so long, farewell

So long Blogger! It's been almost a year, but Twilight is upgrading to a bigger and better blog.

Please visit http://www.twilightatmorningside.com/ and let me know what you think about the new site! Coming up soon... a boatload of new photos from my recent trip to the Pacific Northwest.

Hopefully you'll want to add me to your RSS feed, so I think you'll find this URL is the one to use. http://www.elizabethdorney.com/blog/?feed=rss2

Liz

Sofra.. So Delicious

The first I heard of Ana Sortun was about 4 years ago, when she won a James Beard award for Best Chef in the Northeast. I was intrigued by Oleana's Mediterranean and Turkish influenced menu. I eventually bought the chef's cookbook Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean, but it languished on the bookshelf. I was way too intimidated by the shopping list required to tackle the exotic recipes in my kitchen.

Fast forward to June 2009. I headed to Beantown for conference and finally ate at Oleana! It was such a remarkable meal, filled with wonderful new flavors. Doug & Sip also mentioned the chef has a casual cafe in Cambridge serving wonderful baked goods, mezzes and flatbreads. I tried to visit before I left Boston, but it wasn't meant to be. Doug was busy (working, of all things), the rain was endless and it seemed awfully out of my way for lunch.

I've been plotting a trip to Sofra ever since my train pulled out of the Back Bay. Last week, just in the nick of time, I convinced Chrsitine we should make a detour before heading back from KW's baby shower. We sampled 5 mezzes and the lamb schwarma with cousa squash and yogurt and washed everything a perfect glass of mint iced tea. Next time I'm going to try the iced tea with pine nuts! My favorite dish is still the Moroccan carrot salad (also on the menu at Oleana). You can buy other prepared foods to-go and more ambitous home cooks may want to pick up spice packs and try re-creating a little Oleana magic at home.

Sofra Bakery

1 Belmont St
Cambridge, MA 02138-4404
(617) 661-3161
http://www.sofrabakery.com/

Oleana
134 Hampshire St
Cambridge, MA 02139-1421
(617) 661-0505
http://www.oleanarestaurant.com/

Baby M

On Saturday, I grabbed two hazelnut iced coffees and hopped into Christine's
car for a road trip to Boston for a baby shower. There were a few sprinkles
along the MassPike, but we got to Brookline well in advance of the Red Sox
traffic.

KW got a loads of adorable gifts to welcome her new arrival, due in October.
Back in the day, I had many a great misadventure with this mommy-to-be,
but it all began when we met in Morrow House in college.

No word on boy or girl, so we could have a future Smithie on our hands!




















On the way home we stopped for a bite at Sofra Bakery in Cambridge, more on this little neighborhood gem next.

no blight here

This summer we got a ton of rain in June and it really set the growing season back. A lot of folks in the Northeast were struck by a tomato blight, heck even Martha's garden in Westchester NY wasn't safe!

As bumbling backyard growers, we were lucky our crop has done just fine. In this photo there are patio tomatoes from our deck, larger grape tomatoes and the lovely yellow sun sugars.

Sound to shore

I'm always taking shots from the top of the Morningside seawall, but here's the view from the Long Island Sound! We haven't been out in our kayaks since we moved, so this was the first time seeing our neighborhood as a resident at sea.

Thanks to Captain Charlotte who brought us out on her boat Finally on a hot summer Sunday.

jersey shore

The O'Connell's have the perfect summer home in Brigantine, on the Jersey Shore. I've never stayed this far north along the coast, but the shoreline is still spectacular. There were breezy sunny days on the beach and evenings on the boardwalks of Ocean City and Atlantic City (could we get 2 more contrasting islands!?)

Looking at these photos makes me a little sad since I know summer is winding down. The good news is our Pacific Northwest trip is less than a month away!

Flamingo pink reflections

Flamingo pink, originally uploaded by :morningside:.

For some reason I love pink flamingos, but I haven't seen them in person very often. We saw these snoozing birds at the Calgary Zoo. It was a hot day in the city (not unlike today), so I'm sure they enjoyed keeping cool in the shady water.

This is my first post using flickr and it's so easy, I'm totally over using blogger/picassa.