Well, we kind of did the chef’s table there again last night. This time, with eight other people, which was a fantastic experience.

My favorite course was the the warm radish salad (bottom right in the collage above). In fact, the second we get radishes in our CSA box, I’ll be trying to mimic it. Apparently it’s as easy as sauteing them stove-top, although he used an immersion cooker.

Also among our tasty courses: a baked scallop with a crab crumble, asparagus and local morel mushroom risotto (not pictured), salmon atop a sorrel and potato mixture (which made it very green), a lamb chop served with lentils and carrots and for dessert a fancy strawberry shortcake complete with a homemade biscuit and mascarpone deliciousness.

Again, Chives did a great job. And, to add to the awesomeness of it, we had a very picky vegetarian with us. The chef made her all specialty dishes and she left very satisfied and full. I’d say that’s a measure of a good chef.

I have other Giada cookbooks, but I especially like this one. She’d probably be offended to hear me say it, but it’s 30 Minute Meals meets classic Giada. This book is her weeknight – or quick – recipe book, which is just perfect for us.

For Easter brunch, before we hit the road to see our families in Milwaukee, we prepared ourselves a simple recipe, which was so delicious, from her new book. Well, it wasn’t the exact recipe, because I always mix it up a little, but it’s a variation of her Crispy Breakfast Pita.

What you’ll need:
6 inch pitas (I used some pizza crust we had in the fridge, rolled thin and baked it)
Extra-virgin olive oil (We just hit up the oil store, so I used lemon infused)
Eggs (I per person, with corresponding number of pitas)
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 packed cups of arugula or baby spinach
Thinly sliced proscuitto
3/4 cup marscarpone cheese

Pita bread can be prepped in the oven or on the grill. Like I said, I used pizza dough.

In large skillet, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Crack eggs and cook until whites set, 2 to 3 minutes. We generally like ours flipped once, so I did.

Combine marscarpone cheese, lemon zest, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.

In separate medium bowl, whisk 3 tablespoons olive oil (this is where we used the lemon infused), the lemon juice, salt and pepper until smooth. Add greens, toss until coated.

Spread each pita with marscarpone mixture. Divide the prosciutto on top. Divide the greens on top of the prosciutto. Carefully place fried egg atop. Season with salt and pepper.

It’d work similarly to our Alton Brown experience last fall. Dinner at one of two restaurant choices before the show – this time we picked Bacchus (last time Harbor House) – and then the show.

And I/we are not really sure if it’s because we’ve done this before (and the last experience was over-the-top) or if it was the restaurant choice or if the book store sponsoring the event sort of “sold out” or didn’t have the same control, but the experience just wasn’t as dynamic. And I’m sad to report/write that here. But it’s true.

Our dinner reservation was at 5 p.m. We arrived just a minute or two early because I read that the restaurant usually didn’t even open until 5:30 p.m. We were seated almost immediately and before we were even served our ordered drinks (wine for me, beer for Jeff), our first course was served.

The first course was good. It was ricotta cheese, lentils and brown rice wrapped in arugula leaves and served with a little marinara sauce. Like I said, it was good. I enjoyed it, even though I do feel like the temperature was off. We both knew this right away and felt immediately like food was being pumped out with little care. Moving on.

Second course, which I’m sorry to do it, but if you do a price breakdown, just wasn’t worth it. Our meal was $50 per person (plus an almost $50 additional bill at the end for two drinks and tip, so we’re talking a $150 meal here).

Pork tenderloin with a smoked red pepper sauce (which at Pick N Save was $4.99 per pound yesterday and I don’t know if you can tell but that’s about three bites right there), broccoli rabe with Pecorino and lemon and mashed potatoes.

Our final course – dessert – I guess, took the show.

It was a spiced-apple walnut cupcake with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. The ice cream was really, really good (says the expert who makes her own, clearly!).

We felt very rushed through dinner, as we were on our way out the door before the clock even struck 6 p.m. (so we ended up heading over to Lakeside Brewery for a tour, stay tuned for a post) leaving us two hours before the show started in a town that isn’t ours (it’s hard to spend more money after you’ve already invested in an evening like this). At the end of the day, I’m willing to spend money on most anything food-related. But I don’t think a $150 meal/experience should happen in 45 minutes. Plus, this was clearly a money-maker for the restaurant; cheap food options paired with turning the house over TWICE before regular Friday night service left us feeling short-changed. As a matter of pointing it out, we also paid about $50 per person for tickets to the show.

The show was decent, but much different in format from last time, which is fair to expect considering they are different Food Network stars. For Alton, we sat way up in the balcony (at the Pabst, which is a little smaller) and we felt like a part of the conversation; it was very question and answer formatted and it was hilarious. For Giada, we had 12th row seats at the Riverside and felt like two of a couple thousand; there was little audience participation, as the book store owner lead the interview with Giada on stage. Giada was great in the things she chatted about and I do not and will not like Giada any less (in fact, I’m making a recipe from her new cookbook – Weeknights with Giada -  for Easter).

