Juliette SUCKS!

Okay, most of you that know me knows that I like food. I like going out to eat and I like cooking at home. I'm no professional chef or food critic or anything but I know what I like. When I go out to eat I don't expect the food to be 5 star restaurant quality or anything. As long as it's tasty I am fine. Also the service counts too. If the foods good but you get shitty service. It ruins the whole experience. You know what I mean?
So it was my friend's birthday and we wanted to have a nice Champagne brunch for her. We picked Juliette on N 5th St and Bedford cause they had Champagne and it was a place we have never been to. This place is suppose to be a French bistro type of place. I've seen this place and it looks nice from the outside so maybe the food is good. I was wrong. I mean the food wasn't bad or anything. I've had better. I had ordered the Minute Steak. Which I guess means a small steak with fries. The steak was tiny. I ordered it medium rare but got medium well and it was a bit chewy and kind of grainy. The fries were very hard. It was kind or like it was fried and then re-fried again. Anyways all that I can overlook but the kicker was. I had made my Grand Marnier Tofu cheese cake for her and brought it to have as dessert. We asked our waiter if we can get some plates for serving at which poiut he told us that there would be a plating fee which would be $2.50 per person. There were 11 of us so it would have been $27 for them to give us some plates and forks. We were like okay, just because it my friends birthday and we wanted to celebrate it with a cake. Anyways our waiter left and then came back to let us know that instead of the $2.50 plating fee it would be a $5.00 service fee per person. We were like are you kidding me? FORGET IT! It wasn't even like the place was that busy. I've been to restaurants where they were okay if you brought a birthday cake and was happy to serve it for you without a fee. At this point I was really over it. Then my friend tells me that he had called them earlier to make reservation and had asked if he can bring a bottle of champagne that his wife(my friends birthday)liked, but they wanted a $25 corkage fee.
All in all this has been one of my worst restaurant experiences. I would never go back to this place and wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends. I guess want was I expecting around Bedford. I mean there are only a handful of restaurants around Bedford that have really good food and service without the attitude. The rest are just crappy restaurants that goes after the trendies that goes there to hangout and to be seen. Now you know I'm pissed if I'm ranting about something on this blog. I usually don't complain about much but I am so over these restaurants that pretend to be something that they're not. They all have these gimicky decor and menues and all they're trying to do is hide they're shitty food. Okay okay. I've had my say. No more ranting. Hope everyone else had a good weekend.

Birthday Desserts! ( part 2 1/2 )

I kind of over did it on this recipe. Hehe... This recipe was meant for a rectangular glass baking dish and serves 8, so I decided to make then into individual mini cheesecakes for easier distribution. Don't have to bring the dish and have to worry about cutting and stuff. So I tripled the recipe, 8 servings per recipe so 3x8 is 24. I should get about 24 mini cheesecakes and did I get 24 mini cheesecakes? Of course and 2 large rectangular glass baking dish size as well! I guess we'll have to figure out how to finish them. Here are pictures.

Birthday Desserts! ( part 2 )

So here is the second dessert I made. Grand Marnier Tofu Cheesecake with lemon and orange zest. As you can see in the first photo. There is one missing from the corner. First rule of thumb for a cook is to always taste everything before you serve it. Needed to make sure that it's okay. Maybe I should taste all the other ones just to be totally sure. Just kidding.

Birthday Desserts!

The weather yesterday was amazing. It was so nice to just have a day where you didn't have to bundle up to leave the house. Anyways we sat on our stoop for awhile and enjoyed the weather. So our friend birthday is today and I wanted to make him some birthday desserts. Couldn't make up my mind on which dessert to make. The Grand Marnier Tofu Cheesecake or the Spiced Chocolate Pudding. So I decided to make both! Of course. Here are some pictures of the chocolate pudding. Don't know if there's enough for everyone? Oh well. First come first serve. I guess.

3 Sausages!

Over the weekend we had our friend Lalana's dog Thomas with us for 4 days. Finnegan and Quigley had loads of fun with him. Of course after Thomas left, Paul and I decided that two dogs is enough. Even though they are not very big dogs they are a hand full. With two you can carry one in each arm to go up and down the stairs, but with three you kind of have to take two down and then go back to get the third. Lets just say that it kind of screws up the whole balance. Anyways you can't really tell who's who in the picture but there is three dogs running around on the couch. The last picture is Thomas giving Quigley a bit of a lick...:)

Spring is on Sharon Street!

Paul taking pictures of all the plants and flowers blooming on 20 Sharon Street. As you can see the Magnolia tree is starting to bloom in our neighbors yard and in the second picture there are crocuses and tulips blooming in our garden. So ready for the warm weather!

New Jewelry!

Here's a look at some new jewelry I'm working on. Much more delicate with gemstones. 3 piece set with earrings and pendant. These are made of .999 pure silver that has been filed down to a cone shape and then hollowed out at one end and then attached with a small blue sapphire at the end. It also has a brushed finish, instead of a mirror finish. Let me know what you think.

Blue/ Green Runners.

My blue and green runnners.

Finnegan!

Cute picture of Finnegan loungin.

Tower Bridge!

