Strictly Text.

Okay. So there will be no pictures this blog. Who's fault is that? No particular person to blame, but there hasn't been any Internet here at the hotel in Ireland for a week now. Today is the first day that it has come back on. Can you imagine my excitement? But then can you imagine my dismay when I realized that I hadn't updated in over a week, and the blog was supposed to suffice as my journal I'm supposed to be keeping while I'm here. So now, I'm thrown off two weeks of my journal, and it needed to be 10 pages long. Upsetttinnngggggg.........

But anyway, because of this no Internet debacle, I am not posting any pictures in this blog entry. And I always have pictures. But really, with this slow, broken computer, slow Internet connection, and the fact that the letter "l" doesn't work and the fact that I have to copy and paste it into the text entry box all would make for an incredibly upsetting blogger experience. So this is what I am going to do; I've decided to wait until I got home to do a "Everything You Missed in Ireland Post Spectacular". I will continue to post each day while I'm here (two more weeks), and all the mundane details of my day will appear here. The things that I didn't post from this past week and a half will go up after I'm home, when my computer doesn't shut down for uploading more than four pictures. I'll start with today:

This morning I accidentally woke up late and had no time to shower as I rushed out of the cottage door. I surprisingly wasn't late for work, and we picked up more leaves from around the flower bed. Then we went with Nolene, the head of gardening at the hotel, to Pergola Nurseries to buy more tulip bulbs. While I was there, I took so many amazing pictures of flowers I didn't even know existed. They were quite nice; they will appear in the EYMIPS. Then we returned to the gardening shed at the hotel only to find that it was raining, and we could not plant the bulbs. Me, and unnamed student who also had gardening thus were allowed to return home from work as gardeners get off when it rains. Then I went back to my cottage where I used the Internet for a few hours, and later on I went into town and got chocolate muffins from Super Valu Mart; my new favorite place in the world! Then I used the Internet a bit more, and now I'm typing this; more tomorrow, with pictures ;D

Typing without the damn letter l

So yesterday was my last day of working in the hot foods kitchen. I guess I waited a bit too long to discuss this, but I'm going to do it now before I put it off any more days. I guess it was a good expirience overall; seeing as how i had never worked in an actual kitchen before, this was a step up from labs. In labs, it's okay to take your time and mosey around the kitchen a bit while working on something. In the kitchen here, it's either really busy or really slow. There didn't seem to be any in between. These past couple days I was either being shouted at for making club sandwhiches wrong or standing around waiting for a dirty dish to come in so I could clean it. It was also different from the 5 hour lab, usually only 3 1/2 hours of which are actually used for cooking; the 8 hour shift was diffiicult at first, but by the second day I was used to it. If there is anything I got out of all this, it's that I can now make amazing chicken picatta. It seemed to be the only thing I made besides fried Brie, and the first time I did it I made a sauce out of white wine vinegar instead of the actual wine. I got yelled at for that.

The making of Chicken Picatta, a recipe burned into my skull by the chefs at the Virginia Park Hotel. I will share it with all of you eventually, just give me a minute to have it stop coming out of my ears.

I might talk more about the cooking job later on in my trip, but as of right now I really don't feel like it because it was just yesterday that I stopped. Next week I work as a server in the mornings, so that should be fun.

Okay, this sounds super pathetic and petty, but it's so something I'd do (and I did): when I first recieved my schedule, I saw that I didn't have anything but cooking and labor. So I complained about it to the staff here only because I brought an all black outfit and I wanted to wear it. I know, completley unesscary but I did it anyway; besides, I was told that everyone had to have a shift in each division of the hotel while here. Mehh. I'll upload more tonight after I eat something.

My new favorite activity, dishwashing lehh.

They have blue sprite here lol.

More later guyss :DD ( Read Sam's Ireland Blog Here)

Welcome to Dublin

No, I haven't posted in a while. Yes I've fallen off the wagon, again, for the thousandth time. But it doesn't matter because I made it to Ireland! I got here Sunday and I decided that I should wait until I've had a few days of actual kitchen work complete because for the first three days of being here, it was nothing but orientation and meetings. After working in an actual kitchen for two days I can now say that this is the field I want to be in.

