Category Archives: Brunch

A Weekend of Firsts’

Posted on February 18, 2013 by StephSnacks | 10 Comments

HI!! I know I was absent for a hot second from this little blog of mine – but I was running around doing a whole bunch of stuff and want to give you all a look at what I’ve been up to.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to get a quick workout in at the gym before volunteering a little later on in the day. As part of my ‘New Years Resolution’ I wanted to volunteer more, and to accomplish this, I signed up through an organization called New York Cares. NY Cares gives volunteers the opportunity to give their time at soup kitchens, animal shelters, after school programs and more. It just so happened that I had my Saturday free, and signed up to volunteer at a shelter that houses families trying to get back on their feet.

The experience was wonderful – it was everything I wanted and more. The other volunteers and I (there were about seven of us total) were each partnered with a child and took them to the library for an hour. The child either read to us or we read to them — I tried my very best to help the cute little girl I was partnered up with, Fatima, to enhance her reading skills and encourage her. After the library, we took the kids back to the shelter for a pizza lunch and to play some games. My UNO skills are very rusty.

That’s Fatima and I in the above picture! I promised her I would print it out for her so she could have it next time I volunteer at the shelter It was a very humbling experience and I am already looking forward to my next day of volunteering.

After leaving the shelter, I headed back to my apartment to get ready to take a trip to Jersey for the night! My friend Eva, her two sisters, and I all wanted to watch the Beyonce interview with Oprah as well as Beyonce’s documentary, ‘Life is But a Dream’. Needless to say, Beyonce definitely runs the world. After our girly night, we decided to head out for some drinks and wound up having a great night filled with dancing.

Upon arriving back to my apartment on Sunday, I quickly got ready for a brunch that Gracie was hosting through her organization, FreelyBe. I’ve been blogging for about two years now and following Gracie’s blog for maybe three – and this was the first blogger hosted brunch I ever attended!

The brunch was held at The Ainsworth and I ordered the Baked Eggs which was two eggs, sunny side up atop some sort of spinach/tomato mix and a piece of sour dough bread underneath. I finished both eggs and the spinach/tomato combination and the flavors were amazing. I really enjoyed my choice for brunch. I have to say, it was so nice to meet a fellow blogger in person. Gracie is such an inviting and kind person, and it was worth it to go to a brunch where I didn’t know a single person! I can’t wait to attend more Freelybe events in the future.

Now it’s Monday and luckily enough I have the day off from work so I’m about to go do some shopping! I am very good at shopping

Now share with ME! What have YOU been up to?

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Posted in Brunch, Eating Out, Food, Friends, Gym, Workout

Angolo & Toast

Posted on January 13, 2013 by StephSnacks | 11 Comments

Hi there, peeps! How has your weekend been? Mine was filled with a ton of great food. I usually always find that my week day’s are filled with tofu, vegetables, fresh fruit/veggie juices, and egg white omelettes — which is great for the body and for health in general. But if we’re being honest here, usually on the weekends I am a bit more lenient. I don’t overly indulge, but I do allow myself an extra treat or two.

On Friday night, Rebecca, Britt, and I had a full-on girls night planned complete with dinner reservations and a night out afterwards. We decided to make 8:00 reservations for Angolo, an Italian restaurant in Soho. My mom and I had sat at the bar a few days prior to celebrate my mom’s birthday, and while we didn’t eat dinner there, the bartender told us that the food is great and we should definitely come back. Britt and Rebecca were both game!

After ordering wine, we decided to order two appetizers to share — one of the dishes included a very lightly fried calamri and shrimp while the other was a trio of prosciutto. Both were equally delicious – no complaints over here!

We decided to keep with the sharing theme and for our entrees, we ordered two pasta dishes. One of the pasta dishes was the Tagliatelle Bolognese parmigiano reggiano and the other was the Garganelli, mushroom ragu, pecorino. My favorite was absolutely the Garganelli, mushroom ragu, pecorino. The mushroom was absolutely wonderful and the hint of cheese was perfect.

