A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

We're Home! Maui Food Travelogue

 

The Bridal Table.  Keep reading...I can explain....

The Big Pink Congratulations Cake was what I took in to work the last night we all worked together before leaving for Maui and the wedding.  Believe me, time was short so I ran by the grocery store, picked up the best of what they had and called it a celebration.  Chris, smartass that he is (and I'm so proud!) said "Wow, Glenna.  You must have worked really hard to make that look just like a Wal-mart cake."  Hehe.  Yeah, amazing.  But it really wasn't too bad. The cake was moist and the frosting was that fluffy stuff that's not too horrible.  What the hell. It's the idea of the celebration that's important and, let me tell you, when it's bad on nightshift, anything with sugar and/or caffeine is a good thing!

 

First Class American Airlines Food--I actually have only good things to say about the airline food and service.  At the last minute Gene had said "Screw the money! We're going First Class so we can be comfortable!" and it was so much more comfortable than being squeezed into coach.  Sigh.  What fun!

We started off the last leg of the journey with Mimosas.

 

Last Day of Laying on the Beach. :-(

The wedding went off beautifully.  Chris and Kendall both looked radiant.  Yes, I know, Chris probably would probably cringe at being called radiant but he was and she was too.  Gorgeous wedding.  I can't even describe it. I'll let the pics do it for me when I get them posted.  It was everything I wanted it to be for them; I'm sure they felt t'he same!

Had dinner last night at The Melting Pot, recommended by my friend Cindy.  That was sort of funny.  They asked "have you ever been to the Melting Pot before?" and we had to say "Well, no.  Our friend frm Rhode Island said this is her favorite chain restaurant and if we ever got the chance to come here...so now we're in Maui...and we're coming here".  Rhode Island...Missouri...Maui...that's a bit of a distance but we went and it was wonderful.  We had a lot of fun.  Like a Japanese steak house/hibachi, it's an adventue to kids or big kids like us.  We made tons of jokes about paying to cook our own food.  The great part was the waitress was so nice we were discussing fondue recipes and how to do it at home with a cheap hot plate instead of buying an expensive fondu set...unless you wanted the set for the "look".

So maybe in October, Cindy, we'll do fondue at home from cheese to cooking to chocolate...we'll have Lynn and Diane over and have a girl party! 

Gene was fascinated by the heating elements in the center of the table.  They were some kind of magnetic something...I'll have to get him to explain. He said it was something originally created for home use but since the cooking ware was too expensive to do feasibly at home it never really got off the ground.

Another Day in Paradise

Had a wonderful day yesterday hanging out with the hubby and our friends:  great seaside lunch, incredibly scenic drive along the coastline, and mucho fun at the resort's luau.  One word to dispel the myth: the pig in the pit is fake which Gene and Dirk went to great lengths to prove (haha) but the food and show and were very fun nonetheless. 

Lots of pics when we get home!

Guess I forgot to mention...

...we're in Maui this week to stand up with Chris and Kendall while they get married this Saturday on the beach!

At this very moment we are sitting on the balcony  of our room at the Royal La Haina looking out over the beach,eating breakfast.  Am taking tons of pics but can't download then until I get home so will just post some highlights until we get home next week.

Glad to be here now.  Have to admit that flight is OMG looooooong! Although it helped that when booking Gene finally looked at it all and said "Screw it! This is a once in a lifetime trip, let's go first class!"  Okay then.  Nice seats and tons of great food and service. Wow.  Never had a steak on a plane before.  It was very cool!

The drive from the airport was an hour long but since it was already dark all we saw was blobs of blooming trees and the shadows of mountains.  From our window last night we could see some street and parking lot lights and the shadow of the beach beyond the pool.  It was like Christmas morning waking up to the light, the landscaping below the window, and the gorgeous beach.

Off to play!

(Am taking tons of pics but can only upload them at home.)

Vegas Vacation 2009

Once upon a time, four friends named Glenna, Cindy, Dianne, and Diane (yes, it did get confusing so it was "Di" and "Dianne with two n's") decided to go hang out in Vegas for a few days...and this is what they did when they weren't laughing and giggling and catching each other up on their lives back home:

Top of the World/Downtown/Present for Gene

 

Top of the World is the revolving restaurant at the top of the Stratosphere Hotel.  Good food--great view! 

