There is a cute polish man couch surfing at my place.  At first he was friendly, and fun. Now, he’s kind of douche-bag-ey. I should have read into that performance when we had dinner the first day and he told me that people usually don’t like him once they get to know him.  You think?

I bought a house.  I keep saying it over and over. I bought a house.  A cute house. I shit you not – it has a picket fence.  It looks like houses look when little kids draw them.  A square, a triangle, and a chimney.

I’m excited.  I’m petrified.  I can’t wait to move in.  I don’t want to leave the North End.  I always said I would never buy a house. It would be easier for me to get married than to buy a house.  But, I saw this one, and like my baby jeep I got last summer – I knew it was mine.

It’s almost like I’m grown up.

I miss posting stuff. I post on twitter, sure.  But, I miss writing random things.  Maybe I’ll start again.

Maybe shorter?  Maybe more pictures.

So the only blogging I did was to post some restaurant reviews!  Bad, Bad me!  I’ve had so much to say this past year, but got so swamped with school, work, casts, life….you know. The basic excuses.

So – the past year. What has happened?

- I moved to the North End. I love it here. I’ve actually thought about buying a place here. THAT is how much I love it.  It won’t happen any time soon.

- I became a Physics teacher.  Strange, since I haven’t passed the Physics MTEL, and I’m licensed in Math. But, this gave me a great position at school, and I hope to pass the MTEL this spring.

- I switched schools. I stopped the math program at Harvard, and am working on a Physics program at BU.  I’m going to attempt the GREs this year and try to get into BU.  Wish me luck!!

- I finally went back to spring training. This time in Florida. I had so much fun – went with someone who became a great friend (Tm) through the year, but I have recently had a falling out with.  I’m pretty bummed about that.

- I went to Chicago with school, and hit up a Cubbies game. Went to NY for a Yankees game and met a new friend (Mg) on the bus ride home.  I hung out with an old friend in NY (Lr), and even made it back to Sea-town for Turkey day to visit old friends (Ph and Tf).

- My family seems to be on the right track.  Both brothers and sis have 1 year olds, and it seemed to settle everyone down. Nice.

So much happened this past year!  On to the next one!

Dinner – Wednesday, April 25, 2007 – Every time I’ve been by this place, I see a huge line out the door. I never knew why, since it’s cash only (I hate that), no reservations, and there’s a million super places on the same street.  We showed up at about 4:45, early for dinner, and had to wait outside in the rain, even though there was someone inside eating, and they knew we were waiting.

The server we had wasn’t fun, but the food was awesome, so I guess that made up for the annoying broad.

On the other hand – why is there always a line?  Turns out, this place has $17 bottles of wine.  Tons of them.  AND a $37 bottle of BAROLO!  I LOVE that stuff!

I had grilled salmon with tons of fabulous veggies.  They were good, but not marinated in anything, or anything more than I could have made at home. Except with a $37 bottle of Barolo.

Dinner – Sunday, April 22, 2007 – The sun was shining, and the doors were swung wide open down the whole side of the building – beckoning me, asking me to come and hang out. Seriously, it was calling my name!

I started off with a fabulous glass of wine (although I don’t remember which one?), and then moved on to an super yummy caprese appetizer. I thought it was a little small for the price ($10) – with just 4 small chunks of chese, 3 slices of tomato, and a little mixed greens. Apparently, it also comes with some sort of giant “crouton.”

Dinner was just another appetizer, one of the specials, which was a stuffed pepper. It was stuffed with ground beef, rice, peppers, tomatoes, something else, something else….oh it was SO YUMMY!!

Lunch – Thursday, April 19, 2007 – I walked in and had to wait a bit to even see someone that worked there. Although, it was a slow Thursday daytime, so perhaps they just don’t really plan for lunch?  I asked about things that don’t involve flour or pasta – and he just handed me a dinner menu and said there were more things in there.  I wasn’t excited with that answer, and had to still ask more questions (apparently – baked chicken is breaded, and sautéed chicken is not). 

