London trip, part three

Day 6: Saturday

We were nearing the end of our trip, so we re-evaluated the list of sights we wanted to see while in London. We found out we could go on a tour of Parliament and got very excited about this new possibility. Instead of heading over to the Portobello Road market in Notting Hill, we got up early and headed to Parliament for our tour.



It was one of the most memorable parts of our trip, and I'm so glad we were able to go. I highly recommend a tour if you happen to be in London when Parliament is on its summer holiday.

Next, we headed over to the London Eye. I wasn't quite sure about the Eye, but we had been told by many people that it was a must-do. Honestly, for the amount of money you pay (I think it was 30 pounds or something), I'm not sure I'd do this again. The views were amazing, but I was a little unsteady and even felt a little woozy!
We had tickets to a sold out Tottenham football game that afternoon, so after our flight on the Eye, we headed back to our hotel to quickly drop off the camera. I was at a near breakdown due to hunger, so I convinced Nico that we had to stop at a pub up the street for lunch.

We headed over to the Tottenham Stadium -- a tube ride and a bus ride later, we were amongst thousands of crazy hooligans rooting for their team. It was a fabulous game -- Tottenham won in the 4th minute of added time at the end to make it a truly exciting result.

It was also great to see how seriously the British take football. Unlike American sporting events, no one got up from their seats for the entire game because they were so intensely watching. The atmosphere was electric, and you really got the sense the fans appreciated the skills of the players.

We took the Tube to Regent's Park to see the rose gardens there before walking down Baker Street and through Mayfair back to Picadilly. At this point, we were starving and it was getting late. We kept looking for a unique restaurant, but kept running into Italian or Asian restaurants -- not what we wanted. In Picadilly, we found this off-the-path Moroccon restaurant and had a really memorable, delicious meal before heading back to the hotel for much-deserved sleep.

Day 7: Sunday

We knew we absolutely had to see the Tower of London, so we left this for Sunday. On our way to the Tower, we walked along the Embankment Gardens.



Although the inside of the Tower is a bit of a tourist trap that was insanely busy, we did have a fun time seeing the crown jewels, and there was a fabulous exhibit of Henry VIII's armor.



We walked from the Tower to St. Paul's Cathedral. We didn't think about the fact it was Sunday, so we weren't able to go into St. Paul's galleries. From there, we walked across the Milennium Bridge to Tate Modern.

Millennium Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral

Neither Nico nor I had much interest in seeing the art inside Tate Modern, but we were curious about the building. We also thought we might get some lunch there (though, when we finally got up to the top of the museum where the cafe was located, we were disappointed by the menu).

Instead, we walked further down the Thames to the Globe Theater to pick up the tickets we had purchased for that evening's performance. Near the Globe, we decided to have some Greek food, which turned out to be delicious.

With some time to kill before the start of the evening's Shakespeare performance, we wandered through Southwark, found a little tea shop, and had the most amazing meringue cookie and tea. From there, we wandered into the Southwark Cathedral and found the chapel dedicated to John Harvard!
We headed over the Globe again, and we ended our evening here, with a performance of Troilus and Cressida.

Day 8: Monday

On our final day, we felt really great about all of the things we were able to accomplish. All of the big sights were checked off our list! Our trip happened to coincide with Britain's August Bank Holiday and the Notting Hill Carnival, so we planned to go check that out before heading to the airport.

First, we decided to go on a tour of Kensington Palace. We wandered through the gardens -- the Sunken Garden was particularly beautiful.

It happened to be the anniversary of Diana's death on August 31, the day we were there, so there were many people leaving memorials on the Palace's gates, which was a bit eerie.






The tour of the palace itself wasn't great, and I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you have an interest in seeing Diana's dresses.

We continued walking to the Notting Hill Carnival, which was really crazy. Apparently, it is the largest street festival in Europe. I don't doubt it. There was a "parade" of sorts -- groups of dancers and drummers would proceed down the streets periodically. It was really interesting to see, and there was tons of great-smelling street food too.
We wanted to get some food before we headed to the airport, so we decided to stop at the Orangery next to Kensington Palace before catching the Tube. We had some scones and clotted cream for our last meal in London. The setting was gorgeous!


Our trip was truly wonderful, and we both got home thinking about where we wanted to go next. I think that's truly a sign of a good vacation.

All trip photos located here.

London trip, part two

In an effort to get all of the details of our London trip out of my head and into some sort of record-keeping format, I'm continuing our trip.

Day 3: Wednesday


Since it was going to rain on Wednesday, we decided to make it a museum day. We started with the amazing British Museum. A bit of an archeology nerd, I was inordinately excited to see the Egyptian wing in particular. I was not disappointed! The Elgin Marbles were (of course) also amazing.

