 Last weekend, I did a little shopping and lunch with my mom down at the outlets in Clinton and Westbrook and we had a couple of special guests with us. My brother Dan and his girlfriend Angie came along to pick out her birthday gift from my mom… a new Coach purse – and boy, is it beautiful!
In between outlets, we stopped for our normal lunch at Lenny and Joe’s Fish Tale in Westbrook, CT (there’s also a convenient Madison location that we sometimes go to). Lenny & Joe’s has been serving up great seafood with great service since 1979 and has become somewhat famous in the area. If you eat seafood and you live in Southern New England, chances are you have at some point eaten at Lenny & Joe’s. I’ve been going with my family for years and have never had a bad meal.
The atmosphere is relaxed and casual with a sort of nautical theme. There are t-shirts and hats that can be purchased at the front of the store for only $6 (I’ve actually purchased a few myself over the years). Also, if you wear your shirt while you’re on a vacation or you’ve bought a t-shirt while you’re visiting our lovely state, you can take a picture of yourself in it and send it to them telling them where the photo was taken and they’ll hang it on the wall. The are tons of pictures all over the restaurant of people sporting their Lenny and Joe’s apparel. I think it’s kind of neat.
Notice the cool light fixtures (sorry for the dark picture – I’ve been messing around with the manual settings on my camera):
The food, as always, was great. First, we split a couple of appetizers (shopping can build up quite an appetite!) . We had the fried calamari and their onion rings, which are pretty amazing. Their portions are huge and with four of us eating, we didn’t even finish them.
For our meals, Mom, Angie and I all chose the lobster roll! My brother had the crab cakes, which I did not get a picture of but I hear they were pretty awesome. The lobster roll has become my usual when I go to Lenny and Joe’s. It’s really all you could ever want – hot, buttery chunks of lobster served on a hot dog bun with a side of their coleslaw – and I’m not normally a coleslaw fan, but theirs is really quite good. I’ve heard that other parts of New England do the lobster roll a little differently – that if you go a little north, you’ll be served some sort of lobster salad on a roll. Now, I think that’s just wrong, but that’s me. Take a look what a real lobster roll should look like!
Really, how can you beat that?
Overall, we all had a really great meal and good times at Lenny & Joe’s – as always. Look at Danny and Angie’s smiling faces!
If you’re visiting the area and you enjoy seafood, you really need to stop in at Lenny and Joe’s and maybe even pick up a t-shirt!
 A couple of years ago for Christmas, our friends Tom and Heather gave me what I think is just the most awesome gift ever – a gift box from Penzey’s Spices. I know, it probably doesn’t sound that exciting to most people, but the spices were really great – they were of an excellent quality and even the packaging made me really happy – it came with Bay Leaves! Tom and Heather got me the 8 piece “Some Like It Hot” set (naturally) that includes their Spicy 4/S Special Seasoned Sea Salt, Chili Powder, Curry Powder, Northwoods Fire Seasoning, Vindaloo Seasoning, Ground Chipotle Pepper, Crushed Red Pepper, and the Galena Street Rib Rub. And they were all incredible!
Since it has been a couple of years since receiving the set, I’m out of most of them – and almost out of the few I have left. I’ve been meaning for a while to go to the store to replenish my supply. And then came Mother’s Day… As always, I had no idea what to get for a few of the moms on my list and then it hit me – a gift box from Penzey’s! The perfect gift for the mom who loves to cook! No, not my mom (mom’s more of a baker than a cook – I ended up getting her some jewelery and a CD that she wanted). This would be a great gift for my Aunt Karen, who is quite the cook.
So last Saturday morning, I called up my mom to see if she wanted to join me on my adventure in West Hartford Center, where the nearest Penzey’s is located. Of course she did, because who wouldn’t want to spend their free time on a Saturday looking at various spices with me? She had to spend her morning logged on to work, but she was finally able to join me around 2PM and when we finally got there, the place was hopping! Who knew? But I could see why it’s so popular – we probably could have spent an hour or more in there! There was so much to look at and to choose from! I also didn’t realize that they had so many different gift sets. It was really quite difficult to pick out the right one.
