rainy, uneventful weekend

This weekend was spent trying to get over a cold and packing/cleaning for my move home. I can't express how happy I am to be heading home. I miss my life. It will be good to get to see my wife daily and my dogs and be able to cook in my kitchen. I don't think I appreciated any of the above previously. Oh and the restaurants.... ones that I know and trust. There are a lot of great places to eat here in the Boston area but it is not a lot of fun to eat out by yourself, especially when the one person you like to take to new places is nowhere near. Today is my last day of work in Westford, MA. I move out of my apartment tomorrow, go spend a few days with my family in NH and then fly out for Austin (via Atlanta, ICK!) on Friday afternoon. Doesn't seem like 9 months have gone by since I got here but at the same time it's been a very rough time as well. Time to go home!!!!!!

Caffe il Cipresso - one last time

Went to a little Italian cafe in Tyngsboro again last night. Probably the last chance I will get to eat there before I leave for home (Austin). This restaurant is one of the things I am going to miss most after leaving, along with the weather (yes I even like winter). The food is amazing. Probably the best ravioli I have ever had and a great variety of sauces to go with them. Have a look at their menu. The special ravioli last night was a lobster ravioli with a sun dried tomato cream sauce with parm and shrimp. Absolutely amazing combination.

Legal Seafood

Went to Legal Seafood tonight for dinner. Food was great as always. Had their Lobster bake which starts with clam chowder and then you get a lobster (1.25lbs) about half a pound of muscles, a little sausage piece and an ear of corn. Unfortunately my pictures didn't come out very good so you get an ok picture of the chowder (which is great) and a picture of the Lobster and all half eaten...



cup of legal seafood clam chowder


half eaten lobster bake!

Fall Begins! (ok so thats tomorrow)

Since I have to work tomorrow and a new person is coming and needs to be trained and showed around town some it's likely I won't get a chance to make food for Mabon. I made a squash & apple soup tonight. It came out fairly good but I'd have been happier with it if I had a good food processor or better yet a nice blender. Just needed to be smoother.


Squash & Apple Soup


1 butternut squash (peeled, cleaned and diced)
2 macintosh apples (peeled and diced)
1 large onion diced
2 tbsp butter
12 oz chicken stock (ok veggies COULD use veg broth i guess)
1 cup apple cider
sour cream
majoram, rosemary, pepper, salt and parsley

Saute the onions in butter and then add squash and apples. Slowly add the liquids and spices. Simmer for about an hour. Mash or blend and serve with dollop of sour cream.

Berticcu's revisited

Decided I didn't wanna cook tonight and I didn't want fast food so I stopped for Italian at Bertucci's on the way home. Got an appetizer of 4 meatballs and sauce, main meal of a pizza Margharita and for dessert their seasonal special strawberries and cream. The dessert was actually strawberries on top of vanilla pudding with some really nice whipped cream on top. All in all it was very good. pics below!






The lighting was terrible for a bit and I didn't get a good pic until I hat eaten 2 pieces already.

Dinner!

Okay so dinner tonight wasn't exciting but here is a pic anyhow. Pretty
uneventful day, cept there are only 2 weeks left of work here!!!!!!!!!!



Panera French bread with butter and a turkey dinner from Boston Market.

culinary boredom

This weekend wasn't terrible for food but there weren't any meals worthy of talking about. Ate at my mom's house most of the weekend and that's just always same old same old. Not usually bad really but nothing spectacular that you;d look forward to. Sometimes bad.... not this weekend. Had some chicken stew, french toast, buiscuits and gravy (ok i had maple syrup on my biscuits). Beyond that I think I had a sandwich from a gas station deli (not one of the packages sandwiches, but an actual deli that happens to be located ina gas station). Uneventful.....

I put a new app on my iPhone. Lifetimer. I then put in the time and date for my flight back to austin and it tell sme that I have 18 days and 2 hours as of about now... yay!

Glenview Restaurant and Pub

Dinner was excellent tonight. Not gourmet but you don't go to a pub looking for gourmet food, at least you shouldn't. I got potato skins and a bacon cheeseburger. Both tasted excellent and the portions were huge. I ate 1/3 of the appetizer and less than half of the burger and the waitress came back often enough that I felt comfortable with the attention but not smothered. To top it all off this was had for less than $16 before tip with a soda that had free refills.


Loaded Potato Skins


Bacon Cheeseburger


I only have one complaint and this is more about a trend than the actual restaurant. Potato skins are supposed to be made from leftover parts of baked potatoes that you have previously used to make another entree. The potato skins at Glenview are of the type that I have seen more and more where a baked potato is cut in half and a very little bit of potato is removed for create a small resevoir for cheese and other toppings. This results in a potato skin that is HUGE and very filling. The point of an appetizer is not to make someone unable to eat their dinner but to provide soemthing to snack on while the entree is prepared. These newer generation of potato skins are a meal in themselves and serve not only to waste ingredients but to cause a lot of undue waste. Did i mention that they tasted extremely good?

people in general just suck

Yesterday I was having some issues connecting to my home chat server and shell account across secure connections. I made the mistake of trying telnet (which I had forgotten I had open still for some insane reason). I got connected via telnet and then 30 minutes later someone put a phishing site up on my server. I am 2000 miles away from home so I can't even get to my system to reinstall it and make sure all is well. I had to move netwitch to a hosting service where I have minimal resources available. I seriously hate people....

In a month or so when I get back home I will pull it all apart and decide if I need a server at home anymore and if I don't will move my entire site to a more static hosting service and whatnot. BAH!!!!!!!!!! Oh and before i shutdown I did look around enough to see that the intrusion came from AOL so yay AOL!

bah!

So as much as I was looking forward to Michelle's visit I was dreading today. I just got back from the airport and She's flying back to Austin. The good news is that I am headed that way myself in just a few weeks, but not for a visit. On Oct 3rd I am flying home to Austin (Leander really) for good. No more visiting home, that will be what we call flying back up here on vacations and whatnot. BAH! I hate this assignment more and more each passing moment it seems. I am glad I got to spend time with my family and all and it was excellent to get some New England weather but I miss my life.

Was a family reunion of sorts this Saturday and I took a few pictures but they didn't come out very good. But oh well... such is life. The day was very nice and as always at any family event there was more food than people and most of it was very good, well I say most, I don't think anything was bad but i didn't get to sample all of it. Here is a pic that will mostly just serve to make me more homesick... slightly out of focus but... ehh

boston sight seeing

Went into Boston today with Michelle. was a good day, went to a soap shop (stinky!!!! but in a clean way just strong). Went to Faneiul Hall and grabbed lunch (late) and then spent awhile at the Aquarium. Here are some pics.


Michelle getting ready to take a pic of the Harbor Seals.


A skyscraper i thought would make a good pic.


A church near Coply Square. The Old South Church.


Cute Penguin!


Neat Jelly fish.


Harbor Seal performing for the few spectators.