There's a joke with Gene about me that if you put any number of things in front of me my favorite will always be the most expensive, that I can pick out the most expensive anything anywhere.  For example, many years ago he "tested" me by pointing to six white sedans in a parking lot, knowing I don't know cars.  My favorite?  The Mercedes. What can I say?  The girl likes champagne even with a beer pocketbook.

Top of the World was a great opening night "event" but it was not cheap or "medium priced" as I thought it would be and had assured my friends.  Oh well. The good news is Gene cracked up when I told him and my reputation is secure.

  

Preparing for New Year's Eve: Caviar and Foie Gras

 

Gearing up for New Year's Eve, which I won the work lottery to be off for that one holiday. Yay!  No running down to help the ER with whatever idiocy the new year brings in!

We'll be celebrating at home with James and Lynn, and Aunti Miranda.  In preparation I got our caviar and foie gras order in to Petrossian, along with a mother-of-pearl caviar spoon.  As a presenter, I'm going to use one of the beautiful depression glass bowls from my grandmother's collection or Gene's grandmother's collection, I've forgotten who owned them but the set is beautiful.

And then Aunti and Lynn and I will be making accoutrement for the caviar and foie gras and other treats for the evening.  Gene and James are in charge of the champagne.

The one punchline so far was when Chase called me to verify an "odd" charge going through on my card. What? Don't I order caviar every day?  Puh-leaze.  Hehehehehe.  When I called Petrossian back and told them what happened the gal laughed and said "Don't worry about it. That happens ALL the time. At least they're checking to make sure it's really YOU."

www.petrossian.com

Petrossian is the same bar/company where we had caviar at the Bellagio in Vegas. We enjoyed it so much I ordered the same kind only twice as much, the Tsar Imperial.

The little blue bag in the upper right hand corner of the photo is the way the caviar came chilled. It has two mini cold packs, one on top and one on bottom of the jar of caviar to keep it chilled.  The spoon came in its own little velvet holder.

Vegas: Winning at the Monte Carlo resort, Bellagio conservatory, Dennis Miller, and more

 

                                             You know, gambling's only really fun if you win. Gene plays a lot of slots and a lot of poker and he usually wins.  Like on this trip.  He played a lot but he also hit several jackpots, one of the $1,250.00 category.  I don't ever win that big but I do seem to have pretty decent luck on the penny and nickel slots.  Mostly I play the ones that remind me of old tv shows I liked to watch as a kid or the silly ones that are a combination of slot machine and video game.  The Munsters are usually very kind to me.  Like on this night.  I put a $20 in a Musters machine and won $100. I was giddy with that.  I took that ticket and put it into this Coyotes on Parade (it's Wolf something, CoP is my pet name for it) and won $500.00.  Read the bottom line on the machine.  I cashed out a $600 ticket, winning 48,200 PENNIES on this sucker.

When you win, it's a blast. When you lose, it's boring as hell.  I'll take winning any day.

 

All of this slot fun took place at the Monte Carlo resort & casino.  I've always liked this hotel.  It's theme of Monte Carlo is elegant and understated, as compared to some of the more gaudy (a relative term in Vegas) themes of other hotels on the strip. 

 A long time ago they had a bar called the Houdini bar with Houdini memorabilia, nice bartenders, and great martinis. It's a small thing but I always liked that bar and remembered sitting in it for hours reading a book one time while Gene played poker.  It was a relaxing afternoon.

Having spent a dozen years of my first career in the hotel business, I really pay attention to where I stay and I have adapted a philosophy of a kind:

Eureka Springs with Cindy--The Attractions Part 1

Poor Cindy.  I have this rule, you see. And this is when I ask anyone from visitors to my husband (just ask Gene) what they want to do, what they want to eat, or when they're hungry, if they say "I don't care" or "Whatever" they get to do or eat whatever I want.  Because hey, I asked.

So when Cindy said "I don't care" to the question of "What do you want to do?" she got to go to all the attractions around Eureka that I haven't been to in years but wanted to check up on (and I even managed to throw a foodie event in on her).

