Hungry santas and Burning Spear...

So, I've been sitting here waiting for Burning Spear to download to my itunes and took the opportunity to look through pictures.  I done got some cool NYC restaurant pics to continue to blog about.  There is this awesome restaurant called Ippudo, a Ramen bar.  It's become a weekly staple in our house ever since december.  A fantastic winter substitute for Pho.  One of the servers @ work has a chicken coop in her backyard so a great bowl of Ramen with poached and soy sauce hard boiled farm/backyard fresh eggs has been sustaining us over these last many cold weeks.  Very cool.  Come spring I'm gonna try to convince her to sell me one of the chickens.  Their eggs are beautiful Easter egg shades and have yolks that taste of minerally, buttery, good earth. 
I hope everyone's holiday season was peaceful and full of some inner joy.  I cooked for my family in Boca xmas day as my gift and cause my mom has not really seen what I do since.....culinary school maybe.  It was fun.  I had problems with heat and made a couple poor decisions but I learned a lot so it was as much a gift to me as those who ate.  My sister in law is vegetarian and carrying my niece to be so I had to adapt in menu planning.  The cool thing being, I've taken to more vegetarian and vegan practices @ the restaurant ever since.  I honestly find that sometimes meats and even butter and cream dull the flavors of vegetables or at least confuse them.  It's not always fitting to wrap a ball of sunshine in bacon or send it scuba diving in a sea of butter .  
That's about it I guess.  Frogs are up next.  Till next time.....be good.

Sad frogs in Chinatown....i poured out some PBR in memory of these homies....