Celebrating with food

The leaves are turning color faster than ever. Is it possible to go from green to peak color in a week or 2? Probably not, but it feels like it. I took this photo out the car window (while Tim was driving) to show Tara in London what she was missing. I don't think she was as jealous as I wanted her to be.

Tim took the day off on Friday to celebrate our 22nd anniversary. First we did some international food shopping in Utica, then we went to dinner in Cooperstown.

I did not get the names of any of these stores, but we will definitely go back. At the Italian place we bought some hot sausage, ravioli, and pork braciole. I made the pork on Saturday with some of our garden plum tomatoes, olive oil, lots of garlic, and leftover pasta (see below). Excellent!

We went in the Asian store (I think it was Vietnamese) in search of hot chili oil which we have been unable to find. No chili oil, but we got a dried and a fried chili paste, a red curry paste (my fave) some fresh hot peppers, rice noodles, sesame oil, and Hub's fave—the fried shallots. Now we just have to figure out what to make with all this.

And finally, the Polish store provided some pierogies, kielbasa, vanilla cookies, rye bread, and some hot dogs that we already tested and gave a thumbs up.

After all the food shopping, we went to dinner at Toscana. Great food (but too much pasta) and they just kept refilling our glasses with the house red wine. The leftover pasta made a nice addition to the pork on Saturday. I forgot that it was Coffee House night and I didn't have time for a proper dinner...