Planet Earth Live

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BBC’s groundbreaking documentary “Planet Earth” is taking it on the road and Chicago is one of six cities that is being graced with its presence.  Last Wednesday, I headed to Pritzker Pavilion to check out the phenomenon that is Planet Earth.  I’ve never seen it and figured watching clips of itin Millennium Park while George Fenton (the actual guy who composed to music for the documentary) conducts the Grant Park Orchestra is the best way to get my nature on.

Sometimes I forget that I live in Chicago, a city with a population of 2.8 million.  Someone other than me may want to see Planet Earth Live too.  Start time was 8:15pm.  I got there at 8:10pm, thinking there would be tons of empty grass space for me to plop my MSU blanket.  Umm, no.  People had clearly been camped out there for hours, with their picnics and wine and yard games, enjoying the spectacular summer evening.

Note to self: leave earlier and bring wine.

As the sun set over a sea of skyscrapers, Planet Earth Live began.  Polar bears, dolphins, elephants, tigers, oh my.  For those of you who have seen Planet Earth, this is old news but holy cow!  These animals are amazing!  Did you know that there’s a group of crains who scale Mount Everest every year?  Crains!  These big ol’ birds fly over the peak of a mountain that claims the lives of 1 out of 10 human climbers.  Unreal.

The area of grass I was sitting in was surrounded by people with the best food.  I mean, these people really outdid themselves.  I saw homemade cheesecake still in the springform pan, a build your own salad bar, tacos, takeout from Sopraffina, hummus–I  could practically smell the olives in the tapenade from the picnic next to me.  Food, music and wine–pretty much the perfect summer night.

Did I mention this whole thing was free?  Yes, FREE.  I couldn’t believe I had the opportunity to see a 2 time Grammy winner conducting his own score and a ground breaking documentary for free.  I’ll tell you one thing–I am going to start paying a lot more attention to the Millennium Park calendar from now on.

French Potato Salad

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The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook has been in my possession since last winter, as discussed in this post, but I must confess:  I never made the lobster potpie I said I would in that post.  Summer has been hot and sticky this year, the way the best summers are, and since I’ve been swimming in what seems like an endless sea of vibrant, crisp, and colorful veggies, it is high time to put the Barefoot Contessa Cookbook to work.

Besides–her French Potato Salad is on the cover so it was no brainer, ya know?

There’s a market on Tuesday in a plaza near my apartment so I headed there to get my ingredients.  Red and white potatoes—check.  Fresh herbs–check.  Good, dry white wine–you better believe that was already in my fridge.

Here is her recipe.  I added halved cherry tomatoes, artichokes, and green beans because I have had a version of this salad that was to die for and in all reality, what isn’t better with fresh, sunshine ripened cherry tomatoes?

Enjoy!

  • 1 pound small white boiling potatoes
  • 1 pound small red boiling potatoes
  • 2 tablespoons good dry white wine
  • 2 tablespoons chicken stock
  • 3 tablespoons Champagne vinegar
  • 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 10 tablespoons good olive oil
  • 1/4 cup minced scallions (white and green parts)
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh dill
  • 2 tablespoons minced flat-leaf parsley
  • 2 tablespoons julienned fresh basil leaves

Drop the white and red potatoes into a large pot of boiling salted water and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, until they are just cooked through. Drain in a colander and place a towel over the potatoes to allow them to steam for 10 more minutes. As soon as you can handle them, cut in 1/2 (quarters if the potatoes are larger) and place in a medium bowl. Toss gently with the wine and chicken stock. Allow the liquids to soak into the warm potatoes before proceeding.

Combine the vinegar, mustard, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and slowly whisk in the olive oil to make an emulsion. Add the vinaigrette to the potatoes. Add the scallions, dill, parsley, basil, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper and toss. Serve warm or at room temperature.

High Five of the Day: My basil planet that has survived in my possession for 10 days now.  I killed 3 basil plants last year and I am determined that this little guy is going to make it.  I have him on my window sill with morning’s first rays hitting him so he won’t die for lake of sunlight (ha, until winter at least).  Hang in there, Basil.  I really felt earthy going to pluck your leaves for my potato salad and I’d really appreciate if you could be around long enough for me to make fresh pesto.

Little Blue

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It’s official: I am getting old.

When a slip of paper arrived under my front door that said I had a package waiting for me, I raced downstairs, certain the package I had been expecting for 5 days had finally arrived.

My Bissell Power Force.

I bit the bullet and bought a vacuum, like the big girl that I apparently am.  It began like this:

I hate putting things together but I always feel such a sense of accomplishment of finishing the work of people way more technical than I, so I sat down with my sparkling water and went to it.  And finished with this:

I had always heard (from who though, really?  Who spends time talking about vacuums?) that you have to buy the uber expensive Dyson vacuums if you want a good one.  But $800 on  a vacuum is…I have no words for what I think that is.  But Little Blue, as the new Bissell will now be called, was $39 and it works like a charm.  My rug that was covered in Luna Bell is now super bright and clean and my carpet has those little lines.  Win.

I’m going to go do something really cool and young now because this was way too much excitement for a darn vacuum.

