a frenchy anniversary

B and I celebrated our 34th anniversary on Saturday March 20, the first day of spring. I have always wanted to have dinner at Rue Franklin. B remembered that and made reservations there. It is such a Frenchy little place. Even the waiters and the hostess sounded French. I think the hostess may have been the owner...kind of a pushy little woman who demanded our coats and informed us that it was warm in the restaurant and we wouldn't be needing them.



The waiters were fixated on their little baskets of silverware. They scooped away all our silverware after each course and replaced it. There was a little garden outside the three French doors.


the evening's salad menu


and entree menu


a view of the little garden outside our window

B brought along a gift for me. I wasn't really expecting anything.



And he surprised me again by remembering the colognes that I had lingered over when we were shopping in Neiman Marcus in Chicago. He remembered my two favorites.


Lime, Basil and Mandarin...a fruity summer scent and Amber and Lavender...a spicy scent. I have always loved lavender and the addition of amber tones down the sharpness of the lavender and gives it a spicy sexy tone. These both smell oh so good.


my beet salad


my baby halibut with tomatoes and fennel....note the adorable yellow squash fish scales. I'll have to try this at home. The waiter gave me an oddly shaped wide flat knife with a big notch in it for this entree.


B's amande gateau with apricot sabayon


my chocolate terrine with cardamon anglaise



This is me in my best ever thrift store find. A black knit exclusively misook dress with lace and rhinestone sleeves. When I bought this dress for about $5 a year or so ago, I came home and googled it only to find that the very dress was on Nordstrom's website somewhere in the vicinity of $350. After dinner B and I went to the Imax to see Alice in Wonderland in 3-D. It was fantasical.

treats

white cow dairy yogurt

As I have mentioned before I usually run into Wegmans in the evening after my workout to pick up whatever we have run out of during the week. There are no crowds in the evening so I find myself wandering all the aisles and checking out all the new products. Tonight I found that they have started to carry yogurt from White Cow Dairy in East Otto, NY. I have had this yummy yogurt once before. My building had this dairy once as one of the vendors they have in the lobby periodically. I'm such a sucker for these little glass recycle able jars.



I saw this one little bunch of cilantro all by itself and visions of salsa danced in my head. They danced the salsa. I forgot to buy a fresh lime though and had to make due with lime juice.



Just the way I like it.......with plenty of cilantro.

milky mountain

This is what happens when a plastic gallon milk jug springs a leak and drips on a package on whole wheat lasagna sheets in your downstairs refrigerator.

scallops with morel sauce

baby carrots


morels


tarragon Dijon morel mushroom sauce


scallops with morel mushroom sauce, baby carrots and peas with prosciutto and walnuts

it's not easy being green

I came home from work several Saturdays ago to a clean house and a gift. B had replaced all the plants that I had let die in this planter. A peace lily, a mother-in-law's tongue and two hot pink blooming Christmas cactus replaced six pots of dead brown plants. The next Saturday I went in to my sewing room to water them and found the peace lily in great distress. I quickly watered it. Several hours later I went in to check on it and the leaves were all still limp as a noodle. I took it into the shower and gave it a good dousing. I was afraid and ashamed to go look at it the rest of the evening. The next day I ventured a look and found all the leaves green, shiny and standing straight up. Plants are so resilient.



Tonight I checked on them and found my peace lily a bit droopy. He is probably wishing for a home in a different household. Sorry my little peaceable friend. I'll try to take better care of you.

spring tulips

Today Wegmans had a huge display of tulips in nearly every color you could imagine for $5.99 a bunch. A chance to show off my lustreware tulip (or is a threelip?)vase.

buffalo china

my Buffalo China

Ever since I moved to Buffalo I have been in love with Buffalo China. Remember the sturdy china from diners and dime store counters....chances are it was made by Buffalo China. This is a few pieces from my set that I bought at a garage sale years ago for $10. I have dinner plates, cups and saucers, bread plates and those sweet little dishes that hold one serving of vegetables.



the Buffalo China logo


Currently Williams Sonoma is selling Buffalo China

Buffalo China Dinnerware Collection
Sugg. Price: $32.00 – $192.00
Our Price: $32.00 – $169.00
These plates, bowls and mugs are an authentic bit of Americana. They were originally made by the Buffalo China Co., which was founded in New York in 1901 to produce the plates offered as premiums by a soap manufacturer. That sturdy dinnerware went on to become popular at roadside diners along the new U.S. highways and today it's a classic. Replicating a style from the 1940s, our dinnerware is creamy white – the natural color of the clay – with a durable, clear glaze.

