25 and another close but not perfect replica of the Southern Manhattan

This 4 year old girl in the dishwasher had a bad reaction to flea medicine and has some bald spots around her neck and back but she's as sweet as can be. She'll be with me for about 4 weeks and hopefully will have all her fur back by then.

The manhattan is another attempt at the Southern Manhattan: Woodford Reserve (last of the bottle) and Southern Comfort substituted for the vermouth. One of the recipes I got for this drink included cherry juice but I didn't have any so I just added a bit of the lingonberry syrup from Ikea. I have to say it wasn't bad and the color was gorgeous.

New for me from Trader Joe's

Asiago, fontina and parmesan? Ready in 90 seconds? Need I say more?

Bricco (or how do you make pork (pork!) tasteless)

We went to Bricco for Restaurant Week this year and it started a bit shakey. The drink that really caught my fancy was the Manhattan in Boston (a bourbon that I've not had before infused with cherries, vermouth and a twist (I think; it's not on their online menu and it shouldn't have been on the menu that night). Our waiter looks over at the bar and shakes his head; they don't have any of the infused bourbon (and prepare in advance). So I ask for the Hendrick's martini (described on the menu as Hendrick's, a splash of dry vermouth and a fresh lemon twist). Does this look like a twist to you? Does it even look like a lemon? My friend got one in her vodka martini so maybe they gave her the last one but I doubt it. We were quite pleased with the drinks as we were with the appetizers.

She got Mozzarella di Bufala Caprese and I got the stuffed calamari "affogati" in a spicy tomato coulis (with grape tomato halves) and a garlic crostini (pictured here). Then things went seriously downhill pretty quickly.

My friend got the beef braciole filled with garlic pecorino cheese and herbs, red wie sauce and brocolli rabe. Sounds great and looks decent enough but was overcooked and dry. After several considerations and consultation with the waiter, I ordered the pork chop which was supposed to come with carrots and ... (seems this is not on their online menu any more either). It came with a very fetching tube of what I presumed after several bites had to be potato but it was very bland and non-potato-like consistency. The other side was a bitter slaw like substance. The the pork chop, oh my!, the pork chop was the biggest disappointment of the night. It wasn't that it was overcooked (as I sometimes do); it just lacked any flavor at all. How is this even possible? Even when I over cook and don't put any spices on it, my chops come out better than this sad excuse.

Desserts were bread pudding with caramel sauce and tiramisu. Meh.

Overall, my friend deemed Bricco as our only Restaurant Week failure. I have heard such good things about this place, I might give them another try but am not beating a path to their door.

First flowers but not in my yard

What I'm cooking - Salmon with warm lentil and arugula salad

My boss, both of my bosses actually, are obsessed with my eating habits and quite frankly, I am sick of it. But one of them is on a lentils kick and there were a few recipes with lentils in my magazines over the past few months so I tried this one from Real Simple. The salmon was perfect. The dressing for the lentil salad was a little bland for my taste but added a little salad dressing the next day and it was better.

Hot chocolate and a new ceiling?

I went to a reading at Boston Public Library about a new book on Sacco and Vanzetti. It was in a room I'd never been in before (Orientation Room). Reading was kind of meh...subject obviously interesting but it felt very term paperish. First thing I noticed was the ceiling and kept getting distracted by it during one of the sections of endless quotes the author was reading. Remember that from college? You'd basically string all these quotes together with a sentence or two in between of your own thoughts. We didn't go out for a cocktail afterwards; just grabbed coffee and hot chocolate at Dunkin Donuts. Yummy.

Upper Crust Pizza

Best ever. This is from Newburyport branch - mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and garlic. I don't know what these people do to the crust but you can eat half a small pizza and don't feel like you did. You can get slices of cheese, pepperoni or pizza of the day for about $3.50. This small pizza was about $11; all drinks (except beer and wine) are $1.

Krumkake

You need a special device to make these lovely little Scandanavian version of a pizzelle. They are thinner and lighter in texture than pizzelles.

I am lucky enough to have found my device in an antique store several years ago and got the recipe from my mother. We are Italians so don’t ask me how she got her machine, much less ever heard of these things.

Anyway, the recipe is very simple – flour, sugar, eggs, butter. milk and flavoring (I used almond for these). You always end up throwing the first one out since it preps the surface a bit for the rest of the cookies but almost always falls apart when you remove it from the iron. You have to experiment with how long you leave it over the heat (recipe says 1-1.5 minutes but I ended up at 2-2.5 to get the darker color. My smoke detectors are super sensitive so, of course, they all started screeching at some point.

These came out a little thicker and heavier but I think a little more milk would solve that problem.