High Five of the Day: Holly the Herlein for setting some seriously powerful, radical goals.  Way to go, Friend!

Dig Down Deep

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The 42nd Annual Sheffield Garden Walk was this weekend and I met up with some friends to enjoy the musical stylings of a band called “Cowboy Mouth”.  The Garden Walk is apparently exactly that–a walk through a bunch of cool gardens in Lincoln Park, coupled with concerts at night.  I didn’t know about the actual garden part until I got on their website tonight.  I feel a little guilty–I thought it was an even exclusively about beer and loud music.  I like gardens as much as the next person and would have totally checked the educational part of this festival out but I am willing to place bets that if this was the 42nd Sheffield Garden, there will be a 43rd and I can have a more well-rounded Garden Walk experience.

Anyways.

Cowboy Mouth was pretty fantastic.  And funny.  The drummer was placed in the middle of the stage and did a majority of the singing, which was pretty impressive considering that hitting sticks on tubs and singing at the same time can’t be easy.  Usually, if I am not familiar with a band, I have a hard time getting into the concert.  Cowboy Mouth made it impossible to not be engaged–within minutes, I was shouting the band’s name along with the rest of the crowd and doing my little concert dance that involves a lot of arm waving and hair tossing.

What really made me want to be a Cowboy Mouth fan was the moment in the concert when the drummer/lead singer was banging along and told the crowd to “Dig down deep inside, dig down really deep inside to that part inside you that you KNOW is bad ass”.  Umm, hello?  Of all the things we do to keep positive and present in our daily lives, how often do we think about and rely on that part of us that we just know is bad ass?  In those dig deep moments, have I ever been like “Man oh man, Nina, you are just incredibly bad ass!”?  No.   It’s really conjures up that confidence piece, which is always key, right?

I have been pretty much obsessed with things/people/ideas that inspire me lately, like someone who has been walking through the desert in Vegas and need a cocktail, er, water.  I’m not sure if I’m just more aware lately of all the inspiring things that happen every single day in this world of ours or if there’s something in the water at my place of employment but I have been so thirsty to soak it up.  From Dance! (Leslie was in the chair next to me while I was getting a pedicure on Friday, btw) to conversations with co-workers to just seeing the movers and shakers in this community doing their thing, I have been on an inspiration high lately.  Annnnd I love it.

High Five of the Day: My boy Rosco who provided me the lovely pic posted above.  He’s also on the internets–http://www.xroscox.com/.  It’s not porn, I swear.

Dance. Exclamation Point.

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No one should have this much fun at 8am.

I’m talking about Dance! with Karem Tonsy at Equinox.  Dance! is so packed every time we are working out down there that my buddy Jordan and I just had to see what the big deal was.

First of all, it’s called Dance!.  The exclamation point is a part of the title.  Second, the instructor, Karem, is a super toned, energetic, hip-shaking, latin dancing…did I mention hip shaking?  I mean, his hips moved in ways I just have never seen.  And third, the class packed with the coolest movers and shakers I have seen in a long time–ages 25-probably around 70.

20 minutes of my best moves later and Jordan and I had met this little ball of INCREDIBLE energy named Leslie.  She was rocking out every single move, totally motivating me to kick my feet a little higher and shake my booty a little lower. 25 minutes later and Leslie was calling Jordan “Jordie” as she was high-fiving her.  And everyone was like Leslie, from the 40-something man to my left up to the 70 year old woman wearing Keds in the front row.  Everyone was a regular, knew each other and were high fiving and hooting and hollering.  It created this incredible energy.  30 minutes later and I was sweating buckets, realizing that I totally underestimated what a killer workout Dance! would be!  I was booty shaking, hand punching, salsa spinning…in other words, I felt like I was a backup dancer in a music video.  Yessss…

Karem was the best.  His moves were so much fun but still so do-able.  He shook it with the best of ’em but then would yell like a it was a regular fitness class.  “Noo!  More!” or “Not enough–SHAKE IT!”.  And you listen when a guy like Karem tells you to adjust your dance moves, you just do.

Jordie, as Leslie now calls her, and I were beyond pumped up after the class and spent the better part of our work day talking about Dance, Exclamation Point.  Anything that can get me sweating that much and having more fun than I have EVER had getting sweaty is something I have GOT to be doing once a week.  Or once a day.  8-9am on Thursday is a standing date for me now.  Exclamation point.

Just a Typical Sunday.

adminCaffe RoM, Edible Chicago, Fox and Obel, Man Friend, Sunday Morning, Transformers 3, Uncategorized%s Comments

On our way to breakfast this morning, Man-Friend and I came across the park we live by taped off and a gathering of people with their dogs, babies and coffee staring at the now empty space of green.  It turns out that “Transformers 3” is filming in Chicago, specifically in our neighborhood, all week.  There were guys with walkie-talkies, coordinating with the helicopters circling above who told us “it” was happening in a few minutes  so we decided to grab coffee at Caffe RoM and watch whatever it was that caused a crowd of our yuppie neighbors to be staring at an empty park.

