New Magazines!

I don't know about you, but I get very excited to get my new food magazines every month! Yesterday, I got Rachael Ray and Cooking Light. I also get Taste of Home and Food & Wine monthly. I love food magazines! There's always something new I want to try in every issue!


So breakfast today was very simple, yet very good! I tried Blueberry Muffin Shredded Mini Wheats for the first time today. Luckily, I also had some blueberries, so I threw those in too. Topped off with vanilla almond milk, this was the best breakfast of the week!



I subbed in a 6th grade class today. It's definitely not my favorite grade. They have major attitude problems that I don't care to deal with. So when I got home, I opened up some raspberry sparkling wine. So very good, and just what I needed to get my mind off those kids!



I don't have many plans for the weekend, but I probably will bake some cookies. Butterscotch oatmeal sound good! And I might make some dog treats too.

Happy (almost) weekend!

~Sarah

Will resurface soon

Thank you Dunkin Donuts for the free iced coffee on Tuesday. You made me stay awake although the pillow was calling my name.

Will resurface soon.

xoxo,

Nicole

PS-those are not my kegs in the background!

Ethiopian Food

This is from an old event, but worth going back to because the food was so good! A little less than a month ago my friend John celebrated his birthday and as a bit of a surprise several of my classmates took him to an Ethiopian restaurant in Harlem. Getting to Zoma was a bit of a mess. Despite giving ourselves 1.5 hours to get there we ended up missing our reservation by 15 minutes thanks to subway issues (traveling uptown, especially on the westside is nearly impossible on the weekends because there is always some subway construction going on).

After making the commute we didn't want to go anywhere else so waited another 20 minutes for a table to open up. It wasn't so bad though, and we had a blast in the nearby Dunkin Donuts while we waited for our table ;).

It was worth the wait, the food was delicious. I shared the Vegetarian Combo with Amanda, which include Gomen (collard greens), Atakilt (a carrot, potato, and cabbage dish), and two bean dishes one with chickpeas and the other with lentils, but I can't recall the names. Ethiopian food is served on top of a type of flatbread called injera. You also use injera to pick up bites, no utensils are used.

After hearing it was John's birthday the waitress brought him out a piece of baklava, not exactly Ethiopian, but what would be an Ethiopian dessert?

Have a great Monday!

Happy Mother's Day! And Happy Birthday Nicole!

This weekend has been great! I ran into Nicole at Rice's flea market, like she said, and made and ate some tasty foods!

I went to get all the ingredients for a cake my mom wanted for Mother's Day, and I decided to get her (and me) some organic iced tea. The Honest Tea brand is my favorite organic brand by far and it was only $1 a bottle on Saturday! My favorite flavor is Black Forest Berry. It has a great berry flavor with just a little sugar. And the caps of the tea have quotes! Like Snapple, only better.



Yesterday, we had sloppy joes for dinner. They were a Rachael Ray recipe and they were Buffalo-style. Topped with pickles and blue cheese, they were delicious!

I made my mom a Texas sheet cake. She said she remembers eating this type of cake growing up in Illinois. It's a chocolate cake with a bit of cinnamon. The icing is warm and is poured on the cake while still hot, and is topped with pecans. We ate it today after dinner with my brother's homemade Philadelphia-style vanilla bean ice cream. It was so good!

And finally, another song that's caught my interest lately-- Passion Pit's "The Reeling" Have a nice week!



~Sarah

Not Yet 24

Tonight is my last night as a 23 year old! It's ok though, I know it's going to be a great year. I mean within the first month alone I will be giving my thesis proposal (gives me the go ahead to continue in the PhD program and is essentially a master's degree once I pass) and will be running a half marathon. And to be honest, while I'm excited for both, I'm also incredibly nervous. While I have most of the proposal written, I wasn't able to get to the fine tuning this past week. Similarly, while I ran 11 miles this week, it didn't go so smoothly, but I have about 2 more weeks to prepare for both and hope to make the very most of this time.

At the same time my birthday is tomorrow and I've got to celebrate! The past few years I've gone all out with reserving tables/getting door list at lounges in the city, but I'm keeping this year low key. Thursday night I went to dinner and drinks with my friend Ryan and then left NYC early Friday to meet my grandma in Philadelphia for lunch.

Today I headed to Rice's Flea market with my mom and sister, an outdoor flea market in New Hope, Pa. As we pulled out of our driveway a little after 7:30 am it started to rain but we barged on in the hopes they were just spotty showers.

Despite thunder and lightning the rain never made it to the market and the sun broke through the clouds.

And guess who I ran into while at Rice's? Sarah! Totally unplanned and it's not as if I visit Rice's often, usually once a year!