We started out in the British Museum trying to figure out what to prioritize, since we knew the place was just huge, and we would never be able to see it all. Well, this quickly divolved into a "treasure hunt" of the list of the Museum's treasures that they hand out with the map at the information kiosk at the entrance. It actually worked out to be a good way to see a very diverse set of artifacts and to get a sense of the museum's huge collection.

After the British Museum caused us to wobble around due to the pain in our feet, we decided to do some shopping, mainly so I could find some better walking shoes than the ballet flats I had packed for the trip. With walking shoes purchased and Emily much happier, we went on to Berwick Street to check out some of the fabric and haberdashery stores in the area. I saw so many beautiful fabrics that I really wanted to take home with me, but I was saving my fabric purchases for Liberty of London.

We moved onward to one of my must-sees in London: Liberty of London! I carefully (agonizingly!) chose two pieces of fabric (one will be a shirt dress, the other a classic button down), and oogled all the amazing things in the store. I think Nico was growing impatient with me, but it is really a fabulous department store.


We kept walking, ending up in Covent Gardens for some delicious Indian food for dinner. We both love Indian, and had hoped to have the opportunity to eat a lot of it in London, but surprisingly, we had a bit of a hard time finding authentic looking Indian restaurants.

Day 4: Thursday

We had planned to take a trip into the countryside for at least one of the days on our trip. We agonized about the best method of travel, and ultimately decided that renting a car would give us the greatest flexibility, since what we really wanted to see was Stonehenge and some of the Cotswolds.

Well, let me save you the trouble: do not rent a car if you can help it. Nico is the only one of the two of us who can drive a standard transmission, and he had not driven a standard since high school (about 10 years ago). That, plus the fact that you're driving on the opposite side of the road and using your left hand to do the shifting, meant we had a bit of a rocky trip.

We also wasted quite a bit of time since we decided it would be easiest to rent a car at the airport (saving the congestion charge and hassle of driving in central London). The Tube ride to Heathrow is over an hour, and then once we got to the airport, we had to take a shuttle bus to the rental car station... plus we didn't have a map... it was a bit of a rocky start to the day.

Anyway, first stop: Stonehenge. It was truly amazing to see the stones and to hear how no one really has an explanation for how they were built. We were both in awe of the ancient site and were very glad to have seen it.

A Jane Austen fan, I thought it might be fun to see Bath, so we continued westward from Stonehenge. When we got to Bath we discovered with horror that the entire city was jammed with traffic and is built on a hill! It was a bit stressful, but we finally found a parking spot and ventured out to find some lunch.

We stopped at a pub and had -- no joke -- the best fish and chips of our lives.



We went on a tour of the Roman baths (the longest audio tour of our lives! seriously, someone needs to edit that thing), and wandered around Bath to see the Royal Crescent, the Royal Circus, and the pretty cheesy Jane Austen center.

Because evening was falling, and we knew we had a drive ahead of us, we simply decided to head back to return the car. We did get to see some of the gorgeous countryside on the way back, but missed the heart of the Cotswolds. Something to do next time!

Day 5: Friday

On Friday, we decided to hit up some more of the amazing museums in London. We slept in a bit, stopped in the fancy food shop of Fortnum and Mason (amazing, by the way) to buy a few gifts, and headed off to the National Gallery.

We tried to target certain areas of the museum, but it's really difficult to make decisions about which amazing pieces of art you're going to skip! We had a late lunch in the gallery cafe -- I chose to have tea and a scone with clotted cream and homemade raspberry jam. Amazing.

Next, we headed to the National Portrait Gallery. We weren't really sure what to expect out of this gallery, but it was truly an amazing look at the history of the British Monarchy through portraiture. We were a little more engaged towards the beginning of this museum -- at some point in the 18th century or so, we started to get pretty fuzzy on all of the accession order rules and who ruled when. So confusing! It was very neat, though, and I highly recommend a stop here. It definitely exceeded our expectations.

We had arranged to meet up with a friend from college who is now living and going to school in London near our hotel. After that, we headed over to Harrods -- arriving about 10 minutes before closing. We essentially ran to the middle of the store to see the Egyptian escalator and the Diana memorial before finding the "pet world" to pick up some little gifts for Eleanor.

We ended the evening at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is an amazing treasure-trove of items. We spent the most time in the fashion gallery and in the jewlery gallery. I thought the latter was particularly amazing! Before walking back to our hotel, we stopped for dinner at a small Italian cafe along the way.

London Trip!

Wow -- where has the time gone? Thing have been pretty busy over here between craziness at the office and insanity in my personal life. In an effort to get back to blogging, I'm going to start with a couple of posts about our last-minute trip to London at the end of August.

Originally, we were planning a trip to Nova Scotia, but both Nico and I felt the tug of Europe. Since neither of us had been to London, we decided it was a good place to start! We booked our tickets to London, and one week later, we left. I admit I enjoyed the last-minute spontaneity of it all. We were gone for a total of eight days -- leaving on Sunday evening, and returning on Monday evening.

