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Chicken a la amazing...

On Saturday, Paul and I had bought a large organic chicken from the market with intentions of making a scrumptious meal. Of course we were too worn out from our day of volunteering (yes, we woke up at 7:30am on a Saturday to truck to middle-of-nowhere Brooklyn to plant flowers and paint murals at a local school:) that we didn't quite get to cooking on Saturday. It worked out for the best though, because it is always more enjoyable to cook on Sunday somehow...maybe it's because of the inherent laziness associated with the day of rest or the way we seem to put life on slow pause to keep Monday from coming...

After a fully unproductive, gorgeous day, I decided it was time to get cooking. I chopped up some green pepper, portobello mushrooms, capellini onions and fresh garlic. I seasoned all this with salt, pepper and cilantro flakes and stuffed it into the chicken. The remaining vegetables were sprinkled around the side along with some fingerling potatoes. Rounding out the flavor, I added some fresh lemon juice for a citrus flair. Lastly, I drizzled some olive oil over the whole lot before nestling it in the oven at 350.

I have boiled a whole chicken to make chicken soup before (as you all know from my earlier post), but this was the first time I had baked one in the oven (let alone one stuffed with tasty veggies). I looked up a few tips online and everything said it would take about 1.5 hours or so. This chicken was either stubborn or just incredibly large...but it took about 2.5 hours.

The 10 minutes allotted for cooling could not possibly go fast enough for my fiercely growling belly. Once it was ready for slicing, I couldn't wait for a taste! Juicy, succulent and just plain GOOD, I was wrapped up in the flavor... It could have been the hunger pains talking, but it tasted sooo yummy it was like instant euphoria. The vegetables had soaked up all the chicken juices, the potatoes were cooked superbly and somehow the green pepper still retained a tiny bit of crunch...perfection.

It takes a long time to bake a whole chicken, but I have to say it is one of the easiest dishes to make that is packed with such an abundance of flavor! My only recommendations are to to definitely buy organic (the flavor difference is distinctly noticeable) and give yourself plenty of time. This is definitely not a rush-job sort of meal...

I am already looking forward to cooking this again, although I need to raise the bar a bit, so I might try baking a duck next time!

Decisions, decisions...

To get my MBA or not to get my MBA? That is the question of the hour... I have always wanted to go to graduate school. Call me a nerd and over achiever, but I wanted to feel that sense of accomplishment in attaining a master's degree.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my career and my life. I am a planner, yet lover of spontaneity...however, that first personality trait seems to dominate and hence I am in the "I need to figure out my life now" mode. I don't know why I get like this...what is the urgency? Don't I have the rest of my life before me? It certainly feels like that on Saturday as I bask in the energy of the city among friends, but come Monday morning, reality kicks in and I want my career path laid out before me...I want to know what's next.

Flash back to senior year of college...On top of the world, I really did feel like I had it all together. I had a five-year plan, a new job in New York to look forward to and a new city and 'culture' to explore. Now I am three years out of college and three years into my career and I feel I have hit a wall. Where do I want to go? What do I want to be when I grow up?

I thought I knew the answers to those questions, but as we are all aware, life happens and suddenly things change. I love the industry I am in, but what position am I reaching for in the future? An admirer of super accomplished women (I mean I do work for a company with a kick-ass CEO, Carol Bartz), I strive to walk among them...be that amazing woman that young women look up to and admire. Does that mean being in an SVP, President or CEO role though? Well, I am not quite sure yet, but I am positive I am excited to find out.

New chapters are always stressful, but more than that, they are an exciting adventure. As I begin this phase, I am 99% positive that grad school is in my near future, I just need to hone in on my goals upon completion and find the best possible program to match those aspirations. Let the research begin!!

Stay tuned...

Cupcakes

Every week I get the chance to try amazing food from the seemingly endless list of wonderful restaurants in New York City. I am so spoiled, I forget how wonderful it is to have home made goods. This past weekend was full of home made goods and reminded me that pleasures in food are wide and varied and can include something as simple as one of your best friend's own cupcake mastery.

I was feeling a bit (actually more like drowning) under the weather last week and I had lost my taste and appetite for everything. I was so concerned with not coughing up a lung that food was an after thought. By the weekend though, I was regaining my sense of self and decided to make some home made chicken soup. It is one of my favorite soups to make, because all the fresh vegetables taste so refreshing and healthy.

