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Capped a lovely, relaxing Sunday with caramelized, salty, roasted vegetables, this time cauliflower and asparagus. John and I stood there scarfing them right off the hot pans, burning our fingers, they’re that good. Wilted and soft with a crunchy exterior, mmmm. And easy? Pah-lease, the easiest EVAR.

Do this for any vegetable: preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put bite-size pieces of your veggie-of-choice (cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant, asparagus, onion, tomatoes, etc.) in a large bowl, drizzle with a pretty generous amount of olive oil, toss, sprinkle with a pretty generous amount of kosher salt, toss again, spread evenly on a baking sheet or two (don’t crowd the pan; for the veggies above I roasted two bunches of asparagus on one pan, one head of cauliflower on the other), and roast for 10 minutes. Turn the pieces over, they should be browning nicely, and roast for another 10 minutes. Voila, killer roasted vegetables. Dig in while they’re hot and still crispy… To. Die. For.

On Friday night John and I took a page from AZ and Rishia and had dinner in the bar at La Belle Vie. Totally romantic, what a gorgeous room, and of course the food is incredible. We split an order of carpaccio, then I had the arugula salad with a poached egg and John the bouillabaise. We each quaffed a nicely affordable glass of a smooth-as-silk Cote de Rhone. A beautiful, delicious, and light dinner, it was a perfect way to cap the week. In fact, as we walked out, John said, “We are so doing this again. Soon.” Yeah, baby!

Yesterday I met my aunt Marge and my cousin Kim for lunch at Kozy’s at the Galleria. As always, great to see them both! And to have a nice lunch to boot! I kept it simple with a basic salad, while they enjoyed two amazing-looking sandwiches, one a crabcake po’ boy, the other a classic stack of hot pastrami on rye.

What else today? Oh let’s see…little New York Times, vigorous round of kettlebells, a long, hot shower, a movie (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, hilarious) with Nathan, and then, a fabulously decadent, cozy, toasty, two-hour nap. Holy hell will I regret that nap tonight, I’ll probably not sleep a bit, but it sure rocked this freezing cold afternoon. NICE!