Tuesday, July 19, 2011

A boulangerie in Hudson, NY

Once in a while I enjoy going away overnight for a short weekend trip. Don't get me wrong, I love vacations but I am not a big fan of day trips or short weekend trips. The reason is that there is always traffic coming back into the city and it does take the fun out of the trip. This past weekend my husband and I were invited to my husband's co workers vacation house in upstate Hudson, New York. We took a two hour Amtrak train ride from Penn station and stayed overnight. It was great leaving the city behind. We were met with greenery, space, fresh air, no humidity, lake, BBQ, sunset and small town shops. One of my favorite destinations were this new little french Boulangerie called Cafe Le Perche. The Boulangerie had a very impressive oven, a circular brick bread oven, specially imported from France. The manager is the same woman who managed Le Pain Quotidien in NYC and I believe that the interior in Cafe Le Perche was inspired by Le Pain Quotidien. I tried a few different things. The cranberry & Orange muffin, the muffin top was really crispy and the muffin body was juicy and full of cranberries without being too sweet. The basil pesto dinner roll was absolutely amazing and something that I must to make myself very soon. My husband had a sandwich with ham and cheese. The bread was moist and the crust crispy. We also shared a broccoli and cheese biscuit which I must say, was a bit disappointing. On Saturday mornings I usually take my dog and visit the local farmer's market on the UES, one of the vendors make amazing cheese and broccoli biscuits. If you are not there on time, they will definitely be sold out.
This is a picture from their facebook fan page. 

The main baker invited us to see the special wood fired oven so I took the opportunity to take a picture of it. 

A few weeks ago I took a baking class at Le Pain Quotidien here in the city. I have always been a fan of cooking and baking but I rarely bake bread so this class was perfect to give me a kick start and inspiration to start baking bread.My freezer is till full of bread from the class but as soon as I have eaten it all up I will probably start by baking the basis pesto dinner roll :). 

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

For Happiness & for getting Things done!

So this is my first post of my new blog. I just read a post at Cosy Bake that just got my bum of the sofa. Although I believe I do what I would like to do in life I still feel like I blame the things I don't do on others. It is time to put a stop on that so my summer resolution is to work towards complete Happiness and for getting things done!

I already have a great blog for my dog Betsy  and many other aspects of my in life is busy I feel that it is time for me to take some further action. I am a frequent visitor to many of my favorite blogs and I admire each and everyone's engagement but I think it is time for me to have a proper blog of my own. One thing that I know is that we all make our choices in life and most of us can magically make time for things we didn't think we had the time for. I hope this blog will help me work towards complete fulfillment. 

Here is my Top 5 List (I don't want to be over ambitious to start with so I think a Top 5 list is sufficient)
1) Spend quality time with my husband and dog!
2) Keep training my Alpha Female Betsy
3) Work on my Hobby untype
4) Try new recipes for cooking and baking
5) Decide if New York City is really the place I want to live....