Fine Dining with a Toddler in Tow - Newport, RI

Ha! Is that really possible? I swear it is! We made it through relatively unscathed over the Christmas holidaze. We were double teaming L (ie the parent to toddler ratio was in our favour, so this may not work for those of you who are reading that are outnumbered).

Key tips for semi-relaxing toddler dining:

1) Go early (ie brunch or lupper) and scope out the scene before hand. Since we were dining in Newport, I used my "friends" on Chowhound to probe for recommendations. Reservations are your friend because waiting and toddlers = oil and water. Not miscible.

We tried 22 Bowen's for dinner at 5:30 pm and the Grill at 41 N for brunch. Both very child friendly - both offered high chairs without blinking an eye and the servers were all very accommodating. Food was very good at both places. 22 Bowen's had a kid's menu but L just ate whatever we ate cut up in small pieces, so no need for the traditional dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets!

22 Bowen's:



The Grill:



2) Bring a lot of toddler accessories. Toys, books, placemats. L's new favourite is "The Snowy Day". Also feeding baby a few snackitizers before the real food comes helps avoid a potential meltdown.

3) As much as you can, clean up the vittles that inevitably fall all over the place or apologize to your server profusely and leave a big tip. You do want to be able to go again don't you?

4) Order alcoholic beverages for mom and dad. Increases the likelihood that you will feel relaxed and which in turn makes your kid feel more zen... or at least it seems that way!

5) If all else fails, go to a coffee shop. These are perfect for loud and messy because these are usually populated by teenagers, college students who are equally or even louder than a well-behaved toddler.

Crunchy, Salt, Pepper and Vinegar Kale Chips

We got a huge bunch of kale from Boston Organics on Friday and I wasn't totally psyched about it, until I saw this recipe for Kale Chips.



I modified it a little by not adding very much salt (used sea salt) and also adding pepper for some spiciness. Pretty tasty, I must say. I bet I could even get L to try it because she loves all things crunchy... all the better to crunch with (using all 8 of her choppers!)



But right now, she's too busy playing with her cardboard box from Target.

A Year?! Birthdays-giving

L is ONE!! Last year at this time, she was smaller than our turkey that was prepared for 2. This year we had a bigger crew of 6 adults and she definitely outweighed the turkey. In fact, she started at a mere 5 lb 8 oz and now weighs in at 19 lb 8 oz.

I didn't want to have a whole cake to accompany the ridiculous amounts of Thanksgiving food, so I opted for cupcakes. Everyone says that you should have a "smash" cake for the birthday peanut anyway so cupcakes make sense.

What is better than having the cupcakes delivered right to your door in a van decorated with a cartoon panda? You can order them online and this satisfies my desire to never speak to a real person when making purchases. One of L's baby friends even called at the last minute to have her 1-year old cake special ordered and they were able to deliver (and deliver!). Great!



This was essentially L's first encounter with a confectioner's sugar and butter melange, so when we first placed it in front of her, I think she was unsure whether or not it was edible. Once I broke it up, she figured it out quickly.




The adult favorite was definitely the red velvet. They have lots of unique flavours like the "boozy" themed which is on our list to try next.

Thanks for helping us make birthdays-giving extra special!

Happy 4th Fruit Pizza

This is about as patriotic one gets when one is a Canadian living in the U.S.!

I made a tasty tasty fruit pizza with refrigerator pizza dough, ricotta cheese, lemon zest, shredded fresh ginger, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. The recipe that I modified called for grilling the pizza dough on the BBQ, but I thought it would give the pizza a strange meaty smoky flavour, so opted to do it in the oven instead.





Delicious!

Then Linnea got to try some cherries for the first time which made her look like some sort of patriotic blood sucker.


Hope everyone had a great weekend. Stay cool!

Danish Pastry House: Baby Friendly Cafe!

I was alerted to the existence of this awesome bakery/cafe by this blog. Please take note of the great chalk drawing of the very Scandinavian boat on the menu.

Oh course I had to try it, but trying things has become a little more challenging due to the need for planning. I finally remembered that I should try it (reference the mommy-mind-is-like-a-sieve syndrome) and figured Memorial Day Weekend should be a good time to check it out because:

a) the place is in Medford very close to the Tufts undergrad campus, which meant that with graduation having taken place last weekend, it would be less busy and I would be less likely to be overwhelmed by students (although I did run into one of my students, which was weird because I teach on the downtown campus! It was also weird because as I introduced her to E, she kept on bowing to both of us. E thought this was hilarious because he thought that meant she had the utmost respect for my teaching ability, while I am pretty sure it was just cultural)

b) people were beach bound because that is what people tend to do when it is 85 degrees out and it is a long weekend. Since our delicate baby skin is not good at the beach and E hates the beach, that is where we were not!

We love all things Euro as you may have noticed from my posts about Karl's Sausage Haus! So this place rocked! So much room for a stroller, loud enough to drown out the baby noise, but not so loud to freak out the baby and self-busing tables, so very casual. Even had Danish gossip magazines for you to peruse if you were so inclined!

And the food! So fresh and so tasty. E and I shared a sandwich with goat cheese I think and a salad. I had a chai latte which was not too sweet so I loved it.





The desserts were great too -- we shared a potato cake (marzipan I think with cream filling and a big juicy strawberry inside -- it doesn't look like much from this picture, but it was darn tasty)



And this awesome raspberry chocolate cheesecake which again was not too sweet, so appealed to my non-sweet tooth!



I also got a couple of chocolate chip cookies and a couple of macaroony things (pistachio and vanilla). Unfortunately, we left them in the hot car while we went into the evil BabiesRUs and also to the pet store to buy L her first biorb fish tank, so the macaroons got mushy but were still tasty and the cookies just got out of the car-oven fresh!

As you can see, L really loved it!



So for those of you with kids or just with taste buds... give it a try!

Preview of Things to Come.

Check out L's love affair with her newest "food" puzzle!

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner!!

1st two times for Nom Nom Nom

Boston Organics Avocado and Breastmilk Mash!

Can I get a woot woot?!

Next step = Mum Mums with Momma...

Wanna try mah mum mum?!

Now I can smear mum mum AND avocado on mah face!

Wanna see me in action???!!