Monday, April 29, 2013

when you live in a city and you have a yard....

when you live in jersey city and you have a front yard AND a backyard...
 
you have barbeques. end of story.
 
our good friends charlotte and zach did just that on one of the most beautiful weekends of the year.  flowers blooming, sunny skies, light breeze, it couldn't have been a better day!
 
and because i'm terrible at taking photos while i'm partying it up, i'm bringing this shindig to you via the fabulous talents of huacon photography .  if you're in the new york city area looking for a very talented but very affordable photographer, dennis is your man.  we might tease him for bringing his paparazzi camera to our friendly outings, but if it wasn't for him, you'd be stuck with my non-paparazzi-quality photos. when mr p got me my new camera last year, i was so excited! and i've graduated to taking pretty good food photos, and recently we've been playing around with making little videos, but that's about it.  i need to either start reading up more or taking photography classes so i can take full advantage of the awesome camera i have.
 
anyways, enjoy dennis' talents from our saturday afternoon barbeque in jersey city :)
 
 
 photo 1_zpseae6c70f.jpg

 photo 2_zpsedd59fa7.jpg

 photo 3_zpsd3deefa9.jpg
 
 photo 4_zps849e0c10.jpg
 
 photo 5_zps1fbd0b0d.jpg
 
 photo 6_zpsa9f4c46b.jpg
 
 photo 7_zps69725046.jpg
 
 photo 8_zpsb26f19a5.jpg
 
 photo 9_zpsef830173.jpg
 
 photo 10_zpsbf4ad8d2.jpg
 
 photo 11_zps4d53b936.jpg
 
 photo 12_zpsf20a3f2f.jpg

thanks dennis! now onto my own "masterpieces"...
 
 photo 13_zps956623cc.jpg
 
 photo 14_zps67432866.jpg
 
 photo 15_zps1513b5ff.jpg
 
 photo 16_zps4d2adc06.jpg
 
 photo 17_zpsb20982c6.jpg
 
 photo 18_zpsf736d8dd.jpg
 
 
thanks, charlotte and zach! lets make this one of many cookouts this summer :)
 
cheers.
 
 
(except we used watercress instead of pea shoots, any microgreens or spinach would work!)

Sunday, April 28, 2013

that weekend i had a twin

never before have i heard so many times that my mom and i look alike.
even strangers. the random dude at the soup counter..... everyone.

i guess it's not a bad thing though, she's pretty cool...  and she came to visit last weekend! mr p cooked dinner for us, we spent a few hours at jersey gardens, roamed around manhattan and jersey city, ate at some fantastic restaurants, caught up with some of my friends... it  was the perfect 4-day weekend :)

 photo DSC04119_zps869b4eab.jpg

 photo e1d92f12-b561-4b36-89c9-006cdd07be60_zps4d7aac8e.jpg  photo 59a91f6f-e91e-4b82-aa3a-e06d87adc60c_zps975974f0.jpg

 photo e4dd3c5a-ca0a-4891-8e07-12ff36d19278_zps467a1160.jpg  photo 69388652-7f8a-4585-8b3e-cc6e8db931d3_zps3edbf523.jpg
(and we played with dry ice.  don't ask, her idea...)

 photo DSC04173_zpsb9f669bb.jpg
....and we discovered jersey city's beach! (just kdiding, it's not really a beach, just sand, and i knew it was there, but it's still cool)

 photo DSC04174_zpsa643eb05.jpg

 photo be25ba2e-c214-48d3-8a4c-b355a53a3781_zps9b7e4a81.jpg  photo a35b54cc-a953-480b-adb6-334f0c9bf350_zpsde6ea68c.jpg

 photo DSC04164_zpsb47ce3b1.jpg

 photo DSC04161_zpsfc912f93.jpg

 photo DSC04159_zpsde58183b.jpg

 photo 7b218a60-6682-47eb-b31c-586c6f33495e_zpsf2c5637f.jpg  photo 654953d2-7163-4ee0-907b-4b284a42e7d2_zpsba569fda.jpg

 photo DSC04133_zpsc58509a3.jpg

 photo DSC04144_zpsea68dd58.jpg

 photo DSC04142_zps35127330.jpg

 photo 4fd58e1a-9cca-4c5e-a5ce-d252eb8c598a_zps5e399923.jpg  photo 22a2edb2-ac9e-4981-a60f-5a24616b85cc_zpsec02d900.jpg

can't wait for her next visit!

cheers.


