Silly Chrysanthe and Angela in a photobooth say hi!

I was up in Boston to visit Chrysanthe and go to #HLS12 this past weekend. I’m still recovering from the lack of sleep a bit, but it was a blast and totally worth it.

I’m not going to do a full recap of the conference because I don’t have a lot of pictures and honestly, there are better places you can find that. But can we talk about my new favorite town to eat in for a second? We went to two restaurants in Cambridge on Friday and Saturday night and both were amazing.

The first was Veggie Galaxy, a vegan diner. It’s adorable!

And they’re apparently well-known for their vegan desserts, which were on display. We both wanted to try the sweet potato carrot cake and tried to save room for it, but there was just no way that was going to happen after our meal.

I had the black bean burger with sundried tomato pesto, portabellos, and goat cheese, which came with a side of lightly dressed arugula and red cabbage slaw. The burger was delicious. I’m talking heaven in my mouth, people. I need to find a way to recreate this at home.

Chrysanthe went for their Harvard Square burger with a black bean patty. It came with tarragon basil pesto, red cabbage slaw, and sweet corn mash.

We finished up the night by going to BerryLine for froyo! I had a small passionfruit with mochi on top. It was basically the perfect night of eating. Let’s just say that I already can’t wait to visit again so that we can recreate this night!

After a day of conferencing and snacking (thanks to all the wonderful HLS sponsors!), we were wiped but not yet hungry. We headed back to C’s place to hang out and then change before going to Thelonious Monkfish, a sushi place that was actually just a few doors down from Veggie Galaxy.

I immediately made my usual chopsticks holder out of the paper they wrapped in.

The girl at the table next to us gave the Sleeping Beauty roll of the restaurant’s Fairy Tale sushi a stellar review, so I was really excited to try it. Chrysanthe and I also decided to split the Rising Sun roll. Not bad, but neither of us realized it had tempura in it, which we’re not a fan of. I thought it would have been better without the tempura.

I absolutely loved the Sleeping Beauty roll. It was delicious and so unique! I’ve never tasted anything like it, but I adored it. Ooh, do I love me some fruity sushi!

Some good eats were enjoyed in Boston, let’s just say that. And don’t think I forgot about posting my Hawaii eats either! That post is on it’s way.

Hi friends!

How were your post-July 4th weeks? Mine just felt weird. It felt so sluggish yesterday and today while I was at work but at the same time, it feels like the weekend has come unnaturally fast!

On July 4th, my sister and I had some serious shopping planned. Independence Day sales are no joke – especially at an outlet! We went out hard at Jersey Shore Premium Outlets, but unfortunately, didn’t come home with as much as we wanted. I didn’t find much I liked or in my size and my sister already has so many clothes that she was afraid of incurring the wrath of my mother if she bought more.

Photo op while in Tommy Hilfiger:

Later on, my parents wanted to go to Applebee’s, so we popped over for an early dinner. To start, my dad had the Sam Adams summer ale, I ordered the berry sangria, my sister had the mango lemonade, and my mom wanted to join in on the photo with her glass of water.

For apps, we went with the spinach artichoke dip (Steph’s very favorite) and the classic buffalo wings. Both were good!

I ordered the seasonal berry and spinach salad, which is similar to my summer salad with strawberries, but with grilled chickens and without the avocado. It was exactly what I wanted after having heavier chicken tenders for lunch and hit the spot!

My mom had the 7 oz house sirloin, which she enjoyed. I thought it was cooked perfectly! The waitress asked her to cut into it before she left to make sure, hence the butchered-looking steak and the knife on the plate.

My sister ordered the bourbon street chicken and shrimp, which came on a sizzling plate. I tried a bit of the chicken and it had way too much seasoning on top in my opinion – super salty! Then again, I season very lightly and consider a lot of things oversalted.

I don’t remember exactly what my dad had but I think it was the grilled shrimp and island rice. I love roasted vegetables so I was stealing that zucchini off his plate! No shame here.

As for the past two days, I’ve had two of what I’ve now decided officially qualify on my favorite foods list. I can’t decide what I like better!

Vegan chocolate mousse which claims to be only 42 calories but tastes like heaven?

Or authentic tzatzki filled pitas from Mamoun’s Falafel in Hoboken? Hmmm. Quite the food toss up!

My half eaten falafel hummus pita. Yum!

