Conference 1-California quick recap

Hey guys-It's been more than a week since I first landed in Southern California, and looking at the past week, boy was it a whirlwind!

This trip to California is just what I needed! Yes, I had to leave my New York apartment at 4 am, make a pit stop at Phoenix, AZ and then back into the air and off to Orange County; but it was all worth it! Oh I didn’t mention I quickly crashed and slept for 2+ hours, but woke up refreshed for a 5 mi run.

I then walked around Fashion Island. It took all of my composure not to go on a shopping spree. Every store was having a sale, and things just seemed more fashionable than NYC. I know that’s not actually true, but New York stores are always so crowded and messy from everyones pickings, I can’t see the fashion beyond the swarms of people.

The island itself, fashion island that is, is like no mall I have ever visited! I mean looking at these next couple of photos, can you imagine a mall?

After walking around a bit, I grabbed dinner, a few rolls of sushi (I didn't have much of an appetite after flying half of the day) and headed back to the hotel.

I got an early start on Thursday. After a quick workout, I asked for directions to Balboa island, and set out on a nice 2 mi walk. Originally, I had intended on taking the ferry across the harbor to the peninsula, and walk around a bit more; however, I was pretty content with the views from my side of the island and decided to skip the extended journey. The only advantage of crossing would have been a better picture of the sea lions I saw/heard, layout on a boat. I tried to take a picture, but the zoom on my little camera did them no justice.

For lunch I stopped at a Starbucks and grabbed an egg white wrap with spinach and feta cheese, a fruit cup on the side. The wrap was as flat as it looks, but actually quite good, flavors came together quite nicely!
That afternoon, the conference began, and was followed by a brief reception, which provided cocktails and other beverages, but was lacking on the food department. I joined a few others as we ventured around and checked out our food options. We settled on Wahoo's, a fish taco chain in California.

I've settled on being a pescatarian, and as one I opted for the the fish bowl rather than the tofu bowl. The blackened fish and white beans, with added hot sauce on top, so yummy! Why don't we have places like this on the east coast?

My fellow '09 awardees and conference attenders.

After a filling meal and great company, it was back to the hotel room, to study and checkout the amazing sunset as viewed from my room window.

Nicole

PS-sorry if you subscribe and saw this multiple times, I was trying to get the font all the same, but no luck...still learning this thing.

More Pumpkin?

Hey all! Before recapping my travels and eats over the last week I wanted to show you all the yummy Pumpkin-Swirl Brownies my roommate whipped up. The recipe comes from Martha Stewart, so probably not the healthiest item posted on this site, but boy were they delicious!

She doubled the recipe, so she made some as regular brownies and some in a muffin pan, which made perfect individual servings!

Back shortly with Cali pictures!

Interview

Hey all~

I'm still doing the conference thing and will do a few postings on my trip when I return to the city in a couple of days; however, I wanted to quickly share this interview with Erin McKenna, founder of Babycakes.

Hope you're having a wonderful week.

Nicole

The love affair continues

That is my love affair with all things pumpkin, most recently in the form of Pumpkin Ale.

Over the last couple of weeks I've sampled a few different Pumpkin Ales, all quite varied in sweetness, bitterness, and color.

First up was Wolaver's certified organic Will Stevens' Pumpkin Ale(pictured above and below) from Otter Creek Brewing Co. located in Middlebury, Vermont. That's a long name for a beer right? Well, the cool thing is Otter Creek bought 600 pounds of pumpkins from the Will Stevens' farm to incorporate into their pumpkin ale. Not only did they buy organic, but they gave this farmer credit and national recognition (beer is distributed at Whole Foods!). The beer itself is also pretty good providing a sweet but not too sweet flavor typical of such ales. This beer was also lighter than the others although I wouldn't say that it was the lightest of the 3 I tried, that would go to Blue Moon which I'll discuss in a moment.

I also tried a brew from Smuttynose Brewing Co. located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In their version of this seasonal ale, Smuttynose also incorporates pumpkin and pumpkin spices into the mash. It was pretty good, but not my favorite. It seemed to heavy. Pumpkin ales shouldn't be described as bitter but I would say this one definitely was; however, the flavor of pumpkin was dead on.

Finally I tried Blue Moon's Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale. Blue Moon uses the flavor of vine-ripped pumpkin to make this full-bodied, smooth finish ale. I hate to admit it, because I would like to be all about small/local brewing companies, but Blue Moon was by far my favorite of the 3 ales I sampled. To me they do a great job of incorporating pumpkin while keeping the essence of a traditional Blue Moon.


Hope you give one a try! Pumpkin ales are usually available up to and throughout the month of November.

Nicole

Week gone by

Wow! The week has just flown by, I don't even know where the time went! Looking at the upcoming weeks I'm not seeing anything slowing down.

But, before I get ahead of myself, some of last weekends eats:

As I mentioned in my previous post, last Sunday prior to traveling back in time to Medieval Times, I had a delicious meal at Josies West with my friend Ryan. This was the first time I've been to Josie's for brunch, and was really impressed with the options. I've said this before, but Josie's West is by far a better option than Josie's East, from the space to the food, West is definitely the better option.

For brunch, they provide a pear puree, and a raisin bread with a cinnamon sugar topping. When the bread was originally served, I thought it would be similar to a crumb cake, or at least have a hard cinnamon sugar crust.

It ended up being a pretty dry raisin bread with little flavor. Even the crust was pretty boring and devoid of taste, and I could hardly taste the cinnamon. The pear puree was pretty good so I took a few bites to enjoy the spread.