I have to say, my friends and I usually skip the dessert portion of the meal – for whatever reason – but it seemed that neither myself, Britt, or Rebecca could tear our eyes away from the dessert menu! As soon as our waiter told us they had salted caramel gelato on that particular evening (Brittany and I legitimately looked at each other and pronounced, ‘Oh, shit!’) we were sold. We decided to order a trio – chocolate, vanilla, and salted caramel.

While I was most excited for the salted caramel, the chocolate stole the show for me. It tasted like pure dark chocolate and I could have had several more scoops. The gelato was the perfectly portioned treat for the end of an amazing meal.

To burn off all of those fabulous calories we devoured, we all headed to a nearby bar after dinner and danced for three hours straight. So much fun.

Needless to say, Saturday I woke up feeling, um, tired. Let’s say tired. Somehow, though, Rebecca and I managed to get out of bed around 9:45 to head out for a nice walk along the water. Our walk was about 45 minutes long before stopping at Toast for brunch. Toast was a new to me brunch spot and at that point, I didn’t care where we went because I was so hungry!

Rebecca and I decided to split the hummus which was definitely home made and tasted amazing. The pita points were served warm and I demolished my half of this dish.

While Rebecca ordered a salad that consisted of goat cheese, mushroom, and chicken, I went for my tried and true egg while omelette with mushroom, onion, and swiss cheese. The omelette was served with whole wheat toast and a side salad and I finished about half of everything. My only complaint is that the onions were kind of bland – I really enjoy carmelized onions and these certainly were not.

With all of this amazing food in my stomach, I was able to stay full for almost the entire day until dinner which was eaten (sushi) around 8:00.

Today started off with Mass, an amazing workout, and yet another egg white omelette and green juice (spinach, pear, one whole lemon, cucumber, parsley). Now I’m ready to have some appetizers with my parents and watch the Golden Globes! Can’t wait to see all of this amazing fashion!

Question of the Night: Are you watching the Golden Globes tonight? Who is your favorite actress? Actor? I’ve always loved Kate Winslet and actually really like Ben Affleck. He’s not too bad looking either

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Posted in Brunch, Diet, Dinner, Drinks, Eating Out, Exercise, Night Life, NYC, Weekend, Wine, Workout

Family Day/Friends Night

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Steph | 2 Comments

What’s going on peeps? How’s your week going so far? We are almost at Wednesday which makes me absolutely thrilled that there’s only two and a half more days ’til the weekend. Anyway, I wanted to continue my weekend re-cap post this evening since so much went on.

On Saturday, my sister and I met up with our parents for brunch at Serendipity. Serendipity is a staple in the NYC area known for it’s over-the-top desserts and infamous frozen hot chocolate. My mom has been talking about how much she has wanted this frozen hot chocolate for about a year now and it was time for her to kick the craving! We ordered two – one for my sister and I to share and one for my mom and dad to share. These things aren’t exactly small. Portion control? Not so much.

So I’m not kidding when I say that this was absolutely freakin fantastic. I really enjoyed that the whipped topping was home made and it complimented the chocolate nicely. The chocolate shavings were a nice touch, too Even though we enjoyed our respective frozen hot chocolate’s to the max, we didn’t enjoy the food at all. Gillian and I each ordered more or less the same egg white omelette and I can truly say I didn’t even find it to be average. The conclusion? Don’t order a meal at Serendipity, order dessert only!

I felt super full after our decadent brunch so it was a good thing we had an afternoon of walking around scheduled. Our first stop was the Highline, which is basically a walking path/park located on the top of a bunch of buildings. I was able to get some pretty great pictures of the views from above!

Following the Highline, it was time to meander around Chelsea Market. Chelsea Market includes a variety of food/beverage/craft vendors which sell local produce/meats/cheeses/beers/sweets/snacks. While it was really crowded since we went on a Saturday, it was nice to be able to look around at some items you don’t tend to see in generic stores. Next up? The West Village where we shopped around for a while before calling it quits for an afternoon cocktail (yes this was my idea). It was soooo hot out and a bellini sounded really nice

Our day was so much fun and it was really nice to be able to spend some quality family time together. My parents live in Cape Cod, Gillian is in Philly for school, and as you know I live in New York City, so spending time together is pretty rare.

