on the agenda for today

is a tres leches cake.  I'm going to half the recipe so I only need these three eggs to get room temperature before I can start.

Sometimes I get tres leches with a creamy topping and other times it's a marshmallow type topping.  I'm trying the marshmallow way today because it's my favorite.  Ninfas on Navigation has it like this and I seriously think it's one of the best.  (At least it was the last time I had it.)  So once the eggs get up to room temperature, I can make the cake and then let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours.  Maybe I should just make the whole recipe and not just half, considering how long it takes to make.  Oh well, I guess if when I finally get around to trying it tomorrow, if it's awesome, I'll take more eggs out.

Speaking of food, last night's dinner was spaghetti with marinara and chicken breasts that I cut up and cooked in a pan.  Guess what it was topped with...

My basil.

Actually, this picture wasn't from last night's dinner but it's today's lunch.  It's 11:00 and I just finished lunch.  In my defense, breakfast was a piece of toast at 6:00.

Now maybe I'll finish it off with strawberry cake that Mom didn't pick up on her way out of town.  Actually, the cake will have to wait.  I'm stuffed.  Maybe if I get up and get busy I'll work up an appetite again.  I'll try it anyway.

i'm not going to go so far

as to say I have a green thumb but it's a little less brown than it was in the past.

A couple of years ago I tried my hand at herbs and planted rosemary, cilantro, basil and maybe thyme.  I still have the rosemary.

A while back I decided to give it another try.  I added basil, thyme and chives.

This was April 4.

Basil

Chives

This is today.

Basil

Chives

Look at them grow!

The thyme?  Meh.  It's still there.  It isn't dying but then it isn't flourishing either.

Now I need to figure out what's for dinner that will go well with some of these herbs.

i never got around to

making that banana bread.  I got around to mashing the bananas but then they turned brown when I decided to take a break so I threw them all out.  Seriously though.  I had absolutely no motivation to get up and do anything on Friday... when I eventually thought I felt like making the bread.  I did get up to go dancing that night though.  Lauren and John came down for her birthday to stay the weekend in Houston with Eric.  So if waking up at 4:30 Friday morning left me with no motivation, going to bed at 4:30 Saturday morning worked out about the same.

I was really going to try to sleep late.

I don't follow my own orders well.

I woke up at 7:30.  I pulled the eye shades back down and forced myself to go to sleep.  I woke up again at 9:30.  We made it to take Lauren for birthday lunch but then it was back home and back to bed where another nap kept me up until midnight.

We met up again on Sunday, minus Eric (who had a stomach bug) and Paige (who was off to celebrate her brother's birthday), feeling a little less out of it.  We went for lunch after doing a little shopping.  I don't eat crawfish but Lauren, John and Cosme do.  Well, that wasn't ALL they ate.  There was SO MUCH FOOD.

We went to BB's over by Eric's place.  They have "Tex-Orleans" and we had plenty of it.  Instead of sticking with my usual of shrimp and grits, I did a cup each of macaroni & cheese with beef debris, red beans & rice and something else that was grits with beef tips.  I didn't care for the beans and rice but everything else was good (but spicy).

Next time they come down, we really can't start the weekend with dancing.  That throws me off.  And maybe the next time they come down, everybody will be well and functioning at 100%.

to say I got distracted

after that last post would be an understatement.  That was a whole week that passed.  I didn't get distracted, I just bailed.  I'll blame it on how worn out I was after tennis talk.  But really though, I have been busy doing stuff in the house.

Enough though, let's get back on track.

I have all these bananas that are about to go bad.  Why is there such a fine line between a banana being not quite ready to should have been eaten an hour ago?  Seriously.  I buy them when they've still got a little green tint to give us plenty of time and before I know it, they look fine on the outside but you open them to find brown patches.  I can't eat that.

Looks like I'll be busy tonight or in the morning making TWO batches of banana bread.  I don't even know if I have that many loaf pans.

Speaking of how weird bananas are, I found this on Pinterest which is SO TRUE.

*delicious depending on my mood

Who eats the end of a banana?  I can't eat that either.

I guess I'll head on over to raid Mom's cabinet of any and all loaf pans.

sorry but I got a little

distracted there.

