Vacation Archives - 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Posted by Keelin Hollenbeck on August 4, 2013

Gilroy Garlic Festival Logo

Last weekend my boyfriend and I met up with some friends at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. It was a beautiful sunny day, as it usually is around here, and the perfect day to go to a festival. The Gilroy Garlic Festival is an annual festival that celebrates garlic and raises money for local fundraisers. The city of Gilroy is known as the “Garlic Capital of the World,” although it’s not the world largest producer of garlic. However, I am pretty sure all the garlic that is available in grocery store around here is from Gilroy.

What does a garlic festival consist of? Well enough garlicky food to make you smell like garlic for the remainder of the night and most likely smell like garlic at work the next day! Gilroy is only a 45 minute drive south from where we live so I have been wanting to go to this festival since we moved here last October. It was a fun experience and I am so glad we were able to go.

Drive To Gilroy

Fog rolling over the hills on the drive south to Gilroy.

Gilroy Sign

I love the Gilroy City sign with the garlic in the “G”

Gilroy Garlic Festival Flaming Garlic Bulb

A huge flaming garlic bulb meets you as you enter the festival.

Rows of Food

One of the food rows, the garlic bread was tasty! Three dollars for a bag with 3-4 pieces…sorry no picture of the bread because we ate it so quickly.

More Garlic Food

More food… love, love, love some garlic fries.

Beer Battered Garlic Fries

What’s better than garlic fries? Beer Battered Garlic Fries. ummm yumm

Icey Mimosa

An icey mimosa from the wine tent to cool down

Garlic Wines

Speaking of wine tents, they had garlic wine from a local vineyard that I sampled. They had a red and a white wine. It smelled like garlic and then tasted like wine with a garlic after taste. It was very interesting to try, but I don’t think I could sit down with a whole bottle.

Garlic Ice Cream

Garlic Ice Cream is one of the attractions to the Garlic Festival. One of the stands give small cones for free, but this stand had different flavors so we decided to try the Garlic Pistachio.

Garlic Pistachio Ice Cream

I am not sure if garlic pistachio ice cream is an award-winning combo, but it certainly was interesting!

Garlic Man

I am not sure what this guys name is but lets call him Garlic Man. Until next year, Garlic Man!

Sister City

This is the street that part of the festival was on. I sent a picture to M because I thought the name sounded a little familiar.

2 Sisters 2 Cities Circle

Much better!

sisterk (2)

Posted by Keelin Hollenbeck on April 28, 2013

Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza

Last weekend, my family and I went to Chicago for our cousin’s wedding. It was a great trip for several reasons. First, I got to see my family for the first time since Christmas and my extended family since Fourth of July weekend. Secondly, both my boyfriend and I had never been to Chicago before so it was all new to us.

My boyfriend and I had a better time of getting to Chicago than the rest of our family. The majority of my family’s flights out of Syracuse got canceled because of flooding in Chicago (which oddly enough didn’t affect me coming from California.) My two sisters (Our very own M and little M), my brother-in-law, and my nephew (plus soon-to-be nephew) were locked down in Boston because of the search for the Marathon Bomber suspect #2. One second, I was so excited to see my family and the next my mom called to tell me no one except me, my boyfriend, and my sister C were going to make it to the wedding. Of course this was right before take-off so for the whole four and a half hour flight, my boyfriend had to console a very sad and disappointed K. Upon landing, the texts started to come in that everyone scrambled to get new flights and would be coming staggered throughout the weekend, but would all be there for the wedding.

Excited and hungry we got off our non-dramatic SFO-to-Chicago flight and cabbed it into the city. We quickly checked into the hotel, dropped off our stuff and were on our way to find some Chicago-style grub. It was windy and cold mixed with a little snow/hail as we walked to find Al’s Deli, which in my mind is how I imagined Chicago all my life. Our hotel was in the middle of everything so it was only about a 10-15 minute walk.

Our cousin had listed some places to visit for food in Chicago on her wedding site and Al’s Beef for a “hot dog dragged through the garden” was one. As we were ordering, we ordered an Italian Beef Sandwich with hot peppers and I then asked for a “hot dog dragged thru the garden.” The girl looked at me strange and said “I don’t know what you are talking about, dragged thru the garden?” I then explained that I didn’t know what it meant, but my cousin said I had to get it. The check-out girl went to go ask her manager and he responded with “yeah, that means everything.” Rest assured, I got my hot dog “dragged thru the garden” or as I will now just call it “everything.” We split both and liked them, but were especially impressed with the hot dog.