Day 1: Monday

After arriving in London, we knew we wanted to beat jet-lag, so we took the Tube from the airport to our hotel near Green Park, left our bags at the hotel, and took off walking towards Westminster Abbey. Along the way, we stopped for take-out sandwiches, which we took into St. James Park. After watching people and birds for a bit, we continued past Buckingham Palace, White Hall, and onward through many government buildings. There was some sort of security situation, so we ended up taking a circuitous route, since all the government buildings and the surrounding streets were unexpectedly closed.

We paid a bit of extra money to take a guided tour of Westminster Abbey -- money very well spent! Our tour guide was fabulous, and we got to go in several places those not on the guided tours are not allowed to enter.



Next, we wandered around, stopped at Westminster Cathedral and into some shops along the way (Top Shop, Zara, etc.) Exhausted, we stopped in St. James Park once again for a brief respite in the grass with some fruit and chocolate before going back to our hotel to freshen up before dinner.

For dinner, we found an authentic looking pub near our hotel. They happened to specialize in pies, so we both decided to forgo fish & chips for that first evening and have the house special pies. Nico tried a wild game pie, and I had a basic beef stew pie. Both were delicious!

After dinner, we stopped at Lilly White's in Picadilly Circus -- a giant sportswear store. Nico wanted to get a football jersey of his team (the Tottenham Hotspur), so we found the humongous football floor, which contained the hilariously named "boot room." I think Nico was in heaven.



Day 2: Tuesday

On our way back to our hotel the first evening, we happened to go by Buckingham Palace. We were advised to buy tickets in advance -- there was no line when we walked by, and the tickets are timed in an effort to control the crowds inside the Palace. So, with our tickets purchased, we planned our "royal day" on Tuesday, beginning with a tour of the Royal Mews. The Mews is where the queen's carriages, cars, and horses are kept. When we arrived in the morning, the horses were being exercised in the riding school within the mews, so we got to see the trainers working with the horses, then taking the saddles off, washing them, and putting them back into the stables. It was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip!


One of my favorite stories from the tour is that the Queen names all of the horses herself. And, she comes to visit the horses at least once a year. She's such an animal lover, that she can name all of the horses by sight! The Windsor Greys were on summer holiday in the countryside for the summer, so we were just able to see a few of the Cleveland Bays.

Next, we rushed over to see the changing of the guard. The crowd gathered was crazy! We got a tip from the woman who helped us schedule our tours on where to watch the ceremony -- we pushed our way to the top of the traffic circle in front of Buckingham Palace to see the entire spectacle unfold. Most of the time, we didn't really know what was going on, but it was, of course, a fun thing to see nonetheless.


Finally, we toured the state rooms of Buckingham Palace. After seeing the grandeur of the rooms, it's easy to see why the British love the monarchy so. It's an amazingly rich history that is truly unique.

View of Buckhingham Palace from the Palace Gardens.

Next, we decided to walk over to Hyde Park. We wandered amongst some gardens there and planned a lunch at the Lido. With a pitcher of Pimm's split between us, we continued to wander through Hyde Park after lunch, past Kensington Palace, by the Prince Albert Memorial, the Royal Albert Hall, and through Notting Hill.

We ended the day by walking all the way west past Notting Hill and to a Queen's Park Rangers football match. They wouldn't allow cameras inside the stadium, so you'll have to trust that we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

An evening out in Boston

You know that point in the summertime when you glance at your calendar, realize that half of summer is gone, and then freak out because you haven't accomplished a single thing on your summer to-do list? I'm totally there. I'm in a holy-crap-summer-is-almost-over-and-I-haven't-even-started-to-enjoy-it kind of mind, and it's frankly making me a little (ok, a lot) cranky.

So, what have I been doing this summer? More importantly, since it's Friday (Eleanor's day) here on Trowbridge Street, what has Eleanor been up to this summer? Well, let's take a look at what she was doing last Friday.

Nico's been working downtown in the city for the summer (quite a change from the working-at-home student life for him), so Eleanor and I ventured into Boston to join him for a picnic after work. Btw, that's one of the things I love about Boston -- the subway here is pet-friendly! We ended up wandering around the piers, where there was a Tall Ship Festival (tall ships = really, really big boats).

Eleanor loves water so much, I was half afraid she was going to leap off the dock and into the ocean. I urged Nico to keep a tight hold on her leash!