Quigley's Castle--

Not a castle in the huge rampart tradition but more in the vein of "my home is my castle", this is one of the coolest houses I've ever seen. Owned by the creator's granddaughter, Mrs. Quigley decided to build her own house during the depression and since she loved rocks and all things natural, she designed and built, with the help of her husband, this unique house with it's full glass panels and walls removed about 3 feet from the edges of the flooring to allow herself room to build a natural arboretum inside her own walls.  Then she ventured outside to surround the outside of the house building a koi pond, flower stands, bird baths, and "trees" of colored glass, some of which looked to be depression glass that's probably worth a little money.

I love both the beauty of the simple house and the idea behind it, that she saw it in her head as non-mainstream as it was, and created her dream.

 

Eureka Springs with Cindy--The Food

I've been gone all week on a mini-get away with my friend Cindy from Rhode Island.  She came here to work but one day of her assignment got cancelled so we grabbed the time to head down to one of my favorite Ozarks' towns, Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  I've blogged about Eureka Springs before but it's been a couple of years since Gene and I last visited and almost 15 years since we lived there. This is one of my favorite pics from the Balcony Restaurant of the Basin Park Hotel because it's not all glam.  It's a simple shot of one of the town's streets right before the sun set, after the shops had closed for the day, and the fog was rolling in off the hills.  It's the Eureka in October I remember from living there.

Part of me took Cindy there for the entertainment value. I wanted to see the look on Gene's "favorite Yankee's" face (Rhode Ilsander) when she was plunked down in the middle of Eureka.  Not that that's an insult to either one.  Anyone who's been to Eureka knows that the very best wonderful thing about the town is that everyone is welcome and everyone (within reason) gets along. The town is famous for being the transplanted home town for artisans of all kinds and there is more talent and more brains in those hills than anywhere else in the world (allow me the hyberbole--I'd move back in a second if we could). When Gene and I lived there we knew a banquet planner from Vegas who got tired of the city lights, several writers of all genres, an electrical engineer who got off the corporate ladder, a nuclear physicist who owns a Bed & Breakfast but travels all over the world for "think tanks" and some of the most artistically gifted people I've ever been in awe of anywhere.

Today I'll talk about the food. Tomorrow and over the weekend, I'll talk about the attractions and the Ghost Tour (awesome!) and how a ghost must have followed us back to our own historic hotel.

Picture Parad of our Vegas Vacation Part 3: Bette, Amazing Jonathan, and the Cutest Matzo Ball Soup Ever!

And another of my favorite shots of the hotel taken as we waited for the airport shuttle. These were the best pics I took all week!

How about some food pics? This is supposed to be, after all, a food blog but I'll be honest. We didn't eat that many upscale meals.  We had the lunch at RM Seafood and the caviar at the Bellagio but other than that we really stuck with basic food.  I allowed myself a few comfort foods I rarely allow myself to eat like a Reuben & fries, chicken pot pie, that room service bleu cheese & avocado burger, etc.  At Caesar's before Bette's show we ate at the "food court" and that was actually fun.  Gene had carved turkey and dressing and I had a side of mac & cheese. The "food court" at Caesar's ranges from a Starbucks to the carved meat place to upscale chinese to upscale subs.  The tables are nicely done and the condiment bar includes real flatware and real plates you can transfer your "fast food" meal over to.  It was very well done and exactly what I would expect from Caesar's.

After the show we stopped by the basic 24 hour cafe. I had the coolest matzo ball soup I've ever had and Gene chose a quesadilla that was very good, one of the best we've ever had. Sure, it was just a quesadill and soup but the mark of a great kitchen is to do even the basic foods very well.

Isn't the presentation fantastic?  The bowl contained the matzo ball, about 3 oz of chicken, a chunked baby carrot with the greens still attached, and the sprig of dill.  I loved the chicken broth on the side. It was a nice touch especially since I really don't like a lot of broth on my dumpling but like to spoon it separately. It's like they read my mind. LOL! Plus, it was adorable!

The quesadilla was just a basic chicken quesadilla but the remoulade on top was perfect and it had tons of flavor.  That's the kind of food that can be made very well or very badly.

Let's see....other pics of food. Oh, here's one of the morning room service carts from the Luxor. I just love room service carts. I almost judge the quality of a hotel by them. Again, something simple that can be done very poorly or very well.  The Luxor did well. Everything was presented beautifully even though it was only a caraffe of coffee and a basket of pastries most days and a choice of USA Today or the local Review Journal accompanied each tray. That's a nice touch.