The night time called for drinks and dancing with friends! As Nikki mentioned to me, she got a kick out of my Instagram pictures this weekend (if you don’t follow me, my user name is StephSkork). My friends and I are quite the candid group of people and can basically have a good time wherever we go. It’s the best.

And that’s my weekend in a nut shell! I felt so fantastic on Monday to re-start my clean eating and to get in a workout for an hour. This Summer has been filled with many indulgences in the form of alcohol and late night eating. It’s important to balance it all out with sweaty workouts and nutritional meals during the week. I’ve undoubtedly been having a blast this Summer but I don’t want to feel like crap because I’m constantly eating/drinking crap! Staying on track is important when you’re weekends (or mine at least) veer a little off course.

Before signing off, I wanted to shout out a reminder to Kim Whitbeck that you are the winner of my Cascadian Farm giveaway! Please email me at StephSnacks@gmail.com to claim your free granola

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Posted in Brunch, Drinks, Eating Out, Family, Friends, Night Life, NYC, Weekend

Sunday Fam Day

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Steph | Leave a comment

Hello and happy Sunday evening ladies and gents! How was your weekend? I had fun night’s out on both Friday and Saturday and this morning was spent with my parents and dog, Spanky. They came to see me in the city so we could have a family brunch on my porch. Brunch was filled with fruit, Starbucks, bagels, and other delicious goodies.

Starbucks was necessary for all of us — a grande iced coffee with one pump of mocha was on the menu for me!

I also filled up my with plate with a half of a half (yes I wanted to be exact with you all) of a cinnamon raisin bagel which I spread with some cinnamon raisin cream cheese and jelly. I had some fruit, too

I went back for another — say it with me — half of a half of a whole wheat bagel. So delish and necessary to spend time with my parents. Spanky was just a teensy bit jealous about all of the delicious food we were consuming..

The day was beautiful and we all enjoyed sitting outside on the porch before taking Spanky to the dog park, where he made some friends

All in all it was such a nice morning and I was especially glad to be able to spend a bit of time with my parents since they will soon be moving to Cape Cod which is kind of far from me!

Now I’m off to try to relax for the rest of the evening before another week starts up.

Question of the Night: What is some of your favorite brunch food? Eggs, pancakes, bagels? I seem to like it all

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Posted in Brunch, coffee, Family

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Steph | 8 Comments

Hi hi, everyone. I hope you’re all nice and relaxed after a wonderful three (or for some of you lucky peep’s) four day weekend. Mine was spent in Sea Bright, New Jersey with a couple of my best friends. The entire weekend consisted of food, drinks, sun, beach, talking, going out, and doing it all over again. I haven’t had a weekend like this in a while, so I was really sad to see it end.

My friend Rebecca and I went down to Sea Bright very early on Saturday morning to meet up with our friend Eva and by the time we got there we were starving! We all knew we wanted to get brunch at The Turning Point; which has basically become our go-to breakfast/brunch spot. Let’s just say our eyes were bigger than our stomach’s. We ordered so much food and basically finished half of everything.

The above is the Turning Point’s ‘Fruit Bruschetta’ which I cannot not order every single time I eat there. It’s basically toasted pita points baked with cinnamon sugar and topped with a delicious fruit salad. I don’t need to say anything else.

Eva and Rebecca each ordered the Lobster Eggs Benedict:

I went for the ‘Fit and Trim Combo’ which was a honey wheat wrap filled with egg whites, sliced turkey sausage, spinach and tomatoes. It was supposed to come with a cup of oatmeal but I subbed mine for a cup of greek yogurt.

I freakin’ loved my choice for brunch but could only finish half of the wrap and half of the yogurt. Such a shame because it was so good! And yes, we all decided to order pancakes to split… which, surprise surprise, we could only each manage about five bites. Like I said, we felt hungrier than maybe we actually were.