We saw some really big boats from all over the world docked in Boston Harbor, like this one, which apparently was from Romania:


We ended our evening in Quincy Market (aka, tourist mecca), where we stopped for dinner at The Salty Dog. Here's a bit of trivia about Nico & I: The Salty Dog was the site of our first date almost 6 years ago! It's not a fancy place, but it has great fried seafood options, and outdoor seating. And, it has a certain magical quality to it, due to our history with the restaurant. :)

Eleanor was welcomed by the wait staff, who very kindly brought over a giant bucket of water for her when we arrived. Sitting at the edge of the seating area, we could hardly eat because people kept coming over to talk to us about Eleanor and her cuteness! Eleanor was completely focused on our food, however:

"Please, please give me some of those delicious looking fried clams or a french fry! "

"Please!?! I mean, how can you resist me!?!"

"I mean, come on! I'm so adorable!"

"Ok, ok, you win! I'll do anything. I'll even lie down for just a tiny bite of french fry!"

Lest you think we're completely cruel, know that Eleanor got a few nibbles of our food for her proper behavior. All in all, it was a perfectly quintessential night out in Boston.

Eleanor, meet porcupine. Porcupine, meet Eleanor.

So, I realize I've yet to catch up on my blogging schedule of 5 posts per week. I'll get there... someday. Seeing as how my posts have so far been about food and Eleanor, it's clear what the priorities in my life have been recently...

Last weekend, we went up to Maine to visit Nico's parents. They have a very adorable poodle named Gus who is just about 1 year old. The two dogs did a lot of this:

And, this...

And, this...


Eleanor is a big fan of rolling, especially in smelly things:


But, perhaps the most exciting thing this past weekend was meeting this:


Yup, that's right, a porcupine. Eleanor and Gus found this little friend in the woods. After pulling the quills out of both of their snouts, we managed to get the porcupine into a box in order to transport him to a more remote area in the woods where he/she will hopefully not run into any more dogs or people.

Squash Risotto

I haven't completely forgotten about blogging, I promise! Our camera broke, and so, I had to buy a new one. I'm now a proud owner of a new Canon XS -- an entry-level digital XLR. I hope my photography will improve from now on!

Today's food post is about some squash risotto we made a couple of weeks ago now. I admit, squash in the spring is a bit odd. We have a biweekly delivery of assorted organic produce to our doorstep from Boston Organics. It's a great service, especially in the fall and winter when the farmer's markets are no longer open in this area. In any case, in our deliveries, we get a random assortment of whatever produce happens to be available that week. And, a couple of weeks ago, we got an acorn squash.


I don't usually like squash. It's a textural thing. I don't like it when its baked and it gets stringy and mushy. But, let me tell you -- I LOOOOOVED this risotto. It was so delicious, I couldn't stop eating it.

I think the trick with this recipe is cutting the squash up in 1/2" cubes and browning them, instead of roasting and pureeing the squash. At least for me, that's what made the squash wonderfully crisp on the outside and slightly soft on the inside, but not pureed and stringy.

Recipe: Butternut Squash Risotto
Adapted from Everyday Food, October 2004

Serves 4 (or 2 very hungry people)

• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 1 1/2 lbs. squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2" chunks
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• Coarse salt and pepper
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 cup Arborio rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 4 cups of water and/or broth (I used 1 box of vegetable stock and added enough water to make 4 cups. You could also use chicken stock, or just plain water.)
• 1/3 cup of grated Parmesean cheese
• 1 Tablespoon chopped sage (thyme might also be nice, if you don't have sage)

In a small saucepan, heat the water/broth until it is simmering. At the same time, melt the butter in a medium saucepan or a large, flat pan with high sides, over medium-high heat. Add the squash and onion and salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is carmelized and the edges of the squash have softened, about 8 minutes. Add the brown sugar about halfway through -- it will help things carmelize.

Add the rice, stir to coat and cook for a minute or so, until the rice becomes white. Add the wine and cook until it has almost evaporated, about 1-2 minutes.

Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add 1/2 cup of the hot broth mixture (I just used a big ladle and ladled about 1 ladle full of broth into the pan). Cook, stirring until the broth has absorbed. Continue adding broth, about 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until the liquid has absorbed until all the broth has been incorporated. This will take about 35-40 minutes.

Stir in parmesean and sage and season with salt and pepper. Serve with additional Parmesean sprinkled on top.

Eleanor turns three!

Featuring guest blogger, Eleanor.

Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Eleanor, and I am a goldendoodle. Aren't I cute?


Last weekent was really exciting! I turned three on Monday, so Emily and Nico let me celebrate a day early. We went to this amazing place called Dog Town. I got to run around in the woods, and get really, really dirty -- my favorite thing to do!


It was a little hot outside, so I decided to lay in the mud as much as possible.


It was the best day. On Monday, I was still recovering. I got to relax all day long until Emily and Nico took me to the pet store to pick out a treat for my birthday. I was so excited! I chose this awesome green rubber cat that makes a really loud squeak when I bite it. It's so much fun -- I take it everywhere with me!

When we got home, I was still really tired, so I took my new toy to sleep with me.

It was a super weekend, and I can't wait for more adventures!