We were in London visiting our friends Niall and Nigel and Ollie (see post below) for 3 days late February. This is the "Tower Bridge" and it was brought to my attention that most Tourists think that this is the London Bridge. Even Fergie's music video for "London Bridge" was shot on this bridge. Even now when you google London Bridge. Most of the images that comes up are of this bridge. Talk about mistaken identity. Now you know.

Ceramic Dog Head!

I know you're probably thinking that there is no more room on the wall for another head, but who can pass this one up? It actually looks like a dachshund. As you know I have 2 very cute wiredhaired dachshund so how can I not? Wish the ceramic heads look more like them, but I guess I'll have to take what I can get. Actually I didn't even know that they made ceramic dog head towel holders. Maybe there's more different ones out there. Who knows? Going to have to keep an eye out for them and make more room on the wall! Ahhhh!

Red Catherineholm Fondue!

I've finally done it! I just won a red Catherineholm fondue set. As some of you know already. I have a collection of about 10 Catherineholm fondue sets and I was missing the red color. It's been over 3 years now of constantly checking Ebay for this red fondue and finally found it 3 days ago. It's the last color that I needed to complete my collection. Here's a picture of the red one I just won. Check my older post if you want to see the other colors that I have in my collection.

I'm back!

Hi everyone. Sorry! It's been awhile since my last blog entry. Had one of those "I'm too tired and I don't want to do anything" kind of streaks, but I am back with lots of new things that I will be blogging about in the coming weeks. Ebay items, art, jewelry, crafts, and travels.

Anyways here's my first blog. This is our friends Niall and Nigel's dog Ollie. They live in London. We had the chance to pop over for a quick 3 day visit while I was in Ireland in February. Ollie is very sweet and mellow. He looks exactly as he is in the picture. Very cute! The picture below his is the woodgrain art piece that I made of Ollie. I will be sending that over to Niall and Nigel as a thank you present for letting us stay at their place while we were over. Hope we weren't too much trouble.

Okey Dokey. That's it for now. See yas next blog.

Acapulco!

So you guys already know what my new obsession on ebay is. Here's 2 more pieces to add to my collection. I won these last week and recieved them a couple days ago . Could you believe they came all the way from London? It is so much cheaper in London for some reason, but shipping could add up. Anyways these were pretty cheap including shipping. I won't tell you how much they cost.

Last Class ; (

Last night was the last class of my metalsmith class that I was taking at SVA. I have to say I really enjoyed the classroom environment. It gets me motivated to get off my butt to make something. Anyways I'll be taking the next class starting in September. It's been fun. Here's my last project that I made in class. Was in a bit of a hurry since the first project took up most of the semester and this project took 2 classes to make. So it's a little messy. Let me know what you think.

New Obsession!

While I was browsing through ebay one day. Paul asked me to look up some ceramics by Villeroy & Boch called Acapulco. Paul told me that his family use to have these when he was a kid. I fell in love with the bright colors and pattern immediately. Of course with the resent popularity of anything retro the prices for these ceramics were outrageous. You can look to pay $40 or $50 per dinner plate. Of course you can find deals but not too many though. Also you have to factor in shipping. Since it's ceramic and breakable and heavy. They'd have to pack it really well and that increases shipping cost. Anyways I finally won my first pieces, a sugar bowl w/lid and creamer. It's really cute! Hope this doesn't get outta hand. Oh well.

Metalsmith

So I've been taking a metalsmithing class at SVA for the last month or so. I figured I might as well learn something new while I'm still young. I started the class at the beginning of June and it ends at the end of July. It's been going great. The class meets once a week from 6:00 to 9:30 pm. So far I've learned how to solder 2 pieces of metal together, shape, saw, polish, pickle, anneal ing silver, and create little round beads from pure silver. Also I've learned how to set a cabochon into a ring. I've just finished our first project which is to create a ring using all the techniques that we've learned and here are the pictures. Off to design the next project which I will have to post once I'm done. A bit scary since we only have 2 classes left.

Forest Animals

Two posts in 1 day. Could you believe it? Anyways this is a quicky. Since my posting of my Woodgrain Studio Forest. There were lots of comments and requests for woodland animals. Let's just say I intended to add some animals after I was done with the forest but I kind of got over the porject really fast. You know how it is. Once your done with something you kind of have to sit back and look at a awhile before you can make changes to it. Anyways here are some of the animals. My solution to the permenant animals on the forest are to frame each one so I can inter change them every once in a while. Let me know what you think. I will post more as I make them up.

I'm Back!

Hi everyone! It's been a while since my last blog. Been lazy and the heat did not help one bit. Just been hanging out with Finnegan and Quigley. Trying to stay cool. Also I wasn't working on anything interesting so there wasn't much to blog about. Not anymore. There's loads going on now that I'm kind of out of my lazy slump. I am reupholstering a chair that I found a long time ago. I think I found it way before I found my office chair. Here are some pictures of the chair the way it was found. Could be an interesting project. We'll see how it turns out. Notice the shiny pleather. Imagine sitting on that in this humidity. Sttiiiicccccky! Anyways I will post the after pics once I am done. I am waiting for the supplies I ordered 2 weeks ago. Hopefully it gets here soon so I can get started!

More Family Pics

Eventhough I complain about my family. I do love them. They can be a lot of laugh sometimes. Anyways I miss them already. It was nice to spend some time with them.