On Sunday, after Sarah headed back to Utah, I decided to continue with the vacation theme of the previous five days, so I played hooky from church (something I can do because I’m an adult) and headed to Eataly with Kelly. If you know anything about me, you will know that this place is my new favorite. It is mini Italian version of Harrod’s Food Hall. I could spend hours there. Hours. This was the perfect way to spend a Sunday…especially since my apartment would have felt so lonely after having had Sarah there for five days. (More to come on that…including a taping of Jimmy Fallon, an Ingrid Michaelson concert, and lots of girl talk and laughter.)

It is this amazing combination gourmet grocery/bistro/restaurant. To steal a line from Kelly’s post about the experience, “Can I just say… praise be to Eataly and all that is holy in the world of pork, cheese, and bread.” And I will add gelato.

After making one full tour of the place, we finally settled in the meat and cheese area and ordered the most amazing meat and cheese plate to share (can I tell you how much I love having friends who love cheese as much as I do?). Kelly and I were both in heaven. Seriously. It was the perfect meal.

The bread was amazing…I even got a loaf to take home.

I can tell this is going to be a new favorite place of mine. How could it not be? And of course, we had to finish the trip with a little gelato (I highly recommend the pistachio. Delicious!)

For those of you who know my friend Kelly or read her blog, you know that she loves cupcakes (although I think ice cream is her new favorite) and is a super talented scrapbooker (in other words, she’s very creative). Well, one of the things she wanted to do this year was to have a cupcake party…and that she did. And she even planned it for when the lovely and equally talented Sarah was going to be in town.

So, on Saturday, a group of us girls gathered under the pine trees in Central Park for the most amazing cupcake party ever. (I’m still recovering.) For a full account of the party, please visit Kelly’s post. She did an amazing job documenting it.

The mistake we made initially was trying to eat too much of each cupcake (there were 18!). I got smart after the first four quarters and slowed down to two little bites each…I still only made it through 9 of them. I definitely had my favorites. In any case, if you want to have a very fun party, I highly recommend something like this. Plus, I now know that I LOVE Sweet Revenge cupcakes. Incredibly delicious (IMO…which was not shared by everyone)!

All photos courtesy of KP.

A couple of weeks ago, the women from my MBA program who are now in New York (students and spouses alike) got together for a little girl time. We met up at Serendipity3 (just fyi…there is no 1 or 2, just 3) for dinner and dessert. They are famous for their frozen hot chocolate which almost everyone ordered…except for me and AnnMarie, who gorged ourselves on a delicious sundae. 

“Oh, nothing. Just stuffing my face.”

Kind of love Anne’s peace sign