foie gras eye candy

foie gras candy bars at lacroix at the rittenhouse hotel, philadelphia

i saw this pretty picture on my friend sam lipoff's computer and couldn't resist stealing it for my own! 

a thankful thanksgiving dinner

this thanksgiving, i am thankful for....

friends who take me in and feed me well when i am far from home

boston lettuce, pear, walnuts, red peppers, kumquat

penguin-shaped bottle stoppers

apple, for creating such lovely shiny toys

tory burch, for creating heartbreakingly cute accoutrements for said toys

the chance to have so many delicious meals and share them with the world

no thanks to the meanie who insisted on putting an onion in the middle of my plate. :P

PIE!

especially those made with puff pastry

and for countless other things, people, and places.

happy thanksgiving!

love,
li

prana!

recently i got an email from a concerned reader asking me why i haven't posted lately. firstly, bless you for caring! secondly, i'm so sorry! i know i've sort of just fallen off the blogging wagon, but i think my excuses are pretty valid:

1. there's not much to blog around boston...
2. i've been traveling a lot. at times i even thought about changing the blog to "the room service diaries," but then the #occupyharvards would likely come after me.
3. my dslr is heavy, and combined with the weight of my books and whatnot, my shoulder would likely snap off if i tried to carry it around with me.
4. i've been going through a sort of existential quarter life crisis and i vowed to myself that i wouldn't blog again til after i had it all figured out. well, after much reading of kant, kierkegaarde, voltaire, the bible, etc., long walks through mt. auburn cemetery (then subsequently getting locked in, but that's a story for another day), clarity still hasn't happened... wtf. so to hell with it. here's some food!

photo from the boston herald

i went to prana in newton the other night for dinner, and i think even my staunchly anti-vegetarian friend (who constantly reminds me of richard wrangham's research and how anthony bourdain [loveee him] disdains vegetarians) was impressed!

the decor was super zen — blue and green, lovely, clean, and modern, and the food was so fresh and light, with lots of raw dishes on the menu.

lots of paintings of faces everywhere... watching judgmentally as you make your choices.

"room temperature water, please." it was still on the chilly side :(

lots of neat foods for sale — raw chocolate, brownies, kale chips, nuts, nut butters, coconut meat, powders... to be ransacked post-meal :)

this was the "immune booster" smoothie, made with hibiscus water, apple juice, shilajit (just googled it... i'm still confused), strawberries, and ginger. it tasted very healthy and immunity-enhancing hehe.

we started with a pear and pecan salad, which also had dried cherries and some sort of "cheese" made with cashews, with the consistency of brie. i LOVE pear salads. this was among the best i've had.

then their raw pizza du jour, topped with sprouts, some sort of nut cheese, pesto, mushrooms, and red peppers. quite good! in the middle of eating this i realized that raw food is very filling and leafy. so much chewing... omg. tiring. exercise and dining in one! 

my friend asked, "why do they even bother calling this a pizza? why not just a flatbread?"interesting thought. perhaps to raw foodists this actually begins to taste like their memories of pizza? (in which case, that's kind of sad.)

fact: raw food is prettier than cooked food.

the dessert stomach appeared just in time for this coconut cream pie. (raw, of course.)

did you know that in france they write "miam miam"? why must they be so darn adorable??!

white peony tea.

this fermented saffron soda tasted like a mix between kombucha, apple juice, and beer. it claimed to be probiotic too.

and then i had a lot of fun poking around their grocery selection and spent a small fortune on kale chips, raw chocolate, and raw truffles.

before we left i told the waitress that they should open a location in harvard square. i'm sure the busloads of asian tourists would be all over it!!

i'll leave you with some random pictures of my favourite city:

i had a gossip girl moment walking outside and seeing this at night :)

i might not update again for a while... but i have epic (seriously epic) plans for dec-jan so stay tuned :)