Skip to main content

Birthday!


Happy Birthday to Me!  

Tonight we went for a special dinner at a restaurant that I wanted to try called Fork which is a farm to fork concept and located in the heart of Boise's hopping 8th Street.


And tonight was "Alive After Five" where music fills the streets and restaurants are providing beverages so it was a good thing we had reservations.  It was too hot for us to sit outside since we got there at 6:00pm so we sat inside in the refreshing air conditioning.  I read their menu before we went tonight and loved their map showing where all their food comes from in the area.  We started out with drinks which included a pomegranate margarita which was excellent, a "Fork Lemonade" which was a local vodka infused with four berries, fresh lemon juice and simple syrup - yummy - and a drink called Huckleberry Gemini that was another local huckleberry vodka and fresh grapefruit juice.  

A nice way to start dinner on a hot day.


Salad was next.  My sister and I got the house salad with a lovely spicy mustard balsamic vinegarette dressing


and Bruce got the BCS Salad - Boise Chopped Salad with buttermilk basil-pesto dressing with dried apricots and smoked salmon.




For my entree I ordered the Northwest Flank Steak on Idaho mashers.  I'm not going hungry with this meal.




My sister ordered the Idaho Rainbow Trout with a tomato vinaigrette and braised greens




and Bruce got the Ale-Braised Short Ribs with garlic honey mustard sauce with smashed potatoes


All was very tasty but why is dessert always the most outstanding?  This dessert was amazing.  We ordered the Cast Iron Cherry-Berry Pie a la mode that we all shared and it was wonderful!


I want to make my next pie in a cast iron skillet now!


Right after we finished dessert we had a surprise visit by two friends who were out at "Alive After Five" and cruising the Boise bar scene.  It was good to see Marcus and Kelly drop in to wish me a Happy Birthday.


We walked around downtown after dinner- having fun "people-watching".  Lots of activity in downtown Boise tonight.


And the sunset was dramatic tonight, an interesting effect from all the wildfires around here.




Good night after a wonderful and fun birthday.








Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Meatloaf by Mark Bittman

Once again, I turned on the television yesterday and saw that Mark Bittman was on the Today show and was making his version of  meatloaf .  This must be meatloaf season.  It was surprisingly similar to the  Pioneer Woman's version  who was also recently on.   I was a little surprised of his version because Mark Bittman is into healthy eating and has lost a lot of weight and improved his health by changing his diet which he writes about in his book,  Food Matters .  His meatloaf recipe also included bacon and cheese!  I must be doing something wrong.  The thing to remember, which he writes about in his book, is that you can eat healthy without going extreme or changing your whole life.    If you don't know who Mark Bittman is, he is a food writer and a four star chef with multiple cookbooks who loves to eat but changed his food philosophy to improve his health.  He tells his story in Food Matters and provides a plan for responsible eating that covers a no-nonsense rundown on

Trader Joe's Gluten-Free Oatmeal, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I don't have very many gluten-free cookies on my blog because quite frankly, I usually don't like gluten-free.  But occasionally, I do find a good recipe and this is one that is from the back of the Trader Joe's oatmeal and it's a good one.  My friend brought some over to our house last weekend when Nick and family were here for our birthday celebrations  and we all loved them. My friend lives a few blocks away and we walk the neighborhood together on weekends.  We can easily go 5 miles in no time, talking non-stop.  She loves exploring our neighborhood as much as I do and we discover so many favorite little spots.  We even found a property with a horse (or more like a pony, I should say.)   The views are always quite lovely, too.  Bruce and I had our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary on July 18th and I made a point of walking past the house where we had our wedding reception.  I told my friend, "Thirty-nine years ago today, there was a big party go

Waking Up in Vegas

and just like that...we were Waking Up in Vegas.   Just like the Katy Perry song. We went to her 78th performance which was her second-to-last Las Vegas residency show entitled "Play".  That was perfect for us because we went to Vegas simply to play.  Her concert was a great finale for us because it was high energy and full of silliness, just the way Katy Perry is.  And we were feeling it after three nights in Las Vegas. "Get up, and shake the gutter off your clothes now, That's what you get for waking up in Vegas".    Here's what she said about her show: "I created this show after the birth of my daughter, Daisy Dove. When I met her, it was like all the love I was ever searching for finally showed up. This show is for everyone’s inner child and for the hope that maybe if we could all see life through the eyes of a child, we would be free. Because never forget, love is and will always be the key,” she said. We went to Vegas spur of the moment because Br