I think I'll go to Boston

Boston lit their Faneuil Hall Christmas tree just two nights before this picture was taken. Shouldn't we save the intensive decorating for when all of the natural decorations fall off the trees?

All this walking around, and I'm still stuffed from all of the good food we ate. Cheap, yummy Thai food? Yes please. How about eating handmade pasta in the North End, while an adorable older gentleman plays the accordion and sings to you? Indian food? Crab rolls? Oh sure, but only because you're twisting my arm.



Chicken curry dumplings and something else that was way too delicious to ponder for very long

Pumpkin Rosemary Pasta

Following the weekend of pumpkin brownies (found on the gorgeous Tastespotting) I was left with half a can of pumpkin puree, and no desire to bake anything else ridiculously sweet. I also hate, hate, hate wasting food. I figured I should use this to my benefit and make something slightly snazzy for dinner. For the record, this means it would have to be more enticing than cereal, without moving much past the difficulty of say, scrambling eggs. A tight squeeze, but I know that sometimes I deserve a meal that does not get poured from a box. Cut to a few steps later:




I got the basic recipe from Martha Stewart. Be warned that her website features a tiny little avatar of her, staring at you judgmentally as you cut corners and substitute ingredients. I used small shells instead of penne and milk instead of half and half (cause that's what I had), omitted the wine vinegar (cause it was on a really high shelf and, as established above, I'm lazy), and I added cranberries at the end (because cranberries are always awesome). Don't skip frying the rosemary; it's a fun texture and it makes everything taste so yum.

I still have many cans of pumpkin puree in the kitchen, and I consider myself prepared for the worst. I read an article a few years ago about certain areas of the country completely running out of pumpkin puree around the holidays, instilling a moderate-to-severe panic among housewives of a baking inclination.

Remember this blog, and how things used to be?

Those were the days. I'm not even sure where things went wrong. It happened slowly, almost imperceptibly, but we began to drift apart.

My weekends started to fill up with other things. I didn't want it to be the case, but they took priority over you. And anytime I had a spare moment, I was too tired to communicate. I didn't feel like I had anything worth saying.

But things are different now.

Let's just jump back to June and pretend we didn't lose that summer to moving towns and other life events.

Let's start fresh.

We can take it slowly. I'll share a recipe or two - something pleasing to the eye, but not terribly insightful. You can bat your eyes and laugh at my jokes a little more than you need to. We can figure out where to take it from there.

I think we can make this work. Again.