Every year I find the need to inflict some sort of torturous deprivation and this year is no different. Today is day two of Lent. Ash Wednesday was yesterday and while I am not Catholic or receive ashes, I do like to give up some items I lust after on a daily basis. This year? Sweets, soda and cheese. This. Will. Be. Hard.
One of my favorite breakfasts is toasted whole wheat english muffins with cheddar cheese and sunny side eggs–covered in pepper and kosher salt. I suppose I can opt for the cheeseless variety, but they’re certain to be just a little bit lacking.
Why food? I suppose I could opt to forego other indulgences but other than eating, there isn’t much I’d rather be doing. Perhaps drinking, fornication or trash TV watching (Keeping Up With the Kardashians is scheduled to record on my DVR…I know…).
Jake is a bit of a self-taught prodigy when it comes to all things cooked or baked. I am lucky to have a guy who is hell bent on perfecting pizza dough or making profiteroles from scratch. I’ll have a separate post on those lovely babies in lieu of actually being able to have one.
I’m also running the Hyannis Half Marathon at the end of the month and Dallas will be taking on the 10K. I signed up back in November, thinking I’d start training immediately and curtail ruining myself during the holidays. Of course that didn’t happen as I was aware that I had plenty of time until February 28th. So I started training in February with a horrendous run in along the canal in the Cape. Cape Cod in early February is AWFUL. The wind and snow felt like pellets smacking my face and before long, I was picturing how I’d like to position myself when Dallas frantically led authorities to find my contorted, frozen body. My lips remained purple for three hours post race and it was a good half hour before I could bend my fingers enough to wrap them around a cup of coffee. Luckily, we stopped at Peppers Pantry on Falmouth Road in Cotuit, MA for a delicious cup of coffee accompanied by cream from their full-force cream dispenser! Light, regular or heavy cream! DE-licious! I then ruined my 8-mile calorie burn with a “small” but generous egg salad sub. The race is a week from Sunday and I’m plenty nervous about it. The most I’ve run is 8 miles so we’ll see how much of the race turns into a crawl.
I used to look forward to pizza nights prior to big runs as my go-to carbo load. Jake’s pizzas are amazing and I will miss them. He hasn’t perfected pizza dough yet and is beyond frustrated as it doesn’t seem like something that should be that hard to do. So until he does that, we drop $3 at:
Ernesto’s Pizza
69 Salem Street in the North End (which also sells yummy slices of their own) and bake it at home.
Laundry nights won’t be the same either as we usually stop over at Il Panino Express at 266 Hanover for a pizza and whatever other cheesy, delicious pasta concoction is on special that day. Their iceberg salad is overpriced but I could drink that dressing!
My birthday warranted a weekend of eating out and filthy while downing dishes with a Guinness or two. We stopped at:
The Times Irish Pub and Restaurant
112 Broad Street
Boston, MA 02110
617.357.TIME (8463)
It’s kind of off on its own so it was interesting to see it so packed, even for a Friday. Their clam chowder was the highlight. In fact, it was so good that I forgot to take a crappy-quality second generation iPhone photo of it before draining my bowl. Jake got their steak and cheese sandwich which was pretty good. Their fries don’t look like they’d be anything special, but I loved them. Straight up crispy with enough chewiness on the inside.
The service was good but I must note that my Guinness was not completely filled to the brim. Yes, there was a lack of frothy goodness and it was not lovely.
The ambience was…interesting. We could tell that the group of saucy-eyed patrons were all co-workers. It was funny watching the ladies get a little too animated with their male counterparts, gesturing wildly and making unnecessary attempts to slap a shoulder or lean unto a decent looking male counterpart. Luckily we finished our meals as a whore’d up troop of ladies marched in, asking if our third seat was taken and then proceeding to almost knock everything off their own table in a frantic attempt to “set up” before they went on the prowl. Good luck fending off those drunk female co-workers…
this tart's foolery 