A shot of my lovely friends:

A majority of our Saturday and Sunday were spent doing very stressful things like this:

Happy hour’s on our balcony facing the water wasn’t so bad either:

After some happy hour fun, the girls and I had reservations for a sushi place called Sawa which was right in town. It was definitely an enjoyable experience, as the food was very fresh and the service was fantastic.

We started with edamame (and a bottle of white vino) for the table to split:

Rebecca and I also split the Crispy Ginger Duck Roll, which was excellent:

For my entree, I went with the Wasabi Tuna Salad which was basically seared tuna and avocado over salad with ginger dressing. My picture didn’t come out that great — sorry

But I did get a nice, albeit blurry shot of Rebecca, Eva, and I!

On Sunday night, Rebecca actually had a wedding to go to, so Eva and I decided to check out a popular restaurant called Avenue. While kind of pricey, we had so much good food and a wonderful view of the ocean. I really can’t complain over here.

We started off with a little tin of fresh bread which was basically saving my life since we weren’t able to get reservations until 9:00 PM.

Eva and I decided that Grilled Octopus sounded delicious as a starter, so we agreed to split it — and I am very glad we did. It was so delicious and was the perfect light choice to begin our meal:

For her main course, Eva went with the mussels and french fries while I ordered the Exotic Mushroom and Tempeh Fricassee. The Mushroom and Tempeh Fricasse came with kale, leeks, brussels sprouts, and grilled cippolini onions. To die for.

And of course, no ‘real’ dinner is complete without dessert so we ordered the pistachio and chocolate crepe which was actually the perfect amount. We each had a few bites and our sweet tooth was satisfied:

Monday came and went, as we basically woke up, ate breakfast, and hit the road. I was so sad to leave, but incredibly grateful for such a fun and care-free trip. I think the beach and I are going to be very close friends this Summer.

Once I got back to good old NYC, I hit up the gym for an intense workout and re-stocked my kitchen with the healthy weekly essentials:

It felt amazing to really break a sweat and get back into the swing of things. Last week was virtually impossible to workout because of my wisdom teeth surgery and as you can see from the above pictures, the most working out I did was walking from restaurant to restaurant and pouring myself some Skinny Girl Margarita. This week I plan to eat as healthy as possible and get in some real, solid workouts!

Now I’m off to be lazy and make a salad for dinner. Have a great Monday evening

Question of the Night: What did you do this Memorial Day Weekend? Did you have good food/drinks?

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Posted in Beach, Brunch, Dinner, Drinks, Eating Out, Friends, Frozen Yogurt, Night Life, Restaurant Review, Sushi, Travel, Weekend, Workout

Weekend Eats

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Steph | 9 Comments

Hello, all! I’m happily sitting on the couch after a day of work and a pretty fantastic workout at the gym. Really quickly, my workout consisted of the following:

Run 1 mile, walk 1 minute – repeated three times
3 sets of 12 tabata squats
3 sets of 12 plie squats
3 sets of 15 butt lifts –> follow the first exercise move here, but instead of kicking the leg out to the right or left, just kick straight back.
3 sets of 20 calf raises (12.5 dumb bell in each hand)

I rounded everything out with 100 crunches.

Now time for the yummy stuff – what I ate over the weekend! I don’t know about you, but I generally eat out at least once during the weekend – be it Friday or Saturday. Lucky for me, I had dinner with my friends on Friday and brunch on Saturday with a friend, as well!

Friday brought us to Josie’s, which I don’t go to as often as I’d like to, but it’s a place where I always know the food will be delicious. Love reliable restaurants!

I went with an open-faced turkey burger topped with American soy cheese.. great choice, if I do say so myself. I also opted for a salad over fries.

My room mate, Britt, went for the turkey burger as well but chose cheddar cheese and kept the bun! She also chose the fries. Yummmaaay stuff.

My friend Krystyna chose the angel hair pasta with turkey meat balls (which went un-pictured) and my friend Rebecca decided to order two appetizers instead of an entree–which is a great idea. Her dishes included Steamed Wild Shrimp and Veggie Dumplings and the Roasted Beet Salad.

