The Framework

ENGINEER WE GO
I have all intentions of going to the gym for a workout trying to lose this weight from eating out at restaurants for every meal. I am at the gym filling up my water bottle. I look down at my feet and notice my flip flops are where my gym shoes should be. I contemplate doing a little exercise with flip flops, but decide push ups won’t work and leave disgusted with myself. I decide to do something else productive. I drive the engineer’s plans to his office so he can give me the updated version. David and I had noticed the vent was in the way of one of the new joists, so the engineer had to recalculate. He explained to me it was like two hands holding up a table, but just moving your hands to a different position. I could tell he loved his job by the way he talked. I was still thinking about our choice of granite and asked about this piece of furniture in his office with marble. He started talking about the marble that he and his wife have in their kitchen. They chose white even though they knew it would stain or chip. She thought it was part of the character of a home. Then he went on to tell me about her delicious food she cooks him from their garden and her career as a florist and the flowers she grows from her own garden. It was almost like listening to a soap opera. I was waiting for the commercial… Anyway, this engineer did make another mistake we found out after City Planning approved the first plans! He thought a plumbing pipe was an old joist and put the new joist in the wrong place. Our project manager discovered this after the water was turned off in our Master bathroom and we were down to one bathroom with out-of-town guests for a week! To our engineer’s credit, if not for his optimism and creativity, we never would have gone ahead and took out the retaining wall in the first place; the first engineer we consulted with said “NO, it can’t be done”. Well, it’s done.

CHUG IT
We decide to go to our favorite sushi bar at the time, Riptides. The place is large and contemporary. They have a full bar, Tappan grill and dining tables. We always sit at the latter. David loves his “Sexy Mutha roll” and the boys get tuna rolls, shrimp tempura, miso soup and edamame. I’ve been trying to be experimental so I try the “Emperor Roll” It has Beluga caviar, tuna and crabmeat – the fanciest roll I’ve ever tried. When it comes to the table, it looks beautiful and comes with a shot glass. The server asks me if the waiter told me what the whiskey in the shot glass was mixed with. I didn’t even know it came with a shot. David and the boys get excited and cheer me on to drink the shot really fast. “Chug it! Chug it!” they chant as I drink. It tastes more like soy sauce, garlic and oil than alcohol, but it was a sushi place, so it makes sense. Yet doubts start creeping up when I explain the shot to my family. David asks the waiter about the shot as I hide the empty glass from his view. “Just drizzle the sauce on your roll a little at a time,” he warned. “The truffle oil is pretty strong.” After he leaves, we laugh so hard my stomach hurts. Or was that the sauce?

NEXT POST
Check back next Monday for more restaurant stories and our kitchen remodel progression! Scroll down for the photos.