food stuffs

First off, the weekend was nice... the rides to and from Pittsburgh went super fast and easy. The time there was nice too. The wedding was fine (okay, not super psyched about it: it was cold, and the whole thing was outdoors from beginning to end with no tent or heaters or even that many lights... but it was fine) and seeing his family was very nice. A few pics:




Not to sound disrespectful?/rude?/inconsiderate?/selfish? (don't know the right word here), but I think my favorite part of the whole weekend was went we got back on Sunday... dropped Willy off at home and headed out to one of our favorite restaurants (the Pearl) for dinner. Just the two of us. What can I say, it was really nice. Anywho...


NOW! Can we talk about food (sorry, but that's what I really want to talk about)? Because it's fall, it's beautiful out and now that there is a chill in the air, and it's no longer 80+ degrees out I feel like I can actually use my kitchen again. You know, for cooking. In the oven.

Fabulous!

I love food. And I especially love foods that I cook in the fall because they are hardy and delicious and rich. Oh course, all that means fattening too... but pishaw, they are still wonderful.

Here are some of the items on my fall menu:

• Beef Stew
• Egg bake/quiche thing (with bacon, cheese, and bread)
• Risotto
• Baked Mac & Cheese (the kind with the bread crumbs on top, oh yes)
• Baked Potato soup (with cheese and bacon)
• Shepards Pie
• Leek and Potato Tart
• Corn and Cheese Chowder
• Cheddar Broccoli Soup
• French Onion Soup
• Chicken Cordon Bleu

Um, are you noticing a trend here? Something having to do with cheese, and occationally bacon, and oh the creaminess?! And damn do I love stew/soup/chowder... it's such a perfect food for filling you up and warming your bones. If you want any recipes, I'm happy to share... if you have any recipes that are great, send them my way!!

And to drink:

• Warm apple wine (this stuff, absolutely fabu! and apparently 10% off)
• Hot chocolate with peppermint & baileys
• Apple cider

And of course, no meal is complete without a yummy dessert:

• Apple Crumble Pie
• Baked Apples
• Pumpkin Bread

Are you drooling now? Because if you aren't.... You are not human.
Not. Human.


Oh, and two current food news bits:
- First off... I love almonds! I never knew this... in fact until just recently I didn't like almonds at all. But I retried them again a few weeks ago and now I LOVE them, can't get enough of them. They are great, and thank god they are healthy because I've been eating them a lot.
- Secondly, Dragon Fruit... a discovery of mine from China. That was the only place I ever ate it and I could only find it in the states somewhere that I would need to ship it to myself. Not going to happen. (I know I've talked about this before, but can't find where... hmm...) Well, last week, I found some!! Di Bruno Brothers... the amazing cheese, etc shop here in Philly (and elsewhere) had some. Damn, I haven't been that excited in a while. I had to get one... and here are some pictures.

It wasn't the best dragonfruit I ever had (I didn't know how to pick one until I checked online AFTER I had already bought this one... you want a thinner, shinier rind)... but it was great just to have one!

Okay, well I need to get back to work. And yes, I really did just devote a whole post just to food. Man I love this time of year.



ps. So I just got the email telling me its time to sign up for the Breast Cancer 3-day. I've been planning for a while now to do the walk next year, but now that it is time to sign up... suddenly I'm... well, scared! What if I can't do it?
So dumb, and I'm going to sign up... but I didn't think it would be this intimidating!!

time flies

Note: Travis and I are leaving very early tomorrow morning, with his Grandfather Willy, to head to Pittsburgh, PA... a good 5.5 - 6 hour drive... to attend his brother Scott's wedding. Not excactly the way I planned to spend my first wedding anny, but will be fun nonetheless, and we are looking forward. Anyway, this post was originally going to be posted tomorrow, on our actual anniversary, but since we won't be anywhere near a computer... it's going up today. Pretend it was written tomorrow, so I don't have to go through and change all the "today"s. :-)


I can't believe it... but it's been a year since Travis and I got married!

Time really does fly, and if it's true what they say about the first year being the hardest, well then we are in for an easy ride. I love being married... and more specifically, I love being married to Travis.

A few things (little things, which really aren't they the most important) I remember about the day...

• the fact that i don't remember a damn thing about how the bridesmaids/groomsmen looked standing at the end of the aisle... because i was only looking at my groom.
• seeing Brian and Pat tear up when I cried because of Travis reading the sweetest vows ever.
• the way he picked up my train, all on his own, so I could walk up the stairs as we headed inside after the ceremony.
• Travis getting a face full of leaves.
• my brother and his brother laughing together, and getting along so well.
• dancing, dancing, dancing. And at the end, when I realized I hadn't had my dance with Pat... grabbing his hand, and giving him a dance sans music.
• just being so damn happy, i could bust.

It has been a great year.

To my husband:

Travis,
I love you. I love you more all the time, with each new thing we try or do together. I can't wait to experience all the new things we will tackle together in the future. We have so much to look forward to. And I'm enjoying every moment that leads us there.
Thank you for an amazing year. For being sweet and supportive. Seven years ago, when we met at a Frat Party and got drunk together I never would have imagined one day being married to you. But I really did meet my best friend that day, and even then I knew you were something different.
Happy Anniversary love. Thank you for being everything a husband should be.


The cake top:

With our bite taken out... it was actually pretty damn good, especially for being a year old!
Champagne, also a wedding gift:

A year later, it was still damn good! :-)

A year later, it's all still damn good. Seven years after we met, and I'm still learning to love you more. (the full story, and a damn sweet post to boot)

Happy Anniversary Trav!

ps. In honor of our anny, I added two links to the side there... one to our Travel pictures, and one to our Professional Wedding Pictures. Enjoy.

