Jeroen's 40th........

He is no longer the young brad, the adolescent, the fresh green leaf. Jeroen turned 40. And that called for a celebration. Starting with breakfast with cake, cookies and presents!!!! My parents got me a book about lost Chicago, with many historic pictures. Gabriella made me her first 3-dimensional piece of beaded art, an amazing fishbowl or aquatic world called 'Als een vis in het water bij jou'. I think she has found her calling........

And the picture is taken with her other gift to me: the fantastic new Panasonic GF-1, a digital camera that is something in between a compact point-and-shoot and a big SLR. It's almost as small as a compact camera, but has interchangeable lenses and all the settings, options and speed of the much bigger and heavier SLR cameras. And it's taking great pictures. This is a happy birthday indeed.

But she had more surprises up her sleeve to make this a birthday to remember. Clear instructions that I had to be ready, dressed in suit and all, at 5:00 PM. And it quickly became clear why: the stretch limo was waiting outside for a drive to.... how should I know? 

But with a beautiful wife and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot (she thought of everything), this is certainly the best way of being stuck in Friday night Chicago rush hour, even if you don't know where you're going.

We ended up at award-winning L2O restaurant in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Very chique, great food, 8 courses in between which the table setting and silverware apparently needed rearrangement. So a bit stiff, but that made for an even more amusing night exchanging laughs with our neighboring table who where birthday celebrating as well.

So what was on the seasonal tasting menu: 

- amuse of oyster with yummy stuff I didn't recognize

- another amuse of I don't remember

- big eye tuna tartare with kampachi and yuzu-soy

- salted cod with creamy potato and caviar

- foie gras a la plancha with blood orange and roasted fennel

- forest mushroom fricassee with brown butter - lemongrass bouillon

- tai snapper with deconstructed green curry: OUR FAVORITE BY FAR!

- korean barbeque beef tenderloin with tempura vegetables

- caramelized apple with hazelnut and vanilla

- grand marnier souffle with orange marmalade

With a little bit too much alcohol, it was good that the taxi back home was waiting for us. And it had started snowing again, creating a birthday winter wonderland. Thanks Gabi for a memorable 40th. Looking forward to the next 40!

Where is sheep?

Location:Leonard Wood Ave S,Highland Park,United States

Our favorite new restaurant

Chocolate terrine with pistachio sauce. Mmmmm.

Happy Valentines day

Yesterday we were on Lovers Key. What a gorgeous beach! And what a lovely day: sunshine and good company. What a pity we had to leave that soon.

Florida

We are visiting Jeroen's parents Jan and Tine for the fifth time in Florida. They are snow birding there, escaping the dreary Dutch winter weather. It's the third time we visit them in Fort Myers Beach, where they rent a condo right on the beach with fantastic views over the Gulf of Mexico and a small estuary filled with wildlife.

And after a nice day in the sun, we dined out at Blue Pointe Oyster Bar and Seafood Grille in Fort Myers for an early celebration of Jeroen's 40th birthday coming up in two weeks.
It's nice to spend a couple of days in 50oF warmer weather!!

Location:Estero Blvd,Fort Myers Beach,United States

Historic blizzard

I guess you heard of the historic storm hitting the Midwest, all the way from New Mexico to Maine with historic 20" snowfall in 24 hours in Oklahoma and Chicago. Jeroen left for work Tuesday morning early.

The roads were still reasonably clean, but the forecast was pretty horrific. A couple of inches of snow on Monday night, so Johnny needed little cleaning.

Because of all blizzard and flood warnings along the lakefront that were in effect starting Tuesday 2pm, coming home from work around noon seemed the smartest thing to do. However, there is a snow ordinance/no parking in effect out in front of our house each Tuesday from 10am-2pm (so crews can clean the streets), so Johnny had to be parked further down the street. The blizzard lived up to the forecast - winds started picking up on Tuesday afternoon, creating another winter wonderland out there.

 So better get Johnny, now we still can.

The strong northeastern winds blow straight from Lake Michigan over the fort's parade ground, making the snow go horizontally. Not sure if this is new snow falling, or snow being blown up from the ground. Probably both.

Some dogs are loving this weather, but the owners not so much. Ruba not so much either, so we are trying an indoor "potty-patch". So far without success, because of 13 years of conditioning and training to go and do her thing outside.

Tuesday evening is nice cocooning with the blizzard howling at 50-60 miles per hour outside, the century old roof cracking, and the Weather Channel reporting about power outages, ice rain in Indiana and motorists stuck on Chicago's Lakeshore Drive. We are learning new weather phenomena here, and today's term was "thunder snow". The thunder combined with the snow creates a catalyst, so around 9pm it was coming down at 2-3 inches per hour and blowing in all directions. Waking up on Wednesday morning it was still snowing, and we had about 2 feet on the ground. So much that they had stopped plowing.

 But when the going gets tough, the tough get flapping. Finally we can try our new snowshoes!

The wind is still chilly, blowing up snow.

But eventually the sun even came out, making for another picture-perfect sight.