Tag Archives: wine

First Anniversary Celebration in Maine

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Posted by Rob on May 30, 2011 – 2:14 pm
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Shell and I just got back from our weekend excursion to Maine. We had wanted to go there before we moved down south, and Memorial Day weekend wasn’t only a four-day weekend, but it also happened to be our anniversary, so it made sense to kill a couple of birds with one stone. Our “Maine” destination was the city of Portland, but also had stops in Freeport, Old Orchard Beach, Kenebunkport, and Kittery. Here’s how things played out, and also some pics to go along with it:

We started out Friday morning bright and early at 8am for the four hour, forty-five minute car ride up to Portland. We decided not to go directly to Portland, and made a stop for lunch and exploring in the town of Freeport. The main attraction at Freeport was a series of outlet stores, the most impressive of which was L.L. Bean’s. They didn’t just have an outlet store…they had like an outlet campus/complex. There must have been at least five separate stores which specialized in different things, such as clothing, biking/sports, hunting & fishing, etc. It was all built on a beautiful grassy area and was very clean and well-kept. The other thing we did in Freeport was eat. Read More »

2nd Annual Mac-n-Cheese Bowl a Tasty Success

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Posted by Rob on February 19, 2011 – 7:39 pm
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Today was the second annual Mac-n-Cheese Bowl in Albany. Quite a few (thirty to be exact) restaurants were present, and offered their version of the classic macaroni-n-cheese dish to be judged by the public. For a one-price ticket, you were given access to unlimited tastings of these delectable cheesy dishes. The event ended up being sold out, but luckily Shell and I had purchased tickets a few weeks back, so we were good to go.

There were many different kinds of M&C to try. My favorites had some kind of meat in them, whether it was beef check, pulled pork, buffalo chicken, or, my personal favorite, a birch-beer braised beef. There were also a few seafood ones which reminded me more of a pasta dish than M&C, so those I didn’t personally like as much. While they were tasty, they just weren’t M&C. There were also some really cheesy (in a good way) ones, and one in particular that was my second favorite was extremely cheesy. It contained a heck of a lot of provolone, and was filled with a few different types of Italian meats, like capocolla and prosciutto.  Read More »

Cooking/Food Category Now Food & Drink

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Posted by Rob on February 19, 2011 – 9:51 am
Filed under Food & Drink, Site Updates
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Since this site first started up, I had a blog category titled “cooking/food”, which is where I lumped my adventures in the kitchen along with restaurants we ate at and different things we drank. Today as I was writing up my previous blog on my brother-in-law’s F.N.Beer, I realized that I didn’t like lumping beer and wine talk into a category called “cooking/food.” So I went ahead and changed it, and it will now be called the more stylish “Food & Drink.” This category fits about everything to do with consuming anything, so it works for me.

Homemade Beer

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Posted by Rob on January 18, 2011 – 12:13 pm
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Now don’t get excited, I don’t make my own beer…but my bro-in-law does! When I last saw him, he gave me two hefty bottles of his homemade brew, one which was a Dunkelweizen and the other was a Winter Ale. I had finished with the Dunkel a few weeks ago, and last night I opened up the Winter Ale for the first taste.

The Winter Ale is a strong, tasty beer with plenty of flavor. It also has that “bite” that I’ve come to enjoy in beer, particularly in Sam Adams brews. The Winter Ale is a bit stronger than the Dunkelweizen, so I did prefer the Dunkel, which had some interesting flavors present. I was originally planning on saving them for our New Years Eve party, but in the end I decided to serve Sam Adams and keep the homemade beer all to myself.

The homemade beers my bro makes are a real treat, as there is a lot more to them than a commercial beer I can get in a store. I look forward to trying out more of his special brews. While making beer is not something I would personally like to get into, I would definitely be interested in making my own wine once we get a house. My dad used to make his own wine when we were down on Long Island, and it’s definitely something I want to try my hand at.

Have a Happy Easter!

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Posted by Rob on April 3, 2010 – 6:25 pm
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happy-easter

Today was a pretty busy day of shopping and cooking for tomorrow’s festivities. Shell and I have been wanting to have a nice holiday dinner at our apartment for our families, and this year for Easter my mom was more than happy to agree (being an accountant, this is her busiest time of year and she didn’t want to be bothered with getting the house ready.) So Shell cooked up some Easter Bread today (which was very tasty) for breakfast tomorrow morning, and got everything else prepped for tomorrow’s dinner. Now it’s time to get ready to go to Easter Vigil mass…

easter-small

We picked up the ham for dinner tomorrow, and Shell is also going to cook up asparagus, maple-glazed carrots, scalloped potatoes, and parmesan rolls for the rest of the meal. Cara is making up a meat pie and a wheat pie also, which is mighty delicious (particularly the meat pie.)

