kick it up a notch!

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we made it out to dinner for magical dining month/Brian’s birthday last Saturday to Tchoup Chop (pronounced chop chop) by Emeril. We ate there last year for Z’s birthday and at his other Orlando outpost the year before to celebrate his birthday and our engagement. I guess we must like Emeril’s cooking. This restaurant is a play on asian flavors and is at one of the Universal resorts. We got to sit next to the indoor lily pond this time and my pictures didn’t turn out at all. The food was solid and good and had asian flair. I had some awesome pork and lemongrass dumplings with sake soy dipping sauce, beer braised short ribs and a yummy desert trio. Brian had a funny Japanese strawberry soda (pop!), Chickeny eggrolls with sriracha sauce, citrus (couldn’t taste it) pork with noodles and the same desert. It was a fun meal to cap off a long year and let loose a little. I wonder what we will be celebrating the next time we cross his path?

breakfast burger

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Happy Labor Day! Labor day is like the last hurrah of summer and I spent it. I didn’t really spend it well, but rather I spent it, as my sister so kindly put it, ‘getting on my own nerves.’ On Thursday I was freaking out about a rash. I don’t get rashes you see. I went to the doctor. She looked at it for all of two and a half seconds and pronounced, ‘You’ve got shingles.’ What? I thought old people, and my friend Tom, were the only people who got shingles. It’s a virus that is leftover in your body after you have chicken pox and affects a string of nerves. They don’t know what causes it and say it sometimes comes out as a result of stress. (?) It is kind of ugly and rather painful (although mine hasn’t been terrible exactly. Just uncomfortable and heinously annoying.) I had to send Z away at first in case of it being catching, but they decided it was safe and he could come home and take care of me as long as he didn’t use my linens or touch me. He thankfully cooked for me all weekend and sang me a song, while I alternately slept, watched tv and read.
Today my rash is receding and doesn’t seem as sketchy so we went to the grocery store for the weekly shop and picked up a couple of things for the breakfast burger. It is comfort food and perfect for my recovery.
A turkey burger on a soft potato bun stacked with american cheese, bacon, shoestring fries, homemade chipotle ketchup and the glory that is a fried egg. If you take time to watch Iron Chef or Top Chef they often crown food with a fried quail or chicken egg for the velvety ooze that spills over the food. I have had this type of burger (on my birthday no less) at Luma on Park and would highly recommend it. Brian can’t really have fried eggs and might not eat them if he could, so he had the slight variation, with a scrambled egg that he cooked in a ring so it would fit just so on top. This burger is a nice labor with which to end a long weekend.

bolo burger

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Well, It happens now and again, a burger that I can happily live without. Tonight after work we made the bolo burger. A lightly pressed turkey burger with homemade aioli flavored with roasted red peppers and garlic, manchego and serrano (we could only find prosciutto) ham. I have found I hate manchego when warmed or melted. I love it chilled with olives and wine, or in a salad with apples, sugared pecans and dates, just like any normal girl would. I also tend to like prosciutto but only when it is chilled or actually crisped in a pan. Warmed through next to manchego is not for me. Brian didn’t love it either, so that works out for me.
Napoleon fed his llama Tina ham. Yesterday we went and saw Ponyo, by Hiyao Miyazaki. Ponyo shouted,”I want ham!” before she turned alternately into a little rowdy girl and a fish.
Ham is fine in Idaho and nice at the movies but please don’t put it on my burger.