I thought Texas summers were hot and they still are, but Jersey/New York has been sweltering as well this year! It's been hard to do this many times in my life, I'm actually...
TAN. :)
Summer's been great despite the hot weather, but that's all the more reason for some other fun stuff you can't do when it's cold. It has us running for gelatos and italian ice, the beaches, endless rounds of cold and juicy water melon, sweet berries iced tea, iced coffee in the mornings instead of the piping hot and truck loads of AC. Our berries at home. Gooseberries, blueberries and raspberries we used for tarts.
How did we ever survive without the air conditioning? If the dinosaurs had AC, they would have lived a lot longer. What if one day, our power supply shut off and we weren't able to have any electricity to cool our drinks and keep the ACs running? Yikes! We'll leave that for another day when people start shouting "Global warming!" volumes louder than they do these days when the weather is slightly off.
So this is the new home for my blogs!
WELCOME.
WILLKOMEN.
Eerai shai masen.
Uh suh wah~
I started moving some posts over a little at a time beginning the past month to parallel our move to our new house. I'm not completely finished yet, but it's combined my first posts from xanga on January this year, to facebook and since those were out dated and limited and my friend recommended this site (thanks JHD!), here it is. Blogspot is great since it has a great video option so hopefully, that means more sights and sounds.
Let's dive into a few summer sights and sounds. On a saturday, we were invited out to join a group of friends old and new to do a small food tour together. It took us to Red Hook, Brooklyn to sample some authentic Mexican Food. In my case of amnesia and forgetting the camera, my friends were able to get some good shots of the day. We sampled a range of tacos, papusas, mexican corn and watermelon juice. I had a huracho (my spanish speaking friend prounounced it oo-rah-cho) which is basically a burrito wrapped in a corn tortilla about the circumference of a stomach. Well...my stomach. I guess that's not a good way to speak when hanging out with fellow foodies cause then they'll ask, "Circumference of who's stomach?" and,"Before or after eating?" The corn tortilla is just BIG.
( Photo courtesy of the Tam Cam)
and here we are, eating some Mexican corn and fresh watermelon juice. The watermelon was a welcomed drink on a sweltering, hot day! Tiny pieces of watermelon floating around the ice cold juice. Yum.
( Photo courtesy of the Tam Cam)
Packed that away in the hump on my back like a camel to keep me cool throughout the day!
During the time at Red Hook, we played some Corn Hole that my brother in law, Sung, b(r)ought. Cornhole is a game played with two boards at a slant with a hole in it. They are set up on two sides and the opponent stands at the opposite end of their board. Basically, the most points wins and you can score by getting it on the board and getting it through the whole count for points. It seems simple, but really fun! I put "cornhole" in the google search and came up with this cornhole board dedicated to my #1 friend.
That wasn't the end of our food tour! It was on to the Lobster Pound down the street. Here they make sandwiches with two buttery buns and huge chunks of lobster meat. It's quite a pricey sandwich at $15 a pop but it's well worth it considering you've got solid lobster meat in there. They had all the live lobsters in a tank, one for soft shell lobsters and one for hardshell so you know it's fresh. The softshell lobsters aren't as soft as softshell crabs so you can't really eat them with the shell, but once they harden, they can go to the "mature" tank.
(Courtesy of Peter)
The Lobster Roll
(Courtesy of Peter)
Two days later, Sung told us about the lobster sale at Shoprite so we attempted to make these delicious sandwiches.
In opinion, a good first attempt. :)
There was no place to sit at the Lobster Pound so after our lobster rolls, we were off to the Brooklyn Brewery to cool off. This is a crowded place and the place smells primarily of yeast. People brought lunch and sat at indoor picnic tables drinking, snacking and chatting away. Most importantly, they were all out of the sun! "What a brutal day!" turn into "what a Brewtal day!" Some of the group cooled off with pocket-friendly priced beer and all of us enjoyed the AC. The brewery brews their own beer so there are huge vats filled with aging beer!
From there we headed to what first sounded to me like "fat so" so I had to get clarification. It's spelled Fette Sau and this place has some great BBQ; moist and good! They have different cuts of meat available to choose from and it can be ordered by the pound. It was a little on the pricier side, but the quality meat is high and the beans and potato salad were FULL of flavor! They had a uniquely painted wall with all the different cuts of meat on them which was pretty cool. See?
(Photo courtesy of the Tam Cam)
Available are all sorts of great sauces on the table, but beware of the mustard. It's a Monsterd!