For my main course I ordered the Organic Three Grain Vegetable Cheeseburger which consisted of quinoa, bulgur, and couscous. On the side I opted for the fresh fruit. It was so yummy and ridiculously filling; however, maybe not a dish to order if you're on a date because the burger was a bit sticky and got all into my teeth. Actually, this burger was so good, it might be worth the teeth cleaning.

This weekend is Open House New York. A free weekend in New York which offers a chance to celebrate New York's architecture and design by opening the doors of several of the city's best private and public buildings, gardens, and more for free! Check out details http://www.ohny.org/. I'm volunteering at Parson's The School for Design, School of Constructed Environments. Otherwise not sure what I'm going to checkout. I also need to run quite a bit of errands and finish my poster for the two conferences I'm attending next week.

Yep, I get to go to Southern California and Chicago next week, yay the benefits of science!

Off to plan my day tomorrow.

Nicole

Falling into Fall

Hey all! Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Mine flew by but was pretty productive. I had some pretty good eats which I will post later in the week but today is all about the Medieval Festival which took place at Fort Tyron park. For those unfamiliar with New York it's located at 190th st on the Westside and absolutely beautiful.

I mean look at this view looking over into New Jersey, it's gorgeous! Rockefeller actually bought the land in Jersey facing the park to prevent future development and preserve the view for future generations. The park is also home to the Cloisters, which is one of my favorite museums in the city.

So what exactly occurs at a New York City Medieval Festival? Well giant turkey legs seemed to be a must for several attendees. As soon as we walked in I spotted the huge legs and people surrounded the consumer to find out where they could purchase their own. Walking a bit more we spotted the BBQ line, with the major feature of smoked turkey legs.

I went to the festival with my friend Ryan who is responsible for these pictures, thank you Ryan! We went to Josie's West before coming to the fair so I wasn't at all hungry. Although, even if I was hungry I would have probably waited until I left to eat. The food was not particularly special to me, and there were few healthy options, especially for non meat eaters like myself. I think apart from the turkey legs we saw several venders selling fried dough, french fries, and chocolate cake. The latter of which I later confirmed with another friend to most likely be Entenmann's. Also not sure how medieval any of those eats are...

But the entertainment was pretty good. Lost of musicians, even some with their adorable children:

There was also jousting which was by far my favorite event, even though the knight I was cheering for lost:

My knight is the one in the yellow, who somehow lost to the older man in red. I guess experience pays off!

We got to this event about 10 minutes before it started, which apparently late if you wanted to sit; so Susan, Dana, and I stood along the stands. We were able to see a decent amount. I caught Ryan taking our pictures:

All in all a pretty fun and FREE event in the city, I definitely recommend checking it out in the future. I mean look at the size of this crowd, clearly it must be worthwhile!

Nicole

hodgepodge

Happy October, can't believe another month has gone by (and bunny bunny)!!

I finally made it to the new Yankee Stadium this Tuesday thanks to my friend Crissy who won tickets. I'm not really a big baseball fan but was excited to check out the site and available eats. After a few innings, actually it might have been after 1, I was ready to wander and see my food options. I did my homework ahead of time and knew that apart from the traditional hot dog, popcorn, soft pretzel, and peanuts, I would also find:

- Johnny Rockets

-Brother Jimmy's BBQ

-Moe's Southwest Grill (burritos and nachos)

-Lobel's of New York, Deli which serves a rotating meat sandwich, Tuesday was roast beef I believe. The line for the place was wrapped around!

-Carl's Philly Cheesesteak

-Sushi and Noodle Bar

-Carvel's Ice Cream

-Garlic French Fries (they also cell regular fries and cheese fries)

-Farmer's Market (as Crissy pointed out I doubt it was organic, but at least they had decently priced produce!!)

After walking and looking at our options Crissy ordered a pulled pork sandwich from Brother Jimmy's and I opted for the garlic fries:

Crissy took this picture with her camera phone, I really didn't think there was so much ketchup on them...haha oh well. Also, it's a good thing I had no one to kiss that night, because the garlic is piled on, but it was worth every bite!

When we returned to the seats, I was surprised to find myself pretty into the game. I think Jeter's use of Jay Z's "Empire State of Mind" as his night's anthem might have helped...I'm loving that song right now.

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Ok, moving on to a totally different subject, and hence the title hodgepodge...

A couple of weeks ago I received a few samples of stevia made by SweetLeaf, including the packeted sweetener as well as flavored liquid sweetener in the flavors of Root Beer, Chocolate Raspberry, and English Toffee (just two pictured below):

I first tried the packeted version in my coffee. I was not a fan! I felt that it added a filmy consistency to the coffee. Since I had this coffee at the same seminar in which I received the samples, I figured that coffee could have been off. When I tried the sweetener once more in my morning tea, I had the same opinion.

Next up the liquid sweeteners, which I was a bit hesitant to try after my first couple of experiences. So, english toffee into coffee, once again no. Ok, well the spokesmen told me the root beer flavor into seltzer would taste like a root beer soda. No seltzer in my cabinets so I tried it in regular tap water. The instructions said 1 drop/2mL of liquid. Well I thought one of the problems with my like of the product was that it was also too sweet (I tend not to add sugar to my tea or coffee) so I halved the amount. Weellll...

I actually liked it a lot! The last few days half my water consumption has included either root beer or chocolate raspberry flavoring (haven't tried the toffee since the coffee incident).

Next I need to try root beer in seltzer. Any good ideas for the english toffee? I don't think I want toffee flavored water, but it could be okay.

Nicole