Last night I was tired and cold, I missed my family, and I had remnants of the five chicken piccattas i made splattered on my shoe, and I'm amazed that I don't care but it only makes sense not to. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, and instead of moping around and being upset that I'm away for so long, I'm going to enjoy myself (sure dominic, you say that now; wait until week 4 -.-). So as you all can see, i'm going to continue blogging while I'm here, but it might take a while longer that usual as on the laptop I've brought with me the letter "L" doesn't work. So all my blog entries will be typed from my iPhone and photos will be added from the computer. I don't usually have this much text in a typical entry, but I think it's good; BRANCH OUT!

So I've also noticed a few (petty) interesting differences between here and America. I'm going to list them:

1. The butter is SUPER yellow. Like rediculously vibrant in color.

2. They don't sell 20oz sodas regularly. I only see giant bottles in the grocery store.

3. The grocery carts in all the stores are all free wheeled, so they spin in every direction! You all have no idea how excited i was in the grocery store today when I found out you could spin the cart!!!

4. It is very difficult to find salt. When I went to the store this morning with Sam, I only saw two bottles of salt in the entire building.

5. I completly forgot the people drive on the wrong side of the road. Actually it's the "right" side (get it?!), but it makes crossing the street quite bothersome.

6. The people here are either super super polite or they're really rude. As far as I can tell there is no gray area. I'd say 85% - 90% of all the people here fall into the polite category, but it seems as though no matter where you go you'll always encounter that one person who slams into and keeps walking.

If I notice any other differences I will be sure to post them in tomorrows entry for sure. That entry will have pictures and will go over exactly where I'm staying, what my room looks like, and most importantly food. Unfortunatley we ran out of cereal so i had to go to the store today, and then I cleaned my cabin and my bedroom and stuff, so I didn't really have time to upload photos today. I can't really do it now because I have to be at work in an hour, and I'm amazed that I even had time to type this. More tomorrow, because it's 2 o'clock Ireland time right now :)

Goodbye

I have too many things to blog about. I could go on about my new found affinity for fruit carving, I could talk about how well the grand buffet project went. I could even talk about the amazing dinner I had at Bertucci's last night. But I'm not going to. I'm on my way to the airport right now; I'm leaving to stay in Ireland for five weeks. I will continue to blog; my posts will probably be 50 times more amazing because I'll be doing exciting things there. My next post will be up Monday night Ireland time...so that's like afternoon here. Goodbye :)

Sloppy Babies

I never plan these. I swear I always think I'm going to get up the next morning and blog all about the amazing food I ate yesterday. Then it occurs to me; I had Domino's pizza last night....and the night before last....the day before that I had ramen noodles...and before you know it, it's the weekend again and I've blogged about nothing. So today, I've decided to do something that I've never done, but probably already should have. Side note- remember how about a month ago I thought it would be a great idea to bleach my hair? Well the day before I did all that, I baked Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies. Yes, yes they got a small mention here, but I say those cookies deserve more recognition. So today, I'm doing my first ever "RecipeTorial"! Here we go!

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RecipeTorial - Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies

Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookies
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup butter, unsalted
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
4 tsp lemon zest + 1/2 tsp extra for topping
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1 Tbsp poppy seeds + extra for topping

Step #1: Gather your ingredients! Yes, yes, dull lighting I know; pay attention to the cookies, I'm trying to get a real camera soon. Anyway, preheat your oven to 350F. Get your ingredients ready, along with a saucepan and two mixing bowls.

Egg. Focus on the egg lol.

Step #2: Pour the lemon juice into the saucepan. Turn it on. There really isn't much else to this step; since I forgot to take a picture of the dough; the next picture will have the description of that. So below, I've added half of the butter to the simmering lemon juice.

Step #3: Add the rest of the butter and the sugar together; mix until pale an creamy. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. We'll use this later.