(Photo courtesy of the Tam Cam)
SOOO spicy. Aack!
Here's what the whole restaurant looks like. Very basic and picnic tables.
(Photo courtesy of the Tam Cam)
and some of that good bbq!
(Photo courtesy of the Tam Cam)
and that was the end of the food tour. :)
CRABBING
Another things we've been spending some quality time is crabbing! Last summer, we went to Long Beach Island for crabbing but this year, we found out about a new place in Long Island (not to be confused with the previous) from my husband's coworker that's closer and better for the crabs. We also went with a few friends this year which was really fun. :)
REDHOOK
Our catch
Janet's Kimbap. Yum!
To our fortune, we've been having some luck with crabs and the only problem is making sure we don't get sick of them. A good indication of not being crabs is if you're still eating them which we have been. So here are just a few that we've figured out.
EATING WHAT'S ALREADY BEEN CAUGHT.
1. RESTAURANT Three words to remember. HARRIS.CRAB.HOUSE. in Maryland. All you can eat crabs seasoned with Old baby with some corn on the cob and shrimp. The brown paper on the table is your plate which you will share with those who dine with you. Where do your shells go? In the crave grave yard: the bucket. The next is to catch them and this is by far the way to get your tastiest crabs.
EATING WHAT YOU CAUGHT is quite a different story and a lot more fun. Have you tried to handle one of these 10-legged, armor-shelled yummies? They are FEISTY! Take a look for yourself! This is from last last tuesday's catch and it was a great day to be crabbing.
"Rile em up a little bit!"- Kee
And here we are counting our bounty (as my husband likes to call it) from our trip last week. They kept flipping over in the same spot which I found humorous.
2. BOIL THEM
This is a simple way to do it. Boil and eat. If you get home late or you're tired and don't want to eat them the night you catch them, boil them the same day and put them in the fridge. All you have to do is microwave and eat!
3. OLD BAY
Old Bay is the quinessential spice for crabs. Throw in some potatoes, corn, onions, lemons, garlic and some cilantro and wallah!
Of course, compliments for the meal are some beer and sangria.
4. KEH JANG
When you've repeated 1-3 and you're Korean, you can dig deep down into your roots and make some Keh Jang. Crab in Korean is "Keh" and soy sauce is "Kan Jang", but they chop of the Kan for this dish. Keh Jang. Ladies, if you have a man that is willing to help you, you'll need to recruit! This is not easy for a woman to do alone. So I hired my #1 friend to help. In short, here is his recollection of the event:
"Fellas, when your wife asks you to help her make geh jahng... be advised that you have to lift the head off of the body of the crab while it is still alive. Then proceed to clean the different parts of the crab while the heart is still beating and it can still blink at you" It's certainly a weird experience, but rewarding!"
Tarrytown
And finally, we took a trip to Tarrytown, driving through some tall, green trees and across some water to get there. Here's an attempt to capture the nice drive, but it was hard to control the camera over the bumps.
Now Tarrytown was familiar to me, not because I'd been there, but because my hometown Austin, Texas has an area called Tarrytown. It's got a good mix of old and new houses, lots of trees and a somewhat of an artistic touch to it at places. Tarrytown New York isn't exactly what was expected based on the previous experience to Tarrytown Austin,Texas. There certainly isn't much to do there. We asked a local what people usually do in the town and he said, "Have you been to New York City?" That was not a good sign. People get out of Tarrytown for some good fun! Looks like we did a reverse commute. haha. We were there for the shops mainly though after reading up on it. We strolled through an art gallery talking about the paintings, thrift stores and antique stores to look for trinkets and a coffee shop. I ended up purchasing a mandoline at the thrift store for $5! What a bargain and I've been needing one of these! It's in great condition and is a sturdy mandoline with 2 attatched-alterable sized blades. It props up on it's own too.PTL!
We were a little hot so we strolled to a coffee house that had it's beans roasting out in the open. It filled the whole shop with a rich aroma!
I know someone who would love to run her hands through these beans. ;)
And there was a cute yarn store that had so much colorful yarn! They had a creative display that was fitting for the season.
A wishing tree free for all who wish to tag it. I wanted to read some of them, but I wasn't sure since it was in such a public place. I didn't write one because I didn't want people to read it, so I ended up not reading other people's. haha.
And here's a porsche in the hood from long long ago.
Well, that's it. Enjoy summer before it's gone!
Bon Appetite!
Foodie Yoodie
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