Superbowl Suckling Pig

Happy Superbowl everyone! A little belated, but here's my little celebratory review of our suckling pig roast. You read that right. A suckling pig. Roasting in my little oven. 1 pig in a NYC apartment... ok you get the picture. But we pulled it off and boy was it delicious. The pig was about a 12-13 pounder so definitely on the small side and I ordered him from D'Artagnan and in case anyone out there is thinking of doing this please note that it's pretty pricey. But our little pig easily fed about 10 people, so you should also take that into consideration too.

We called him Brady

There were tons of other goodies from our friends and a few dips that I threw together. There were collard greens cooked in bourbon with bacon and sweet sausage, a 7 layer dip (courtesy of my Texas self), roasted potato salad, spicy crab dip, chili, lumpia- which are absolutely delicious Filipino meat spring rolls, a bean dip, and a few other various goodies of both the eating and imbibing variety. It was so much fun, mostly to gather with friends, see how many people I could comfortably fit inside my apartment and do something absolutely crazy, like roast a pig! And while I won't pretend to even remotely be a Giants fan (in fact Wes Welker carried my fantasy team this year and Sterling Moore is a fellow SMU grad) I was happy that my city got to experience another win. New Yorkers really do know how to go crazy with those things.

Charlottesville

I love this place. There's good wine, amazing views, and an appreciation of life moving at a slower pace. All surrounded by tall trees and in the shadow of the Appalachians, with autumns' smokey, woodsy smells in the air. And it's the place I chose to spend my entrance into thirty this past weekend. This is mostly pictures, memories now, of an amazing weekend with some really great people.

Warming up at the Avett Brothers concert

Starr Hill Brewery. The 3rd tap from the right was my favorite

Birthday Cake Poll

In addition to my sister, I have 4  very dear friends celebrating birthdays this weekend as well as another friend celebrating the birth of her little girl today (Congrats C&P!). I spent the last weekend pre-birthdaying with one good friend and this weekend of course goes to my sister, but to make things a bit more festive and fun I've decided to do a birthday cake poll, with me making the winning cake this Friday as a Happy Birthday to all the friends who have made my life wonderful and complete. So choose your favorite and at some point over the weekend I'll post the results and the recipe- and yes, a quick run down of the runners up for those curious about the others.

Birthday Cake Poll