Step #4: Once the butter melts in the simmering lemon juice, add it to the remaining butter and sugar. Stir with a rubber spatula as you pour it in, making sure to get everything off the sides of the bowl. *Tip- Try not to take pictures with your phone during this process; you could burn yourself like I did ;D

Step #5: Once butter/lemon mixture had been added to the butter/sugar mixture, whisk until a pale, off white color is achieved. Mix in one egg (seen above lol), stir, and add in the lemon zest, poppy seeds, and vanilla. *Tip- Instead of leaving the poppy seeds and vanilla separate, I decided to let the seeds soak in the amount of vanilla to let them impart their flavor into the cookies as opposed to just being a decoration.

Step #6: After step five is complete, gradually stir in flour, baking powder, and salt mixture with rubber spatula until the dough forms into a ball. I decided not to use my kitchen aid for this one (no idea why though), so a bit of elbow grease is needed here.

Step #7: Once the dough is mixed, make cookies out of one tablespoon measurements, topping them with sugar, zest, and more poppy seeds. Flatten the cookies with the bottom of a glass, not your hand, so that the toppings don't come off.

Step #8: Bake for 10-12 minutes, until a light, golden color shows on the cookie. As it seems, these cookies don't really grow much in size while in the oven; I'm guessing it's because they are more on the dry side when the dough is fully mixed; maybe next time I'll add a bit more lemon juice and perhaps 1-2oz more of butter to make them more malleable. Still, delicious.

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Longest. Post. Ever!

I'm starting to feel like this is a real blog, mostly because I've been doing rather large posts recently (well for me anyway). Besides that, I kinda just realized today that I leave for Ireland in 13 days.....nervous..... Anyway, let me catch you all up on my last week or so. It seems as though whenever I'm upset for some reason (my hair falling out, my schedule getting messed up, etc.) I don't post. And then the pictures build up and then I have 5 folders of photos accumulated throughout the week, and then they just become clutter on my desktop and I never used them; not this time. I am doing this post TODAY even though 30% of the stuff in it happened over a week ago. Okay, here we go!

Friday 9/18

Last Friday, I went to a casino in Dover. Instead of just walking around the floor, I managed to find a little food place (not the most comfortable seating but ehh). Now it may look like there are plenty of wonderful things to eat, but that's not necessarily true. Besides the gelato and pretzels, there wasn't much to eat up at the register; none of the breads in the picture were for sale. Speaking of which, why is there a bakery in the middle of a casino? Since when do people say "Yeah, after all this gambling I'd sure like a muffin and fresh baked baguette"?

After a bit of scampering around the hotel part of the building, I managed to find a decent seating area, accompanied by the world most comfortable couch. Nothing food related here; at all.

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Friday 9/25

When I first showed this picture to Ashley, she had a confused look on her face. I told her I made pancakes, and she asked what that nasty cakey, chocolate looking stuff was on top. Then I told her it was made of salt dough! That stuff was alot of fun to work with, and time just flew because by the time I was done it was 11:00. So now I know if I ever need to kill time, make salt dough :D

Later on that day, Franiel thought it would be important for me to learn how to cook "cuban beans". I personally think its because he wants me to cook for him more often -.- either way, the recipe was shockingly simple: half an onion, quartered, the actual beans, olive oil, cilantro paste (which, I checked the label, didn't actually have any cilantro in it), half a green pepper, half a red pepper, and a packet of Goya seasoning.

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Same Night

When I got to Trump Plaza, it was around 12:30, and I was kinda hungry. So I did what any food blogger in this situation would do; order room service! Okay, so I'm going to say this before I begin, this omelet wasn't nearly as gross as it looks. I was kinda shocked too when I saw the mound of cheese on top, but once I took it off it actually tasted good. It was accompanied by hash browns and three pieces of fruit.

As of now, I am officially blaming the crappy lighting for how this food looks. Maybe it's a problem with my camera, but the Apple Pie I ordered did not look anywhere near this gross. Once the woman brought it up, she mentioned that I should've gotten ice cream with it too. And that's how my nice before bed snack turned into constantly thinking about ice cream.

The next morning, yes those are frosted flakes, I ordered breakfast. I really like Frosted Flakes, so I kinda had to order them. I was a little surprised that only one box comes in a order costing $3, but they were still good.

