Super Market Tourism

After digging out from a late season snow storm, we took Child One and Child Two to their grandparents' house. Saturday was the birthday of Pater Agricolae, and we kicked off the weekend with a visit to the Super 88 -- a huge and wonderful Asian Market with a several outposts in the Boston area.

We visited the flagship store in Boston's South End. Fans of supermarkets in general, we love Asian Markets. The breadth and depth of merchandise and the variety of produce is astounding. It's a true cultural experience. We shopped for a birthday meal that we were preparing on Sunday and it was a blast. Child One was amazed by the live fish, crabs, lobsters, beef tongue, duck necks and various fowl feet. Child Two sat quietly in the seat of the cart and took it all in, concentrating quietly and intently. We can only imagine what it must be like to a toddler and an infant, respectively, and have so much visual stimulation in a place so different from their typical supermarket experience. Pater Agricolae enjoyed it immensely as well -- sharing this experience with his grandchildren was icing on the cake.

The meal, on Sunday was a great, pan-Asian feast that was a joy to prepare, and pretty good tasting to boot (if we may be so bold). We made Thai shrimp soup in spicy lime broth; green papaya salad with tomatoes and star fruit (Viet Nam); chicken and potato curry (Laos); stir fried veggies with fermented soy bean paste (Yunnan). Wine with the meal was Champagne (Moet & Chandon) for the soup course and then New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (Oyster Bay) when the Champagne was gone. For dessert we had old fashioned, and from-scratch, chocolate Devil's Food Cake with home made butter cream, mocha frosting.

The shopping trip was wonderful, the meal prep and ensuing feast was equally great and it was a super way to cap off the weekend and spend a Sunday. Though it goes without saying, we are happy to live near our family to be able to share such things.

Rekindling An Old Flame

This past weekend, in the midst of starting the Christmas Season by decorating the house with lights and greenery, we created and knocked back a couple of delicious Martinis. In the past this was the defacto, winter drink of choice on the Quarter Acre. However, due to unknown reasons the Martini has not been agreeing with us and has fallen out of favor. Perhaps our body is telling us that ingesting three shots of Gin, one shot of Dry Vermouth and olives is not a great idea because even one Martini would leave us feeling less than delightful the following day.

Despite all of this, we mixed up two Martinis this weekend -- one on Saturday, the other on Sunday. They definitely agreed with us this weekend; and, as the Christmas season truly gets under way, an old flame has been rekindled. The turning point in this relationship happened about two weeks ago. While out to dinner we ordered a Martini and received instead a glass of chilled gin containing some olives. This irked us. Recipes are written for a reason and are meant to be followed. If we wished to drink chilled gin and olives we would order that.

The abominable drink that we received motivated us to try out our tried and true recipe (Thanks to DrinkBoy for being our guide and our high priest of classic and classically prepared cocktails) and give our preferred winter beverage a new chance. The old flame is back and burning brightly. Just in time we say, as the world enters the darkest time of year.