In the end I chose the 4 jar Grill and Broil set for my Aunt Karen and mom ended up getting the same set for my father for their anniversary.
I didn’t end up grabbing anything for myself this time as we just didn’t have that sort of time on our hands. I honestly think I would need at least a solid hour to poke around and figure out exactly what I wanted, but I definitely plan to make a trip back there very soon!
 Look at my mom making my blog twice in just two days! Today is my parents’ 30th anniversary (wow, 30 years!) and Kevin and I went out to dinner with them on Saturday night to help them celebrate. We were actually “mystery guests” as my father didn’t tell my mom that we would be joining them for dinner – just that they’d be meeting “another couple”, so it was a surprise – and I do love surprises!
My dad made reservations for them at Carmen Anthony Fishhouse in Avon and boy, was it awesome! I had never been there and I am so glad we went, because it was great experience. Everything was just top notch. Great service, a beautiful atmosphere and the food was absolutely stellar!
I had the Sesame Tuna served with an Asian Slaw
Mom had Salmon a la Griglia served with their Risotto
Dad had a Pamesan Encrusted Pork Chop served with Mac and Cheese
And Kevin had the Chilean Sea Bass with Risotto
Dinner was followed by coffee and we split a couple of desserts – we were celebrating, after all! We split their White & Dark Chocolate Chunk Bread Pudding and Bananas Foster. The bread pudding was especially wonderful. I wish I had gotten pictures of the dessert, but we really had to get started – the Bananas Foster was melting very quickly! As dessert was being brought out they also brought us all glasses of champagne to celebrate the occasion. Nice!
This was really a great meal and we were all very impressed. I’m so glad my dad invited us out to help them celebrate such a special day! Thanks guys and happy anniversary!
 A few breweries are fighting to create the world’s strongest beer – beers as potent as whiskey – with as much as 41% alcohol!
…the international rivalry has put a spotlight on a fascinating, though fringe, sector of the beer industry: brewers who push beer to its alcoholic limits. BrewDog is one of a handful of breweries worldwide that have experimented with techniques to enrich their beers to surpass wine and even some spirits in alcohol content. Others that have actively competed for the strongest beer title include Dogfish Head in Delaware and the Boston Beer Co., whose Utopias is also one of the most expensive beers, at more than $150 retail. Most mass-produced American beers, from Budweiser to Samuel Adams Boston Lager, rarely top 5% alcohol by volume (ABV).
These high alcohol brews are going for as much as $55 for a 12 oz bottle… and not yet legal in the US. Definitely an interesting concept, though.
So I’ve been on a bit of a yogurt kick lately – mostly just plain Greek yogurt that I then like to top with various mix-ins. Sometimes I throw in some nuts or berries, a little honey, vanilla, once in awhile even a little chocolate syrup. It’s all good!
Then a few days ago, I got to thinking… what if I froze my yogurt? What if I just stuck it in the freezer for awhile? Would that be like the frozen yogurt you get when you go out? Could it really be that simple? And then I just forgot about my grand scheme… I’m good like that.
Then, this morning it all came back to me when I came across this article : Kitchen Hack: 3 Easy Steps to Create Healthy Frozen Yogurt . What a coincidence! I had to try it right away.
I took my plain Greek yogurt, threw in some honey, vanilla, and a handful of chocolate chips (this was going to be dessert , after all) and stuck it in the freezer for just a couple of hours, and that was that. And it was great! I don’t know if I’d do the chocolate chips again (they were a little hard and even a bit crunchy with the freezing), but it’s definitely something I’ll be experimenting with in the future. I think next I’ll try topping it with some mixed berries!
Sorry, no pictures this time! It was devoured before I could grab my camera!
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Last weekend, I did a little shopping and lunch with my mom down at the outlets in Clinton and Westbrook and we had a couple of special guests with us. My brother Dan and his girlfriend Angie came along to pick out her birthday gift from my mom… a new Coach purse – and boy, is it beautiful!
