saturday afternoon i made bananas foster ice cream. i’ve really been wanting to make a pie lately, but i know it would make it too hot in our apartment. i’ve also been wanting to make bananas foster. i had it once in a restaurant years ago and loved it. so then i was thinking that, since it’s so hot, i should make ice cream! and then, why not bananas foster ice cream? i did a little hunting online and found a recipe.

i followed the vanilla ice cream recipe from my williams-sonoma frozen desserts book and used the other recipe for the banana-brown sugar-cinnamon-rum component. the tricky thing about using two different recipes is that sometimes the proportions aren’t the same. i realized, as i was pouring the banana-run mixture into the vanilla custard, that my vanilla ice cream recipe was half the size of the online recipe, so i had made double the amount of banana-rum goodness. whoops! i didn’t pour all of it in, thankfully, and it turned out beautifully!

my biggest suggestion is to use ripe bananas. i was impatient and used bananas that still had green stems. the ice cream has a nice rich flavor, but i imagine letting the bananas ripen would just increase that lovely flavor more. bananas combined with brown sugar, cinnamon, and rum… so good!

i’ve got some new bedside reading! i went looking for the august details with james mcavoy on the cover and found esquire with stephen colbert sitting right next to it. i had to have them both! my two favorite famous men…

last saturday a friend and i went to the modern economy sample sale at the ace hotel. at first i was overwhelmed by the amount of design-y goodness, but managed to come away with some nice things, mainly presents for others, that i am quite happy with!

after our shopping event we decided to go to half and half for some hot chocolate. i hadn’t tried it there before and was pleasantly surprised! it was sweet and pretty…

do you see this cute kitty?

the one burrowing in our bedding?

i took her to the vet today because i found white worms coming out of her hind end.

time to wash the sheets! shudder…shudder…shudder…

enjoying a strawberry lemon balsamic cocktail

last night we went to the first night of the rooftop dinner series presented by gilt club. it was fantastic!

fresh corn, mache, avocado, and shitake salad

i made corn salad a lot, but i use frozen corn. my husband took a bite of this salad and said ‘wow, the fresh corn makes such a difference!’ so true. the first course was an heirloom tomato gazpacho, but we forgot to take a photo. it was really tasty! i’m not typically a fan of gazpacho, but this one tasted really fresh and therefore wonderful.

halibut with asparagus

halibut is one of my favorite fishes and they always do a great job with it. yum! the dessert was a essentially an amazing ice cream sandwich: frozen raspberry goodness sandwiched between two vanilla cookies. it was too dark at that point to take a photo, so no picture of that…

sunset during dinner

i should mention that vincent got an iphone last saturday and all of these photos were taken with it. such an amazing device!

i just discovered mad men on amc. it is so fantastic! i first started watching it for the amazing fashion and interior design. it is set in the early sixties. there’s some beautiful mid century modern design on display, in fact our coffee and tea set makes an appearance in their boardroom from time to time! and then i quickly got sucked into the story. it’s about ad men in manhattan, their relationships with secretaries and wives, pitching ad campaigns, the roles of men and women in that time period… so many things to love!

i can’t wait for season two to begin july 27th!

photo from epicurious.com

i ran across this wonderful section on epicurious last night and have been drooling over it ever since. each week they post a three course meal menu for each day of the week with beverage pairings. it is seasonal, so right now they’re focused on grilling and salads. these spring rolls caught my eye as a delicious and cool dinner. anyway, if you’re feeling uninspired for dinner, check it out! i’ve already planned out this weeks’ meals, but next week i’ll be digging into these recipes.

lately breakfast is either scrambled eggs with cheese or grape nuts mixed with yogurt, and they both are quite delicious, but sometimes you crave something different. last sunday was one of those days.

i lightly toasted some bread while i fried two eggs, one for each of us. when the toast and eggs were done i stacked them in a broiler pan, layered cheese and tomatoes (for me) on top and stuck it under the broiler until the cheese had melted.

then put another piece of toast on top and you’ve got a tasty breakfast! and just think about the variations you could do with this basic recipe… add spinach or mushrooms, use a different type of cheese, add bacon or sausage, english muffins instead of bread, those yummy yet greasy frozen hashbrown patties… now that i think about it it sounds so good that i’m half tempted to make this for dinner tonight!

lying under my chair while i check email

lying under the bed (mostly)

such an improvement