all that's past is prologue...

Ok, yes, I know, I write a lot about food. Going out to eat, with or without Beatrix, is one of our remaining pastimes from the halcyon pre-baby/toddler days, and it's an important part of our lives. And speaking of kids, I don't know how I would exist in our current lifestyle without Punch Pizza. The pizza is cheap but incredibly flavorful, and feels like you are eating something special. We can get lightning fast takeaway, or eat there with Beatrix. They have a sense of humor, and wonderful specials. Tonight they tweeted about a free salad with pizza order, so we bought 2 pizzas, got 2 free salads, and they tossed in some rosemary foccacia. Yum!

It's always the everyday things. My friend Meghan says one of her most commented FB statuses was about the annoying "headband headache." For me, I brag about how much I did last night, but all anyone wants to know is "Tell me about the cupcakes!" So without further ado... My friend Rebecca, who clears the path for me in culinary exploration, had mentioned chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes and I was curious. She made them gluten-free, with vanilla bean batter and icing, but I decided that was too much work and stuck more closely to the original recipe. Make a batch of cupcakes from yellow cake mix. Follow the recipe on the box, but also add 1/2 cup applesauce (sugar-free if possible). Next time I do this, I'm going to use the regular yellow cake mix — for this I used the "butter recipe" and it was a little too buttery. Mix in 1/2 cup chocolate chips. For me, these all sank to the bottom as they were baked. Not a tragedy, but a little annoy...

See, I'm not so hard to please, give me a good restaurant experience and I'm over the moon! For my birthday last night we went to Faces (formerly LoTo) on Mears Park. David Fhima has purchased and re-opened his former restaurant, and though it does not *look* much different than LoTo, it really shines. The menu is simple and locally sourced. We each ordered, of all things, sandwiches, a chicken Monte Cristo for me and a Croque Madame for Patrick. Both were huge, came with excellent sea salt fries, and were delicious. We also had a lovely flourless chocolate cake (on the house since it was my birthday!) Though the food was delicious, it was the wonderful service that really set it apart. Our server was friendly, knowledgeable, and treated us like royalty. The host checked in on us. Fhima himself was working the room, and though I've only met him a few times before, he was wonderfully gracious and claimed to remember me, "it's nice to see a friendly, familiar...

Well, Al Vento was a lovely Restaurant Week meal. Fresh caprese salad, gnocchi, olive oil cake — very flavorful, nice service, very pleased! Then I went with two friends to the patio at Salut. We shared a bottle of Viognier, and J accidentally knocked over her glass of wine while reaching for the bread (and yummy salty butter). The waitress insisted on immediately bringing over a replacement glass, though it was in no way the restaurant's fault — very nice!