Hi there! TGIF! Rumors of 70 degrees on Sunday are circulating and I’m trying not to get too excited about it but yipee!! I honestly don’t know why I live in the northeast. I would be happy with warm weather all year round! Welcome to this Friday’s edition of Food & Fitness! As always, I have some fun things lined up for you so let’s get started!
I was at the grocery store recently when I stumbled across these babies.
Pepperidge farm, you kill me with your seasonal breads! I thought you couldn’t surpass pumpkin but now blueberry! It is like biting into a delicious blueberry muffin except with less fat, calories and sugar! Must get more immediately.
The most exciting food venture this week was my trip to Union Square Cafe with the Hubs for our anniversary. USC is a Danny Meyer restaurant and it has been on our list of restaurants to try for quite awhile so I gave myself some major props for being able to get a reservation.
Everything at Union Square Cafe was absolutely amazing. We had this great little table upstairs on the balcony overlooking the restaurant. And because it was our anniversary, the restaurant gave us two complimentary glasses of rose cava. So nice!
I started with this amazing cara cara orange salad with pine nuts and ricotta salata. It was so light and refreshing but the vinaigrette also add a nice deep rich, almost buttery flavor.
The Hubs started with this cipollini onion risotto. Oh.my.gosh. This was so delicious. I begged him to eat only half so I could take the rest home and eat it for lunch. Sadly, my husband is like a food vacuum and there was nothing left. It was savory with a slight sweetness and the risotto was perfectly cooked.
For my main I had this ricotta gnocchi with tomato-basil passatina and pecorino romano. Holy gnocchi holy! This was quite possibly the lightest, fluffiest and most tasty gnocchi I have ever had. It was like eating delicious tomato pillows. I can’t even describe it!
The Hubs had this lamb dish with gruyere potato gratin and swiss chard. The potato gratin was so savory and slightly salty with the most delicious tang from the gruyere. Yum!
For dessert, I tried the infamous Union Square Cafe banana tart while the Hubs had lemon mascaropone cheesecake with lemon confit and grapefruit sorbet. I actually liked the Hubs’ dessert better because it was so light and tart and perfectly palate cleansing. Although my tart was sweet and delicious.
Two full, happy faces!
Ok, here is where the big announcement comes in! I was selected by Levo League as their NETWORKout Chairwoman! Levo League is an amazing community dedicated to helping woman kickstart their professional careers. In their words, it is “designed to elevate young women in the workforce by providing the career resources needed to achieve personal and professional success.” Their website is full of amazing resources to help women in their career paths. They have Office Hours, which is a 30 minute, weekly video chat with extraordinary leaders that can give you an insight into their career paths. This week Kathy Calvin, president and CEO of the United Nations Foundation is available for Office Hours. Oh just her! Other Office Hours have featured amazing men and women like:
Kristen Gillibrand, US Senator from New York
Ido Leffler, Co-Founder and Chief Carrot Lover of Yes to Inc.
Nanette Lepore, Fashion Designer
Soledad O’Brien, News Anchor and Producer
Warren Buffet, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook
And about 100 other inspirational leaders. They also have career mentors, job listings and some great articles on both career and non-career related topics.
As NETWORKout Chairwoman, my job is to organize monthly workout events in New York City to help professional and talented women connect while sweating. I mean, what could be better, right? As someone who chose a career path largely dominated by men (seriously, male to female partner ratio at most major NYC law firms is pretty abysmal), I applaud Levo League’s efforts to help women succeed. And I’m a big proponent of networking over a workout instead of drinks! 🙂
And because I know I have a reader base that reaches beyond NYC, I wanted to tell you how excited I am to share with you that there are local chapters of Levo League in cities around the world! Berlin, London, LA, Charlotte, Miami, Austin, Chicago, Toronto, Boston and Paris to name a few (for a complete list, click here). I encourage you to check out your local chapter!
Readers, what are you up to this weekend? Do you belong to any networking groups? What’s the best thing you ate this week?
