El Bulli bound

I'm sorry for the silence, but this moving thing? It's exhausting. Daniel and I moved into our new apartment -- finally! -- on Friday and have been getting settled ever since. We somehow made it to a dinner party on Saturday night and hosted a Mother's Day picnic in Prospect Park yesterday, but aside from that, we've been plowing through box after box. There are plenty of cuts and bruises to prove it.

Our new kitchen fits more than two people (and maybe even four or five!) and although I've only boiled a few eggs and a pot of tea so far, I'm smitten. There's my sassy stove with a window, all these tall, spacious cabinets that fit so much stuff, and even a skinny, sliding drawer for the tops to our pots and pans. I can't wait to start cooking.

But first, we're going to take a break from all this apartment stuff and highttail it to Europe for the meal of a lifetime. El Bulli, here we come!

We'll start off in Paris, the city I called home 10 years ago. It was there that I really fell in love with food. We'll see my friend Emily who is getting her MBA, visit my French host family, meet friends from Brazil who will be there at the same time, eat a lot of pain au chocolat and tarte tatin and finally -- finally -- we will relax.

Then we'll head to the French countryside for a few days before driving to Roses, Spain for a 30-course dinner. To quote the cute kid from my all-time favorite commeercial, "I'M TOO EXCITED TO SLEEEEEP!" I'm planning to take as many notes and pictures as possible, but something tells me I should just sit back and enjoy the ride.

What I can promise is that as soon as I'm back in Brooklyn, I'll be cooking and blogging a lot. There's fresh mint ice cream to be made and I want to give homemade pao de queijos a try. My CSA starts June 9, so I'll have lots of fresh fruits and veggies to put to use too.

A bientôt!