I have continued my island hopping for the summer and ended up in Martha’s Vineyard for the week with friends. We all had an amazing time and great beach weather. My girlfriend rented an amazing house on the island for entertaining on the water in Oak Bluffs. It was really, a great week!

If you haven’t had a chance to try Pimm’s , please do! It’s a gin-based liquor that has spices and fruit juices. The Pimm’s cocktail was one of my favorite drinks made by our in house mixologist in MV. Pimm’s cocktail: fresh muddled fruit and ginger ale. Great for aperitivo after the beach.

We ended up on the way back from South Beach, Bad Martha’s. Its a brand new brewery on the island that offers a variety of beers. Summer Shandy’s and fresh pretzels! You can’t go wrong. This is a must go to on your next trip to MV.

One of my most favorite parts of Martha’s Vineyard is Edgartown. It’s a very nice part of the island with great shopping and some really great restaurants. We were in the mood for more of a lounge on our last night, so we headed to Alchemy on Main Street in Edgartown. The menu is great, you can’t go wrong with anything you get. We ended up with Burgers and a mash potaoto salad. Everything was fantastic!

If you haven’t had a chance to get over to MV for a day or two, you should. Rent a bike, go to a few of the beaches and try some of the great restaurants. It’s really an easy ride on the ferry to get to a fun and great vacation spot. Enjoy the rest of the week!

If you are looking for a great summer read pick up Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. This book is not only an inspirational read, you may even get motivated to get up and RUN! McDougall talks about the Tarahumara Indians and how they are able to run hundreds of miles without injury. McDougall who also is an elite runner is searching for the Tarahumara Indians running secrets.

Could Chia seeds be one of the secrets?

Chia is one of the nutritional packed foods that the Aztecs and Tarahumara Indians ate regurarly to keep them strong and injury free. Chia has become increasingly popular in America for its fiber, nutrients and protein.

I came across these really delicious Health Warrior Chia Bars. They come in a variety of flavors. Apple Cinnamon is my favorite. They are a great pre and post workout snack. I even grab a bunch for the beach if I get hungry! You can get them online at Amazon.com and shipped next day! Give them a try!

I’m always looking for a great headband to wear while I am working out or even as a nice accessory on a hot summer day to pull my locks back. I absolutely love Higgy’s Headbands. They are backed with velvet so they don’t slip off your head while working out. Perfect! Higgy’s Headbands will also make custom headbands for birthday parties, bachelorette parties, work events etc. Take a look at their Facebook page: Higgy’s Headbands, and reach out to them to get yours. Enjoy!

This is one of my favorite recipes for summer. It’s both a colorful and light dish to serve on these hot summer nights. You can add some of your favorite veggies to make it your own. I like to add broccoli and omit the olives. I’m not the biggest fan of the olive. Try it out! I hope you enjoy.

Mediterranean Boneless Pork Chops

Ingredients:

16 oz (8) thin sliced center cut boneless pork chops
3/4 tsp of McCormick Montreal Chicken Seasoning (25% Less Sodium)
1 small (6 oz) zucchini, ends trimmed off
1 small (6 oz) yellow squash, ends trimmed off
1 cup halved grape tomatoes
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
¼ tsp Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper
¼ teaspoon oregano
3 garlic cloves, sliced thin
cooking spray
1/4 cup of pitted and sliced Kalamata olives
1/4 cup of crumbled Feta cheese
fresh juice from 1/2 large lemon
1 tsp grated Lemon rind

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Season the pork chops with Montreal seasoning (or any seasoned salt you like).

To Julienne the Zucchini and Yellow Squash: Use a mandolin fitted with a julienne blade, or slice the zucchini into 1/8-inch thick slices. Cut the slices lengthwise into 1/8-inch thick strips.

Toss the tomatoes with 1/2 tbsp of the olive oil, 1/8 tsp salt, pepper, and oregano. Place tomatoes, cut side up, on a baking sheet lightly sprayed with cooking spray; roast for 10 minutes. Add sliced garlic and roast for another 5 minutes (this will prevent the garlic from burning). Transfer to a large work bowl and set aside. Reduce oven to 200°F.

Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, add remaining 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and zucchini with 1/8 tsp salt and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add to bowl with tomatoes and place in the warm oven.

Working in two batches, spray the skillet with cooking spray and cook half of the the pork chops on medium-high heat for about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes on each side. The pork chops are thin so you don’t want to over cook them or they will be tough. Set aside on a platter.

Remove the vegetables from the oven toss with Kalamata olives, juice of lemon and lemon rind. Serve the vegetables over the pork chops and top with Feta cheese.

skinnytaste.com

I have been MIA for quite some time. Looking for a house, living on Nantucket and Boston, and having lots of fun with friends on the weekends has taken me away from blogging. Well, I am back and hopefully will have lots of fun things to share.

We just got back on Friday from Nantucket once again. If you are planning a trip over this year, revisit my blog. I think we have almost eaten at every restaurant. Not good on the waist line, but so yummy! So far our top three are Le Languedoc Inn and Bistro, Straight Wharf (dining room) and Cru, they have a great warm lobster roll and blue crab cocktail.