Along with the cereal I got a bowl of mixed fruit, which I thought was going to be berries but ended up being melons. Because the bowl was melon, I encountered a common problem of mine; eating honeydew. I rarely like to eat it, and not because its bad, but because whenever I eat it, I am always served the hard, unripened portion of the fruit. That's the gross part, and that's what happened here.

To complete the meal (Yes, "Fatty's Breakfast" continues), I ordered French Toast. I only managed to finish half because of the other food I had eaten plus two glasses of Orange Juice. They were pretty good, just they never seem to bring enough syrup for me /:

Later on in the day, I went over to the mall. Among lots of stores I went in, I only managed to take a picture in "It's Sugar". Of course, me being me, I never took pictures of the candy I bought; it was all gone by the time I got back to my room O.O

(This is my favorite photo of all of the ones in this post) After all the buying and walking, I ended up going out the this little outdoor area where you could stare out into the ocean. I brought a soft pretzel with me, and the damn birds wouldn't leave me alone long enough to enjoy it! So I think to myself, maybe if I throw them a small piece in the other direction, they'll leave. Nope. Even more birds swooped down and crowded by me. This made me think of Bridgid because she would have been terrified if this was her lol!

Later that night, we all went to dinner at Cuba Libre. Here is my problem with this restaurant; dim lighting. Its bright enough so you can see your food clearly, and the people themselves, but you cannot take pictures with an iPhone camera (with no flash!!) This is why I need a real camera.

*sigh* the things I do for this blog. When I first learned that my phone couldn't take pictures in here, I needed to find a way to show something. So I scooted a portion of the salad near the candle and managed to take an awful photo.

Mango Ice cream. ALSO! I noticed something about the bread (which they served with mango butter). It wasn't quite recognizable at first, but after about three pieces of bread, I felt somewhat sickened. I wondered what they did to the bread to make it taste like this, and then I remembered that Palmier cookies taste like this. The slightly sickening taste of cooked butter; puff pastry.

Fast forward through me getting put out of the casino, again, to the next morning when I had brunch at Roberto's. I thought they had such a nice table setting, so I decided to take a picture :D

First Plate: Two croissants, mozzarella and tomatoes, and pineapple and cantaloupe slices. All cold food, all very good. No complaints here (I hear people cheering lol).

Second Plate: Waffles with mixed berries. They even had a neat little waffle iron plate that made diamond, club, heart, and spade shapes! On top I places a few strawberries, raspberries, and hilariously small blackberries. The syrup was very light.

Third Plate: Tomato and Onion omelet. Because this was a real restaurant and not Denny's, the tomatoes were sauteed before they were added to the eggs so they didn't make a big watery mess like last time. Accompanied by more pineapple slices!

Fourth, Final Plate: Three chocolate strawberries, some gross peanut butter square thing, and a "sacher cookie" which I didn't know existed. I do not like sacher torte. At all. I think its gross and I don't know why someone would combine chocolate, apricot, and almonds and put them into a cake. I don't know why anyone would put them into a cookie either, because it was nasty.

So as you can see, this is pretty much the longest post I've ever done, but I was good, right? It took me an hour to type, it had better be good lol. So you all might also notice that I changed the layout a bit, removing the "blocky" paragraph at the end and replacing it with a centered one. I like it better. More tomorrow.

Early Mall-ing

So today, I went to the mall for a bit with Ashley. I was just waking up around 9:30 this morning (okay I don't usually take this long to get up, but I was really tired after the night before, plus I had the day off anyway so why not), and I got a knock on the door asking if I wanted to go to the mall. So, you know, why decline?? So i hurried up and got dressed, and we got a cab to white marsh mall. While there, we walked around a for a while, and I got the super expensive new Dairy Queen drink, "raspberry white tea smoothie", at $4 (no picture). The lady was like "$4.19" and I just stopped for a second. She said it again, and I came back to myself, surprised at the cost of this drink. I knew if I said I didn't want it anymore, it would turn into this big thing about "I already rung it up" and shi-stuff so I just bought the damn drink. Picture tiiiime!!!!!

