Entries Tagged as 'anniversary'

rachelleb.com 10th anniversary

July 28th, 2011 · 8 Comments

Last week this site quietly celebrated its 10th anniversary. My first post here was on July 19, 2001. I was living in San Diego at the time and I remember jumping on the iWalt blogging bandwagon. Walt and I shared and office, and I thought “what the heck?” and gave it a whirl. Here I am 10 years later.

I didn’t really do much to celebrate, but I did visit the Wayback Machine. This is a tool that lets you see snapshots of any website from various places in time. Like last year, as I browsed through the history of rachelleb.com, I reminisced about how in the lifetime of this blog I have changed jobs 5 times, moved to New York, moved to Chicago, co-founded Chicagoist, made friends, made more new friends, lost track of friends, met Dallas, got engaged, bought a condo, got married, and on and on. Pretty nutso!

I took a few random screengrabs of this site while I was at the Wayback Machine. Click for larger screenshots.


2001
2002

2003
2004
2005

 2006

2007
2008

2009
2010

2011

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Happy 9th Anniversary, rachelleb.com

July 19th, 2010 · 9 Comments

Today marks the 9th anniversary of this here blog. My first post was on July 19, 2001. I was living in San Diego at the time.. and if I start to browse through, I reminisce about how in the lifetime of this blog I’ve changed jobs 5 times, moved to New York, moved to Chicago, cofounded a successful Chicago city blog, met Dallas, got him to move to Chicago, got engaged, bought a condo, and on and on… but I’ve got things to do and not hours to spend reflecting.. so I’ll just leave it at that. Happy Anniversary to me!

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Roundarch 10th Anniversary Champagne Toast

June 16th, 2010 · No Comments

For some reason I thought I’d posted these photos, but I didn’t! On June 4th was Roundarch’s 10th anniversary. To celebrate, everyone gathered, Jeff and Geoff, our founders, said a few words and we all had a champagne toast. Supposedly each office did this and took a photo of everyone in the office, although I’ve only seen photos of the Chicago office.


Anniversary Cake


Anniversary Champagne


Pouring Champagne


We demand champagne!!!


Founder Geoff Cubitt Speaks


We demand cake!!!


Founder Jeff Maling speaks


When Paul’s Hand Gets in the Photo, You Make Lemons Into Lemonade


Chicago Roundarch staff… or most of it..


Roundarch Chicago

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Anniversary Dinner at Takashi

May 9th, 2010 · 6 Comments


Hamachi bites with a bit of kimchi under each


Prawns


Sauteed scallops with soba gnocchi and mushrooms and celery-root/parmesan foam


Soy ginger carmelized pork belly with steamed buns, hot mustard, daikon salad


Duck breast with confit of leg, beets and quince, ginger-orange glaze


Seared skate wing with a medley of Japanese mushrooms and risotto of cauliflower


Chocolate cake with macadamia nuts, macadamia nut brittle, oranges


A surprise from the chef

For our 6th anniversary (on May 5), Dallas and I went to Takashi for dinner. I had a Groupon for the restuarant. I think you know you’re getting old when you use a coupon for your anniversary! Oh well. We have to save as much as we can this year.

The food at Takashi was really delicious. We shared 4 small plates then I had the skate and Dallas had the duck.

The hamachi was delicious and I’m not a huge kimchi fan, but it wasn’t super strong. The prawns were giant and meaty with a really tasty sauce on the side. The scallop and gnocchi dish was probably my favorite. Any time there are seared scallops or gnocchi on a restaurant menu I want to order them, so imagine a dish that had both! The foam actually was very flavorful and went well with the dish.

Chef Takashi has a fast food restaurant in the Macy’s food court called Noodles by Takashi Yagihashi. Dallas and I have had the pork buns there. The pork buns here at Takashi were a bit more fancy – pork belly in a glaze. Very good.

My skate was flaky and flavorful. Dallas liked his duck, but it was a lot of duck. Not much on the side. He’s not a fan of beets so I had those. When we were ordering I may have accidentally ordered the duck for him and I sort of feel bad because I don’t think he loved the dish… but everything else was fantastic.

And the dessert was fabulous too. Very rich, but the orange offset it. Dallas loved the macadamia nut brittle. The waiter said “chef” made the special anniversary plate for us. I saw so Chef Takashi Yagihashi both near the bar and working in the kitchen, so I’m going to go with thinking it was Chef Takashi who made the plate :) .

I’ve already recommended Takashi to a bunch of people!

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Our Patio

May 28th, 2009 · 10 Comments

patio11

Dallas and I have a private patio off the back of our condo. It is good-sized, but has four tall walls boxing it in. Two walls are wood and cement, one is brick and cement, and one is patio doors to our condo. The look and feel is really boring and cement-y. The fact that it doesn’t get much sun adds to the drab look and prohibits me from putting a lot of bright flowers back there to add some color. I decided that adding lattice work to one wall and planting ivy would be a good way to add some interesting texture to the patio.

patio2

Last weekend was my parent’s 35th wedding anniversary. They decided to celebrate by going on a road trip to Niagra Falls. On Sunday they came through CHicago and stayed overnight at our house. Of course, I couldn’t let them come over without putting them to work on my patio project!

patio3

My dad and I made a trip to Home Depot and got everything we needed. When we got back it only took about an hour to hang the lattice work. My mom and I planted more ivy and replanted the ivy I had growing already from last year. Now we just have to wait for it to grow more up the lattice. I think the patio looks a lot better already, though!

patio4

In payment for their help, and for their anniversary, Dallas and I made dinner for my parents. We had grilled skewers made with chicken marinaded overnight in a rosemary and garlic sauce, yellow squash, zucchini, onions, peppers, and mushrooms. I also made a couscous salad with fresh mozarella, tomato and basil that we grew. For dessert I made a fresh raspberry buttermilk cake. The skewers are an old favorite, but the salad and dessert were recipes I made for the first time. I liked them both so much, I think they might be a staple for this summer!

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