Le Languedoc, in my opinion had one of the best sautéed lobster and polenta dishes, as well as the best dessert. The Crunch sundae to die for! We also opted for the cheese soufflé. Delish!

It did end up pouring one of the days we were there. Not to worry, we made the best of our day and ended up trying Lola Burger. It was a good fast food kind of place! I would say its similar to Wahlburgers in Hingham, MA. Not as vast as a menu but very similiar. You can even spot some celebrities there as well. Drew Barrymore was enjoying one of Lola’s burgers as well.

As always, we hit up Surfside beach and the Childrens beach for an after dinner walk! Love the beach!

Happy Monday! Enjoy the week!

We had the best cocktails at the beach a few weekends ago and I wanted to make them again this past weekend to have with some friends that were coming over. Once again, the head of catering at Brix Wine Shop and a great friend of mine, Emily, never fails in this department. Thank goodness she let’s me use some of her wonderful cocktail ideas! Stop by Brix and she might even share some more of her yummy recipes. Here is one of my favorites!

Rose Sangria

1 bottle Rose
1 bottle sparkling wine
Watermelon, cubed
Strawberries, sliced
Mint leaves
Sweetener (Sugar/Splenda/Stevia)
Seltzer (optional)

Mix rose with some of the fruit and mint and let sit overnight to infuse flavor. Strain out fruit/mint when ready to serve. Sweeten to taste. (Note: real sugar won’t dissolve well, so make simple syrup if using sugar, see below). Add fresh fruit, mint, and chilled sparkling wine. Add a few splashes of seltzer for more bubbles.

And, we also made this fun Watermelon Jell-O Shots! They were super easy to make and very festive!

Watermelon Jell-O Shots

Recipe by Christine Byrne
Makes about 30 wedge shots
Ingredients
1 12–16 pound watermelon
4 cups vodka
4 3-ounce boxes red Jell-O mix
2 1-ounce boxes unflavored gelatin
Preparation
1. Using a large chef’s knife, cut the watermelon into two equal halves, lengthwise.
2. Use your knife to slice all the way around the perimeter of the watermelon flesh, about an inch from the rind. Be careful not to pierce through the skin, as this will lead to your Jell-O leaking out. Then use a kitchen spoon to scrape out the rest and create a smooth bowl with roughly 1/2-inch red watermelon flesh left on the rind.
3. Line two small, rimmed baking sheets with paper towels in a way that creates a bed for your watermelon bowls. The idea is to create enough support to keep the watermelon bowls from rolling at all while they’re in the fridge. Put one bowl in the center of each tray and set aside.
4. In a large mixing bowl, combine the Jell-O mix and the unflavored gelatin. Add 4 cups of boiling water and whisk until the gelatin is completely dissolved, about 2 minutes. Add the vodka all at once and whisk just to combine.
5. Pour the Jell-O mixture into the watermelon bowls, dividing evenly. Carefully place the Jell-O filled watermelon bowls in the fridge, and refrigerate until set, about 4 hours.
6. When Jell-O is set, cut each half into 1-inch slices, crosswise, then cut each slice into 2–3 wedges, and serve.

So, we are nearing mid July shortly and we are still “homeless” and actually enjoying it. I know, the summer is going to come to an end and then reality is going to settle in and I will realize that we really need to make some big decisions. I have in fact come to the realization of where we need to go, now its just finding a place that we both can agree on. Easier said then done! I think we have been in about 50 homes already, looked at plans and land to build and we still haven’t come to any conclusions.

As many of you know, I don’t cook but one of the most important places in our new home is the kitchen. The kitchen is where everyone congregates, eats, talks and cooks. I love kitchens and I have promised to start cooking if I can find a magnificent one! Here are some of my inspirations. We are even considering a gut job in some homes just to build something amazing! I really love detail on the ceiling similar to the the last picture, not of a kitchen but of a living room, created and designed by my mother. I can see that ceiling in an all white kitchen. I love it! Wish me luck! I know we will find something soon, I hope!

I wanted to share this wonderful piece by a great Boston Designer, Cynthia Driscoll, who has done some incredible work over the years. She has just completed her big project on Nantucket. If you are in Boston stop by here store on Charles Street to say hello! Here is a piece written by Cynthia. Enjoy!

We love Nantucket! Every part of the island is great, but we especially like being near the town center where we can walk to restaurants, shops and beaches. There’s nothing like waking before everyone else and wandering to the nearest bakery for a cup of coffee and a freshly baked pastry. Sometimes I even return with a bag of goodies for the late sleepers.
After years of being renters, this winter we had the opportunity to purchase our own house. The place was a mess after seven years of being a “rental mill.” If you’re not sure of the term, it’s a house that’s rented out to anybody, any time, with few or no restrictions. We’ve had four months to restore the house and it’s looking pretty good. Exterior and interior paint, refinished floors, all new furniture and lighting are some of the improvements. One of our terms in the purchase agreement was to have every piece of furniture, every dish, every towel removed from the house. It was quite a nasty place.
As a designer, I wanted the house to look chic, but comfortable and livable. I decided to use some modern elements with clean lines, but also a bit of whimsy.
Here are some pics of our house:
The farmers porch is fabulous! I don’t know why and I almost don’t dare say it out loud, but we haven’t had any mosquitoes in the evening. There are eight Adirondacks, four rockers and four classics on the porch. And yes, tables beside each for our evening beverages.