From both shows we left with a signed cookbook.

In the end, I’m not sure if it was the restaurant that just didn’t get it right or what. I get kind of lost in my head there, however, considering both the Giada and the Alton experiences happened at a Bartolotta restaurant (and I had previously heard such great things about Bacchus). That said, I’m not sure we would give Bacchus a second try and we left Harbor House knowing we’d dine there again.

As far as the intimacy of the evening, I think that’s part of the appeal and Giada’s audience was just larger in feel (I’m not sure on exact numbers). I can understand, from being married to someone in the theater/entertainment biz that some of these choices are made by the promoter and have little to do with what the book store sponsor or the Riverside wants, but still, it’s how I was left feeling.

All in all, it was a fun date night, we decided. Just not one worth $250.

Given another opportunity to do the whole Food Network star and dinner combo with the exact same format, I’m not sure I’d take it. Unless it was like Emeril or someone of that caliber, as the formula might have a few kinks that need to be worked out to ensure value to the customer.

PS: If you chose the Harbor House dinner option, I’d love to hear what you had! Let me know.

I know, excuses.

But it has. We’ve quasi started to house hunt, which is probably a good exercise in patience for a girl like me because I fall in love with approximately EVERY house and we still have a condo to sell. So, we’ve been doing big kid stuff like getting preapproved and throwing crap away to get our place uncluttered and ready to sell.

We also finally got a date on the books for our back-in-Wisconsin We Got Hitched party. June 9; 3:30 p.m., let me know if you’d like more details!

In the midst of all the busy and chaos, when the temperatures turned unseasonably warm, we busted out the grill a few times. And drank Bloody Marys.

How we do it: Start with your favorite vodka, add in some pickle juice (we stumbled upon the new Hot and Spicy Claussen pickles, which are PERFECT for Bloodys), salt (we use Penzeys 4S), pepper, Zing Zang, Worcestershire and a gajillion garnishes such as green olives, beef sticks, green onion, pickles and hot peppers and you have yourself a heck of a drink.

Make sure your company is good and enjoy!

Recycled glass. Mini, tasting-size beer mugs. Perfect for sharing.

We (finally!) purchased a wine rack. Rather, we finally stumbled upon one we really like. It also matches our condo quite perfectly.

Along with the wine rack, we purchased a pepper mill from Penzeys Spices. Can you even believe I didn’t have an actual pepper mill? Well, now we do. And, we got this cool sticker. So true.

Home made pizza. With sausage, red onion, garlic and green olives. Salty as a mo-fo. I woke up the night after we ate this for approximately five glasses of water in the middle night. But it was good.

More home made pasta. This time, we used our wooden rack to dry some, which we plan to use soon.

Seven.

Seven springs ago, after a beer festival at our hometown aviation museum Jeff made it to his condo a couple of hours late to throw a party for the newspaper’s newest reporter. Seven springs ago, upon walking into the very condo that is now our home, I fell in love at first sight and started this life. He was, of course after a beer festival, half in the bag, carefree, more free-spirited than usual. I was 22, optimistic for the start of my career, in need of a drink and smitten. Our night continued with a more drinks, from what I remember, and our first kiss.

Tonight, like we have several times in our lives, we’re headed to that very beer festival. Hops & Props at the EAA AirVenture Museum. Brewery list here. We’re excited; we love this event.

Like we’ve gotten better at our relationship over the years, we’ve also become better at our beer festival strategy, if you will. I head for the seasonals, sours, stouts and fruit beers and Jeff is now a lover of the IPA, something he forced himself to acquire a taste for in recent years.

Plus, we’ve learned to eat before you go. Time spent in a beer line is more valuable than the food line.

Untapped - a social way to share what you’re drinking via smartphone app (or Internet) – also makes the beer drinking experience fun for us. It also probably shows our snobbishness toward beer, but hey, we’re allowed; we have fine tastes in a lot of things. Find me on untappd here.

As you know, among my favorites are roasted cauliflower, anything grilled and anything fresh. Last week, with spring attempting to poke its way in, I was missing our CSA box. I think about the farm and instantly, I want summer, and my weekly box. In hopes of finding something new, I asked Twitter for a vegetable recipe. I got lucky; a good one was sent my way.

Supplies needed: Wok. (Really, any pan would actually do.)

Ingredients needed: Olive oil, a few splashes of soy sauce, a few cloves of chopped garlic, green beans or de-poded edamame.

Toss beans or edamame over medium (or so) heat in a little oil for a handful of minutes. Pictured: Edamame (which I do buy frozen).

Add in garlic and soy sauce, saute until it looks done.  And you have yourself a quick, delicious and flavorful (and, I’m fairly certain, cheap!) side dish. Seriously, make this.

