A Whole 'Lotta Food This Weekend!

Hello Blogosphere, I'm back!  Yesterday I totally took the day off from my blog to spend some quality time with my Mom.  We walked (and walked!), we talked, we shopped, and ate (ohhh, did we eat!) On Saturday, we spent the day wandering the city, poking through Back Bay and Beacon Hill. We posed for a photo opp by the swan boats:

Isn't my Mom the cutest?  We had fun in Back Bay walking through the Public Gardens.  We paid homage to the famous Make Way for Ducklings ducks and paused to question why there were palm trees in the Garden.  Really Boston?  Palm trees?  Who are we kidding?

After our stroll through the Gardens, we poked around Beacon Hill shopping and ended up working up an appetite for some Upper Crust (my Mom's favorite.  I can't say I blame her..).  We stopped at the original shop on Charles Street where I enjoyed their slice of the day (eggplant and fresh mozzarella) and my Mom had plain cheese.  Yum and yum.  I had never actually had fried eggplant on a pizza before but I loved it! It added just a little hint of sweetness and crunch to the pizza.

After a little more walking (okay, a lot more walking!) we went to the Melting Pot.  I had attended an event there last month and knew right away that I would have to take my Mom here.  We had a lot of fun, talking and dipping breads, veggies and apples into melted swiss cheese.  Pure heaven.  My only complaint was that the bread was a little stale.  Not terrible by any means (especially when you coat in mass amounts of cheese!) but still, it could have been a smidge fresher. (Update: a representative from the Melting responded to me on my about the bread.  Apparently it is supposed to be that way and in fact, fondue was created to use up stale bread.  Who knew?  I certainly didn't, and appreciate the little food fun fact!)

On Sunday, I spent a good amount of time in the kitchen with my Mom (who made a fabulous sous chef, by the way).  I made us breakfast (a black forest ham and swiss strata):

While I was whipping up the breakfast, my Mom got an action shot of me hard at work in my Small Boston Kitchen.

Later on for dinner, I made a simple take on a chicken cordon bleu (chicken stuffed with ham and swiss and then lightly coated in some honey mustard) and my veggie cakes that I made the other night.  My Mom loved it.  Everything came out perfectly and it was so fun to cook for my Mom.

Thanks so much Mom for making the trek out to Boston.  I had so much fun and you'll need to come out here again soon!