Right across the way from Al’s Deli is Portillos. This place wasn’t on our list, but it looked pretty hopping. After checking it out on our iPhones, we realized it was also pretty famous for their hot dogs and Italian beef as well. We decided we had enough room to split another hot dog so we proceeded to do so. Also very delicious, and we both sort of liked it more then our first! Sorry Al!

As we headed back to hotel, we saw all the places for Chicago-style pizza like the original Pizzeria Uno’s. I promised Matt that we would try some the next day because there was no way I was going to eat more before the rehearsal dinner that night. The next day, my sister C, my mom, and I got our hair done at this awesome Blow Dry Bar called Blow-By Blow, highly recommended if you are ever in the area. I also think I found my new love for Blow Out Bars, mimosas and getting my hair shampooed and styled…ummm, yes please! My boyfriend and dad went out to get more hot dogs and to possibly try to get a pizza to bring back to the hotel. The pizza places all had a 45 minute wait for pizzas because that is how long they take to make. They ended up not having enough time to wait so they brought back more hot dogs for all. We never did have time for the Chicago-Style Deep-Dish pizza.

The week we got back, I decided to surprise my boyfriend by making a deep dish pizza since we never did get any. It was surprisingly easy to make and so tasty! I had one piece and I was so full! I put turkey pepperoni on ours because that is what we had in the fridge- that’s why its sort of curling up, but you can top with whatever you like.

Slice of Deep Dish Pizza

Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza

Author: 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Ingredients

Dough:

1 ½ cup plus 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour (in-between 8.1-8.2 oz. on scale)
¼ cup yellow cornmeal (Not corn starch M!)
¾ tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1⅛ tsp. instant yeast
½ cups plus 2 tbsp. water, at room temperature (5 oz.)
1½ tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened

Sauce:

1 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tbsp. grated onion,
⅛ tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp. salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 14.5 oz. can crushed tomatoes
⅛ tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. fresh basil, coarsely chopped
1½ tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Additional Salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste

Assembly:

2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
3 tbsp. shredded Parmesan cheese
Sliced pepperoni (optional)

Instructions

Dough:

Combine flour, cornmeal, salt, and yeast into the bowl of your mixer. With dough hook attachment mix on low speed for about 1 minutes until all ingredients are combined.
Slowly add in water and melted butter and continue to mix on low speed for about 1-2 minutes. Make sure to scrape down the sides to get all ingredients incorporated.
Increase the speed of the mixer to medium and knead the dough for about 4-5 minutes. The dough should become smooth and glossy.
Take a large bowl and add in 1 tsp. olive oil. Using your hands coat the oil on the bowl and add the dough ball to the bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and place at room temperature in an area without drafts, for about 1 hour.
To laminate the dough, turn the dough out onto a dry work surface. Form dough into an 8- by 6-inch rectangle. Using a spatula or butter knife spread the 2 tbsp. of softened butter evenly on the dough leaving about a ½ inch of un-buttered dough around the edges. Stating at the 6-inch side, roll the dough tightly into a cylinder shape, pinching the ends together. Place the seam side down and flatten the dough into 9- by 2-inch rectangular. Fold dough into thirds, folding up the bottom side and then folding the top side over. Pinch the seams to form a ball. Place the dough ball back in the oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. Let set for 40-50 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Sauce:

This can be done while the dough is rising. Melt 1 tbsp. of butter to a medium-sized sauce pan over medium heat. Add in onions, oregano, and salt. Stirring occasionally, cook onions until golden brown, about 4-5 minutes. Add in garlic and cook for about 30 seconds. You should be able to smell garlic. Stir in the tomatoes and sugar and increase the the heat to about medium high. Bring the sauce to a simmer, lower heat to medium-low and keep at simmer for about 25 minutes. The sauce should thicken and reduce to about 1¼ cup. Take the sauce off heat and stir in basil and 1½ tsp. olive oil. Set aside.

Assembly:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Coat a 9-inch cake pan with 2 tbsp. of olive oil. Take dough out on to a dry clean work surface and roll into a 13- inch wide circle. Place the dough in the cake pan and lightly press into the corners and up the sides so that it just reaches the top edge of the pan.
Add the mozzarella cheese to the surface of the dough. Top with the tomato sauce and spread with a rubber spatula so it covers all of the cheese. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and then add desired toppings.
Bake for 20-30 minutes until crust in golden brown. Let rest for at least 10 before cutting and serving. Enjoy!