Friday, April 26, 2013

cooking but no baking

 
despite the unfortunate situation that i'm living away from home during the week, i have to admit that i've got it pretty good here.  i recently moved into a basement apartment (not so awesome) in one of the coolest neighborhoods in boston (SO awesome).  though i have a whole foods pretty close (hellloooo endless islands of delicious prepared food!) i want to cook my own food for 90% of the time. 

the bad part is that i only have a 2-burner cooktop (goodbye healthy, foil-pouch, baked fish), and i only have a limited stock of spices/herbs because i'm starting from scratch (though i might snag some from our fuller containers at home so i don't have to buy SO many more spices)

(mr p bakes salt-and-peppered salmon on top of sugar snap peas, puts lemon slices on top, wraps it in a foil pouch and bakes at 350-375 for about 20 minutes... it's one of my new favorite SUPER healthy meals!)
 
i realize that pinterest and google can and will be my best friends in finding healthy, cooking-but-no-baking, limited-ingredient meals, but does anyone else have any good ideas?
 
in the meantime, i'll settle for some  chunky white bean soup  and  asian chicken noodle salad  
 
let me know if you have any great ideas!
 
thanks, readers :)
 


Thursday, April 25, 2013

a new view of boston

when i first started working in boston, i didn't like it.  like, at all.  all i could think about was how much it wasn't like new york city or jersey city.  but i was living in a hotel, eating at au bon pain for practically every meal, working late, and seeing only 1 city block (except for the 1 night i decided to venture into the business-y part of the north end, where everything was shut down by 9pm when i started my walk.
 
this week i started staying in a REAL apartment, in a very cool neighborhood about a mile from the office.  i get to walk through the public garden every day, i see runners, lovebirds, other professionals like me walking home... it's such a change.
 
 
 
 
 
let's talk about lovebirds though.  i think 90% of the people in the park last night were couples that were either holding hands, snuggling on a bench, kissing, singing to each other, on double date...
 
(ew, gross! get a room!)
 
actually, i felt the exact opposite.  it was refreshing to see so many people so in love!  i can't help but smile when i see these cuties.  maybe it was the weather, maybe it was because i was walking home at a decent hour, maybe it was because i had just got in a good 3-mile run, maybe it was because i am excited to go back home to mr p this weekend.... whatever it was, my walk home was just nice last night.
 
boston, you're growing on me.
slowly, but surely.
 
cheers.
 


Wednesday, April 24, 2013

manly things: DIY pipe base for a desk

so... we had a bit of an unfortunate incident last weekend...
 
(but i like to think of it now as a blessing in disguise :P)
 
you know that awesome desktop we made for our iMac?
 
(ok, i admit, there was no "we" in making the desk for "mr p's" iMac) 
 
anyways, so we had already remounted the thing once, and we usually kept our elbows from resting on it for fear that it would fall off of the wall...  but give us a bottle of wine and some serious googling action, and DOWN SHE WENT!!   i suppose drywall screws aren't meant for cantilevered desks are they? we used them because there's brick behind the drywall and we don't have proper tools to mount something in it (we don't THINK anyways)
 
so mr p unexpectedly spent much of his sunday afternoon figuring out a new desk situation.  remounting obviously was the wrong choice, but with a baseboard heater at all 3 adjacent walls and sloping, uneven floors, what's a guy to do!? buying an entirely new desk was out of the question.
 
i'm going to give full credit for the solution for the final product to mary bicycles :
 
 
no, we didn't have the awesome scavenger find of a butcher block countertop, but we DID have a DIY'ed desktop that mr p and his friend zack made last summer (sentimental value and all)
 
 photo photo_zpsecdf77b7.jpg  
(sorry for the terrible phone-quality pic.. i'm in boston and it's all i had, and i REALLY wanted to share it with you all!)
 
mr p simply followed the instructions using modified measurements for our table (modified for width, height, and making sure the back legs were forward of the baseboard heater in the back), and took off for home depot.... a few cuts at the store, a little screwing together at home, and a few screws into the desktop and voila! a new AWESOME-looking, loft-ish-inspired desk!  mr p even told me he sat on it to make sure it was sturdy.  pretty sure we can rest our elbows on it when we get a bottle (or 2 or 3) of wine in us and get some omg-you-have-GOT-to-see-this mentality going on :)
 
doesn't it look fantastic!? 
between mr p stepping up to DIY this awesome desk, cleaning the ENTIRE house, picking my mom up from the airport, cooking her dinner while i was still away in boston, and tolerating our quirkiness together this weekend... makes me want to just squeeze him to pieces and shout to the world that i'm the luckiest girl in the world :)

(cheeseballfest is over)
(but really though, he's a pretty cool dude)
 
cheers.
 
 
p.p.s. more DIY's and renovations
p.p.p.s. did you know we're on instagram (@beyondthestoop)  and bloglovin?