Last night we had a great evening with our punny friend Mary out at Seng Thai in East Belfast. The food delicious as always, the atmosphere is certain to foster comments from the peanut gallery what with the sparkley paintings on velvet and such. But the biggest enjoyment at Seng Thai is the presentation of the food. Thai Chicken arrives in a pineapple boat with carved carrot rose blossoms. The curry comes in a pretty covered blue and white dish and that makes the food taste that much better. We're still at hot level number 4, not daring to go to a five yet.

Afterwards, we stopped by our favorite watering hole to chat with our friends David and Sarah at 3Tides. There was a nice crowd, including little Luna's grandparents who were feeding her cereal when we got there. A nice night out on the town to recharge our batteries.

Tonight we are making pot stickers and taking them over to Vicky's house where we will imbibe lots of steamed stickers and carve our pumpkins. I also need to make a few loads of almond bark for the hospital halloween party as well as for the 6 tricksters we get.

Tune in tomorrow foodie fans and you'll hear about making stickers.

Thanks for keeping the ad clicking alive. We are a long way from a group ice cream run, but we'll get there.

Enjoy,
Seth

For those of you who wanted to learn more about how the Haute for Hospice show went, click on the link for coverage of the event. The picture of the cute guy at the end is Greg...he thinks most of you probably envision him the size of a beach ball what with all the stuff I feed him!

http://belfast.villagesoup.com/Community/story.cfm?storyID=62653

Enjoy,
Seth

I'm making dog cookies again today using leftover pork, an apple, oatmeal and carrots, binding with an egg. I realized how desperately I need to go restock the kitchen as I have no garlic or parsley to add to the mix.

Hope they like it...smells pretty good to me.

Enjoy,
Seth

Keep on clicking up there, only make $3.90 so far this month.

So, I read in the paper today that the Lookout Pub in Belfast is reopening with two new owners, young women in their early 20s, one of whom bartended at the old place. Good for them! They plan to be a family oriented restaurant during the day, serving lunch and dinner and then a bar at night after 9pm. The new name will be the Lookout Bar and Grille (is that grill or grilly?). Gone will be the martini bar upstairs and the beergarden outside, which is great news as that was probably a big money loser for the old Lookout. I never understood why it was called the lookout though, since all the look out on is the back of 3Tides restaurant...oh sorry, 3Tides isn't a restaurant, its a bar with food.
So I say. good luck to the new and improved Lookout bar and grille. We'll be in soon to take it on a "taste drive". Oh, my slides are splitting from that one.

Enjoy,
Seth

Wet winter weather is here! I can't believe I can see the islands and the bay already now that the leaves have not only fallen off the trees, but seemingly run screaming from their branches to the ground. Anyway, its time for a bit of tea in the afternoons in front of the fire and what better to accompany a bit of constant comment tea than this delicous Lemon Rosemary Tea cake. Its a bit like pound cake with a distinct rosemary taste. I was down visiting my aunt several weeks ago and she served this for dessert after dinner with a plum sauce...its also good warm or even toasted in the oven. I have someone coming to see a painting next week and I might just make a loaf of this to put them in a good enough mood to buy it :-)
Thanks AJ!

Lemon Rosemary Tea Cake
(with olive oil and buttermilk)


4 cups flour
1 T baking powder
½ t salt
4 t lemon zest
4 t dried minced rosemary (more if fresh) 2/3 cup light olive oil
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 ½ cups lowfat buttermilk


Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Oil 2 9x5” loaf pans, or equivalent.
Thoroughly combine flour, baking powder, lemon zest, rosemary and salt. In a large bowl or electric mixer, beat oil and sugar until well blended. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, until mixture is pale yellow.
Add 1/3 flour mixture to eggs, then half of buttermilk, stirring to blend. Add remaining buttermilk, stirring, then 1/3 more flour mixture, then stir in final 1/3 . Spread in pans and bake until golden, and sides of cake pull away from edge of pan (50-55 min?)

Glaze
1 1/2 cups sifted confectioners sugar 4-6 T fresh lemon juice

Stir glaze until smooth and spread on warm loaves. After cooling, turn out of pan. Alternatively, remove loaves and cool before spreading icing on all sides. You may need more glaze.

Enjoy,
Seth