Since soliciting this idea on Twitter just a week or so ago, I’ve also made edamame this way combined with brown rice and with the addition of Penzeys Chinese Five Spice. I seriously don’t know why I didn’t think about substituting soy sauce for salt on a vegetable before. It’s such a simple concept. Duh!

One of the students who works in my office (talking! about! work!) is participating in the PRSSA Bateman Case Study Competition. This year’s topic: childhood obesity. This particular student asked if I would write a blog post with a healthy recipe (see that? Disclosure. Boom.) and, of course, I agreed. LiveFITosh is what they’ve named their campaign. LiveFITosh’s Facebook page (also, Twitter, here: @LiveFITosh) is helping them meet the “technology” aspect of their campaign, as is this blog post. (As an aside, college students are involved in WAYYYyyyy more stuff then I ever was when I was in college. Good for them.)

So really, make this recipe, serve it to your company, feed it to your children, put it in your mouth. (Dogs can even have green beans, sans soy sauce and garlic.) In general, put veggies in your mouth; they’re good for ya!

By “entertaining area,” I mean there are three feet of space you can hang out in without being in our living room. Our tiny one-bedroom, loft-style condo will always be close to our hearts. One of the things, though, that I wish we’d have done different, or known sooner, is that no one really cares if it’s small and you need new carpeting. They just care about the company, and the drinks and the food. That’s what people are suppose to care about when they are the dinner guests.

And so, with a light at the end of the tunnel (hopefully) in terms of owning this place, we’re having one of my very bestest friends for dinner on Saturday. In fact, we’re making an active effort to have more people for dinner this year (resolution addition?) in an effort to make as many last-minute memories in the condo as possible.

So, BFF Krista is coming on Saturday! Kritta and I have, in fact, lived in three separate apartments together, so the two of us know what it’s like to live in a much-too-small space. We met in a college class and almost immediately declared we’d get an apartment together. Now, we’re those kind of friends who know each other inside and out though we hardly ever talk. Funny thing, I’ve never even made a formal meal for the girl.

I started building a menu for the event on the morning of her birthday earlier this month. I even felt a bit nervous about what to make. But I do think it’ll be delicious and wonderful. And if not, we’ll have plenty of booze.

As to not give away the details completely, I won’t reveal the menu just yet. But I will tease: TWO kinds of homemade pasta (look at me go!). Jeff is even making one of his ripped-off-from-Alton-Brown-specialties.

Countdown to the weekend: ON.

Last night, with chilled beers ready and a live-stream concert by our favorite band blasting throughout the condo, we busted out the new pasta maker we got for Christmas.

It’s an attachment for our Kitchen Aid mixer and, from a girl who knows nothing about pasta-making, it worked awesome.

Essentially, there is a ratio for the pasta dough. And if you follow it, I think it’s pretty hard to mess up. It goes like this:

• Two eggs per one cup of flour.
• One egg per person.

Easy? Right.

The smart chefs of the world will tell you to crack the eggs into a well of flour. So we did.

I added a little salt. In the future, I don’t think I’ll be afraid to try other things, like spinach or curry, or really anything.

Next, combine the eggs and flour with your hands (it’s kind of messy at first) to form the pasta dough.

At first I freaked out because I didn’t think it was coming together. It just seemed like a flour mess with sticky fingers. But eventually, it was clearly a dough. I kneaded ours for awhile – probably 5 to 7 minutes – until it looked the consistency of photos in cookbooks and online (really, this is how I cook). I also kept a recipe from the Pioneer Woman’s website handy. Jeff thinks we could have started running it through the pasta maker sooner than we did, however.

Then, you start running it through. I’m sure your pasta maker will come with directions. Ours had us do a combination of adjusting the setting and the wideness of the rolling bars in the pasta maker and folding the dough and feeding it through. This process took about 10 minutes total and had us feed the dough through the machine 10 to 15 or so times.We just kept feeding it until it seemed like an appropriate pasta thickness.

(As you can see, I have a sous chef. And a cute husband!)

Then, you switch the attachment to one that cuts noodles. Ours came with spaghetti and fettuccine-sized cutters. We selected the fettuccine attachment because I liked the idea of a flat noodle. Then, the fun part: Run the dough through.

(Sous chef not so good with the camera.)

Next up: Cooking it. Be very careful not to over-cook it, I read on the Internets. Also, make sure to salt your water. We boiled ours for exactly two minutes.

And then, you eat. Immediately, you’ll be happy you made it from scratch.

And so, our upcoming trip to the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee to see a Food Network celebrity will be just as much fun for him as it will be for me. Not that seeing Alton Brown wasn’t also fun for both. (BTW, thanks to Next Chapter Books for bringing the stars to Milwaukee!) Anyway, Jeff bought us tickets to the Giada event, which is in April, and I already cannot wait.

It works the same as Alton’s appearance did. Select dinner at one of two restaurants, get a meal cooked from the star’s newest cookbook, attend the show, leave with a signed cookbook.

Before we head to the show, we’ll have dinner at Bacchus.