I Totally Just Got Yelled At!

Well, Tanna my sweet, Cleveland is still standing - barely.

What a fantabulous weekend we had! For those of you who don't know, Helene and Mary visited Hubbs and I for a long weekend and wooooo baybay did we have a blast!

Thursday was pretty low key - we picked Helene up from the airport and went straight home as the Indians were on. *sigh* We ordered Chinese food and I had my first Crispy Duck! It was fabulous AND the first first of many firsts thoughout the weekend! =)

Friday we got up early and after many cups of coffee we headed out to the airport to get Mary. Once we had her safely in the car, off we went for a marathon 8 hour shopping spree. squeeeeeeeeeeeee! First we hit the West Side Market. We bought spices and breads and gourmet cheeses (all of which I'd never heard of)- we bought chocolates, foie gras, pastas, sausages and mackerel salad! Oh yeah, Friday night's feast was going to be a good one, especially since out of everything we bought, I think I'd had the sausage before - and that was it!

We decided to stop in to the West Side Cafe for a quick bite to eat before we headed out and this place was hysterical. No.. that's not entirely true - the restaurant wasn't hysterical, it was your basic cafe with nothing much to speak of, but the waitress - SHE was hysterical. She obviously did not want to be at work that day. First off, she got mad at me because I ordered a mocha cappuccino - she said it takes forever to make it so she'd be a while before she got back to us. So with fake smiles, we all said that it was okay - we weren't in a hurry. Five points lost there! teee! Then she came back with my cappuccino and said that she sucks at making them, but she thought she'd done pretty good with this one. And she did, it was pretty tasty. (assuming she didn't spit in it) Six points gained there! We put our orders in and continued to chit chat until she brought us our food. The food wasn't spectacular, although my stuffed portobello mushroom (stuffed with caramelized red onions, roasted red peppers and provolone cheese) was delicious and Mary's pulled pork quesadillas were pretty darned tasty too. Helene ordered beef vegetable soup and well.. she got a bowl of salty beef broth with a couple veggies thrown in as an after thought. Not so good.

As we were munching away, we discussed how we were going to leave the foie gras and cheeses in the car all day without them going bad since it was so warm out. Mary devised a way to pack them all up in newspaper, then a plastic bag, then ice and finally another plastic bag. So we asked our lovely waitress for two large glasses of just ice. She seemed rather confused and then asked us what we wanted the ice for. So we explained about the foie gras and cheese and she said, "Well just give me the bag and I'll fill it with ice." Terrific! 10 points gained there!

While she was doing that, Helene excused herself to the ladies' room and Mary and I chatted about everything and nothing when our lovely waitress came back, shoved the bag in Mary's hands and said, "I totally just got yelled at!" and hurried off to another table. We were both kinda stunned at first as we didn't mean for her to get yelled at. Then I don't know what happened.. but we just burst into laughter and neither one of us could stop. Helene said she could hear us in the ladies's room. heee! Well needless to say, we all pitched in to leave a big tip for her troubles and we got the flock outta there before the manager came after us for illegal usage of his frozen tap water.

After the market we hit Sur La Table, which I still can't pronounce correctly so from here on out, I am going to call it "On The Table"! Anyhoo, at On The Table we oooed and ahhhed for well over an hour. I managed to pick up another set of drinking glasses hand crafted in Mexico - so smashing! As well as a few more cake decorating tips because we all know how well I can decorate a cake. :P After I made my purchases, I noticed the other gals were still looking around, so to prevent myself from seeing something else I "needed" to have, I went outside to enjoy the fakkin kick ass weather we were having (77º F in mid OCTOBER).

It was a good 45 minutes later before we packed up our goodies in the car to head over to Trader Joe's as Helene and Mary were met with a cashier that didn't quite know what she was doing.. long story but well, it involved a discount and reversing a gift card purchase. hahahaaa!

Trader Joe's was a hoot as it always is.. we bought lots of stuff, most of it not on our lists. Go figger. =) After leaving, we realized we didn't even have the ingredients for the Asiago bread that Mary was going to teach me how to bake (squeeeeeeeeeee!) so we stopped at the Wild Oats and picked up the rest of what we needed.

With ingredients in hand we finally got our tired asses home.

Our feast included a huge cheese and meat plate as an appetizer - hell it really was a meal in itself. I got to nosh on Blueberry Stilton, Humboldt, Mimolette and an aged cheddar that had caramelized onions in it - all of them totally delish. We had Prosciutto, a dry sausage made with Chianti wine, lots of different green and black olives, hunks of artisan roasted garlic crusty bread and crackers. *swoon* To say that Hubbs and I were in heaven is an understatement.

Dinner was next - and by next I mean about 2 hours later.. when most people were already in bed. hahaaa! I made them Pasta with Tuna, Spinach, Hearts of Palm and tomatoes. Helene made us her Ratatouille (to die for!!) and again, we proceeded to eat! Fanfarkintabulous, my friends.. oy vey!

After my lovely guests totally cleaned my kitchen (!!) we rolled ourselves back to the office before I had to take my leave and get my considerably bigger ass to bed. har!

I could go on and on about the rest of the weekend, but I think by now ya'll are probably tired of reading my babble.. so I'll write more later. =)

But stay tuned! You've yet to hear about Starter Making 101 and Asiago bread baking successes! As well as one hell of a day at the Slavic village in Cleveland where I enjoyed (and fell in love) with my first taste of authentic Polish food. *swoon*

Hugs!
xoxo