62. February 12th, 2011 Picture.

It was the Saturday before Valentine's day, and Ratty and I decided to spend the afternoon at the Boston Globe travel show.  It was held at the World Trade Center and had about 1 million vendors in attendance.  I'd never been before, but Ratty had, and he told me that it was pretty nuts.  Almost every country in the world is represented by a tourism board, there are hotels, B&B's, casinos, restaurants, inns, cruise & airlines, travel agencies, all with little booths where you can grab some swag and ask questions.  The cruise and airline stations actually had people on hand BOOKING vacations.  There were lots of fantastic deals and I really wish that Ratty and I were both in a position where we could have sat down with a representative and booked a stellar European vacation.  Le sigh.  Someday.  

I am pretty sure that Ratty won the tickets, mainly because they were free, but also because he had to wait in a special line to get them.  Dude is always getting free stuff!

The World Trade Center is ENORMOUS.  It is a huge place and every inch of it was filled with travel ideas, deals and bargains.  There were people playing steel drums [obviously near the Carribean vendors], and an indoor skating rink.  I don't even know what a skating rink has to do with anything, but it was there, and the line was around the corner.

In addition to all the awesome attractions I've listed above, they also had food demonstrations happening every hour.  They brought in guest chef's from New England restaurants where you could watch them cook something, ask questions and then get  chance to sample the creations.  We definitely wanted to make it to the Michael LaScola demonstration, he is the chef and owner of American Season's on Nantucket.  The connection here should be pretty apparent.  We love anything that has to do with Nantucket.  The end.

As you can imagine, the viewing area for these shows was somewhat limited, so we made our way over about 15 minutes before he was scheduled to start.  There were already people camped out, sprawling across seats so no one would sit near them - honestly, people are so weird!  Ratty and I grabbed two seats together and settled in to watch Chef LaScola cook a chowder with potatoes and Granny Smith apples with a seared bay scallop on top.

I don't really love apples, but the scallop was delicious and the broth was really, really yummy.  

The demonstration wasn't very long, maybe 30 minutes once he finished answering all the questions.  It's pretty obvious that no one in that audience has watched the Food Network because even I  knew the answers to most of them.  Once it was all over, we decided to take one final lap through the New England region of the show.  That is where I found the Trapp Family Lodge booth.  I almost died on the spot.  

I waited in line [as you can imagine, it was a pretty popular booth] and finally got up front to ask a few questions and grab some brochures.  I all but gushed to the woman behind the table, telling her that 'The Sound of Music' is my all time favorite movie, that I watched it on repeat daily as a small child, and would insist that I get a pink parasol for every birthday.  I'd sing Gretel's part from 'So Long, Farewell' each time we came home from someplace, and I made my father carry me up the stairs just like Leisl did.  I am obsessed and I am not afraid to admit it.  It's about right here that the woman told me to hang on and went to reach for something under the table.  She handed me a Trapp Family Lodge pin and magnet.  I am assuming that these things are only for hardcore fans, as they weren't on the table for all to take.  Girl got it right, I AM a hardcore fan.  I just love it.  AND I love Christopher Plummer.  He is the handsomest.  Even at 81.

{I didn't mean to creepily get a shot of the guy who was also creepily staring at me.  I apologize in advance for the nightmares it might cause.}

After walking through the entire showcase, feeling sad that I wasn't able to book an International vacation at that exact moment, and also realizing that my passport was going to expire soon [making me doubly sad] we headed back to Ratty's apartment to get ready for our Valentine's Day dinner.

We were heading to Towne, which is a new restaurant downtown from Jasper White and Lydia Shire.  I used to work for Jasper at the Summer Shack, when he first opened it over 10 years ago, so I was really excited to see his newest endeavor.

We grabbed a few drinks at Sonsie, right down on Newbury, before heading up to Towne for our 8:30pm reservations.  Towne was totally different than I expected, really funky and different.  Water glasses were chemistry beakers and the menu used various fonts, colors and sizes to list out options.  I tried to figure the place out, the decor, the glasses & tableware, the menu, any sort of theme throughout the place, but I couldn't come up with one.  The only word I can use to describe it is 'random'.  Random, but good.

We ordered the lobster popovers for our appetizer and they were hands down the best part of the meal.  They were light and fluffy stuffed with lots of lobster and drizzled with honey.  It sounds random [word of the day] maybe, to some, but it was awesome.

I don't know what I was thinking, but I ordered pork for dinner.  I don't even really like pork, but for some reason it was speaking to me.  It was glazed with maple, covered with marshmallows and walnuts, served with sweet potatoes.  If you just developed a cavity after reading that - you're right on.  It was way too sweet, I did not like it.  Bummer.

Honestly why did I think that meat covered in MARSHMALLOWS would be good?!  I don't even really like those two things separately, let alone together.  I must have gone temporarily insane when I ordered, that's the only reason I can find.

Ratty ordered pasta, which is scoffed at at first, but after eating one bite of my sugary sweet dinner, I was totally, and I mean totally jealous.

I was in desperate need of something savory to cut the sweetness I'd just attempted to consume, so we ordered the cheese plate for dessert.  Or rather I ordered one.  I don't think this exactly the romantical Valentine's Day dessert Ratty had in mind, but there was no way I could handle a slice of cheesecake.  That would most definitely send me into diabetic shock.

{It was pretty delicious as well, and I loved the honeycomb.  I love honeycomb.]

After that, we had about one more drink each before we hit a wall.  It was late, we were stuffed and buzzed, not to mention that Ratty was all but falling asleep at the table - I knew the second scotch was a bad idea!  Last year on Valentine's Day I fell asleep at the table, though it was NOT my fault, as the restaurant had a fire place, I'd just eaten lobster mac and cheese and a filet, and I was having wine.  It was practically impossible NOT to fall asleep at dinner.  This year was Ratty's turn, though I'm not totally sure his excuse is as good as mine.