I ended up with the Chicken Marsala. It was OK. The chicken was dry, but the no-flour (made to order) marsala sauce and billions of mushrooms were fabulous!  It is probably usually served with pasta or something of that nature, since the order was pretty small. It would have been nice if they offered something that they could give me instead, but I also should have asked.

The place was kinda weird in that everything had a fake white marble to it. The bathrooms looked like a mountain threw up in it. It was kinda bizarre.  They take credit cards, as well as reservations on that reservation system, but overall, I just felt it was an OK.

www.motherannas.com

211 Hanover – Lunch – Wednesday, April 18, 2007 -  We came into some old Italian opera music that made me dread my decision the second I walked in the door.  You walked right into a giant bar that looks like it would be fun and lively on a Friday night – and I felt a little better.   The place had a great little brick wall feel, and tons of signed Boston Bruins stuff all over some of the walls. So, once I got past the music, I was in love.

For an appetizer we started with the Peppers and cheese – which is like the regular caprese with roasted red peppers instead of the tomatoes. It was delish!  I got a pomegranate martini that was on the specials sheet, and it was AMAZING. Pomegranite vodka mixed with Citrus vodka. I have to remember that. I ordered the Pollo Venenzia – which is a Lemon Mushroom Artichoke chicken. Now, I don’t like lemon, so I’m not sure why I ordered it. Turns out, it’s in a lemon BUTTER sauce.  And by butter, I mean the plate probably had a whole stick of it.  It was amazing!  And huge.   My friend got the tortellini special – something with cheese, mushrooms, peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, stuff like that. It looked great!

 I walked down to the bathroom on the bottom floor, and they have 2 full rooms of more tables, which brick and stone walls – had a nice homey feel to it.

 Overall the place was really good. I give it almost a great!

http://bostonbeanstock.com/

Seriously – my new favorite coffee joint!

First of all, they have free internet. I know, because I’m typing this from there right now.  They have 1883 syrups, and if you’ve ever been with me when I find a place that has those, you KNOW how much I love them. Slight boo to the fact that they don’t have the tootsie-roll like chocolate flavor, but they have real caramel sauce, so I’ll forgive them.

I ordered a double super-dry cappuccino, which was a little wet for my taste, but had a fair amount of foam.  I asked for caramel, and they gave me some, but not enough to sweeten it for real.

On to dinner – I ordered a Porto-belly Panini (please, don’t lecture me about bread right now, I KNOW). Oh my god. It was amazing.  I did have them add some mozzarella cheese to it – and they did it well. Just enough that it made it all cheesy, but not too much that it took away from the goat cheese that was already on there.  Add that to the yummy marinated mushrooms, caramelized onion, and whatever the super sauce is on there. This thing was SPECTACULAR! Yum.

I’ll give this one a GRRRREAT!

 www.dailycatch.com

Lunch, Tuesday, April 17, 2007 – A big green awning welcomes you to one of the smallest eateries on Hanover.  Two tables of 6, One table of 4, and two tables of barely 2, as well as a studio apartment size kitchen, fridge, and somehow, a full 3 compartment sink completely fill the room. There’s no door to a storage area, or for that matter, a restroom (they send you across the street to Caffe Vittoria if you need to use it)!  This place could only have the freshest of food, since there is NOWHERE to store it if it wasn’t brought in today!

 The menu is posted on the wall, in chalk, and outlining the different offerings – although it looks pretty basic and probably doesn’t change all that often. I was a bit taken aback by the prices for how small and hole-in-the-wall it is (about $20-$30 a meal).   I saw clams casino on the menu, and may have to come back for that.   They also have a homemade “Black Pasta” that looks interesting.

 Water was served in a plastic, small, toss-away cup, and the meal was served in the pan it was cooked in!  I ended up ordering Scallops Linguine (I know, I shouldn’t have pasta!) – and it was AMAZING.  Scallops were cooked perfectly, tossed with olive oil, lots of garlic, and the linguine. YUM!  Before the meal, the bread was your basic Italian loaf, soft on the inside and hard on the outside.

 The waitress was great – sweet, and offered ideas whenever you asked questions!

 Overall – good to great! YUM!