A four-day birthday

Friday night - dinner with Rob at Blue Hill, that restaurant I "worked" at during college. But before we went in, he gave me my present: a custom made buttercup gold necklace with a tiny diamond in the center (still 2 kt but I never would have even known there was a diamond in it...I'm such a non-girl). He then gave me his bday "card", which was really a 96-page notepad where he'd filled out "96 reasons why I love you" complete with illustrations. I loved him even more. :)
Blue Hill was lovely, and the food was so fresh. Rob's appetizer was called "This morning's farm egg" and it really tasted deliciously fresh. It's amazing that the concept of bringing the consumer closer to the source of the food becomes such a novelty in Manhattan, that an institution can charge upwards of $32 on dishes because the ingredients were cultivated in a farm a few miles north. Don't get me wrong, the service was impeccable (probably rivaled only by the service at Le Perigord)- laid back but attentive, and the food was really good. But the prices... yeesh. I thought it was worth it, though Rob might think otherwise. They started us off with fresh cauliflower samples, each one dipped in a different sauce. I had a delicious white wine - can't even say from where... Rob had red. I started off with corn ravioli and Rob had the farm egg. For entrees, I had the Stone Barn Bass, which was baked in a cilantro-based sauce with cauliflower and served in a shallow bowl. I could have done with a little less sauce, but it was still good. Rob had the braised eggplant. Dessert was to die for... I had a lemon cake with raspberry sorbet and this delicious sweetend plum. Rob had the blueberry with homemade honey and yogurt.
Afterwards we took the train to South St., hoping to catch the Waterfalls before they closed. Sadly, they turned them off by the time we got there. We sat watching the water for a while before grabbing drinks nearby and then heading back up to Burrito Loco, where I finally got him to try the cucarracha burracha. Yesss... topped off with some fresh guacamole, and the night ended perfectly.

The first part of Saturday was chaotic, trying to pick up a bunch of people from the bus station, feeding them their first meal, figuring out who would sit in what car (Rob offered to drive), and then getting out to Stony Hill Farms in Chester,NJ. It was a bit awkward, having so many people there from all walks of life, and then meeting up with more when we got there, but the day did get pretty fun. The first ice-breaker was doing a bunch of waves on the hayride. Then we picked pumpkins, which made for some cool photo ops if anything else. Rob still has to teach me how to carve mine... I picked him an "odd" looking one, with a ghoulish figure. :) He got me a quite perfect one, though it was 16 pounds. We got to apple and veggie picking before heading off to the corn maze. It took us a good hour and a half to get out of there, after breaking off into groups, and eventually exiting through the entrance. :-/ Oh well. It was fun anyway. We capped it off with dinner at Coach House diner, and Derek was nice enough to surprise me with a candled cake. :)


Sunday was church. We brought this delicious cake from Costco (surprise, surprise), thanks to Grandma, who also got me gorgeous orchids. Me and Ate Faye played "I'll Walk with God". Then we went to East Japanese with Uncle Romy and Auntie Prossy, Auntie Gladys and Uncle Danny, Bibok and some of their fam from Toronto. They got me some cool stuff from Anthropologie, which was neat since I never shop at that store.

Monday was a fun surprise. Not one, but TWO djembes from Toca. I still can't believe it... they both cost almost 500 dollars, but I got them sent to me by the manager of the Toca store in Garfield. I'm hoping they can contribute to some very cool live shows coming up. Then Jess came by with a small dessert that had a pink candle on it. She gave me this awesome kalimba that I had fallen in love with at Inay. :) it was a great way to cap it all off. . .

Now I'm battling an ear clog and hope it goes away soon....