Entries Tagged as 'nancy'

Portuguese Vinegar Meat

February 12th, 2010 · 2 Comments

Whenever we go back to Kauai Dallas’s Aunty Nancy makes Dallas’s favorite meal for him and sends him home to wherever we’re staying with a ton of leftovers for the trip. Aunty Nancy is Portuguese and the dish she makes is like a beef pot roast, but really vinegar-y and served with rice, of course. I don’t know what this is really called, but we have always called it Portuguese Vinegar Meat and Dallas loooves it.

A few months ago Dallas was in Washington DC for work. Aunty Nancy’s oldest daughter Tandy lives there with her husband Chris. They just had their first baby, Kai (photo to the right!!!), and Aunty Nancy has been staying with them to help out. They all spent a couple days together and somehow Dallas got Aunty Nancy to give up the Portuguese meat recipe!

Dallas came home and immediately had to try his hand at it. It turned out good.. maybe a little too much vinegar for my liking, but very good. I think we have a few tweaks to work out before it’s up to Aunty Nancy’s standard. I’m sure we’ll be making this many many times until we get it exactly right! We also thought about trying to adapt it for the slow cooker.

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Dinner at the Matsudas

July 28th, 2009 · 2 Comments

primo
Primo :: Waimea, Kauai

Dallas’s family’s best friends on Kauai are the Matsudas. They live just down the road from where Dallas and his family lived and we try to see them every time we go back to Kauai. This year Aunty Nancy and Uncle Bob invited us over for dinner. When we arrived they were the only ones home and were watching their grandson, Swede, who was just born this year. Isn’t he adorable!?

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Dallas, Swede :: Waimea, Kauai

We sat outside at picnic tables and drank some beer while eating edamame. Aunty Nancy was feeding Swede his dinner, poi with milk. No wonder he’s so big! Well, that and the fact that his dad is something like 6′5″.

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Dallas, Uncle George, Mr. Hee, Uncle Bob :: Waimea, Kauai

Not much later, Uncle George (Uncle Bob’s brother) and Aunty Linda arrived. And then Mr. Hee came by.

For dinner we had Portuguese Meat. Maybe there is a more descriptive name for this dish, but Portuguese meat is what we call it. It’s kind of like pot roast, but way more vinegar-y. Aunty Nancy is Portuguese and knows that Dallas loves this dish so she makes it every time he visits. We had some other dinner, too, but the parts I remember are the desserts. This was the first time I ever had haupia cake, manju or homemade guri guri (I’d only ever had guri guri for the first time two days before).

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Rachelle, Aunty Linda, Swede, Aunty Nancy :: Waimea, Kauai

And then finally, later on, Marissa and Eric, Swede’s parents, arrived with Swede’s sister, Safina. By that time it was dark and everyone was off in different directions. I wanted to take a photo of Safina because she has grown so much since the last time we saw her, but she was off on her scooter and taking a bath and had her own agenda going on. It was nice to be able to visit with everyone. On of these days we need to visit Tandy, Uncle Bob & Aunty Nancy’s other daughter, who now lives in the DC area. She and her husband Chris just had their first baby a few weeks ago. His name is Kai. We haven’t seen Tandy and Chris since their wedding, which seems like forever ago.

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Living Room: Before & After

March 4th, 2009 · 16 Comments

Before:
living_room_before

I moved to from New York to Chicago just about exactly 5 years ago. It was February 29, 2004. I have lived in Chicago longer than I lived in New York or California. Didn’t see that coming when I left Wisconsin in 2000! Anyway, when I moved to Chicago I got a white hand-me-down couch from a friend of Nancy’s named Andy. It is an ok couch. Very comfortable. But white. And it got gross looking fast. And the pillows are so sloppy. And I began to hate that couch a bit. But it was free and Dallas and I agreed that we wouldn’t want to spend money on a new couch until we bought our own place. I should also add that the white chair is one I got at IKEA and the black chair is a hand-me-down IKEA chair that we got from Dallas’ cousin Miko.

Well, as you know now, we bought a place. Time to finally get a new couch! A few weeks ago Dallas and I rented a car for the weekend and drove up to Wisconsin for my dad’s 60th birthday party. On the way back we drove down to Naperville. Auntie Laura had recommended the Carson Pirie Scott Furniture Outlet to us as a place to look for a new couch. She got a whole leather living room set there and it was really nice. When looking online before the trip I found out that there is also a Macy’s Furniture Clearance Center and an Crate & Barrel outlet within a block of the Carson’s outlet, so we hit them all up.

I think all outlet stores are hit and miss. We went to the Carson’s Outlet first and didn’t like anything there. We liked a few things at the Macy’s Outlet. There was a much bigger selection. We went to the Crate & Barrel outlet last. I was excited because I knew what Crate & Barrel furniture looked like and I knew it was really expensive normally. Unfortunately, the outlet had only a couple pieces of furniture and nothing that we were really looking for. So, back to Macy’s.

We ended up getting a large 3 piece sectional for about $1, 700. We were told that the full price at Macy’s is $4,000. So we paid less than half. Tip: If you want to buy something, have the sales associate pull the tags immediately or it might be gone if you go to look at something else. We had her pull the tags and then went to look at rugs.

We had no idea where to begin with area rugs. There were stacks and stacks. Luckily, the sales man was really really knowledgeable and friendly. He knew everything from how the rugs were manufactured, to how to care for them, to how to coordinate them with furniture. The good thing was that since the furniture we were buying was right there we could take rugs over and see them with the couch. We paid $400 for a 6×8 foot Karastan rug that retails at Macy’s for $1,600.

When the couch was first delivered last week I freaked out a little. I thought it was way too big. I’ve since gotten used to it and have realized that it’s just a lot bigger than our old furniture, but that doesn’t mean it’s too big for the room. I just wasn’t used to it. It’s really comfortable and looks great. Last week Jess and Alden were over and all four of us were a bit sprawled on the couch and no one was even touching. I bet you could fit at least 8 people on there. I’m happy with the purchase, which is good because the clearance centers don’t accept returns!

After:
sectional_fireplace

sectional

Next up in the living room: 1. Find a new coffee table. 2. Clean up the mantel and move all the gaming systems downstairs in the den/rec room/family room/2nd living room (I don’t know what to call the downstairs space!).

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