Source- adapted from Annie’s Eats, originally from Cook’s Illustrated

Deep Dish Pizza

sisterk (2)

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on January 4, 2012

Happy new year everyone! I just got home yesterday from our Christmas holiday trip to Hawaii. We spent 9 days in a cottage in Lahaina, Maui and 2 days in a hotel in Honolulu. Husband M and I went to Hawaii on our honeymoon, but we never got a chance to make it to Maui. We decided Christmas would be a great time to make the trip there. It was such a fun, memorable vacation and I wanted to share a few of the recipes I made while we were there.

Our lanai had a great view of Lanai!

On the night we arrived, we were too tired from the trip to grocery shop and cook. Fortunately, I had rented some baby equipment from Akamai Mothers and utilized their grocery service to pick us up some milk, coffee, yogurt, and fresh fruit for the morning. When Baby T had a 4am jet-lagged wake-up call, it was a welcome sight! We also woke up to the beautiful view seen in the pictures above and below. Those mountains remind me of the tv show Lost!

The next day, we made a grocery list and planned a few nights of meals. In addition to the regular grocery store, we found a local market and a fish store to pick up some authentic Hawaiian food. At the fish store, we bought marlin, opah, shrimp, and walu (more on the walu in a bit!) Here is the recipe I used to cook up the first two fish:

Grilled Local Fish with Chili Garlic Compound Butter in Foil Packets with Scallion Rice

Ingredients:
-4 fish fillets (any type of white fish would be good, but I used marlin and opah)
-salt and pepper
-4 tbsp. unsalted butter, softenened
-1/2 tsp chili powder
-1 /2 tsp grated orange zest
-2 tbsp. freshly squeezed orange juice
-2 garlic gloves, minced
-2 tbsp diced green chilies (from a can)
-1 15oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
-1/2 red onion, diced
-3 scallions chopped
-1 cup white rice
-2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Directions:
Heat a grill to medium heat or preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Pat the fish dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. In a small bowl, combine with a fork the butter, the chili powder, the orange zest, half of the garlic, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp pepper.

In a medium bowl, combine the green chilies, the orange juice, the remaining garlic, the beans, onion, 2/3 of the scallions, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp pepper. Mix well to combine.

Lay out 4 squares of foil and place a fish fillet on each square. Spread the butter mixture evenly over each fillet. Then, divide the bean mixture up and place on each fillet. Fold up the edges of the foil to seal the packet.

Meanwhile, cook the rice according to the package directions. Once done, stir in the remaining scallions and set aside.

Place the packets on the grill, cover, and cook for about 15 minutes. Or, you can bake the fish in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the fish is cooked thoroughly. (We had trouble with the grill that night so we ended up doing a combination of both and it still turned out great!) Open the packets and plate them. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley and serve with the scallion rice.

Adapted from Annie’s Eats

——-

Right before I left, I happened to see Sunny Anderson make Hawaiian Pork n’ Greens on the Food Network. We decided that would make a great Hawaiian dinner for Christmas Eve. The only changes I made were that I omitted the white pepper and chicken broth, used pork chops instead of tenderloin, and grilled the pork (vs. cooking it in the oven.) Here’s a picture of the final result:

For our Christmas dinner, we grilled up shrimp, steak, and bread and served it with garlic herb compound butter. At the local market, we had picked up some really tasty homemade Asian salad dressing so we used that to make a side salad.

Now onto the walu…Husband M was trying to give us the true local experience and asked specifically for special local seafood at the fish store. They recommended the walu. I decided to cook it up in this great recipe for fish tacos by Aarti Sequeira (host of Aarti’s Party on the Food Network.) We decided to look up what a walu was right before we started cooking it up…we were definitely surprised by what we found! It’s also known as escolar, Hawaiian butterfish, and it’s known for causing…err, how do I say this…gastric symptoms within 30 minutes to 36 hours of consuming (thus also known as the ex-lax fish). We freaked out at first, but then read if you consume less than 6 ounces at a time and grill it, it would not cause any side effects. We did up going ahead and eating it, but I’m pretty sure it was on the back of our mind with every bite. Fortunately we did not experience any symptoms from eating it. It was quite a delicious fish, but be aware if you see it on a menu as I read that many restaurants serve it without informing their guests of the potential side effects.

