use real butter

At last, I have figured out the right amount of time to bake my crème brûlée to achieve that creamy texture. Even Jeremy loves this dessert despite the fact it has no chocolate - that is saying something!

juxtaposition of creamy smooth and crunchy sweet

We went to Laudisio for dinner. This is my April restaurant review (too tired to write it up tonight). There are a lot of excellent restaurants in this town! Laudisio is Italian and overall our dining experience was superb although I still give Full Moon Grill and The Kitchen higher marks by a hair. Because of Laudisio, I’m going to have to move to numerical grades rather than letter grades.

We started with citrus cured smoked salmon and buffalo carpaccio for starters. We noticed the wine list offered flights and thought that would be a fun way to sample a handful without spending a fortune or ending up under the table…

first flight: whites

second flight: reds

Of course, for dinner I ordered… gnocchi - I am obsessed with it. This was served with mushrooms, garlic, and asiago. Fabulous, but just a tad less satisfying than either gnocchis at FMG and The Kitchen. Jeremy ordered the filet (rare - there is no other way to truly appreciate a good tenderloin) with warm brie, and assorted mushrooms. We ate less than half of our plates to make room for dessert. I can’t say I really crave eating dessert, just that I am so curious to see how they make and plate desserts from the pastry view point. I got the creme brulee (funny because I just made some this morning) and Jeremy got the BOMB.

heh, well i meant jeremy got the bombe - the chocolate bombe

He said it was the best dessert he’s ever ordered in a restaurant!

I made the crawfish fettucine tonight. Actually, I made a half recipe because the normal recipe serves 15. But I didn’t halve the pasta. It still came out rich enough to make me dizzy.

good quality crawdad meat

This was the first time I had ever handled Velveeta. It’s sticky and has a weird putty-like consistency. The list of ingredients on the box is scary. Tasting it in the dish, I think it’s been incorporated into many a casserole at one too many pot lucks… But if you ignore the knowledge of Velveeta in the recipe, it’s wonderful.

velveeta in the mix

not only velveeta, but a stick of butter, and half and half

The crawdad meat was pretty fresh, which got us thinking of Emily again. Many years ago we were driving from Ithaca to Virginia to visit my folks. On the way, we dropped by Emily’s parents’ house in DC (Northern VA). It was the house Emily lived in during her high school years and where we sat on the roof and had geeky-teenager discussions about life while watching her dad (top meteorologist for the US Navy) fiddle with his weather equipment outside. It was during that sophomore year that Emily became one of my best friends. So our visit was about a decade later and Em’s parents gave the approval upon meeting Jeremy, who had recently become my husband. Her mom served us some crawfish appetizers - wrapped in phyllo dough. To die for. That is the next recipe to request. Em’s dad is a master of conversation and social grace, weaving a discussion incorporating satellite imagery (my research), observatories (Jeremy’s research), his involvement with both and wanting to know more about what we were doing. I love her parents, much in the way she loves my parents - happy to be so adored and yet grateful that they aren’t ours.

Spring is in the air. I spring cleaned my office today and ordered some furniture. I need to clean my house next. Productivity is on the rise.