a fantastic day

saturday aubrey and i celebrated our anniversary. we dropped off luca at nonna's house in the morning for a full day and sleep-over. we hopped on the bus to manhattan and walked up to alfredo's restaurant. there is an alfredo's in rome, and the restaurant was started by alfredo. as in fettucine alfredo. this dude invented it almost 100 years ago. which is why we figured the restaurant would be up to our snob standards here on the east coast.

here's a run-down of our order:
we started with a 2000 montepulciano and frittura alla romana. fried calamari, shrimp in a nice tempura batter, and fried peppers, veggies, apples and pears. oh and they had great bread which came with crushed black olive paste, tomato paste and a white-bean paste which tasted a lot like hummus.

aubrey had the fettucine, which was fantastic. and i had the penne alla checca. it was nice... it wasn't like it was in rome, but close enough. black olives, fresh basil and mozzarella di bufala. at that point we should have stopped, but we had already ordered roman artichokes like they make in the jewish ghetto. they were a bit undercooked, but tasty nonetheless. and the pasta was perfectly al dente.

we succombed and had desert too, and i had a grappa. the caffe and capuccino were horrendous... really bad. but the food was incredible. it was definitely the best italian food we've had (eating out) since we've been back in america.

of course they prices were high, and it's not the kind of place we could afford to go to often, but still a great place to eat.

after a long relaxing lunch at alfredo's we walked down to the little deli that nicola and i found last week for good espresso. but they had just closed. we ended up at smith's bar for a few pints before heading back to jersey.

we just had a wonderful time - chatting, talking about luca (!), and having a saturday afternoon. later on in the evening we met up at jenny and paul's house, where they had a little christmas get-together for thier family. it was a nice do, jenny made way too much food, but it was all good.

this morning we slept in, which was a first in a long time for aubrey. laid in bed, having coffee, watching the newest episode of little britain. this afternoon was the cece christmas do, the major once-a-year dinner/open bar at the brownstone. we passed it like most of these parties, talking amongst ourselves asking if so-and-so is related to us, and trying to figure out who the people in our family are. the only difference this year was that i DIDN'T end up drunk off my ass, and passed out in the bathroom at the end of the night. which definitely was a good thing.

i'm working daytime this week which is nice, because i might be able to meet up with gerard in the city before christmas. stil have some gifts to get, and wrap some things, and then just celebrate christmas at the end of the week! i;m looking forward to the holidays!