Ashley, angry looking for some reason in Forever 21. We went in there the first time and it was blazing hot, but after going in again we realized it was just the cheap store saving money by now turning on the A C until 11.

So after out little mall escapade, we walked over to the avenue and got lunch (after walking around the farmers market for a while and buying devils food cupcakes), I ordered the "Apple Berry Salad". As you can see, it has Gorgonzola, frisee, candied walnuts, shredded apple, strawberries, and cranberry citrus dressing. HOMG delicious.

So then I got a burger and sweet potato fries.... let me tell you all how the waitress tried to get over on me (and I'm pissed I forgot to call her on it!!). Okay, so the burger was supposed to come with regular fries, collectively under the same price listed for the burger, but because I ordered the sweet potato fries, she put those on the plate instead. I looked on the bill and she charged both the sweet potato fries and the burger separately. Wtf? Where are my regular fries?

Ashley decided to let me photograph her little (I called it goat food) wrap. I was like, post this on your blog, and she told me to put it on mine because she doesn't run a food blog. I keep telling her she needs to get a specialty for her blog to become popular; mine is food. Hers could be like accessories or clothes or something. Ehh. I guess that's up to her.

I am sorry to say that I will not be blogging tomorrow, as I am going camping!!! I'm going to try to enjoy the outdoors and not use my cellphone at all, which means I wont even be taking pictures of my food -.- (I feel like a camera addict). Meh, I guess its not that big a deal. Oh! And I should also mention that I going to Delaware for a bit tonight, then I'm coming home tomorrow morning for the camping. More...(well I can't say tomorrow) uh....I guess Sunday or Monday.

-.- I wish these crackers had chives / crappy bagels

If only you could imagine my excitement when I discovered that I don't have class tomorrow! It's such a relief when you know you don't have to get so early it feels like night time, and then you don't have o try to stay awake during lecture because its so early, then cook for a few hours before walking a mile and a half to the bus stop, only to get home an hour and a half later. BLAH! I'm glad i got it all out lol. Okay, picture time!

So yesterday, I really felt like drinking Italian soda, and I swear I don't know any place that sells them besides restaurants, and I am not going to pay for an entire meal just for the drink. So I looked up exactly what Italian soda is; apparently its just sparkling water and vanilla syrup, both two things i have in my house. The picture above is me cooking my vanilla syrup, just thought you all should know ;D

Okay, I didn't need to be this artsy with my vanilla soda, but i liked it so much I thought I'd at least make a nice picture..

Later on in the day, I noticed that we were all out of bagels. I also remembered that I had made bagels before, and it was pretty straight forward; mix the dough, shape, proof, boil, bake. I went to get my BP232 book, but then I couldn't seem to find a recipe for any other type of bagel but plain. So I looked up an egg bagel recipe, did a bit of math, and came up with reducing the amount of water and adding 4 eggs.

They look like crap in this picture. That being said, it was only in this picture. In real life, the bagels were great, I even added a bit of corn meal to the baking sheet for added texture like the bagels at the grocery store. I cut one, and spread strawberry cream cheese on it; it was amazing. really. REALLY.

Anyway, besides that, I'm not typing much today. I made sushi in class today, went out on the boat for a bit, then I went out and got Panera Bread and Ben and Jerry's Ice cream. Both very good. However, I'm not going to share my ice cream pictures with the world; they're all mine! Also, tonight I was supposed to be watching the Grey's Anatomy premiere, but I went out for food instead. All is not lost though, as I bought an iTunes card tonight and fully intend on downloading it first thing tomorrow morning! More tomorrow ;D

Sick Bloggers Get to Eat Crackers and Vitamin Water

So a lot of things have gone awry in the past week. I haven't been posting, I'm sick, I lost all my hair, and today because I didn't go to class, I might have accidentally ruined my group's "Grand Buffet" project because I wasn't able to print off another copy with the correct measurements. I mostly feel bad about that. If I had a car, I honestly would drive down there now and give them the papers, but I don't, and no one here will take me now. Anyway, I'm trapped in my room today because I'm sick; no I don't have "swine flu", I have a sore throat. I thought I knew where I got it from, but practically everyone was sneezing yesterday in class. Either way, I'm getting back on track; its picture time.

