In Need of Some Flower Therapy

Some terrible person stole my phone last night and I had to find a way to keep myself from dwelling on it, so I decided to disconnect myself (no really, I have no phone now) and visit the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens to see the cherry blossoms. It was Sean's and my first time there and we made sure to check the Cherry Blossom Tracker which tells you how many trees are in bloom. BBG was the best decision I could have made today. The sun was out and my mood instantly lifted after seeing a stretch of pink cherry blossom trees. Here are some photos I took of my favorite flowers and plants: 

The Most Epic Oscar Dinner Party, Two Months Later

I have been slacking on the blogging front and thought I'd make it up with overdue photos from probably the best themed dinner party my friends and I have thrown (and you know it's tough to beat the homemade pizza or meatball party)--the OSCAR BEST PICTURE THEMED DINNER POTLUCK!

The dinner brief: Come with a dish inspired by any of the following 2013 Oscar best picture nominees
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

But what this actually means is: bring something you want to eat and we'll figure out the correlation to one of the Best Picture nominees. We ended up with a diverse 10-course meal that would have made Wolfgang Puck jealous. Everything was delicious and surprisingly we made every dish work with a movie. Enough talking, here's the pics:

Silver Linings Playbook "Raisin Bran" 

Smitten Kitchen's Balsamic and Beer-braised Short Ribs with Parsnip Puree

Django Unchained 

Fried Chicken & (Eggo) Waffles

Argo

Tony Mendez's Secret Guac

Lincoln Logs

Homemade Hummus, Baba Ghanoush and Veggies

Zero Dark Thirty 

30 White Stuffed Mushrooms

 

Life of Pi

Vegetation Island Brussel Salad

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Hush Puppies

Django Unchained

Violently Delicious Mac and Cheese

Amour Red Velvet Cupcakes and, of course, Life of Pies

Result? Food coma lasting as long as the awards show itself.

My film expert friend Jason deserves all the credit for coming up with this theme two years ago and I'm glad we finally executed. Can't wait for next year!