Gastronomy Blog

I can’t believe I haven’t posted since Wednesday!! That feels like weeks ago. It’s been a busy weekend, so this post is probably going to end up photo heavy and text poor…

*THURSDAY*

Thanksgiving was great! We got up early to finish up a few dishes (sweet potato casserole and mashed potatoes). I used Tyler Florence’s recipe for mashed potatoes, which involved only three tablespoons of butter but TWO CUPS of heavy cream. My goodness.

We were planning on having Thanksgiving at the lake, but my OB said no way in case I went into labor (HAHAHA)… so we had dinner at my parents’ house here in Dallas instead.

Lovely table, lots of food.

Ne mangez pas Chloe, s’il vous plait.

*FRIDAY*

On Friday we met my parents for lunch at Cindi’s Deli. I had the beef stew with cornbread and an order of latkes.

The latkes were SO GOOD. Definitely getting these again.

After lunch we headed to Northpark. Oh. Dear. God. It was INSANE. Luckily we only stayed for about an hour and then headed home to relax and nap. Friday night we ended up going to see The Blind Side, which was a very sweet movie. Unfortunately I had really painful Braxton-Hicks throughout the last half of the movie and was too afraid to get up in case my water broke. Luckily that did NOT happen.

*SATURDAY*

On Saturday night we decided to have one final date night as a “childless couple.” About a year or so ago we ate at Toulouse on Knox and I’ve been dreaming about their bouillabaisse ever since… so that’s where we headed for our big date. The soup was just as delicious as I remembered it:

Lots of scallops, shrimp and mussels.

My only complaint is that the tables in this place are tiny, so we were constantly rearranging and stacking plates. We also ate on the patio, which was fine at first but really chilly by the end of the meal.

After dinner we headed over to our friend Tara’s mom’s house for dessert. Tara and her hubby live in San Francisco, so it was great to get to see them. And the pumpkin cheesecake was delicious, too

*SUNDAY*

We actually didn’t leave the house until dinner tonight (welll, maybe once to hit up Sonic’s happy hour). I was the taskmaster and had Brian hauling Christmas decor out of the attic, setting up the tree, moving stuff out of Jack’s room. We did get all of our decorating finished!

Not quite as much as last year- but chances are that we’ll still be looking at this tree come Easter, so I decided to tone it down a bit. We need a stocking for Jack!!

My mom’s birthday is on Wednesday- but I’m guessing we’ll be a little occupied that day. SO we celebrated her birthday tonight instead. My parents, grandparents, Zach, Laura, Brian and I headed to Rathbun’s Blue Plate Kitchen for dinner. The reviews on Yelp were a little mixed on this place, but it turned out to be a great pick. Busy, but not jammed… and you could actually hear each other, which is a nice change from a lot of Dallas restaurants. We all shared the brisket nachos:

And the fried green tomatoes:

For my entree, I had the hanger steak with smashed potato casserole… and the table shared sides of roasted brussels sprouts and black-eyed peas:

That’s one big hunk of meat (That’s what she said.). Brian and Zach both had part of it and we still ended up bringing close to half home with us. Brian ordered the BBQ pulled pork, which came with blue cheese corn grits- SO GOOD.

For some reason I’m always the designated dessert orderer in the family. Luckily a few other people chimed in this time. Zach got the buttermilk pie, which came with raspberry jam and was delicious. I had the s’mores pie:

The best part was the burnt marshmallow on top. The chocolate part was just okay. My favorite dessert was the apple tart (ordered by Brian). The top was caramelized, which went really well with the salted caramel ice cream on top:

And now I’m verging on a food coma. Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!!!! Tomorrow is my last full baby-free day and I’m trying to figure out how to spend it- any suggestions? Buy some mom jeans? Test drive minivans? Watch The View?

-SURVEY-

Have you started/finished Christmas shopping?

My side of the fam is pretty much taken care of- either I’ve bought already or I know what I’m giving them. Brian’s side is another story…