At another organic grocery store, we found purple Maui sweet potatoes. I cut them up into fries and baked them with olive oil, salt, and pepper. It was a tasty treat!

I loved using all the local produce that is quite different than what is grown in New England:

I also loved being able to open an entire wall of glass to cook al fresco each evening!

We had a cocktail each evening for sunset and I made Bobby Flay’s version of the Mai Tai. Here is what the sunset looked like each night:

I also made smoothies each morning with a combination of Fage Greek yogurt, fresh Maui pineapple, papaya, a squeeze of lime juice, guava nectar, orange passion fruit juice, and ice. I really want to get into the habit of making smoothies for breakfast on a more regular basis, but I never seem to find the time!

It was great to have a Mele Kalikimaka in Hawaii and I would definitely recommend experiencing it yourself sometime!

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on August 19, 2010

Photo courtesy of Kayak the Rockies via Creative Commons license

We apologize for the lack of posts lately, but Sister K and I have been spending the past few weeks getting ready for vacation, going on vacation, and recovering from vacation. We spent last week soaking up the sun in Nantucket.

Husband M & I rented a small cottage in Madaket and invited Sister K and the other Sister M to come visit us for part of the week. We had a great time of hitting up the beaches, going on walks, eating great meals, and napping! I tried to cook a lot of the meals at our cottage, but we did get a chance to try out or revisit a number of restaurants in downtown Nantucket:

–Brant Point Grill at The White Elephant
–Black Eyed Susan’s
–Cinco
–Slip 14
–Straight Wharf

I would have to say our best meals were at Black Eyed Susan’s and Straight Wharf. To get into Black Eyed Susan’s however, you need to wait in a line starting at 5 to put your name on the reservation list for a 7:30 or 9:15 seating. They also are BYOB, cash only, and do not have a/c. We joked with our fellow line-mates that we were going to open Sunflower Sally’s across the street where there is plenty of booze, takes all credit cards, and the a/c is pumping 24/7! Despite all the effort to get into the restaurant, it was well worth it!

Husband M had to briefly take a conference call and need Internet access for a few hours one day…he greatly appreciated the free wi-fi and cold beers at the Brant Point Grill bar area that day.

This weekend, I plan to spend some time catching up around the house (we’ve been traveling the past 3 weekends) and will be posting my special Nantucket birthday clam chowder recipe (especially for Aunt N!) Check back soon!

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on June 5, 2010

I recently got the chance to take a long weekend vacation to the Red Mountain Spa in Utah. Husband M and I usually like 2 different types of vacation…he is definitely an outdoor adventurer, while I usually lean towards a more relaxing trip. This resort was the perfect blend of the two. Awesome hiking and sights to see for Husband M and a spa and pool for me. The food at the spa was very healthy, but delicious at the same time. We definitely left feeling very relaxed and happy with our time here.

One of the days, we signed up for a group outing to Zion National Park. Husband M has had the chance to visit a number of national parks…Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Volcanos at the Big Island, Great Smokey Mountains, and Acadia. He was excited to check this one off his list. We were not disappointed. The views were spectacular:

We hiked the first two miles of the Angels’s Landing trail. The trail features Walters Wiggles, which looks a bit like San Francisco’s Lombard Street:

Walter Wiggles

Lombard Street, San Francisco

We decided against doing the last 1/2 mile of Angel’s Landing as it was a bit precarious and required you to hold on to a chain to get to the top:

We did get a chance to do two additional trails that day…the Emerald Pools and a trail that was on the other side of the Zion Park tunnel.

Back at the resort, we did an Adventure level hike one morning. It was a really early hike…6:50 am start time. When we finished, we were ready for lunch until we realized it was still 10 in the morning! The hike at adjacent Snow Canyon State Park also offered some beautiful views:

I really hope to go back here one day for another vacation. It was a great combination of adventure, outdoors, relaxation, and great meals.

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on March 2, 2010

This past weekend, my husband and I took a quick weekend getaway to Miami for my 30th birthday. My actual birthday is February 29th, making me a leap day baby. So technically, I was celebrating my 7 1/2th birthday. This is a terrible time of year for a birthday in my opinion because it is still in the dead of winter and everyone is beyond sick of the weather. My younger sisters all had summer birthdays, and therefore were able to have huge pool parties. Not I…always an indoor party for poor little me (my sisters are definitely going to be rolling their eyes as they read this!)