By the time we walked back outside with our coffee, a helicopter swooped in between the buildings long enough to deposit 5 skydivers, all of whom expertly swooped around the park before landing perfectly in the plot of land sectioned off for them.  It only lasted about 10 seconds, if that, but it was pretty cool.

Having been a little girl in the 80s who always opted for the Barbie in her Happy Meal, I had no idea what a Transformer was.  Even after Ryan’s explanation, I still don’t get why robots mascarading as cars would be patrolling the streets protecting people but I feel obligated to see this film now that it was filmed in my ‘hood.

High Five of the Day: Speaking of yuppies, we got breakfast for the first time at Fox and Obel. It is a foodie’s paradise.  Rows and rows of wine, cheese, meats, wine, bread, pastries and wine.  There’s a little restaurant so we grabbed some breakfast (2 poached eggs with wheat toast, chicken sausage and fruit for me; scrambled eggs, chicken sausage, and potatoes for Man-Friend) and did some Sunday morning reading:

I’m not sure what Man-Friend found in the Wall Street Journal but Edible Chicago provided me with  some great recipes that I can’t wait to try.  Between Edible Chicago and the issue of Cooking Light that I picked up yesterday, I am going to kick cooking in the Gardner-Foley household up a notch.  And yes, I know I just quoted Emeril Lagasse.  And yes, I recognize how cheesy that is.  Stay tuned anyways.

Gossamer Blue.

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We’re getting settled into the new apartment, which means always finding something else we want to move, change, buy or paint.  Yesterday was the painting part of the process.

It began with me grabbing fistfuls of Benjamin Moore pieces of colored paper and showing up at my friend Amanda’s doorstep instructing her to tell me which one to choose.  2123-40 Gossamer Blue was the winner.  (Good work, by the way.)

Next, the girl at Ace Hardware tells me I only need a quart the paint my entire bathroom since I was buying “the good stuff that only requires 1 coat”.  I walk home 2.3 miles with my quart of paint and some brushes.

With only 1 wall of my bathroom covered, I walk back to Ace Hardware.  1 gallon of paint and I hail a cab back to the apartment.

A few hours and a Diet Coke break later, our half bathroom (or powder room, if you will) is painted Gossamer Blue.  I didn’t drop too many splatters on the floor and my edging was exquisite.  But for all my schlepping around the city for paint and then black towels to accent the theme of only black and white photography (no one makes black towels, btw), I totally get why my building has an in-house painter.

Furthermore, my man-friend worked at The Home Depot paint department in college.  This is the second time I have painted something and done all the work myself, with the only instructions being to avoid pink.  And purple.   And paisley.  I don’t think he has the right to even blink at the fact that I paid $50 for a gallon of paint.  (It would have been helpful to know that it shouldn’t cost that much, btw, Ryan John).

All in all, I have a blue bathroom and the rest of the furniture was delivered today.  Life is good.

High Five of the Day: Catching up with old friends.  Sarah, a dear friend from what seems like several lifetimes ago, called right after I was done painting last night.  An hour and several belly laughs later, I had a smile glued to my face that was a constant reminder of how blessed I am to have so many different kinds of family in my life.

Independence Day

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

Moving On Up

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Moving on up…literally.  Up to the 41st floor to be more exact.  This is what I wake up to every morning.  Yeah, I’m still not even close to over it–I had about 40 pictures to choose from for this post of the exact same view because I take a picture pretty much every morning, noon and night.  Thank God all those other apartments didn’t work out because apparently 18th time’s a charm.

Luna Bell is thrilled with the move.  She doesn’t know what to do with all the room she has to run and her new favorite past time is watching the lights from cars going by at night.  Her head just whips back and forth.  It’s hilarious.

Ryan feels pretty much the same way.  He has lots of room to run and he likes looking out the window too.

As for me, I’m just livin’ the dream.  When I was young, my family came to Chicago a lot.  I wasn’t allowed to cross the street by myself in my hometown,  but for some reason, when we were in Chicago, my Dad would leave me a $10 on the dresser at the hotel in the morning to get myself a newspaper and Corner Bakery for breakfast and then I would wander around Michigan Avenue and the Gold Coast window shopping for hours.   I remember thinking, “Someday, this is what I’m going to do every day.”  I know that’s super cheesy but if I ever stop squealing on the inside (and let’s be serious, sometimes on the outside) when I cross the river in the morning or see the Navy Pier fireworks happening right outside my window or when my daily run consists of being on the most beautiful lake-shore in the world, well, then it’s time for me to move.  Or stop being such a curmudgeon.

Living with my favorite person and cat in the world in my favorite city in the world…jackpot, baby.  Overwhelmingly grateful for these blessings.

High Five of the Day: I just noticed the reflection in this above picture so the High Five of the Day has got to go to my tank top.  The Scoop Neck Tank is my fav.

Happy Birthday, Holly!

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(Sidenote: This was intended to be posted last Thursday but apparently, I didn’t set the auto-post correctly.)

“Laugh often, long and loud.  Laugh until you gasp for breath.  And if you have a friend who makes you laugh, spend lots and lots of time with them.”  Unknown