So our first day at the Miami Open was a full day.  We started by walking over to the Marriott, where we bought our shuttle passes the day before, and caught the shuttle.  It was a short shuttle ride and we made it to the tennis park before 11:00.  The first thing I noticed when we walked in was the drink cart and the big Pepsi logo.  Ugh... This stadium was a Pepsi venue.  Strike one.  We headed into a souvenir shop for t-shirts and a cap for Cosme.  None of the food stands opened until 11:00 so we walked around to check the place out.  Oh, did I mention this was a Friday during Lent so that meant no meat?  Yeah, strike two goes to the food choices.  We found a Bacardi tent and sat in there looking over their menu.  Since Cosme eats fish, he had a fish something while I had a spinach empanada.  He had a mojito and I had something else with Bacardi.  Breakfast was served.

I don't even remember what was in the third Bacardi cup with the brown liquid.  Who knows...

We sat around snacking on plantain chips and rum, waiting for the 1:00 match.  We eventually left the Bacardi tent and did more walking around.  We found a cart and I didn't want anymore of whatever that drink I had was so I ordered a Grey Goose and cranberry.  Last I checked, cranberry juice is pink.  My drink was clear.  I'm pretty sure it was just Grey Goose and water.  Once 1:00 rolled around, we watched the Nadal vs Fognini match.  When that was over we decided it'd be easier to stay at the tournament instead of catching the shuttle and coming back for the 7:00 match.  We walked around and found a table in the shade.  Cosme went to get a beer and I stayed at the table to save our spot.  I asked for a Bacardi and diet Pepsi because I was tired of all the other stuff I'd tried.  (While that doesn't sound at all good, I can do diet Pepsi better than Pepsi, not that I enjoy diet Pepsi AT ALL.)  So Cosme came back to the table with my Bacardi and regular Pepsi... It was as bad as it sounds.  He went to get himself some sushi and one of the most awesome things I'd ever heard of for me.

Go away, Pepsi logo!  I get it!  You're all there is!

 

We were both getting tired... Pepsi, no meat and all day at a tennis tournament will do that to you.  We found a spot under a tree and stretched out.

Once the Federer/Kyrgios match was about to start, we found our seats.  I told Cosme that a nighttime tennis crowd is way different.  Strike three.  You know how the crowd at Walmart in the middle of the night is different from the morning crowd?  Same goes for tennis.  These people were mean, rowdy and disrespectful (unless you were a Roger Federer fan).  I immediately knew I was for the underdog.  Go Kyrgios.  That was annoying me.  Oh, then there was this guy.

We were already close but he really didn't need to put his arms over the back of the chair and make it worse.  As the night wore on, I just got more irritated.

My next move was to ask if he just wanted to go ahead and put his head in my lap.

The match finally ended and we waited for the shuttle to take us back to the hotel.  Once we were back, close to midnight with the restaurant closed, we ordered delivery from New York Roma Pizza, with extra cans of Coke.  At that point I was thankful for many things: bed, food, Coke and no tennis scheduled for the next day.  To prove how worn out I was, this early bird finally got out of bed around 10:00 the next morning.

That wore me out just writing about it.  I'll talk about our other day of tennis tomorrow.  (I'll try not to get distracted this time.)

our first day in

Miami was a tennis free day and I knew I wanted to go to the pool.  Before putting on our swimsuits though, we headed down the street for lunch.  The night clerk had recommended Greenstreet Cafe.  We walked over and sat outside because the weather was awesome.  The food there was so good.  I had an omelette with spinach, ham and feta.  I don't even remember what Cosme had other than Tabasco.  Their potatoes were so good too.  I couldn't finish it all.

While we sat there finishing our mimosas, I got this picture of the street corner.

We went back to the hotel and let our food settle some, keeping an eye on the chairs down at the pool.  When the one I thought I wanted cleared out, we headed down.  We ended up getting a couple of chairs next to an umbrella so we'd have some shade but I didn't need much time down there.  It felt nice and breezy but that sun was HOT.  We headed back to the room to clean up, cool off and get some more rest before heading out for dinner.  Dinner was at Farinelli 1937.  It was okay.  I didn't get pictures.  Enough said.

Instead of discussing our trip in chronological order, I'll just stay on the topic of food.

On our next tennis free day, Saturday, we took an Uber to Little Havana for lunch and shopping.  We had lunch at Old's Havana Cuban Bar & Cocina.  That place was also so good.

My Cuba Libre.  She first put my glass down, which was 3/4 full of ice and clear liquid.  After an experience I'd had at the tennis tournament, I wondered if she messed up my order.  Then she put a little bottle of Coke down and topped off my rum.

I don't know what happened to the picture of my sandwich but I ordered El Guapo, a regular Cuban sandwich.  Here's Cosme's flat iron steak.  It was awesome.

