SOBE wine and food fest

Ever since my sister moved to Miami Beach a couple of years ago, I knew I would one day want to attend the SOBE (southbeach) Wine and Food Fest. They set up grand white tents on the equally white beach sand, and feature culinary demonstrations and tasting events, many taught by Food Network personalities.

This year N and I were able to plan a trip down in late February, and purchased tickets along with my sister to the event. The tickets were pretty pricey but we decided that it was probably a once in a lifetime event to attend.

Here, we've already entered the event, and are able to visit the tasting village.
Did I mention that I almost passed out? My excuses are heat and dehydration.

The event hosted several well known chefs.
We stopped and watched Andrew Zimmern cook some octopus.

I was disappointed to see that they changed the demonstration agenda, and Giada was not on the Saturday lineup!

Overall, it was an interesting experience. We got to sample cheese, chocolate, sliders, beer, liquor, all while trying to walk among a pack of wolves who had never seen food before. Seriously. These people paid $200+ per ticket and were acting like it was a free buffet. We quickly channeled are our inner calm, and vowed that we wouldn't need to return to this event!

Check back this week for more adventures from our trip to Miami.

Cinnamon delight

I think cinnamon might be my new favorite spice. I know its not that special, but I've recently been experimenting with it a bit, and have found that it is so versitle--both for sweet and savory recipes.

I've been dying to try making sticky buns/cinnamon buns. Joanne Chang's cookbook Flour has a sticky bun recipe made with brioche bread, but this has tons of butter. Did I mention I'm visiting my sister in South Beach next week?

I took a bit of shortcut this time, and found an easy no-knead recipe from good old King Arthur Flour, with much less butter. I wanted the taste, without all the work of brioche!

Reasoning: I made these as our sole "Valentines Day" celebration, since we don't buy into the rest of the commercial hype surrounding the holiday.

The recipe calls for a yeasty-dough, which you let rise. Then you have to make the buns, and let those rise, and then bake. Poof! Magic.

Raw buns, pre-bake, fully risen

Baked buns. The side you see actually become the bottom
when you flip them out of the pan.

Fully decked out sticky cinnamon buns. Sticky caramel and
pecan topping covered with a thick gooey icing.

Favorite salad

Several years ago, I realized that the trick to get me interested in eating salads regularly was to stay away from the regular old iceberg/tomato/cucumber/italian dressing combo.

Let me introduce you to my new favorite salad.

Romaine, baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, red onion, gorgonzola, kalamata olives, and light balsamic dressing.

To-die-for.

What are your favorite salad toppings?

Office drone

This is where I spend 40 hours a week. It is a bit larger than a regular cube but not quite an office. What does your workplace look like?

Christmas cactus delight

My coworker, A, gave me this wonderful Christmas cactus over 2 years ago. It was blooming when she gave it to me, but hadn't since. I worried that I wasn't giving it enough light, or not enough water. It was dormant, and even lost an arm or two over the course of those two years.



But around Thanksgiving, I started noticing some pink buds arriving! I know that some tips from N's aunt and uncle really helped draw this cactus out of dormancy and into the living plant world again! The first trick was moving it from the kitchen table in a mostly shady area of the kitchen, to the full sunlight storage and laundry area in our apartment. You'll remember, that we were gifted an awesome plant stand that we placed in front of two windows.
The second trick was to taper the watering! I had been watering it every other week, and that was too much! N's aunt and uncle told me to avoid watering it! It was soooo difficult for me to do that, especially when it seemed like it was wilting, but it worked!

The cactus broke into full bloom during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is exactly the time that it is supposed to bloom!A christmas miracle, indeed!

Now, I need to continue to care for it properly and prepare it to bloom for next year!