Veggies and music

Yay for people who love food [almost] as much as I do! Last night’s blogger dinner, masterfully organized by Heather as a way to welcome (or bid farewell to, as the case may be) a visiting VeggieGirl, took place at Candle 79, a fancy vegan restaurant on the Upper East Side. I didn’t want to make all the ladies pose for the millionth time, so I snuck all these pics on the sly so I could give a quick orientation to NYC blogger brilliance.

Left to right: Amelia, Katharine, Diana, Marina, Amie

Caroline, Liz (aka VeggieGirl), Katie, Ari:

Olga‘s hair and Deidre:

Danielle and Liz:

Marina, Amie, and Heather’s arm:

Since I didn’t have any cake at work yesterday, I was hungry for dinner! First to arrive at our table was the “amuse-bouche” of polenta chips with walnut-lentil pate and julienned radish:

I ate two of these while we waited for our food (and I ate four more after the food when I was still hungry!):

Olga and I got crafty and decided to order two dishes to share so that we could have a taste of each. Dish #1 was the Moroccan Spiced Chickpea Cake with seasonal vegetables, red pepper-coconut curry, apricot-date chutney, and roasted almonds:

This was good, but I had two reservations: (1) the chickpea cake was the size of my big toe and (2) as Heather so astutely pointed out, the texture was akin to meatloaf. I liked the flavors, especially the apricot-date chutney, but I really could have gone for some crisp on the outside instead of a mush-patty through and through.

Dish #2 that Olga and I split was the Live Zucchini Enchiladas with cashew cheese, spinach, guacamole, chipotle tomato sauce, cashew sour cream, pumpkin seeds, baby romaine, and cucumber-tomato salsa:

This was also tasty, and the zucchini ribbons were pretty:

Despite the impressive-sounding ingredients and the raw factor, however, the fact remains that this dish was simply a slice of zucchini topped with mashed avocado. Delicious … but I could have made it myself for way less than the $26 I spent! Again, the food was tasty, but I don’t think it was worth the money at all. I’ve heard much better things about Candle Cafe, the more casual and less pricey sister of Candle 79, so that will be next on my agenda!

VG Liz had to book it out of there at 7:30 for another engagement, so we didn’t get to try dessert (which is when the four remaining lentil pate-topped chips made their way into my system). No dessert was really fine with me though — my wallet was feeling the strain, and Pinkberry had free froyo right around the corner to market the new summer flavors of passion fruit and coconut. Olga and I raced over there in an attempt to multi-task to the max: we needed our free froyo, but since dinner was done so early, we also needed to get from the UES to Park Slope stat to see if we could catch any of the Blonde Redhead show at Celebrate Brooklyn. Diana and Katharine materialized in the line behind us shortly after our arrival. I had to snap them on the go (hence the blur) since we were in a rush!

My pinkberry prep-master put on quite the show for documentation purposes as he put together my passion fruit and coconut swirl with chocolate chips and fresh cherries:

Carefully accessorizing the froyo:

Busting out some more moves for Olga:

Big sigh of relief because my dessert is finally here …

Mmmmm, love my froyo! It was tasty but not $6 worth of tasty, so I’m glad we were able to make it in time for the free cup.

And, miracle of all miracles, we arrived at Prospect Park around 8:45, and Blonde Redhead was just starting. I guess the start of the show (which was FREE, fyi) had been delayed for over an hour because of the thunderstorm, so we made it just in the nick of time! (Olga and I should have taken a picture of ourselves in all our blonde-redhead glory, but I guess we were too excited to think of that.)

With her connections, Olga snuck us into the VIP section so that we were close and could see the music:

Before the show, I knew nothing whatsoever about Blonde Redhead, but they were great!

I’m so glad Olga mentioned she was going to try to make it to the show. The park is only two blocks from my house so, not only was it an excellent way to spend my Friday night, it was ridiculously convenient.

I was having a definite I’m-so-lucky-to-live-in-Brooklyn moment while watching and listening! Thanks Olga 🙂

(And if you’re at all curious about the food-drops on my desk today at work, they went a little something like this …

Morning snack of buttered whole wheat toast because the breakfast man gave Myrna extra:

And afternoon snack of 1/4 a buttered bagel left from Belkis’ breakfast;

The bagel needed doctoring:

Smothering the bagel with peanut butter and almond slivers was bound to take it to the next level.)

OK, this morning on the list I’ve got hot yoga, CSA pickup, and topic selection and research for my final paper that’s due on Thursday! Ack, I’d better enjoy my four hours outside the apartment now because I’m not going to be leaving it for the rest of the weekend. Rararararrrrrr homework. We finally have some nice weather after all the rain drama, and I am stuck inside! How do you console yourself when you have loads of inside work but wish you were outside?

19 thoughts on “Veggies and music”

carolinebee says:

June 27, 2009 at 9:46 am

sounds so fun! I HATE pricey dinners that are small and kinda lame! What is up with that? Not a fan of pinkberry either but I wouldn’t turn down a free one 😀

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