DA WEEKEND

Well, it was a necessary weekend. We started out with a bang but I think the week finally caught up to me and I crashed Saturday morning. I was just beat. So ... from Saturday morning through Sunday night, I was just sitting around, friends. I think I left the house once. Maybe twice. And I just drank tea, had a few good eats and got better. So necessary.

Friday we started it off at Butcher Bay in the East Village. We'd heard a few good things so we stopped by. I'm guessing this will be our last trip to Butcher Bay.

We had:
- half dozen oysters
- hush puppies
- hamburger
- lobster roll

The oysters and the hamburger were both pretty good. The hush puppies were OK. The lobster roll was awful. It wasn't the worst ever ... but it's just one of those places we won't need to experience again. Sorry.

Saturday morning marked the beginning of the end and because I was so down and out, Meena took the reigns on our new fav breakfast. It featured:
- ciabatta
- smoked salmon
- red onion
- goat cheese
- cream cheese (for meena)
- chives

Delicious. I know you've seen it every week, but friends, it's the best.

Saturday night we were supposed to hit Lucali with James and D but because I was dead to the world, we just stayed in and made our own pizza. No Lucali but we're picking up steam, y'all. We're getting better and better each day. This one feature:
- pizza dough
- buffalo chicken sausage
- mushrooms
- onions
- marinara
- mozzarella
- sea salt
- black pepper
- chives

That crust was pretty awesome. Like I said ... we're getting the hang of this thing.

Sunday morning Meena knocked out another little Caputo's ciabatta joint. This time it was a nice little egg and cheese on that lovely, salty bread. It featured:
- egg
- cheddar
- sambal oelek
- ham

Mmmmmmmm. That's how I like to start day two of recovery. Operation "ALEC FEELS GOOD FOR THE RACE" was going just as planned.

Saturday night we threw together a little "15-minute" meal we saw in Bon Appetite. I'm not sure it took 15 minutes, but it was pretty solid. It featured:
- chicken (marinated in balsamic, sea salt, black pepper, olive oil and cayenne pepper)
- bleu cheese

I also threw in a salad that featured:
- mixed field greens
- red onion
- goat cheese
- olive oil
- sea salt
- black pepper
- rice vinegar

I think I used too much bleu cheese on the chicken, but ... now I know. It was good, no doubt, but I could have used less. The chicken was SOLID. I loved that. I had the butcher butterfly out our chicken breasts and the thin little slivers really soaked up that marinade and just burst with flavor in every bite. Nice. I like it. I love it.

The other coup of this meal was the fact that Meena enjoyed the goat cheese in the salad. It mixed through to all greens and she was into it. It's always a big deal when I can get her on board with ingredients I love.

Anyway, that was the weekend. Boring ... but necessary to my recovery.