Fun, Frolicking Weekend

Phew, what a weekend! The Nutcracker on Friday evening was absolutely beautiful. Seeing it is always one of the highlights of the holiday season for me.

Here are just a couple pics from Lincoln Center. The main hall is decorated with photographs of the NYC Ballet Company through the years.

I could spend hours gazing upon them - just beautiful!

Saturday we were invited to our dear friends J & M for dinner at their new condo in Brooklyn (which is fabulous!)

M is from Japan and made us an absolutely incredible meal (I'm still dreaming about it).

This is M teaching us how to make our own hand rolls made with salmon, tuna, tomago (egg), cucumber and radish.

She also introduced me to Nambe - which I can only really describe as making fresh chicken soup table-side. She started with a basic broth and then added ground chicken seasoned with ginger and scallions.

After the chicken cooked for a few seconds, handfuls of veggies were added to the mix and then she covered and let it steam until everything was cooked to perfection. It was the healthiest comfort food I've ever had. Simply delish! Fresh homemade gyoza were also served. I was a happy girl!!

I just had to snap a few pics of their new condo - the decorating is a work-in-progress, but I love the direction that they are going in. Yes, that would be my husband hamming it up for the camera. LOL.

I fell in love with the mirror (it's inset into the wall) and the tile in their bathroom. The tiles were the most beautiful veriagrated gray color.

M is a super talented architect (she has helped design some famous buildings here in NYC as well as Tokyo) and has displayed a few of her sketches around their condo. I love how she left the frayed edges on the paper - nice detail!

Sunday we headed back into the city (for the third day in a row) to meet some friends for brunch which was a blast as always. Afterwards, the hubs and I decided to do some touristy things and headed to Rockefeller Center to see the Tree.

Trying to snap a picture among the hoards of people surrounding the tree is practically impossible. Most of our attempts looked like this.

Just some other random pics from the weekend...Here are Cartier and Versace all dressed up for the holidays.

The beautiful Plaza Hotel

A line of horse-drawn carriages circling the park.

We're having a handful of friends over to ring in the new year - can't wait!! Off to plan the menu for that shin-dig.