Friday, November 8, 2013

Culinary Differences

My husband and I were talking about a few past experiences from when we first started dating. One big thing was our culinary backgrounds. I grew up with southern cuisine and Matt grew up with take out menus, which lead to some differences in our typical everyday foods.

My mom had invited him over to dinner one night, for chicken and dumplings. For us this meal is biscuit like noodles either rolled in balls or flat, and chicken boiled in chicken broth which can sometimes be thickened.
(Photo courtesy of Lady with the Red Rocker)
To Matt he knew Chicken dumplings, as in from the Chinese take out menu known as potstickers.
(Photo courtesy of myrecipes.com)

So imagine his surprise when he arrived and was served this lumpy soup. 
Haha to this day I can remember his face's expression but he was brave and tried it.

The next experience we were married by then and went to a restaurant in Apalachicola with my family. We ordered Fried Green Tomatoes, which were cooked to perfection. My mom insisted Matt try one, and he did reluctantly. Only later that day, did my mom remember that Matt despises tomatoes. What a guy, willing to please his mother in law.
But who doesn't love Fried Green Tomatoes, they are simply delicious. 
(Photo courtesy of Tasteofhome.com)

For Matt, he introduced me to scallion pancakes and moo shu, as you can see what one of his favorite styles of food is...His family, his dad in particular, also taught me the wonders of Matzo Brei which is like french toast made out of Matzo and I cook this dish year round because I love it so much.


Seriously though, living up here I am always on the hunt to find good collard greens, mac and cheese, and many other southern comforts that I took for granted growing up.

What did you grow up eating, that is a regional item?








Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Broadway Shows

This past Monday, we as a whole family got to see the Broadway show Newsies. It had been on the top of Mason's list to see so to have everyone there was pretty exciting. 

Both kids loved the show, and we talked about their favorite parts last night. I loved hearing it from their prospective. If you know Mason he then wanted to research the real newsboy strike which we did in the car on the way to school.

Having these NYC experiences are still pretty surreal. I hope when the kids grow older and look back at this time they realize how cool it is to live just outside NYC. For them it's just "normal" but I think one day they will come to the conclusion that it was pretty spectacular (atleast I hope.)

Now on to plan which show to see next... Along with all these holiday plans that are sneaking up on us.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

I am back!

So I left the blogging world for quite a bit of time... I guess because I second guess what to write about. We are still living in New Jersey, and visiting NYC but really we've been venturing more out into the NJ suburbs lately.

Why visiting the suburbs you might ask?

We are being lured out there by the schools. Currently in Jersey City there are very few "good schools" and believe it or not NJ suburbs offer some of the "best" public schools.

Oh don't worry we don't have any plans of moving quite yet, but we like to do our research.

Any suggestions on areas we should look? We are quite smitten with Westfield, Summit, Chatham, and Madison but open to other areas.

Summer came and went, what a blast we had. Now onto such a gorgeous season, FALL! The leaves are changing, the weather is cooling down, and the pumpkins are out.

We went to Terhune Orchards with my parents while they were visiting. We make it a yearly event, but this year we might make ANOTHER trip down because the cider and pies were just THAT good.
So if you have never been out to Terhune Orchards, I definitely recommend it for some good ole fall fun. It is just outside of Princeton, NJ so not too far of a drive.

What do they have there?
Pick-Your-Own Apples and Pumpkins of course! 
After picking the perfect pumpkins, you can paint them for free (a favorite of my kids!)
They also have pony rides, wagon rides, corn stalk maze, and farm animals.
They also serve plenty of food including soup, chili, hot dogs, pies, apple cider donuts, apple cider, caramel/candy apples, and more!
 Our painted pumpkins

After all the fun on the farm, you can swing into Princeton for a nice stroll, shopping, and dinner to round out a perfect day in my book. Just a tip, if you go on a Sunday, make sure to go early if you intend to go shopping because by the time we arrived, they had already closed for the evening.

Well I will try to post more often, because my poor blog was left untouched for over a year!