I’ll post more tomorrow with pics of the great food (especially the meat pie) so you can see what goes on in our Easter dinner. But all you really need to know is that it’s going to be a day packed with plenty of great food and wine!

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter, and has some good eats also!!!

We Italians Need a Holiday Too!!!

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Posted by Rob on March 17, 2010 – 4:52 pm
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Sure, I like St. Patrick’s Day for the annual corned beef meal, but that’s about it. You won’t catch me wearing green, I won’t down a Guiness, and, long story short, I won’t go around pretending to be Irish, like so many people do. All too many people make believe that they are Irish for a day (and the weekend before, and the weekend after) during St. Patrick’s Day, and run around going bar-hopping and acting like fools. Now if you’re of Irish decent, I have no beef with ya…it’s your holiday and you do what you like. But there are more non-Irish people celebrating it here in the States than those who are Irish, and for that I say boo.

So on that note, I want to make my voice heard for all us Italians out there, that we want a holiday too. I mean, just picture how awesome a holiday would be if the Irish stuff was replaced by Italian stuff. For example, everyone would down awesome, delicious wine rather than beer. And let’s face it, wine is tastier than beer, goes better with a dinner, and gets you feeling good faster than a bottle of beer would. Secondly, the food. Screw the corned beef, cabbage, potato, and Irish soda bread. Sure, it’s a decent meal, but what about a GREAT meal?! Picture it: lasagna, baked ziti, meat pie, chicken cacciatore, veal piccata, sausage and peppers, pasta, meatballs, fresh warm Italian bread with some extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and seasonings to dip it in…mmmm my mouth is watering just thinking about it!!! And what about dessert?! To be perfectly honest, I don’t even know what an Irish dessert is, but look at Italian desserts: cookies, cannoli, spumoni, tiramisu…simply fabulous!

So while I don’t mean to bash Irish cuisine and culture, I’m just saying that Italians need an ethnic holiday in the U.S. too. To be quite honest, both the food and drink are better, and I think people would have a great time getting drunk on wine and eating warm, hearty food. Easter is kind of a good example, so maybe that counts? Or maybe Columbus Day? Don’t start hating on me and telling me about all the bad things Columbus did…I’m a historian, so I know. However, it is an important holiday to Italian-Americans, and maybe more of us should start embracing it as such, rather than for the man himself.

A Night of Gaming with Shell

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Posted by Rob on December 30, 2009 – 9:13 pm
Filed under My Personal Life, Video Games
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Well, it wasnt a full night of gaming, but there was over an hour of PS3 goodness going on in our house. I started nice and easy and let Shell check out the Peggle demo, which she enjoyed. I liked Peggle a lot also, so it looks like I’ll be snagging that in the near future.

After that, I popped in Buzz! Quiz World, and we played two online matches against four other players. It was my first time playing the game online, and I enjoyed it. However, we both did pretty badly. In the first round I managed to stay in fourth place, and after losing that, we decided to rematch. During this round, I ended up doing horrible, and was in last place for most of the game. That was sad. But I was glad to get some gaming in alongside Shell. Tomorrow we will be playing some Rock Band 2 and the Rock Band AC/DC Track Pack that I bought her for Christmas while we wait for the ball to drop and drink cheap wine.

Labor Day at Lake George

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Posted by Rob on September 7, 2009 – 9:53 pm
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We decided to spend the day at Lake George today. Its only a little an hour from our apartment, and we thought today would be a good day, since we both had off. It was cloudy and cold in the morning, but eventually the sun popped out for the remainder of the day.

We started off with some light shopping. Shell wanted a caramel apple, and we found them. She bought hers just as it was made, so the caramel was hot and gooey. I preferred my chocolate apple, which had a light layer of chocolate so that it didnt crumble when you bit into it. It was a good snack before lunch.

We then took a boat tour of Lake George on the Minnie-Ha-Ha, which lasted about an hour. It was a decent sized steam ship, and took a lazy tour to a certain point on Lake George and then turned around. The Captain did the usual sight-seeing speech, noting all the ridiculous summer homes, hotels, and camps lining the shores of the lake. What I didnt know was that there were some British ships that remained sunken in Lake George, and there are markers attached to them so you can see where they lay from the surface, though you obviously cant see down far enough to see the actual boats. Shell and I got seats on the bow of the ship, so we had a decent view. The way out was relatively warm, but on the way back the wind really picked up, and it was a little chilly.

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