Flan.

Tres Leches.  Similar to what they serve at Ninfa's on Navigation, I'm drooling just thinking about it.

It was all awesome.

After finishing up our shopping, we headed back to the hotel to check on the pool.  It was packed so we decided to lie around for a bit.  Let me make a note that while it sounds from this post like we did a whole lot of resting, we did a WHOLE lot to need resting.  First there was all the walking we did.  We walked EVERYWHERE.  Then there was being out in the sun to wear us out... like spending the entire day at the tennis tournament on Friday.  That was exhausting.  I woke up sore on Saturday.

Anyway, the food at Old's Havana was really good but knowing we would be back at the tournament on Sunday morning and how draining the walking and sun would be, we stayed in and went down to the hotel's restaurant for dinner.  Panorama had some good food but I didn't get pictures because we sat outside and it was a little dark.

We started off with tempura shrimp (YUM) and Cosme had a salad while I had corn soup (that breeze made it chilly enough for soup).  He tried their flat iron steak while I just stuck with a burger.  For dessert we had key lime parfait.  We were stuffed after that and went back upstairs to get ready for Sunday.

I know I already talked about the matches but I'll talk more about our day at the stadium tomorrow.  Going in order is so overrated.

so our flight was

scheduled to leave for Miami at 1:10 last Wednesday.  I guess I didn't do my calculations very well because when we arrived at 12:19 it was too late to check our luggage in.  The funny thing was there was a guy in front of us who arrived at the same time to catch the same flight and was in the same situation.  We moved to the 7:30 flight and hung out at IAH for that entire time. 

So what happens when you miss your flight and have to wait for 6 hours?

You go to Landry's and have a shrimp cocktail

and french fries

and several drinks.

Then you sit and take pictures while trying not to look creepy.

You also look at the schedule and see that 1:10 flight didn't actually take off until 3:40 because of weather.  So after the few seconds you're irritated because you COULD HAVE made that first flight, you realize that you would've been MORE irritated having to wait to be cleared for take off.  At least this way the weather had time to clear up and we still had our set time.

 7:30 rolled around and I wasn't able to catch an awesome sunset but at least we were on our way.

Once we arrived in Miami, we just took an Uber to the hotel.  We arrived at the hotel around midnight and then found out we didn't have an actual room with the hotel but a private unit.  GRRRR... Luckily for us we had enough toiletries to get by and enough towels to make it the 5 nights without having to do laundry.

We passed out and when I woke up the next morning, I popped out of bed so I could check out our view.  I wasn't disappointed.

I sat on the balcony and enjoyed it until I got tired of sitting and wanted to lie back down.  Then I went inside and enjoyed the view from the bed until we felt like going for breakfast.

 I'll pick up there tomorrow. 

I haven't been around much

lately.  Actually, I was M.I.A. because we flew into MIA last week.  We went to watch the semifinals and finals of the Miami Open.  I'm not a tennis fan but Cosme is.

The first match we watched was Rafael Nadal vs Fabio Fognini.  I didn't really care who won but I'd heard a lot about Nadal so I knew who he was and decided I'd cheer for him.

I'll put it out there in layman's terms because that's all I know.  This is the final serve of the match because this serve won it for Nadal after Fognini couldn't return it.  I impressed myself because I knew that was the situation and had my camera ready to capture it.

Shh.  Everybody be quiet.

And that did it.  He won the match.

 While I was busy taking pictures, Cosme was hoping to catch one of the balls he hit into the stands.

That evening we watched Roger Federer vs Nick Kyrgios.  It was crazy.  The crowd was out of control and disrespectful.  They were really horrible to Kyrgios.  I had already decided I'd cheer for Kyrgios since he was kind of the underdog.  Listening to the Federer fans being so obnoxious really irritated me.  I didn't even want to be there anymore.  I took a couple of pictures but I was fed up and done.  After three sets, each ending with a tie break, Federer won.

That meant the final was going to be Nadal and Federer.  This was a no brainer.  I would be cheering for Nadal since I was officially a fan after the semifinals... and definitely wasn't a fan of Federer and wasn't about to be one of his rude fans.

I was rooting for Nadal but it's not like I was about to cover myself in body paint like I was the Spanish flag.  (Although I did jokingly suggest something similar to Cosme)

Federer won again.  We didn't stick around for the speeches.  We headed to our shuttle bus and that was that.

More on Miami later.