Food, Food and More Food

You guessed it! Food, food and more food! I thought I'd share some of the more delectable foods I've had recently.

I had these delicious pancakes at Karen's Kitchen in Bedford, NH. As you can see, they are banana/strawberry and were very delicious - very thick. And they were so good with maple syrup.
On the same day, Dick had the above...I think it was a blueberry blintz - or something like that. All I remember is that he liked it a lot.

This was lobster I had at The Bedford Village Inn. The best part was the herbed butter which made the lobster taste even that much better - which is hard to do with a Maine lobster.

And this is one of my favorites - Oreo cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory in Boston (the one at The Prudential Center). I ate every last bite of this one - LOVED IT!! I can't think of anything not to love at this place - they have a very extensive menu, large portions, good food and EXCELLENT desserts! What more can you ask for?
And as I was chowing down on my cheesecake, Dick had a glass of strawberries. Sometimes, I just don't know about him. Here we are at the cheesecake factory and what does he get? Strawberries! I can tell you this...he didn't enjoy his strawberries as much as I enjoyed my dessert. He may be "oh so healthy"...but I'm "oh so satisfied"! :)

Red Sox - Should I Worry?

Why did the Red Sox choose the last couple weeks of the season to go on a losing streak while the Yankees are playing great baseball? The Sox have lost their last 4 games and are now only 1.5 games ahead of the Yankees in the AL East division and only 9 games remaining in the regular season. At one point during the season, the Sox were 14.5 games ahead. I think they like to give their fans some drama. But I'm good now...no more drama please...I don't think I can take anymore. At least the "magic number" for the wild card is 3 (it is 9 for the division).

BTW, the above picture is the "Wallymobile" (I just made up the name). For you Sox fans, you'll recognize the "green monster" as Wally - the Red Sox mascot. This vehicle was parked oustide of Fenway when we went a couple of weeks ago. It's definitely good advertising since this Volvo definitely doesn't blend in!

Harry Potter, Book Thief, Pan's Labyrinth and Pancakes

I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last night. (Don't worry, there are no spoilers here.) What a great book!! I have to give it to JK Rowling...she is certainly a great story teller. The story moves along so quickly. It was a hard book to put down. And its definitely action-packed. I can't wait for the movie.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a book I recently listened to (gotta love the MP3). My sister picked this book for our book club and I think the average number of "star" we gave it was 4.75 out of 5.0 - one of the highest scores given to a book in the history of our book club (about 2 years old)!!!! :) It's listed as for young adults, but it's for all adults. It takes place in Germany during WWII and Death is the narrator...that's right, DEATH. And what an unexpectedly compassionate and insightful narrator he was. It is a very unique novel. Like Harry Potter, this was a book hard to put down...or should I say, an audio file which was hard to stop listening to.
Dick and I saw Pan's Labyrinth the other night. It won some Oscars last year. It's a Spanish film and got amazing reviews - it has an average score of 98 out of 100 on metacritic.com. And this is the average of 36 media reviews!

It was one of those movies I wanted to see because of the reviews, but wasn't really compelled to see otherwise. The movie is part fantasy and part reality. The story takes place in 1944 in Fascist Spain and centers around this girl (around 12 or 13 years old) and how difficult and almost impossible her life is...as well as the lives around her. It gives you a good sense of the hardships of life in Spain during this time. It is anemotionally-charged movie. It is sad, horrific and ultimately tragic and absolutely worth seeing.And last, but not least, here are Banana Split Pancakes I had at The Windham Junction Country Store and Kitchen in Windham, NH one Saturday morning. These were the special and I couldn't resist!!! They were banana pancakes - so delicious - drizzled with chocolate syrup, whipped cream and a strawberry!!! They were heavenly!! And the pancakes almost tasted like sweet bananas. As you can see, I was so thrilled with my breakfast, that I started eating them and THEN remembered to take a picture!

BTW, The Windham Junction is a great breakfast and lunch spot. And attached to the kitchen/dining area is a country store. The owners of the WJ, Jon and Kay, are such nice people. The place is very homey and it's the type of place you look forward to visiting - not just because of the food, but because of the people.

Big Papi's Yellow Lamborghini and More on Fenway

Dick and I took a tour of Fenway on 09/01 and really enjoyed it. While we were walking around Fenway Park - looking for the place to buy tickets for the tour, we saw Big Papi's (David Ortiz) yellow Lamborghini parked in the Fenway garage. As you can see, his front "vanity plate" says Come to Papi. It definitely stands out in the crowd!

Here is Fenway Park empty. We took the tour at 1PM. It's kind of weird seeing the park with no people...or almost not many people. I don't know if you can see it, but around homeplate are some people...one of them is Mike Lowell - Red Sox 3rd baseman. He was there in "regular" clothes with some other people and a couple of kids (maybe his kids?). He was playing catch with them - it was nice to see.

We saw a wedding party taking photos at the Park. They even walked around the park to take some pics. Pretty cool, heh!?

Here is an old painted wall at Fenway.

Here are some famous players plaques.

Here are the bleachers. If you look closely, you'll see a red seat. This is significant because it marks where Ted Williams, on June 9, 1946, hit the longest homerun in the park - 502 feet. The seat is in Section 42, Row 37, Seat 21.

Here is the "green monster" and the "monster seats". The seats were placed there in 2003 and highly sought after. Because of the location, there have been several broken noses, clavicles and injured fingers...fingers because of fans trying to save their drink from the baseball heading in their direction! The scoreboard is manual and is manned by 3 people at each game. They are behind the green wall.

The Coke bottles above the green monster.
The outside of this historic park - built in 1912. The first game was played here in April of that year.

I Was at Fenway Park for the NO-HITTER

Dick and I were there last night...6 rows behind home plate...seeing something we've never witnessed in person...live!! We attended the Red Sox vs. Orioles at Fenway Park and saw Boston's rookie pitcher, Clay Buchholz pitch a no-hitter! What a night!!

It was perfect weather, the game was sold out (well over 300 consecutive sell-outs for the Red Sox at Fenway Park - about 5 years I think) and the crowd was ready for a win since the Red Sox had lost their last 4 games. The offense and pitching didn't disappoint. The final score was 10-0.

I have to say, the energy in the park all-night long was amazing - as it usually is at all Sox home games - but by the 8th inning, everyone was a buzz about a possible no-hitter. Every pitch by Buchholz, every swing (or non-swing) by an Oriole batter, every catch by the Sox offense was met with "heart palpitations". By the 9th inning, my heart was racing - I was nervous for Buchholz. The crowd was going wild...and growing louder...everyone was standing...I wasn't sure if that was good or bad for this rookie pitcher (this was only his 2nd MLB game)...I wasn't sure how he would take all this pressure. Then the last batter was up...2 strikes...Buchholz pitches to Markakis...Markakis doesn't swing...slight pause...then the home plate umpire calls it a strike and the place erupts!!!!! The energy was out of this world. My heart was racing. His teammates come running out of the dug-out and mob him - hugging him, etc. And then he gave a quick interview with a reporter and it was broadcast in the park. He could barely be heard, the crowd was so loud. We didn't even start leaving the park for probably a half hour - everyone was enjoying the moment - it was AWESOME, AWESOME and AWESOME!!! I was on such a high...and so was everyone else. As we walked back to our car parked at the Prudential, all we could hear around us were conversations about what they had just witnessed...people talking cell phones talking about the game...people just yelling out of pure joy. I gotta say, it was definitely an event I will never forget - a no-hitter at Fenway Park!!!

Here is David Ortiz's first at bat.

This was the celebrations out on the field after the last out was made.

The digital sign at the end of the game.