We also passed upon a baker's table. I saw he was giving out samples and went for one, but he loaded me up. It turned out he was from Great Harvest, I should have known, I love Great Harvest!! After trying 5 different breads we went with the apple bread.

After a bit more shopping including a trip to the mall we headed home for a snack, do some work, etc.

Then, it was dinner time! We headed to Casablanca Restaurant for an eight course Moroccan feast. It took a lot of will power but I paced myself and made it to the end without feeling gross.

From the outside it looks like a normal store front, but they completely transformed the indoors.

First up were the hummous/baba ganouj and 3 salad courses:

Next up was B'stilla an egg dish within phyllo, and mixed with cinnamon and sugar:

Next up was the vegetarian main course of spinach pie, samosa, falafel, and stuffed grape leaves:

For their main entree my Mom and sis had different variations of chicken:

Then there were vegetable kebabs with some amazing rice, lentils and a green bean dish (this was my favorite course and I ate more of this than anything else):

Next, cous cous with vegetables. I only had a few spoonfuls of this dish and wrapped the rest to take home:

Finally we had a huge bowl of fruit, baklava (some of the best I've had!), and mint tea:

There was even entertainment:

This was such an excellent dining experience and the food was incredible and there was so much! Although we only had the last course wrapped to go we could have easily taken more.

After a walk and returning home it was time for birthday cake from my favorite bakery, my Mom goes all the way to Chestnut Hill for this cake (30-45 minutes from my house), but it's so worth the travel!

See you next when I'm 24 :)

Nicole

Strawberry Festival

Sorry about not posting since last week! I've been busy!

I went to a Strawberry Festival on Saturday. It's at a local shopping area called Peddler's Village. They have live music, vendors, and all the shops have sales. And of course, strawberries! I bought some strawberry preserves and sampled a couple of the baked goods they had to offer. They had any baked good available with strawberries. I bought the strawberry fritter, which was delicious! It tasted like a doughnut with a bit of strawberry flavor. My friend Michelle had a strawberry turnover, which was just as tasty.

I went to the Phillies game on Monday night, the one everyone's been talking about because the 17-year-old got Tased. We didn't even know he got Tased until the day after. Although they lost, it was still a good game and I had great seats. I had some tasty crab fries (sorry, no picture) and they were so very good! It was also Asian Pacific day, so there were several different performing groups, including this guy, who was pretty interesting. I took it when the Phillies Phanatic was dancing with him.



And recently, I've heard a great song on Alt Nation. Have you heard of Dan Black? His song "Symphonies" is pretty good!



That's it for now!
~Sarah

Weekend Haze

Hey all-

Another weekend has flown by and this is the first time I've stopped moving since Friday, apart from sleep of course.

Backing up to Friday I met up with girls in my lab for dinner and then we headed to the Bell House predominately for the 1990s and Crystal Stilts (there were 2 other openers). Loved both bands but was really intrigued by the drummer from the 1990s who sang a great deal of the tracks. It's only the second time I've seen a drummer play almost, if not, the role of lead.

Amanda grabbed the set list after the 1990s went off stage!

Crystal Stilts

Saturday I ended up sleeping in since I didn't get home until 4am or so? and met my friend Erica for Chelsea Markets. I don't know what's taken so long, but this was the first time I ever made it to the market!

There were free samples left and right, organic foods, and much more.

My favorite stop was for the People's pops, which reminded me of Locopops a gormet popsicle place on Franklin St in Chapel Hill, NC. I was hoping People's Pops would have some kind of spicy flavor, but I had no such luck. In the end I went with blackberry and cream, so good, even with all the blackberry seeds!

After wandering for a bit we grabbed sandwiches and laid out by the Hudson River. A good New York gal always has a blanket in her purse for the impromptu picnic ;).

Then I ended up shopping for way too long and I didn't get home until late and ended up turning right back around to dance the night away as a late celebration for Erica's birthday. I ended up calling it a rather "early" night and was in bed by 3, which made my 6 am wake up call to fuel and run 12 miles pretty much impossible (I didn't really even attempt). Plus the humidity came from no where today which made running even more difficult and so 12 miles easily became 3. I'm planning on running a few shorter runs this week and then trying for 12 once more Thursday morning (I still have 3 weeks until the 1/2 marathon). This was the last weekend I plan on going out until my thesis proposal is approved and I run the 1/2...sleep is way too important!!

This afternoon I took some time to clean the disaster that is my room and analyzed some data. Unfortunately I didn't get to work on my thesis proposal (need to reorganize my background and add specific details to my aims) and am way too exhausted to look at it tonight. I plan on a 9 pm bedtime, AM workout, and work on the proposal in the afternoon. I need to spend the morning at the microscope.

Nicole