the beehive

My husband works really hard at his job. Sometimes he works longer than he's supposed to. So occassionally he gets rewarded with a comp day. But has he taken any of those comp days? Nope. Recently his boss reminded him that he has them so he decided to take Monday off. We had lunch together and afterwards he hung out with his friend, Mike.

Rewind to the day before yesterday: Sunday. We played tennis and ended up stopping due to my sore baby toes. (More details about our tennis excursion here.) Mind you, when I say "sore" I mean they hurt so bad on Monday while I was at work that I couldn't wear my "work" shoes and hoped that nobody would notice my flip-flops. Sore as in a much darker shade of red than they should be. I could post a photo here but that would just be disgustingly gross. Okay, so on top of sore baby toes due to tight sneakers, my thighs and calves are a-c-h-i-n-g!!! I must be so out of shape ya'll.

Put all these things together: hubby with day off and the CAR + sore baby toes + aching legs = a ride home instead of a painful walk!

I guess they had not concluded their boys'-day-out so Mike was in the car when he came to pick me up. We managed to get in touch with Mike's girlfriend, Erin, before she hopped onto the train home so we decided to go out for dinner and drinks. We couldn't decide on a place in Harvard Square so we opted to head over to the South End (seems to be our favorite destination these days) to scope it out.

Funnily enough (I think I made up that term), Tony and I had driven around the South End on Saturday night in search of The Beehive to no avail. Of course, we easily stumbled upon it last night when we weren't even looking for it. It's next to Hamersley's Bistro on Tremont Street, near Sibling Rivalry.

It was a beautiful summer night -- not too chilly, not too hot -- so we sat outside for drinks. Apparently there is some sort of law for restaurants where customers have to eat something in order to be able to drink alcohol outside. So they have a smaller, snack-like menu for the outside sidewalk area that consisted of funny things like roasted peanuts ($2), olives ($4), a cheeseball and triscuits (yes, I said triscuits ... forgot how much that was ... $5?) and more. While Erin sipped on her dirty Ketel One vodka martini, the three of us shared a carafe of Pinot Grigio. We ordered some pate ($9) and olives to eat with the complimentary baguette (we ended up eating three altogether - such pigs!). It rained really lightly and then luckily stopped after a couple of minutes. We spotted this pretty rainbow, too.


We decided to have dinner inside the restaurant. Wow, what a cool place! We sat downstairs which is where the stage is located. They have lots of exposed brick, old chandeliers, and burlesque decor. The bathroom was kind of dark but also pretty cool with old, antique mirrors over the sink. The seating at our table was a little awkward because it was like a bench and the table had kind of weird angles, but we made it work.

Tony and Erin had the roasted cod, Mike had the blackened tuna, and I had the tuna tartare and ordered a side of the "Beehive Frites" for the table. The frites were like thicker potato chips and were really tasty. We all really enjoyed our dishes and pretty much handed back clean plates. Of course, we ate so much pate and bread earlier so none of us had room for dessert.


I think overall we had a nice experience at The Beehive. The food was delicious and so was our wine, but it was a tiny bit pricy. My main complaint was that the pate had nuts and raisins in it but there was no warning on the menu, etc. I think the restaurant really should consider warning customers about the nuts in them because of food allergy issues. Also because the pate comes nicely wrapped in saran wrap and then in a pretty paper that is a map of France with different regions outlined by the type of cheese they make. It would be such a waste for someone with a nut allergy to get it, open it up, and then have to send it back. Oh and we couldn't tell if it was nuts inside until the guys tried some for me. So. You know. I think restaurants need to label those types of things clearer.

Lastly (sorry for this really long review!), we had a good laugh when we got the credit card slips to sign because there was a line asking for our telephone number which is something none of us have ever seen before. Tony and Mike would like to think it was the waitress asking, but we had to burst their bubbles. LOL Sorry guys!

new discoveries

I know it has been a while since my last post and I apologize, but things like planning a fricken wedding sort of take up your time, know what I mean?! LOL Anyway, trying to get back to "normal" and back to picky grocery shopping. Basically, I just wanted to share a couple of new discoveries I made at the grocery store (at Shaw's nonetheless -- imagine my shock!) ... a couple of new tasty discoveries I should say.

First, I have to give kudos to the people that make Joseph's pita bread. Thank you for not putting anything like stupid corn syrup in them! Woo-hoo! Of course, it means that I eat an awful lot of pita bread, but ... another story for another day. Anyway, I found these mini cans of tuna made by Pastene that don't contain soy oil or anything else I'm allergic to (oh and believe it or not, some brands put corn syrup in tuna). And then I found some tzatziki with garlic near the deli aisle. So I mixed some of the tzatziki in with the tuna and made a pita bread sandwich. Yum yum!!

And then tonight on my way home from work, I stopped at Savenor's to pick up a couple of things. I needed some cheese for our salads tonight so I decided to try a wedge of Vella Dry Jack. It's really nutty and dry so it crumbles up when you cut it. Really good.

Okay, gotta run but wanted to share these things and finally post something. ;-)

voila!

I took another French cooking class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts called "Voila!". I was thrilled to find out that Scott would be our instructor (he was one of the instructors at the last class I took) and it was even more fun because my friend, Stephanie, took the class with me.

There were only 9 of us in this one, and we made 7 dishes: Warm Crab Tartlets; Chilled Cream of Zucchini Soup with Mussels and Fresh Mint; Seared Marinated Tuna with Black Olive Vinaigrette; Potato Puree; Duck Breasts with Coriander, Endive, and Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce; Confit of Fresh Chestnuts, Walnuts, Fennel, and Onions; and Crepes Suzette.

I took on the potato puree dish even though Scott warned us that it was labor intensive. I thought, "How can this be hard?" Aside from the usual peeling and cubing, we used a large food processor to mash six cooked potatoes with some milk and butter. Make that a cuppa butta. Then after that, we still had to thin it out a bit more with some light cream. Then Scott had me press it through a food mill to get out the larger "particles" (i.e. bits of potato skin). Yikes! I've never had creamier and smoother potatoes in my life ("as smooth as a baby's butt" as one woman put it - lol)!

Stephanie decided to tackle the zucchini soup recipe. While the potatoes were cooking, I helped her by cleaning two large bags of mussels, which included de-bearding some of them. It was kind of weird watching them close up and knowing that they were alive.

I couldn't eat any of the dishes except for my potatoes because of my food allergies, so I took my portions home in Tupperware containers for Tony to enjoy. Everything looked great though, and the kitchen smelled so good. Oh wait, I did grab some of the cooked tuna that didn't fit onto the serving platter and that was yummy.

This was Stephanie's zucchini soup right before it went into the blender ...

... and this is what zucchini soup looks like when you can't find the blender's cap.

Actually, I did try a bite of the soup with a mussel and it was de-lish!

Scott flambeed the crepes Suzette with cognac. Pretty cool.

Will definitely take another class there! So much fun and good food in the end. How can you go wrong?