Easter and Passover

In my own personal bid for tolerance and peacemaking, I decided to celebrate Easter this year by serving Passover foods. Really, though, while I do uphold those lofty ideals, the real reason behind my unorthdox orthodox meal plan was because I love cooking with matzoh! (after all, this is my second post in a row featuring a photo of matzo ball soup.) This morning, I prepared matzoh brei for breakfast — yum! I’ve already plans for a different version for next Sunday morning. Was I stretching the rules a bit by counting my Negroni cocktail as the bitter herb course? After all, the key ingredient is Campari, which is a bitter apéritif made from herbs and fruit. The opening course for Easter dinner was homemade matzoh ball soup. Main course, which I believe would be Seder-acceptable, was chile-braised beef short ribs with potatoes and carrots. Side dish was roasted asparagus. Oh, and I’m pretty sure I drank at least four cups of wine! We broke all the rules, however, with my sister JoAnn’s luscious dessert: pineapple upside down cake.

Weekend in NYC

Every once in a while, Brad and I like to shoot up to NYC, an easy 3-hour trip from the Baltimore area via train or bus. We didn’t realize it was St. Patrick’s Day weekend till we’d made the hotel reservations. Neither of us are crowd lovers and I don’t enjoy parades that much as I’m too short to see anything unless I’m right in front. We found plenty of other things to occupy ourselves with. Ate several delicious meals. Saw some great sights. Endured wicked cold temps and strong winds. In short, we had a blast.

Matzoh Ball Soup at Bubby’s

New York by Gehry

One of the highlights of the weekend for me was a visit to Jane’s carousel, a vintage carousel recently installed in Brooklyn just steps away from the Bridge. What makes it so special is that the carousel originally stood in Idora Park, Youngstown, Ohio, and holds a firm place in Brad’s childhood memories.

Jane’s Carousel

Riding the carousel was almost as fun as walking back to Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Brooklyn Bridge

More pictures from this visit can be found on my flickr photostream.