My sister’s visiting this weekend and tomorrow (or rather later today!) we’ll be doing the pool dive portion of the PADI open water diver certification! I convinced (okay, bullied, just a little) her into doing this with me and we both just passed the test online about an hour ago. She’s excited after getting our gear at the scuba shop today. I can’t wait to get certified so we can go diving together in Hawaii at the end of the month. Yay!

Have a lovely weekend!

I’m not often a victim of bad luck, but whenever I am, it seems to hits me pretty hard.

This past weekend was one of those times! On Saturday afternoon, I hit the gym with my new armband and my credit and debit cards in the cardholder (get where I’m going on?). After the gym, I went grocery shopping. I know I had both of my cards while I was at the checkout counter, but I couldn’t find my debit card when I got back to my apartment. Luckily, I live about three minutes from the grocery store so I just ran back out and retraced my steps… No luck though. I’m guessing someone found it and picked it up because I had to have gone back within the span of 10 minutes. I had to call the bank and get it replaced.

You know how I talked about getting my bloodwork done in my June goals post? Well, I’d gone and had it done last Monday and the results were waiting in my mailbox when I got back from my debit card-hunting trek. Sadly, more bad news. I’ve been plagued with genetic high cholesterol since I was in high school and I was really hoping it’d gone down in the past year since I’ve gotten a lot healthier, in terms of both my eating and exercise habits. But according to my bloodwork, it’s actually gone up slightly! Not significantly, but it was just very disappointing because that wasn’t the news I’d been hoping to get. There was some other bad news in there that I don’t really want to talk about… I need to call my doctor to talk about the results tomorrow and get some referrals for specialists. Boo.

And after all the bad news bears, I was totally drained and skipped my plan to write a post catching up on the week. But I’m trying my best not to make myself feel like I’m getting behind… S&R is my baby but it’s not my whole life!

Now let’s talk about the good stuff… Fooood! Here’s some of the stuff I’ve been enjoying lately:

A sample of chocolate/vanilla swirl frozen yogurt from my building’s cafeteria today. Topped with toasted coconut, yum! And how cool is this spoon?!

Vegan Divas’ chocolate mousse, which I discovered at my company’s cafeteria. Only 42 calories and absolutely delicious! Sadly, it’s a little pricey ($3.50) for an everyday snack so I may try making it at home to get my chocolate fix.

Veggie burger with soy provolone and roasted red pepper hummus on an Arnold sandwich thin. I just bought all of these things and they are all things I need to buy again soon. It’s a tasty combination and a very quick meal!

Roasted pepper lentil chips with roasted red pepper hummus. Another awesome combination! I’m just loving this hummus lately.

And raspberries! They’re finally in season and I can’t get enough!

Peace out, Cub scout!

Last night, a flower on one of my parents’ houseplants bloomed!

Isn’t it gorgeous? I’m happy whenever I get to see it because the flowers on these plants rarely bloom and when they do, they open for a few hours and then are wilting by morning. I did some Googling and the plant is known as a night-blooming cereus, and sometimes also called queen of the night. Cool, huh?

Breakfast

Yesterday’s breakfast was a toasted everything bagel with strawberry jam and half of a lemon Chobani with blueberries.

My family is weird and whenever we split bagels, we cut them right down the middle to make four pieces, as opposed to just using the pre-sliced line to get a top and bottom half. This is because we mostly eat everything bagels, and the top halves tend to have way more of the “everything” than the bottom halves.

After breakfast, my sister and I went to Zumba at her gym. It was tough! I’ve never taken a Zumba class before and it was fairly easy to keep up with the pop songs, but the songs that incorporated Latin moves were harder. I just don’t have the coordination for it! We were dripping sweat and left after about 40 minutes to do some strength training before heading home.

Lunch

For lunch, my mom made two Chinese noodle dishes.

The first was udon noodles with bok choy.

And the second was Shanghai rice cakes with pork and a Chinese vegetable my dad’s coworker gave us. I love her traditional cooking.

For dessert, I went to a neighborhood froyo place called Let’s Yo with my best friend Rony. I’m loving all these self-serve froyo places because I’m a maniac for mochi. And yes, there was some froyo buried under this mochi pile. I had the green tea tart and it was pretty good!

After lunch, I came home and hung out with Cissie. She’s such a little cutie!

And this is my sister holding her this morning.