Coming into the entry is a rustic white washed table that holds a giant clam shell as well as green and turquoise sea glass bottles. Yes, there are two bottles on the lucite brackets secretly held in place with mounting tape.

The next pic is of the living room. With tongue in cheek, I placed a coffee table between a sofa and two chairs. The table top is called cheese stone (Swiss, I assume) and has huge natural holes throughout. You need to be careful where you put your glass. It’s part of our sobriety test. The stone weighs about 400 pounds and is on a stainless steel base. The color theme is blue and turquoise and has other surprises on the wall that you’ll see in the next pic.
Silver leafed fish are swimming the walls of the living room. The big ones are chasing the small ones and the small ones are getting away…..so far. There are nine of these large specimens swimming around the room.

The dining room seats 10. The top is a huge, thick slab of wood. It’s irregular edges are a great contrast to the stainless steel base. The white chairs are copies of a mid-century Panton chair. They are funky looking, very comfortable and extremely durable. The lighting fixture is modern with lots of strands of crystals hanging from a stainless steel rod. I like to dim it and put lots of candles on the length of the table.

As you can see, I’ve had lots of fun with this project. It’s a great house with five bedrooms all with ensuite bathrooms. Everyone gets their own personal space. Some of the bedrooms have their own tv’s if one seeks alone time. There’s a family room tv and in the finished basement a 65″ television to be enjoyed from motorized recliners. OMG, this place sounds fabulous! And it is.
More pics later so stay tuned.

If you would like to rent a few weeks at this fabulous house reach out to: danielle@bostonchicblog.com

I’m stepping in and taking over today’s Boston Chic blog from my wife. I felt the need to write a short sports blog for all the sports fans out there, in order to add another dynamic to this already great site….shameless plug.

The sport of futball or football or soccer (Christ why are the so many names) has captivated the American public over the past month during this World Cup and as an avid sports enthusiast, I can only hope that it continues to grow here in the U.S. (I need something to fill the lull between NHL playoffs and the start of “American football”. And why shouldn’t it? It has all the key elements that make all sports great. Great rivalries? Check. Exceptional athletes. Check. Deep competitiveness. Check Overpaid primadonas? Double check. Said primadonas bitching about all their calls? Triple Check (Ronaldo), and last but not least…..flopping. I mean let’s be serious for a minute, some of these Nancy’s looked like they got sniped by a bee outta nowhere before they were touched by the opponent and then rolled around on the ground like it was fifth grade and the fire department was teaching the stop drop and roll routine. Just a pitiful display of sportsmanship. But………in the world of soccer or whatever you want to call it, it works. let’s be straight I am only talking about the rest of the world when I make these snide comments. The US made me proud and kept tha BS to an absolute minimum, and played a tournament they should be proud of.

So what is stopping soccer from catching on like the other big 4 sports? It can’t be the egregious flopping, we have that in extreme prevalence in the NBA (lebron) and in the NHL (all of Montreal……god I hate them) and both those sports are dominating in the US market. I thought it was lack of the superstar, jordanesqe status of the MLS players but Beckham proved that wasn’t the case either. This is a stumper.

I don’t know what it is, and welcome an open discussion in the comment section, but if the MLS can put out the kind of product I witnessed in the World Cup with all the competitiveness, blood, sweat, and tears. Sign me up. I had a great time watching our boys play on the world stage and even more so, Tim Howard putting on a clinic on what it is to carry your team on your back and put yourself in the record books at the same time. Bravo. Well done to the entire team. I can only hope MLS can now step up sustain this buzz because it would be a shame to let it go another four years to see some great soccer. Happy Fourth of July folks, while we didn’t win it all, it always good to be an American. God bless

Sorry, I have been MIA for quite a few days. I have this awful cold that I just can’t get rid of and its really put a damper on our time on the island this past week.  Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to do all the fun things that we like to do, but we are trying to make the best of it while I take it easy.

Taking it easy, meant let’s go grab some fresh strawberries at Bartlett farm in Nantucket. We were able to go out into the field and pick these wonderful fresh strawberries that were fantastic! I threw together this quick, easy and somewhat healthy a few nights ago. Strawberries with angel food cake and fresh whipped cream! Delightful!

Fresh Whipped Cream

Ingredients:

1 pt. whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar (confectioners) or Splenda or Stevia in the Raw
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Pour whipping cream into a medium to large sized bowl.

Beat the cream with an electric mixer, about 3 to 4 minutes, until it starts to become firm.

Then add the powdered sugar and continue beating.

Once the powdered sugar is mixed in add the vanilla.

Continue beating with electric mixer until your whipped cream is firm, but smooth. About another minute or two.

You don’t want to over beat it because it will turn to butter.

Let me know what you think of making your own Fresh Whipping Cream. It is so good, I love it. I always love hearing from you.