You are what you eat

August 1st today, which according to Dan means that summer is almost over. Not true, I always say, but the last week slipped by so quickly, I did not have a moment to write.

So this is what's happening with me: Lots of Eating.

Last weekend, Dan and I spent Saturday night in Park Slope, where we enjoyed a barbecue with friends Meagan, Julie and Simon. Julie and Simon has the kind of apartment I openly drool about because there have an outdoor patio! a barbecue! vegetable plants! Oh, it my dream come true. Not to mention it has a lovely view of Manhattan.

This weekend, we hosted another group Brooklynites for dinner, this time at our place. Do you notice a trend where all of our friends live nowadays? Yeah, us, too. Anyway, our friends Annie and Mark and Heather and Willy hit it off at our wedding (two different worlds colliding!), so we hosted a triple date to bring everyone together again. (And Drake came too to make everything cute!)

I honestly can't remember the last time we hosted a dinner party, and it was so much fun to plan and prepare a meal from scratch, even though Dan totally freaked out on me about four minutes before our guests arrived because I completely smoked up the joint. (It's totally true. I totally did. You could barely see one end of the room from the other through the misty haze, and we have a really small room. This always happens when I put the oven too hot (even after cleaning it), and for the sake of good food, I like to pretend our oven doesn't do that. But it is a hard thing to get away with and Dan always finds me out. He's awfully clever.)

All of our guests were too polite to notice, and Dan later forgave me by saying that was one of the best dinners I've made (Why thank you, honey). I barely took any pictures and am regretful not to have any food pics or of one of Drake crashing out on our floor on a stack of pillows.

In case you are interested, the menu was chili corn custard squares for appetizer, a honeydew fresca for refreshment (plus plenty of wine), pork loin wrapped in pancetta (the smoke offender), my mom's style mashed potatoes, summer arugula salad with tomatoes, peaches and goat cheese, chocolate hazelnut gelato and a lime tart topped with blueberries and blackberries (inspired by the Nowaks, who sent us the tart pan the day before, thanks guys). The whole thing reminded me how much I love to entertain my friends, spend time with them and how I can't be heating up my oven like that anymore--though with food like that, it's so hard to resist.

The rest of this week, I worked overtime at a magazine sales meeting where I am now freelancing most of the time. I sat in meetings from 8am-6pm and then spent the rest of the night....eating. We went to two great restaurants I've never been Valbella (good) and Market Table (better). The coolest part about the meeting was that we got to visit the editor-in-chief's apartment for cocktails and it looked like one of those places you only see in a magazine. Oh wait, it was!

Unfortunately, I spent most of the sales meeting trying hard not to scratch myself. One week into taking my $450 ulcer medication, I suddenly got an allergic reaction and broke out into hives all over my body. My doc took me off the meds, the hives went away and the next steps to be determined next week. I am so mad about it, I don't even know what to say.

I am having major uploading issues, so no pictures today. So I leave you with that pleasant image of hives for the rest of your day. Okay, how about shirtless and buff French dudes doing a sprint workout in Central Park? That's a little better.