first try: 肉燥

in my book, sunday is supposed to be a relaxing day. a day of rest to get ready for the work week. it started out quite relaxing ...

i woke up a bit later than usual and schlepped into the living room around 9am to see kevin sipping on his coffee in front of his laptop. he has been teaching himself to use adobe lightroom the last couple weeks. wearing a camisole and my pj shorts, i grabbed the nearest piece of clothing, which happened to be his red patagonia r1 fleece, and threw it on. then in an effort to be productive, i put on an apron and pulled 2.5 lbs of pork belly out of the freezer to dice. dice dice dice ... it's very therapeutic actually, the repetitive, smooth motion of the knife running through the frozen meat.

just about when i'd finished, i asked kevin for the time, and he said 11am. 11am? what?? are you serious?? i was supposed to be on the UES having brunch with girlfriends at 11am! where did the time go? i know, i had gone to war with a 3 lb pig armed with my 10" chef knife. ahhh.

somehow i managed to clean up and taxi up to jojo's and make it by half past 11. doh. it turns out that the restaurant was pretty quiet and anu and jordan were already seated. i hate being late and making people wait, but it turns out i have very very understanding and flexible freinds :) we caught up in person for the first time in .... six months i think. way too long. during that time, anu had given birth, jordan had traveled to who knows how many countries, learned to surf, started weaving on a loom, and was telling us about her great plans for the next two years. i had little to contribute.

after brunch, we stopped by anu and naren's place just a couple blocks away to meet baby jay! he is a cute, heavy little sucker. in no time, i pulled out my usual bag of baby tricks and taught him to make bubbles and the vibrating-"b" sound with his lips.

it was snowing by the time we left anu and naren's, and it was snowing BIG snowflakes :)

the rest of the afternoon, kevin and i cooked a huge pot of 肉燥, stopped by vadim & monica's for charcuterie, cheese, and vino, which ended up ruining our appetites for dinner, and brought our bikes home. although we received 4 inches of snow yesterday and it's 20-30F out, it feels great to have the bikes back in our own place again.