After dinner, we all went to a bar for a fish bowl (yes, a fish bowl.. don’t act like you haven’t had one) and a couple drinks. And dancing. Of course there was dancing it’s a good way to burn off those drinks! We didn’t wind up going to bed ’til 3:00 AM, and any time that happens, I always wind up being SO hungry the next day. I have no idea why—any takers??

Rebecca and I decided that brunch sounded good, so we headed out to find a restaurant that wasn’t too fancy or over-priced. We landed at a place called Moroccan, but unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me find the restaurant’s website.

I loved this chandelier:

Also loved that we were seated at a table that was perfect for people watching:

I ordered an egg white omelette with low fat munster cheese, mushrooms, and onions. It also came with multi-grain toast and home made strawberry preserves which was the bomb diggity!

Rebecca ordered eggs benedict with smoked salmon:

Overall, it was a delicious weekend filled with yummy, yummy food.

Question of the Night: What was the best thing you ate this passed weekend?

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Posted in Brunch, Dinner, Eating Out, Food, Friends, NYC, Restaurant Review, Workout

Re-Charge Those Batteries

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Steph | 4 Comments

It’s Sunday already – I can’t believe it. How was your weekend?? Mine was jam-packed. I’ll have more for you tomorrow with the eats, but for now, I’ll give you a quick run down:

Friday: Dinner with the girls followed by some bar time.
Saturday: Brunch followed by shopping with a family friend who was in NY from LA.
Saturday night: Decided very last minute (6 PM) that I wanted to head to my parents’ house to RELAX.
Sunday: A cardio-filled workout at the gym with my friend Rebecca followed by a mani/pedi.

I was very happy that I went with my gut to leave the city for a total of 36 hours. With all of the running around that’s been going on – my body and mind were telling me that I needed to get out of the “go, go, go” for a little bit to sleep and watch excessive re-runs of trashy television. Another little thing was also calling me home:

In my comfy pajamas with Spanky = my kind of Sunday morning. And no, I am not choking him.

I think tonight calls for some take out.. sushi maybe? Likely followed by fro yo… now that sounds GOOD!

Have a relaxing Sunday, everyone.

Question: What do you do whenever you start to feel a little run down?

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Posted in Brunch, Exercise, Relaxing, Sushi

Weekend Re-Cap

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Steph | 6 Comments

Sunday again?? Man, you come so quickly. How was your weekend? I’d have to say mine was quite busy, filled with friends, and definitely fun. On Friday night, I went out to Staten Island and stayed at my friend Alyssa’s. We had a wine night with a bunch of her close friends (those are the best) filled with vino (duh), candy, and gossip about celebrities (AKA Kim Kardashian filing for divorce from Kris Humphries 72 days after the wedding. I’m still not over it).

The next day, Alyssa and I decided to do what we do best–shop! Before the shopping extravaganza, we needed to fuel up–Dunkin Donuts it was!

An egg white flat with a medium hot toasted almond coffee for meand for Alyssa, a pumpkin iced coffee and a croissant.

Here are some of my purchases

In Love With My New Skirt

H&M - $25. YES.

Nine West Boots

H&M once again

Jessica Simpson Pumps

…YYYeaaahhh I went all out. Of course we made a pit-stop for lunch:

I had a hankering for sushi – but there was just a little too much brown rice for me. When there is too much brown rice, you can’t even taste the fish! I wound up leaving a good amount of the rice behind, but eating everything else

The trip back on the ferry was so nice–I really enjoyed passing the Statue of Liberty:

Once I got home, I did a bit of food shopping and did some cookin’ in the kithen!

Crock Pot Magic

Chocolate Covered Katie’s Pumpkin Cookie Dough Dip..

Whirled up in the Vitamix..

Absolutey Phenom

Onto Sunday… the NYC Marathon was today, and lucky for me, I was able to watch a good amount of it from a friend’s apartment where there was a marathon brunch!