Ireland, the recap

Ireland, in a word, is AMAZING.
The country is beautiful. The people are friendly. And how can you not love a place that has a bar/pub on ever corner.

We loved every minute of our trip... it definitely exceeded our expections.

A little map of where we travelled... with many little stops in between. We got to see a lot of different parts of country, which was great, although obviously there was still plenty to see.



All of our pictures can be viewed here: Meg & Trav's Travels


We left of Friday from Philadelphia (7pm) and flew through the night, arriving in London at 7am... "12 hours" after we started. Heathrow is a maze... it reminds me of the hampster cages with all the tubes. And it's a b*tch to get through... took us over an hour to go from Terminal 4 to Terminal 1.
But British Air is amazing. Great people, two meals on our flight, and pretty comfy. We took Aer Lingus out of Heathrow and arrived in Dublin at 10something. We transfered to our hotel, and got settled in... then headed to meet our group around 3. At this point we were a bit tired, but were doing great considering we hadn't eaten since the breakfast on the first plane ride, and hadn't slept more then a half an hour since the night before we left.

So our first day in Dublin started off with a drive around the city. Then we went to visit the Guinness Storehouse for a tour and a free pint in the rooftop bar overlooking Dublin. After that we went to a "Shindig" at the Old Jameson distillery... we toured the recreated distillery and had a welcome drink there, then a dinner of Irish specialties with some traditional entertainment. After all those drinks and food, there were NO problems falling asleep that night!!


The next day we felt much more human after a full night of sleep. We took another, more extensive bus tour around the city. We got to check out Grafton Street, view the Georgian townhouses and pass the Dail where the government convenes. After that we toured St. Patrick's Cathedral, and visited Trinity College's Old Library to view the 8th century Book of Kells with exquisite illustrations and learn about its origins and monastic traditions. We had the rest of the day free to wander around on our own... so Trav and I walked up and down Grafton St., the Temple Bar area, and hit up the National Museum and National Art Museum. That night we went to a place called The Porter House (a fun pub with tons of their own beers) for dinner... and watched America get its butt kicked in rugby.


Our third day in Ireland we left Dublin to travel through the Irish countryside, and check out those "Forty Shades of Green". We stopped for photos at the Rock of Cashel, before heading to Blarney Castle (outside of Cork) where we did our part to get the silver tongue and kissed the stone! It was rather exhilerating considering to do so you have to be upside-down, hanging over the edge of the castle. We ate lunch there and checked out the Blarney Woollen Mills before heading into the mountains of County Kerry, and our hotel in the center of Killarney. That night we went out and walked around town a little to get a feel of the place.






Day four we drove around the Ring of Kerry... along roads winding between the Macgillycuddy's Reeks, Ireland's highest mountains, and the Atlantic coast. It was amazingly beautiful! Greens and blues and yes, some grays. Then we crossed the bridge to Valencia Island to visit the Skellig Experience to learn about early Christian monks who braved a harsh existence on the rocky offshore islands. We continued on through the remote villages of Cahirciveen and Waterville, before looping back through the colorful village of Sneem and stopping at Moll's Gap to view the three lakes of Killarney. When we got back, we hit up some of the small stores around our hotel before heading to dinner. After dinner, we headed out to a few pubs before settling into one on the same street as our hotel. It was a smaller one, but had great music (from these two funny, funny Irishmen)... so we drank there for a while before heading back to our room.

The next day was one of two that I was most excited about (the other being Blarney Castle)... the day we headed to the Cliffs of Moher. We left Killarney and traveled north through the village of Listowel to Tarbert. Then we hopped on a ferry to cross the River Shannon and drive along the coastline of County Clare. The Cliffs of Moher are sheer walls of limestone that rise to heights of almost 700 feet above the Atlantic. It was a bit gray when we left that morning, but as you can see from the pictures it cleared up beautifully!! We had such a great view. After the Cliffs, we drove through the Burren, an area of rounded limestone hills where rock has weathered into formations. Then we drove around the shores of Galway Bay, and a short drive around central Galway before heading to our hotel.



On our last full day in Ireland we headed to another famous scenic region - Connemara. It is full of hills, lakes and peat bogs... and was so stunning. We traveled alongside Galway Bay to Spiddal where most locals speak Gaelic (the Irish language). Through Connemara and on to Leenane where we took a cruise of Killary Harbour, a 9-mile fjord. On our way back to Galway we stopped at the Connemara Marble factory (small but beautiful pieces) and the Celtic Connemara Crystal Factory (which specializes in Celtic designs cut into colored pieces).



The next day was our last day and we took a bus to Shannon Airport, about an hour away from Galway, for our flight home. We headed from Shannon to Heathrow, then from Heathrow to Philly. The flight to Philly was about seven hours... and the time change is five, so we arrived at home only about two hours after we left! But man were we tired because our 8-something pm arrival time was 1-something am in Ireland.

In the end the trip was more then what we had expected, all that we had hoped for, and Trav and I both look forward to going back someday in the future.

Back!

Back and doing pretty damn good. So much work to catch up on, but that's to be expected. We had the weekend to recover, which was very helpful. Although by staying up until an appropriate bedtime on the night we got back (10pm here, which would be 3am in Ireland!), we were able to get out bodies back on schedule almost immediately. Definitely nice.
Last night Ro & Pat came over to have dinner. It was good to see them... and fun to show them our pictures.

I did upload our pictures, but don't have time to do a big post right now... so Ireland recap tomorrow. For now, two more pictures from my uncle's wedding in Cali. Ones that I'm actually in! :-)

Mom & me looking cute together.
Mom, Aunt Linda, and me... pre-wedding.
I think the one of my mom and I is so damn cute.

Anyway, now it's back to work for me! Ciao!