Sometime last week, I stumbled upon a recipe for lemon poppy seed cookies, so I decided to bake some. I harassed Franiel and Ms.LPTM to no end to buy me some poppy seeds; I am so broke I cant even buy poppy seeds for myself. I need some monehh!

Just thought I'd include this because it's one of the few pictures I actually have from Garde Manger class so far; its just a Caesar salad, but I thought it was really good so I threw this one in here.

So the pictures a bit dark, but you can see what they are; on Saturday I managed to finally buy a muffin tin, so I baked some cupcakes that night. The icing looks super crappy, but that's because I couldn't find my pastry bag, and I had to use a zip lock bag with a hole cut in the bottom -.-
(notice the little chocolate chip eyes ^.^)

Okay, so this is pretty much the highlight of my week; my Disco Peacock! Okay so it wasn't actually mine, but I assembled all the melon balls. It was really fun to work on.

Last picture today, I also cut a honeydew! This one I did alone; I kept thinking the leaves looked like lays ruffle chips... the "guest chef instructor", who instructed us on how to do them, kept saying I was doing a nice job, but I couldn't help but think she was saying in her head "this looks like crap". Oh well, I like my melon!

Well, I'm gonna get off now, short post. I'm not well, and I need my rest; I just hope tomorrow everyones not too upset that I didn't bring the re-printed out papers. I guess thinking about it doesn't make a difference now. More tomorrow.

Hurray!

I've completley changed the layout of my blog, and I think for the better. This isn't an actual blog post, just a quick little paragraph to note the change. I have had the same blog layout since Dec. 08; I figured it was time for an update. I will have an actual blog post (like I usually do) up by tonight, I just really wanted to do this real quick. Well, that's all, as I 'm working like a slave in my basement today, for no apparant reason what so ever beside my mother telling me that she doesnt care that I'm on break. Byee :) Oh and btw, I'm going to allow comments starting tomorrow.

Blogger Picture Uploading

Okay, so I'm going to start today's post with a bit of a rant. It is most certainly a petty rant, but a rant nonetheless. Whenever I upload photos to blogger (very nice and well thought out ones at that), there is always the one that comes out messed up (like the one below). The "regular sized pictures" are taken when I hold my phone horizontally, so it gives more like a wide screen picture; which I think appears better on the blog as opposed to vertically, which I think doesn't fit. So anyway, just thought I'd get that out there and also say that the photo below isn't supposed to look half as crappy as it does. Super short picture time today, seeing as how I didn't do much.

The only real food I've eaten today was a BK Veggie from Burger King. I asked the woman for everything on it except mayonnaise, and she gave me bun, Pattie, ketchup, lettuce and tomato. I thought everything meant everything. Where's the cheese? The Onions? The Pickles? Ehh. It's Burger King; I should stop complaining and eat my fast food, realizing that it's fast food.

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Today I accompanied Franiel to the bank in Glen Burnie. I didn't quite understand why we went to that specific bank, 25 minutes away, instead of the one up the street. No complaints from me though, as while Franny was in the bank, I walked over to one of my favorite stores; H-Mart!!

I didn't have too much time, so I couldn't buy real food food, but I did manage to pick up a bunch of snacks and what not. If you can't see from this properly angled picture, there are three boxes of Pocky, a box of Pepero, and a box of Pretz. The three Pocky's were strawberry, chocolate, and banana chocolate. The Pepero was almond chocolate, and the Pretz was salad flavor. All very good.

In a pulled back shot, you can also see that I purchased several types of gum, sesame candies (black and white), and a container shaped like a McFlurry cup filled with little biscuits with chocolate inside. I remember two semesters ago in Purchasing we took a trip to H-Mart, and I remember someone bought these before. I remember tasting one, but I didn't remember that each biscuit was stamped with a shape; cute I guess.

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But yup, besides all of that, today has been rather bland. I am thinking about lifting the block on commenting on the blog, only done originally because of a nasty comment someone left. Maybe I will; I don't know. What I also don't know is whether or not I'm ever going to get the poppy seeds to make the Lemon Poppy Seed cookies I've been wanting to do for the longest. More tomorrow.

