The Adventures of Goldilocks and Her Bears

Here's that recipe from my CSA box for fennel-carrot slaw, with my mods

1 fennel bulb  
5 carrots (nantes carrots in our CSA box)
1/4 c spanish olives
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp balsalmic vinegar
3 Tbsp olive oil
pinch chili powder
6 sun-dried tomatoes in oil
3 Tbsp fennel fronds, chopped

Chop the fennel bulb into matchsticks. Toss with the vinegar. Julienne or grate the carrots, chop the olives, and add them to the fennel. Toss with the lemon juice, olive oil, and chili powder. Chop the tomatoes and spread them on top. Sprinkle the fennel fronds on top. Chill, covered, for a half hour for the flavors to develop.

Vegas was awesome! We saw a couple of great shows, but this trip was really all about the food. Oh! the food!

We stayed in a suite at the Monte Carlo. It was really nice. I've never stayed in a hotel room with one and a half baths before. There were a few quirks to the room, though - the sink got hot water straight away, but the shower took forever to warm up, for instance.

Sunday night we went to B&B at the Venetiian. It's Mario Batale's restaurant. It was soooo good. The citrus sampler dessert was sublime. I had Grand Marnier 150 with it. My sinuses still tingle with orange fire.

We saw Wayne Brady after dinner. He was funny, but his show focused more on music than comedy. Still, he does an excellent Tina Turner impression. His dancers were spectacular.

Monday night we had dinner at the Nob Hill Tavern at the MGM Grand. Again, excellent food. The signature drink at the Nob Hill is made in a martini glass with a sugar rim that's been candied using a torch. After the glazing, it's dipped in cinnamon. yum. They must be a bitch to clean because the sugar lasted through the whole drink.

We saw the early show of the Folies Bergiere. It's been running for 50 years straight. I'd have thought they'd be better. For a show that bills itself as "sexier than ever", I don't think an all-male, fully clothed dance number was the way to start. The performers were skilled, but failed at sexy for the most part.

After that we saw the Cirque show Zumanity. It was spectacular: circus acts with kissing and toplessness. What's not to love? The clowns were spectacular. They did a great job warming up the audience before the show (we got singled out to kiss - Aw). "Oh, she is shy... let us give her the clap."

Tuesday was spa day in the morning - yay! My massage was not spectcular, but the hot tub was divine. That night we went to the Luxor steakhouse, Tender. The charcuterie plate was wonderful and subtle: the duck ham was firm and not too salty; the elk jerky, not too peppery... ah. Filet Mignon...mmm... After we saw the Cirque/Criss Angel show Believe. The magic was good. The cirque performers were excellent - tap dancing white rabbit head FTW! Unfortunately, the show was hapered by Criss. He broke the illusion by talking about his show too often. 

With enough paprika, butternut squash risotto looks like cheesy rice.

That is all.

We went out to a belated anniversary dinner last night. We tried a new place, Oeda, and it was really good. Nice, fresh japanese food and attentive staff.

Earlier this week we got the big new flat screet TV mounted on the wall. We? Heh. moriven did the work. 

Today we moved all of the furniture out of the living room and moriven steam cleaned the carpet. Hurrah, it's beige! (I don't think I'll ever say that again.) 

In the mean time, I went up to StonedMountain to help Allen pick out the fabric for his new Germans (Maxmillian's outfit from Durer's Triumphal Arch). We found a yummy green wool flannel. I'm really happy with the jewel-toned wool flannels they have right now, but I completely forgot to bring my 20% off coupon. I did find some half-off linen I liked, though, and a bit of wool that I needed for the great tunic embroidery project. 

Then I went to Lacis, just because. I ended up buying 1000 Hats. It has great color pics, but nothing earlier than the 19th century. I also got a bunch of colored ostrich plumes, just because I liked the colors. Well, and two bucks a pop is a good price.

I came home just as moriven was finishing the carpet.  We reassembled the living room and rearranged the furniture again. There's a lot more room now. I'm so happy.

It feels so good to have a clean living room, we had to go out to dinner to celebrate. Yay!