Wednesday - quilting and such

Ugh, now I remember why I've been sending out my quilts to be quilted all these years. It is dang hard squeezing all that fabric through the little throat of the machine. I started a little to the side of the middle, so that when I get all the way to the end and have to do the other side, I'll have a little less than half to go. That's my little psych trick. The bad thing is that I was very rusty on the first row, but 3 rows later, I'm getting a little creative, getting into the groove, and it looks better. Oh well. I'm not taking anything out now! And at least the quilt will be DONE sooner rather than later. I don't know of any long-arm quilter who doesn't have a backlog of many months. My favorite long-arm quilter has had Will's college quilt for almost a year now. And he's going to be a sophomore next month!!

Tomorrow we go pick up Mae at camp. I can hardly wait to see her. Last night was the toga party and they had a Hawaiian luau on Monday.

Yesterday I took the train to Hoboken to meet Bill for dinner and then the Yankee game. We took the ferry over to Manhattan - wish I had thought to take a camera, it was breathtakingly beautiful outside. I'm not a fan of skyscrapers and the whole urban/city look, but it was a glorious day and the sunlight reflecting off the mirrored buildings was pretty spectacular. We went into Manhattan and ate at Harry's at Hanover Park - it's right smack in the financial district. OMG, what a dinner. If you go on a Wednesday, their special for the past 40 years has been Beef Wellington. Needless to say, that's what we got and it was to die for. Before that, we had this out-of-this-world mushroom cavatelli with truffle oil. Not needed at all, but someone's eyes were bigger than his stomach, was the canadian bacon, and the spring lobster rolls. By the time the entree arrived, we were pretty stuffed, and neither of us could finish the beef. We had a bottle of wine with dinner and a bottle of dessert wine after while we sat and talked. Actually the dessert wine came after we decided to skip the game altogether. Bill gave the tickets to the waiter who scrambled to find someone to go with him! We had such a wonderful relaxing dinner and took our time walking back to the ferry. The return ride was just as delightful watching the shadows and golden glow of the setting sun slide across the buldings. The wind was fierce, but I just wrapped my hair up with a clip. I told Bill that if Mom were here, she would be moaning for a toboggan for her head, hahahaha (wind headaches, you know).

A meal... and then some

There's dinner, and then there's DINNER. Bill and I took his folks out to dinner for their joint birthdays last night at Cavallos in Easton, PA. What can tell you about this place? It is truly a one-of-a-kind dining experience. It is open by reservation only, once Bill and I were the only people there - someone came up and knocked on the door, but they couldn't come in because they hadn't made a reservation. We got there at 6 and didn't leave until close to 11. Slow service, you say? Nah, not at all. Cavallos is all about the relaxing experience of fine dining with 5 courses and plenty of time to digest between courses. The chairs range from upholstered dining room chairs to fancy thrones with high backs that stretch above your head about a foot. The tables are generously sized - no pushing silverware and glasses aside to make room for another dish. I wish I'd had a camera with me last night. Shirley Cavallo and her son Brondo really have created an oasis of a restaurant. We walked through the restaurant at one point and admired all the paintings done by Antonio and Martha Salemme. We stopped by the kitchen at one point and talked with Shirley who was putting together the next course. She is such a warm and friendly lady with so many stories of various people. Last night she came and sat with us as we were finishing up dessert to write down her recipe for the cake and she talked about when Charles Nelson Reilly came through town (I know, that was like a century ago, but I remember him on those game shows). She said she was told that they used to tape 5 of those shows in one day. After they taped the Mon-Wed shows, they would go out for lunch and get plastered. Then they would come back and tape the Thurs and Friday shows completely hammered - those must be the ones I remember because I thought they were hilarious. Anyway, I ate so much that I think I'll have to not eat for the next week to make up for it. Strawberries dipped in chocolate to start, then a vegetable napoleon thing with sausage and baked pear, followed by french onion soup, then a lobster ravioli (yeah, about this time I was about ready to keel over - these were full size plates, not those little ones), my MIL and I had the same entree, a filet mignon with sweet potato and green beans, Bill and his dad had duck with I don't know what else was on the plate(the plate was the size of a serving tray and it was heaped up and overflowing with other things on it as well as the side of duck), last, but not least was dessert - a really moist orange cake with lemon curd on one side of the plate and some kind of a whipped strawberry sauce and whipped cream on the other. Holy moly! All they needed was to put sofas along the walls and we would have all stumbled onto one and slept for hours!