Richard Serra's Torqued Ellipses steel sculpture:
This one is really interesting. You can actually walk inside the sculpture where you see the opening. In some cases there's a sculpture within the sculpture so it's a bizarre, almost vertigo-like feeling as you are walking inside, the varying tilts throwing you off-balance a little.

Source

4. My Favorite: Louise Bourgeois' sculpture installation
The first time I saw her work I found it odd, bizarre and disturbing. But when art evokes that sort of reaction in me it means that I am intrigued. And intrigue, for me, equates with liking it.

Source

Even if this type of art does not rock your boat, the space is very cool and worth checking out. I always find it fascinating how these former industrial spaces get converted into museums. The expansive space really showcases all these exhibits, a lot of which are sculptural installations that would not look quite so grand in a small Manhattan gallery.

So that was my Sunday.

Question: Do you like museums? Which is your favorite? If museums are not your thing, what did you do together as a family on trips?

Cape Cod Adventures: I Love New England!

New England has to be my most favorite part of the country. Granted, I still have not visited the Pacific Northwest (I have been told that I would love Portland, Oregon) but for the time being throw me into any part of Vermont or Massachusetts and I shall be content!

The husband and I just spent the past few days in Cape Cod, allowing our little guy to experience his very first beach. While it was slightly cool to actually get into the water we spent our time reading at the beach, exploring the charming neighboring villages and eating a ton of lobster! The quaint little inn we were staying at had the spottiest wireless internet connection. When I brought this up to the gentleman-in-charge he nodded, "Yes, the internet comes and goes here." He then paused and added helpfully, "There's a library though...its about 20 miles from here...you could access the computer from there?"

Um, no. I figured the blog could be updated once I was back home!

So the highlights of the trip (most of which are ofcourse, food-related!) included the following:

*The Lobster Caesar salad at the Friendly Fisherman Restaurant in Eastham, MA

The freshest, sweetest lobster ever, thrown over crispy leaves of lettuce amidst croutons and sprinkled cheese. Divine!

*The Sandwich Glass Museum in Sandwich, MA

This was a real winner, in my opinion. Sandwich is a charming little village, with gorgeous houses and woods that seem like they are out of a fairy-tale.This was my favorite of all the villages we explored in Cape Cod, and the Glass Museum is lovely. Sandwich used to be the largest producer of glass in the world at one point and this museum commemorates that. There was a wonderful glass-blowing demonstration and some really fun interactive exhibits, including one which detailed the history of light. Of course the museum also houses the most beautiful collection of glassware..

Along with a very interesting exhibit in the ladies' rest room!

Yes, ladies, thats a breast pipe in the top shelf, along with a nursing bottle and a 'bosom shell' in the bottom shelf, circa 1850. The "bosom shell" is the glass equivalent of a present-day breast shield. Uncomfortable much, nursing ladies of the 1850s?

*The Stony Brook Herring Run in Brewster, MA

Isn't it pretty?

*The Houses in Chatham, MA and the Chatham Lighthouse

*Dinner at PB Boulangerie and Bistro, in Wellfleet, MA

Roasted chicken runs the risk of being rather bland. Not so much at this adorable little French bistro. Served with a carrot puree, it was one of the best plates of roast chicken I have ever had. Unfortunately I failed to take a picture. What I did take a picture of was the dessert- the bombolones, little balls of dough, filled with chocolate ganache, served alongside creme fraiche.

Thought I had died and gone to heaven!

*And finally, brunch at Chach, an off-the-beaten-track brunch spot in Provincetown.

This is where the locals go for some tasty grub.

I had the french toast with strawberries and lemon curd!

De-lish!

Now that I am back home it's back to green smoothies for me. I'm also looking forward to getting back into the workout routine, having taken a short break over this mini-vacation. I'm excited about trying a new workout in the am. Till then!

Question: Have you been to Cape Cod? What's your most favorite thing to do there?

Beignets Down The Bayou and Green Smoothies!

I just got back from a weekend jaunt to Baton Rouge. This was my second visit to Louisiana, the first one being to New Orleans a little over a year ago. While that visit was for a work-related conference my husband and I spent the vast majority of our time scouring the city for its best food. The food in New Orleans is unbelievable. From the Fried Oyster Po Boys at the famed Acme Oyster House to more sophisticated Creole fare like the pecan-crusted Gulf fish with Creole Meuniere suace at the more upscale Palace Cafe, we indulgently savored it all. The highlight of our culinary adventure was a pit-stop at Cafe Du Monde, a coffee-house famous for its chicory-laced coffee and divinely decadent beignets. Beignets are square pieces of fried dough that are generously sprinkled with powdered sugar.



Cafe Du Monde

When one of my closest friends chose Baton Rouge as the location of her wedding I quickly began mapping the distance from Baton Rouge to the French Quarter location of Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans. One hour and 10 minutes, according to Google Maps. Totally do-able, right? Not so much when you are there for a wedding. There just was not enough time to make the trip to New Orleans and back and be ready for the 2pm wedding. So I moved onto Plan B. There had to be beignets in Baton Rouge! So began another Google search for the best beignets in Baton Rouge. That is how I came upon Rue Beignet, a cosy little cafe with very friendly servers. The beignets were made fresh, as soon as we placed our order. They were heavenly! Slightly crusted on the outside with chewy moistness on the inside and a light dusting of powdered sugar. I topped that off with a cup of their chicory-laced coffee. Happiness!

Coffee and Beignets at Rue Beignet

The beignets at Rue Beignet in Baton Rouge were amazing, as good as those that I remember having at Cafe Du Monde, and in fact, some online reviewers have reported that they are even better.


Unfortunately, the beignets were not my only indulgence this weekend. The wedding festivities ensured that all guests were well-fed. From a rich crawfish etouffee to moist red velvet cake and a fish'n'chips dinner I am trying not to think too much about, I was not feeling very healthy once I was back at home. I was craving greens so this morning for breakfast I made myself my own version of a green smoothie.

Ingredients (makes 2 large glasses):
2 cups of spinach
1 cup frozen strawberries
A handful of cashews
3 tablespoons of non fat Greek yoghurt
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon of organic honey

One blended it looked like this:

And it tasted pretty good also.
For dinner I decided I was going to continue my healthy eating pattern and so I made yellow split-pea Dal (lentils). Dal is super-nutritious and a staple in South Asian kitchens and this one is my mother-in-law's recipe (albeit with a few deletions on my part to make it a tad healthier!)

Ingredients:
1 cup of split peas
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin seed powder
1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 chopped tomato
Salt according to taste (I used 1 teaspoon)

Directions:
1. Soak the split peas in water for 1/2 hour, and then discard the water.
2. Add fresh water, (enough to cover the split peas) and bring to a boil.
3. Add the spices and chopped tomatoes and cook until the splits peas soften (I cooked them for about 30 minutes at medium heat)

Done. Super healthy and super delicious! You can eat it with rice, pita bread or even on its own.

My dinner

My husband vetoed my decision to eat healthy and made his own dinner. Boo!

My husband's dinner