I bought soup/cereal bowls on Ebay a few years back just like these to complete my set.


And if you visit a Frank Lloyd Wright designed house and they are selling china designed specially for that house, it will be Bufffalo China.


The Buffalo Pottery Company was established in Buffalo, New York, in 1901. It was an offshoot of the Larkin Soap Company, which was founded in 1875. John Larkin and his brother-in-law Elbert Hubbard conceived Buffalo Pottery to make dishes that could be purchased with certificates from Larkin Soap. In essence, the company was a gimmick to sell more soap. Buffalo Pottery produced many different kinds of pottery for commercial use in hotels and railroad dining cars, as well as art pottery that is popular with antique collectors.


These Arts and Crafts designed buildings used to be the home of Buffalo China. They are still in use today but in a bit of disrepair.



When I was doing business at M&T Bank on Friday I took these pictures. Someone yelled down at me from inside one of the building "Hey, what are you taking pictures of?" but I ignored them.


the administration building
One wall of this building stands today. My office is located in the refurbished terminal warehouse which is the only remaining building of the Larkin complex today.

Founded by John D. Larkin in 1875, the Larkin Company started out as a soap factory and became a mail-order house to rival Sears & Roebuck, selling furniture, china, groceries, paint, wallpaper, and dry goods. Largely defunct by the end of the Great Depression, Larkin is best remembered today for hiring a young Frank Lloyd Wright to design its Administration Building, an architectural landmark that was demolished in 1950.

st pats

When I came into work on Wednesday morning I found two gold coins and a lottery ticket on my desk....left there by a tall, thin lepechraun.



Look what I won....nothing!



But my lunch was free. I had a gift card with maybe 50 cents left on it. At the Chautauqua Cafe I handed the cashier my gift card and was going to pay the balance ($6) with my debit card. She swiped the gift card and the number wouldn't read, so she punched the number in. Then she told me I had a $34.60 balance remaining on my card. I told her that couldn't be because the card had less than a dollar on it. She doubled checked the number and said "Oh, I put the number in wrong. It took it off someone else's gift card." Then she said "Just go, you're all set." So I did.



And returned to our office that I got to decorate when we built them out about five years ago. I still like all the colors, furniture, carpet, tile...everything. This is the reception room. Decorating and helping to design our office was probably the most fun thing I have ever done. I got to chose absolutely everything.



After work I changed into jeans and remembered these Minnetonka moccasin boots that I bought at a thrift store a couple years ago and had never worn. They exactly matched the sweater that I had worn for St. Pat's Day. B was having dinner at his board meeting so Barb and I had dinner and wine at JoJo's, the new wine bar next to and owned by Black and Blue. My camera battery died so I wasn't able to get pics but it was decorated contemporary but cozy. We shared a grilled romaine salad and a thin crust pizza with cheese,thinly sliced steak,black beans and corn. We had a great time and I would definitely go back to this place again.

tuesday

On Tuesday we went back downtown to The Museum of Contemporary Art. Some of the exhibits were just plain strange. This is a view of the main lobby

from here on the second floor where the only exhibit was this video of a rube goldberg type machine that lasted for a good twenty minutes.

This was made of silk flowers. There is a very similar one in the Burchfield Penney Art Museum that I blogged about in November.

A closer up view

This was made entirely of plastic pony beads and was supposed to be a swimming pool. One of the more appealing exhibits.