I spent several hours mastering my soup on Saturday, first boiling the yummy organic chicken I got from Trader Joe's to not only cook my chicken, but make my own broth...then chopping all the vegetables to add in: red onion, carrot, celery, cabbage, white beans, serrano peppers and white button mushrooms. The smell of the chicken cooking, slightly crept in my nostrils...hurray, my sense of smell (and thereby hunger) had returned!

A few short hours of simmering all these lovely ingredients together and voila, chicken soup. By the end, I was so excited to eat it, it didn't matter what it tasted like. However, it was confirmed by Paul that it did actually have a delicious flavor (either that or he was seriously stroking my ego).

I don't know how that chicken did it, but somehow it made me feel better. Maybe it was just placebo effect, maybe it was the supportive and loving company...but whatever it was, I was grateful to have the energy to go celebrate with my good friend Sarah for her birthday. Not to mention the cookie cake that awaited...

Hanging out with friends is like a natural antibiotic as well and I was feeling better by the minute. Taste buds reawakened by chicken soup were salivating to satisfy my sweet tooth. Just about to dive into her cookie cake and our good friend Peggy arrives with her home made cupcakes! Can you say cookie cake who? Not just any cupcakes, somehow she makes this frosting that just melts in your mouth. Pumpkin flavored to celebrate fall no less... If she wasn't such a talented designer, I might ask her to open an in-home baking business and hire me as chief taste tester.

A week that started out dismally, peaked with even more wallowing in self-sickness-pity, and ending on a note of comfort food surrounded by my friends was the best roller-coaster week ever. I don't really want to go through the sickness part again, but give me the rest any day and I would be happy.

Sunday Funday

I have to say that Sunday used to be my least favorite day of the week. Although since moving to New York, I have really come to love Sundays for their brunch traditions and relaxation vibe. You see, New Yorkers are crazy every second of every day, but somehow we all soften on Sundays. Maybe because it is a combination of the calm before the work week storm or just taking that "day of rest" mentality to heart.

This past Sunday I was accompanied by my good friend Kristen for her first return trip to the city since she moved out at the beginning of summer. We had had a wonderful weekend and fell back into our old patterns of grabbing dirty chai lattes and shopping around soho. Of course a big part of our traditions are brunch. We actually used to refer to Sundays as "eat everything / calorie-free day" to justify gorging on yummy food at least once per week. Let's be honest, this particular [whole] weekend was full of yummy food, but i will focus on the best day overall, which of course happened to be Sunday.

For brunch, a fun group of us met and waited excruciatingly too long for a table at Kitchenette in Tribeca (the one downside to brunching). The food was pretty good, but I have to say that my favorite thing about the meal was actually my Bloody Mary. This could have been a combination of my howling stomach downing the drink before I had a thought of what i was going to eat...but I digress. I had breakfast enchiladas that were terribly tasty...although I can't really separate deep hunger pains with the actual taste of the food in this case. I got mixed reviews from everyone else at the table, so I suppose I will have to ask you to try this one out for yourself for a proper evaluation. I can say the dessert case on the way out was reason enough to venture back...

Sunday Funday continued with a shopping trip through soho (including a highly disappointing trip to Louis Vuitton), wine drinking at Soho Park Grill and back home to get ready for dinner at my fav place in the city thus far, Casa Mono. They have the most amazing food, all filled with interesting flavors and items to compliment each other. It's where Paul took me on our first date and he really wanted Kristen to experience it before she headed back upstate (as if marvelous food would convince her to move back) .

Among many items...we had duck hearts, rabbit skewers, pumpkin and goat cheese croquetas, octopus and of course the best item on the menu foie gras (duck liver). The duck hearts were full-flavored, but if you are at all bothered by texture, i wouldn't recommend them. The rabbit was perfectly tender and delicious. The fall pumpkin flavor was yummy (mostly b/c I love anything fall related on a menu), but was not the most exciting thing we ate. The best was obviously foie gras (like that is surprising given my last entry and was so good that we ordered two) and the octopus...they paired it with a type of grapefruit, fennel and soft spices making it taste quite refreshing.

No fantastic meal like this can go without dessert! We decided to share the ice cream with mint and jellied figs and the chocolate cake with fresh berries and ice cream. Both were light, yet intoxicating but my favorite was shockingly the chocolate cake out of the two. I typically don't like heavy desserts, and just saying cake makes it sound heavy, but I can assure you it was light and fluffy...like eating a delightful chocolate cloud.

It's back to real life at work this week, but I can still dream of the tasty treats we had this past weekend... Anyone have a place for me to try this weekend?