Before we went on a cruise 2 years ago, we stayed at the South Beach Marriott overnight before we embarked. We really enjoyed our stay there and have always thought about going back. My 30th/7.5 birthday seemed like the perfect opportunity. We were able to fly directly to Ft. Lauderdale after a series of mishaps with Jet Blue. Our plane getting into Boston was delayed an hour, the Jet Blue systems went down and they grounded all flights for an hour, and then a plane on the Ft. Lauderdale runway lost communications with air control and we had to suddenly avert our landing and circle again. Fortunately, our dinner reservations were for pretty late….it’s Miami!

On Friday night, we had dinner at Nobu, a famous sushi chain. It was really delicious food, but our meal got cut a bit short when our tables got cleared and we were given dessert menus (we had been planning on ordering a bit more sushi). Afterwards, we hit up the Sky Bar which was outdoors and was very nicely decorated. They also had gas lamps, which I parked under all night as it did get a bit cool.

The next morning, we grabbed brunch at a place right around the corner from our hotel called The Big Pink. We hit up the beach after and we were pretty much the only people for the 4 hours we hung out there. It was a bit windy and overcast, but we got occasional bursts of sun. It was really relaxing to just read, talk with my husband, and watch the water. One of my friends from college, who now lives about an hour from Miami, met us up in the afternoon and we grabbed drinks and apps at the hotel bar. It started to downpour while we were there and the whole crowd watched in dismay (ok, slight amusement) as the wedding decorations set up in the area adjacent to the outdoor bar all blew over and fell into the hotel’s water fountain!

For dinner that night, I had done some researching on OpenTable and Yelp and decided to try out Wish. The food was excellent and they had menus that actually lit up as you opened them. The back garden was closed due to the weather, but we were still able to eat outside. On Sunday morning, we woke up on the early side to sit out at the beach for an hour. We then got ready, checked out of our room, and hit up the Sunday brunch downstairs. Here is the view from the South Beach Marriott:

We then headed to the airport and we were back in Boston by 6. It was definitely a very fun birthday and one I will always remember!

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on January 22, 2010

And she’s back! Sister K mentioned to me today that lately it has been much more like 1sister1city around here lately. Sorry for being MIA lately- work has been crazy with year-end reporting and I also took a last minute trip to St. John, USVI. I promise to catch up on a few posts this weekend and start getting on a regular posting schedule during the week.

My trip to the Caribbean with my husband was definitely a great break from winter. Even though I grew up in a very snowy upstate NY, I always dread this time of year in Boston. The holidays are over and its colder and darker than ever. It was refreshing to get a few days of warm sun (although I used my SPF 55 everyday!) Now that I’m back, I feel like I’m that much closer to spring weather.

In St. John, we stayed at Caneel Bay. We went to the same island two years ago and stayed in the Westin…the only other resort on the island. Caneel definitely had a much different feel to it. The resort was very spread out and had a bus service connecting all the major areas (although it was definitely walkable if you wanted to). Caneel Bay has 7 of their own private beaches. It was so great to wake up, step outside your room, and just hop right into the water if you wanted to go for a quick swim. The resort provides you your own snorkel gear for your stay, which comes in handy as a lot of their beaches have great snorkel areas. During our stay, we did a snorkel sail trip with Captain Pat and Bev (Sail St John) and a chartered power-boat ride to the BVIs (Captain Don of Nauti Nymph Power Rentals took us to Tortola, Virgin Gorda, and Yost Van Dyke- home of the famous Soggy Dollar Bar). We also were able to go to a wine tasting, afternoon tea-time, and a work-out at the resort’s gym. We ended up eating at the resorts most nights, but we will definitely try to get into the town of Cruz Bay more often next time as our meal there was the best (and probably least expensive) meal of the trip (Rhumb Lines). The breakfast room service was also very nice…it was only about $25 total each time and arrived in a picnic basket with white starched table linens to put on our patio table.

Overall, it was a great trip and surprisingly very easy to get to from Boston. Our flight there was direct and only took about 3 and 1/2 hours to get to St. Thomas. The boat ride to St. John takes another half hour, but it’s a relaxing trip accompanied by rum punch. The flight back does require a connection through Miami, but still a relatively easy flight itinerary.

-M