My yummy lunch...I chose two items from the small plates menu. Beet, orange, ricotta, arugula and hazelnut salad and a shrimp and white bean salad. I loved them both

as much as I loved this Sangria

from this restaurant, the Grand Lux Cafe above Ann Taylor on Michigan Ave

that featured all kinds of different light fixtures

and decorated walls and ceiling

then we walked to Navy Pier where the weather started to turn nasty and begin raining.

We were getting tired from days of walking and decided to take a cab back to the parking garage

and go to the airport early where we could relax, read, nap and listen to music.

monday

our reflections in the bean

On Monday we returned downtown. We parked in Millennium Garage because our first order of business was for Bill to see Millennium Park. I had thoroughly explored and enjoyed this park in June when it was filled with people and all sorts of lovely lush plants. Not quite as impressive in the winter but still enjoyable. Bill used to work in the Standard Oil/Amoco/Aon building and when he used to look out the window of his office he saw a rail yard where this park is now.



It was a very foggy day but warmish day. I like the way the buildings disappear into the fog in this reflection of the skyline in the bean. At least it wasn't raining and I was just so happy to be downtown.




Dinobill

There are some very strange sculptures in this park.



I can't get enough of these glass block ever changing towers.








one of the many bridges across the Chicago River

After exploring the park we decided to slowly make our way to Union Station where we were to meet John and Marie. They were dropping off relatives at the train station and we had made plans to meet them for lunch. We walked along the river on Wacker Drive stopping at Trump Tower and the building across from Marina Towers where Bill worked when he worked for Arthur Young. We thought about going up in Sears/Willis tower but it was so foggy that you couldn't see the tops of the buildings let alone a long distance. I had wanted to check out that glass floored box but wasn't even able to see it from the outside of Willis tower for all the fog. The day before we had searched on-line for a play, opera or production of any kind to attend Monday evening but nothing seemed to be going on on Monday evenings except the Blue Man Group. As we passed the Civic Opera House we decided to go in and found that The Damnation of Faust was being shown that evening. A very enthusiastic opera patron in flannel shirt, jeans and purple Crocs who was buying tickets for several operas latched onto us. He gave us a 20 minute synopsis of the play which he had already seen and was attending again that evening. He let us know that he was a man of means who could afford the best seats several times and hoped that we could fit the price of two tickets in our budget. He really was a delight to talk to though and didn't really have to convince us to buy tickets at all as we were quite excited about the show. I checked out 120 Riverside Plaza where I had worked before we crossed the street to Union Station. I was surprised to find that Carson's was still in the building and the layout of the store was just as it had been when I worked in the building.



Lunch with John and Marie at Fulton's on the River. I had a delish grilled Lake Superior trout salad that kept seeming to multiple as I ate it. Like the loaves and fishes, it seemed I had as much on my plate when I finished as there had been when I started. Gov Pat Quinn was having lunch there as well. He stopped by our table and told us to have a good afternoon.



After saying goodbye to John and Marie, Bill and I walked back towards Michigan Ave. I stopped in Water Tower Place to pick up some gifts. We walked through Northwestern University. We thought about going to the Art Museum, Planetarium or Aquarium but didn't really have the time before we were to go back to the Opera House for dinner at the Bistro and a lecture before the opera. We went into Treasure Island, America's Most European Supermarket where I bought some horrible awful rose cookies and a heavy glass jar of Greek vanilla preserves.



On to the opera house. We had had a late lunch so we weren't really hungry for dinner. The bistro offered light fare. Crystal served me a Champagne cocktail and yummy creamy Tomato Basil soup that blistered the roof the of my mouth. B and I shared a duck salad with creamy cranberry dressing that was out of this world good.
From there we went downstairs to the main floor for a lecture that was eerily similar to the one I received from the opera patron earlier in the day.



Then curtains up and I couldn't stop smiling and smiling as I enjoyed this edgy, witty , devilishly good opera cleverly staged in the 1970s.



We walked back to Millennium garage through the park. I was glad I had my heavy jar of Greek vanilla preserves as it would make the perfect weapon for bashing in the head of any would-be mugger.



A lovely, lovely day ending in a traffic less drive in heavy, heavy fog back to our hotel.