Finished beef stroganoff deliciousness--from FreshDirect/Real Simple.

Whoops...here's the beef for that stroganoff picture down there.

Finger-lickin' good--or more like a bunch of fingers...

Freakin sexy caramel deliciousness, in your face. Vanilla flavored since I didn't want to get all crazy with the stranger flavors yet. (Recipe from CIA/Chocolates & Confections--pub. 2007)

Stirring forever to make the liquid evaporate/caramelize the proteins in the milk for caramel!

Beef stroganoff deliciousness.

Both legs and ankles and feet.

What happens when a) it's Tuesday night and a bit too warm for the month b) you're sitting inside 'inoteca and suddenly feel a billion bites and scratch the hell out of them. Seriously, it was bad. I couldn't wear shoes at one point.

Scallops and truffled linguine. It was a nice dish.

1/4 lb of scallops from Citarella on my way home from work one Monday night...

And it came out looking kind of cool when it was done. If you make this cake with a springform--the caramel WILL leak through, even if you bought an expensive, fancy springform that guarantees that it won't leak. I can't decide if I like this cake better than the coffee cake--both were freakin good.

Peach Tatin Cake from Tish Boyle's The Cake Book--I couldn't layer the peaches so that they overlapped correctly, so I made this fancy pattern, which isn't all that fancy since they're just wedged halves, but it worked well.

Seats weren't as good for the NYPL event with Bill Buford, Mario Batali, and Anthony Bourdain. Interesting evening--not as awesome as I had hoped though, but we did go to Esca with Jon afterwards and that was freakin awesome! Even if we did see a rat-atouile, but it was only a little guy. The razor clams are so good.

NYPL event--Pam's boyfriend is on the second from the left. Interesting lecture. I saw him once on my way to her apt.

Finally made one of the many curries we bought at Mitsuwa. Delicious curry udon. So good.

Mini-cheesecakes from Tish Boyle's The Cake Book. So freakin cute!

Jon's fancy award.

Rock lobster? No...it was a rock shrimp! Salt and pepper shrimp that is. Delicious!

Tasty insides...

Delicious cake: Buttermilk Peach Coffee Cake from Tish Boyle's The Cake Book.

Jon made a fancy crepe.

Crepes--made from Roux's Eggs book. Delicious!

Strange bus in front of apt. across the way.

Jeremy's an Eagle Scout!

The ladies...

Me and Tina--who's incredibly hot.

Group shot with Gajan and Mital! (Too many cameras going at the same time...)

Me, Hetal, and Dani. Can we really be so old that Mital's married?

The bride and groom. So cute!

On the steps to the hall at Mital's wedding--Ma, Dani, and Wee. Fancy steps...

At Mital's wedding with Dani and Wee--cocktail hour!

See how hot they are? HOT.

These are hot.

Delicious--and almost pokemon like, where you have to collect all their funny faces.

Where's women's pocky? Jeez.

Mitsuwa food...mmm...

On the ferry; in front of the apt.

Frozen Monkey fondue was delicious!

Pam thinks so too...

Cui is bananas for fondue...

We went to Frozen Monkey Cafe for the Toblerone fondue--very delicious!

Hoboken wonders...

Jon's pointing at nothing...

Afternoon in Hoboken

We stopped in Hoboken after mini-golf to walk around.

A factory in New Jersey...

Jon must have taken this picture because I have no clue what or where this is...

Cui was pretty good--she made it on par for the first hole...and then we stopped keeping score; and then we stopped playing correctly at all.

I'm up...I've got Pam putting on video...

Jon's up...

On Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, we go to see X-Men 3 with Pam and Cui. Pam and I went into the theater to get seats early while Jon figured out what to eat and waited for Cui to arrive to give her her ticket. Pam and I got to see the She-Ra movie, when He-Man and She-Ra first meet and realize that they're brother and sister. It was so weird. X-Men 3 was not as great as the first one or second. There were just way too many strange things that happened that made no sense. Anyway, we went to Mitsuwa for lunch--Pam and I got curry udon, Jon got soba, and Cui got sushi. We also all got some goodies from the market to take home--just wait there's a picture of all the crap Jon bought. Anyway, we walked over to the mini-golf place next to the Mitsuwa and driving range and played the 18 holes. The mini-golf place is an eyesore during the day or maybe it wasn't as run down as when we went during high school. Cui's up first.

After Chikalicious, we went to some kitchen supply place that was moving and having a ridiculous sale--so ridiculous that the line wrapped around inside the store and went up the sidewalk outside the store. We also went to Sur La Table, which was a much friendlier place to be. When we go to Momofuku finally, it was jammed packed, and people were waiting outside too. The food was so delicious and comforting. I wish we lived closer...we got a cold ramen, though it was basically the momofuku ramen with cooled noodles, the warm broth on the side. They're using peas too, which is pretty awesome--because unless I'm forgetting, they used to use the pink stuff. We also got miso buttered asparagus, the pork buns, and roasted vegetables like zucchini, but it was really good with a kind of vinegary soy sauce. We walked back, and checked out the Morgan Library from the outside too. Very beautiful building. It was such a good day!

Jon got an even tastier rhubarb dessert. (I was a smidge jealous.)

Our ultimate goal was to go to Momofuku for dinner, but it took us awhile to get down there, and they close for a short break during the day, so we went down third, through a street fair, and went to Chikalicious instead. I got a delicious mango and caramel sorbet dessert.

On our way to Trader Joe's we picked up a diet berry Dr. Pepper thing (one each), and we picked up two bottles of Sprite promoting the new logo. So we really didn't need anything at Trader Joe's by the time we got there. We also passed through Union Square's Farmer Market and tasted some jam from the guy on the Northeast corner. In the Trader Joe's we tried some beet sample that wasn't so bad.