SUPER LATE!

Why do I always always ALWAYS put off ding a vacation blog post. Its like some weird thing, like I wait until the third day after I get back, and then I don't even feel like doing it anymore. But not this time! Not this blogger!! Anyway, yes, I am back! It took me long enough, but I am here. Now I could go on and on about how nice the hotel was, and how they only sold snickers and Gatorade in the gift shop, but I'm not going to. This is a food blog, and I have a tendency to put my life happenings in here.... Okay well I'll make it like 20/ 80 food. I have to tell someone about my day lol. Super long picture time so bare with me here.

Before we got to the hotel, we got hungry. Very hungry. So we stopped at a Denny's on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere Virginia, and ordered some food. I got a tomato and onion omelet with a side of hash browns. I ended up forking all the tomatoes out of the omelet because
I didn't like the way they tasted; they were too wet.

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You can somewhat see the hash browns in this one, next to the burger I ordered. It was sorta dry, so I had to put ketchup and mustard on it. Plus, I really don't like a burger (or sub for that matter) with any other lettuce besides ice burg. I feel like i ran the burger in a field before I picked it back up to eat it. But still it was good.

After making our way to the hotel, I decided to take pictures of the bathroom! Exciting!!

The bedroom, the one on the right is where I slept!

So around 12 the first night, everybody was still hungry, but no restaurants were open at the time, so we went to a BP gas station and bought all this crap. I bought the nerds, Oreo cookies, vanilla wafers, strawberry milk, water, fruit roll, and hot fries!

The next evening we ate at Il Giardino in VA beach. The people were very friendly, but it seemed over staffed for some reason...and not necessarily in a good way. Like for every person in the restaurant there was a waiter. Awkward....

I ordered the foccacia with olive and red pepper oils. I don't understand why every restaurant doesn't do this! It's so much better than the regular oil alone. And with grated Parmesan cheese inside, are you kidding me?!

Of course every where I go that offers Caprese salad I have to order it (just to see how it holds up against other restaurants). This one was good, but instead of a balsamic reduction they just did the vinegar plain. I'm not complaining though, the heirloom tomatoes were very firm and good.

My last dish at Il Giardino was stuffed Manicotti, covered in Parmesan cheese in red sauce. It was a bit too thick for me, as I could barley taste anything but ricotta cheese. A little less cheese and a thinner noodle would have been perfect.

A few days later, I had breakfast at the Pocahontas breakfast restaurant down the street from the hotel. The dining room was packed with people, and I see why. I ordered the chocolate pancakes; buttermilk pancakes filled with chocolate chips, with chocolate chips on top drizzled in chocolate sauce. So much chocolate I didn't want to eat anymore for a week.

A closeup of the pancake.

As if three monster pancakes weren't enough (obviously they weren't) I also ordered an onion and cheese omelet. I decided against tomatoes this time as I didn't want a repeat of Denny's. It seemed like they cooked the egg, then stuffed it with melted cheese and sauteed onions. Then covered in a sharper cheddar cheese.

For my last breakfast at the beach, I went to the Maple Tree, a Swedish breakfast restaurant. The Swedish pancakes I ordered were very thin, almost like a crepe, and covered in raspberry butter, which I absolutely need to learn how to make; it was delicious.

Okay, so I didn't actually eat the above salad while I was on the trip, but I did however eat this last night. I thought to myself; I HAVE to blog about this. The salad was mixed micro greens, dried cranberries, dried cherries, strawberries, blueberries, blue cheese, green apple slices, and candied walnuts lightly covered in a sherry vinaigrette dressing.

What to put here now hmm? I feel accomplished that I covered my vacation, plus last night so I feel all caught up. Today I was really feeling like baking some lemon poppy seed cookies, but we have no poppy seeds so I need to go to the store. No one wants to drive me, so that seems impossible then. I guess the store is right up the street, but I hate the sun; if it was winter I would gladly go up there. But its 90 degrees outside, so no. I would also bake apple pie, but we only have one apple. And no, there is no chocolate in the house either. I'm stumped. More tomorrow.