Dec 2: Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?

Going to restaurants is one of my absolute favorite things to do. It's one of the reasons I adore living in New York because there are endless possibilities, even though I often just end up going to the same ones over and over.

Trying to pick the best restaurant experience I had is tough. There have been so many great ones. I went to the 21 Club with my roommate during Restaurant Week for some old school New York. We ate steak and drank fun drinks, even though we were sure the restaurant could tell we were second class citizens in terms of the dining scene. But experience wise, one that stands out happened pretty recently. And it was more about the company then the food, though that was excellent too.

Good old Kim and Dan were in town so we decided to go to brunch. As usual, no one had any idea where to go, so I decided to have us try something new so we went to the Cornelia Street Cafe. After a bit of a wait in New York City sunshine, we were seated in Siberia, way in the back of the restaurant, which i attributed to our large party size. It was cozy—white walls, wooden tables and the pleasant noise of humming restaurant chatter. Then the fun started in a game this group calls winning the order. You can read an exhaustive list of rules here. However, this particular time was the last game of the trip so it was time to get serious. The hilarity that can be contributed to this game is ridiculous. Everyone takes a long time to decide and tries to keep their order a secret, lest they be disqualified. My order was, the always classic, huevos rancheros. I had once ridiculed this dish because of its funny name, but that was before I had tried it. This particular version centered on a large flour tortilla, topped with fluffy over medium eggs, black beans, cheddar cheese, creme fraiche and salsa. Thought it is considered a heavy breakfast, it didn't feel that way because of the fresh salsa. It's my new favorite brunch order. And this time it won. Some would disagree, Kim tried hard with her eggs Benedict, but I knew I was victorious when everyone conceded that if I finished every bite, I had the win. Some may disagree that this happened, but it DID. My only win, if that doesn't make for the best restaurant experience for the year, I don't know what does.

Dec 1: What was your best trip in 2009?

I'm already way behind on this, but I still want to write about each topic. So here it goes.




What was your best trip in 2009?

I was lucky enough to do a fair amount of traveling this year. There were the weddings of two of my girls to attend, one in Kansas City, one in Salt Lake, both of which were wonderful trips. There was a quick trip to Chicago. There were work trips to San Antonio and San Francisco. But hands down my best trip of 2009 was the week cruise I took with my family in February. The cruise as meant as a celebration of my father being done with chemo and cancer-free. Now we know that was unfortunately a short-lived diagnosis but that doesn't mean the trip was any less fun in hindsight.

My entire life, the Ramseys have taken family vacations. Every summer, most spring breaks, sometimes at Christmas. Yes, most of these were to Disney World, but by the time I was 20, I had been to every part of the country with my family. Often we'd drive because my dad loved to be in control of the car and that way he could make us listen to Rush Limbaugh, Gary Puckett and any other offensive music/talk he could find in hopes of "broadening our minds." Since we've grown up, these trips have become less frequent but still happen occasionally. This time, we took a cruise that left from Miami and went to a private island in Hati, Jamaica, Mexico and was supposed to stop in Grand Caymen, but couldn't because of bad weather. My mom had made a promise that this was the trip we would go all out. Anything we wanted to do, we could. So we went para sailing and zip lining. We climbed a waterfall. We ate and drank whatever we wanted.

One of the best things I remember though were the times when we weren't doing things that were too cruise-y. When we couldn't stop in Grand Caymen, we were bummed but it gave us the opportunity to just be with each other. We played Phase 10 for about three hours, my Dad beating us almost every time. It's so rare that we were all together for so long anymore. When I'm home, my sister is always jetting off to be with friends so this was the first time in a long time it had just bee the four of us. Had I known it was going to be one of the last, I would have savored it more. Obviously reflecting on the trip brings it more significance now then it did then since I recently lost my dad. I know for a fact that I'll never have a trip like it again. But looking at the photos from that trip now are good for me. It's good to see him healthy and happy. John and his girls, having the time of their lives.

2009

I'm feeling down on 2009. It's been a rough year. So inspired by Jacky, I decided I want to try and participate in the Best of 2009 blog challenge. Mostly to try and remember some good things about this year and perhaps even reflect on the bad things. I've never done anything like this before with this blog, but perhaps it will inspire me to start posting more, which is an area where I'm lacking in inspiration as of late. I'm just a few days to this party, but I still want to write the prompts I missed so those will come soon.

For now, just the announcement of things to come because I have four interviews to transcribe and one more to do today.