Montreal: Jardin Botanique de Montréal

The Jardin Bontanique, or the Montreal Botanical Gardens (for the non-French speakers), is a not-to-be-missed experience when visiting Montreal. With its collection of 22,000 plant species and cultivars, 10 exhibition greenhouses, some thirty thematic gardens, and teams of researchers and activities staff, the Montréal Botanical Garden ranks as one of the world's largest and most spectacular botanical gardens... and I believe it! The statistics don't fully shed light on how spectacular this collection really is. We spent the entire day walking in the many outdoor thematic gardens, some of which include the Chinese gardens, Japanese gardens, the Alpine gardens, the water gardens and many many more. The indoor green houses also had spectacular collects of flowering plants and succulents including an amazing number of orchids. We only spent one day there, mostly because that was what our ticket included, but we could had spent days there. It was beautiful! I have included a photo we took of the water lilly garden.



Here is their website:

Montreal Botanical Gardens

Best Bread Ever!

Since getting back from our honeymoon to Montreal (more on that in future posts!) I have been experimenting with finding the recipe for the perfect loaf of bread. Ladies and gentleman, I think I've found it! I thank my friends and family for their patient taste testings, although I didn't really have to force feed any of them...if you know what I mean. So here is the recipe! Try it out...be patient, and you will be greatly rewarded!

Cooks' Illustrated "Almost-No-Knead" Bread

I made a few changes to the recipe, that made it a bit easier for me. Here are the steps I took after using their ingredients.

1. I mixed the ingredients all at once in my Kitchen Aid mixer.

2. Let mix sit covered with plastic wrap for 18 hours on the counter.

3. Transfer the mix to a lightly floured surface and folded the mix once or twice on my board, and let it rest under plastic wrap for 15 mins.

4. Floured a tea towel on the counter top. Gently formed dough into a ball and placed it on the towel seam side down. Let it proof (rise with out messing with it at all) for two hours.

5. Preheat oven with large 5.5 quart cast iron large casserole pot in oven for 30 mins.

6. Slide hand under tea towel with dough on it and gently dump it into hot pot.

7. Replace cover and bake for 30 mins.

8. Remove lid and cook (15 mins approx.) until browned.

Enjoy!!

The Boston Globe, Part 5: The Wedding!

Here is the final article!! I love it!

Part 5: The Wedding

We Got Married!!

The wedding went off so wonderfully this past weekend! I can't wait to tell you more about it, and for you to be able to all see the pics in the Boston Globe! Word on the street is that it is slated to run on Thursday of this week. I will post more pics after that! If you were there, I would love to hear your comments as well!

The Boston Globe, Part 4; The Reception

Here is the fourth part in the Boston Globe series covering our wedding! This one is about our plans for the reception. Enjoy!

Boston Globe, Part 4

The Boston Globe, Part 3: The Invitations

Here is the link to the newest Boston Globe article in the series about our wedding. This one is about the invitations! Enjoy!

Part 3: May 1, 2008

Pulp Imagery

Here is a link to Dan Harkins' graphic design website: Pulp Imagery We are so happy with our invitations for the wedding! Dan, thanks for taking a break from designing for all the rock stars to do our invites....you rock!