8am is one of my favorite parts of the day. Jeff gets up and gets ready at 7:30 then wakes me up so we can have breakfast together, and as warm and comforting as that bed is, I really do want to get up for our morning ritual.

He’ll fill up the teapot and put it on the hot eye, we’ll both arrange our tea necessities, he’ll start mixing up his instant oats while I pet the cats who are starving for love after a night alone. I’ll make a remark about how fricken freezin it is in our apartment and then we’ll take our things to the desk and check our email and favorite sites and blogs and whatnot.

I don’t always make breakfast right away while Jeff is making his, and I didn’t today because I knew that I didn’t want oats again but I didn’t know what I did want.

Maybe I could do something with this?…

Picked up this container of quark at the market yesterday, not really knowing what to expect. I just thought it’d be an interesting departure from yogurt.

I plopped some on top of a chopped apple with cinnamon, granola, and honey.

It had the consistency of greek yogurt with the smell of sour cream and the taste of cream cheese. The flavor was really strong in this big dollop so I mixed it all in to distribute it better.

I ended up pouring a bit of maple syrup on top as well to try and cut through the rich cheese flavor. I thought I didn’t like it at first bite, but as my palate got used to it I really started to enjoy it. The whole mixture tasted like a deconstructed apple cream cheese danish.

All in all, I really like it. I don’t think I would eat it straight like yogurt but it was really good mixed in with other flavors.

Ever had quark?

Something else you can think of that I should try?

Mmmmmm….sushi.

I wondered the other night exactly how many days it would take of eating sushi every night before I got tired of it. I’d guess it’s well over a month, possibly longer. I’ll have to try that experiment sometime.

Saturday night we went out for sushi with a group of friends to a restaurant called Ege. It’s always a good sign to walk into a sushi joint and hear “Irasshaimase!” being called out to you as a welcome.

Check out the cute handwritten specials menu with all the adorable sea creatures on it!

I especially like the little octopus at the bottom with another octopus on his head. I think it is a zombie eating his brains!

We ordered A LOT of food, starting with some edamame…

…teriyaki salmon…

…and beef tataki that I couldn’t snap a picture of before it was devoured!

Then came the sushi. Here’s what was shared between the 6 of us…

At that point I loaded up my first sample plate, knowing there would be lots more coming and we needed to clear these out!

Turns out I wasn’t the only one snapping photos that night. Emily has a pretty new toy she was testing out…

On to even more sushi…

Apparently I didn’t get a picture of the last plate, which was tamago (egg omelet) and anago (sea eel). Here’s my second helping…

That buttery soft anago is one of my all-time favorites! I had more than what you see here too.

So after all that sushi and 4 caraffes of hot sake, we wanted dessert! Off to Cafe Intermezzo for a slice (or 6!) of the best cakes around and some yummy cocktails.

It was dark, but I got the best photos I could. This picture came out crazy with the ghostly figure in the background. That’s John, Emily, Marshall, and Kelly; Jeff is to my left but he got cut off.

We started with a round of drinks. I got a Manhattan Deluxe…

Intermezzo has an enormous menu, but everyone seemed to stick to the classics…white russians, mojitos, old fashioneds.

After drinks were on the table, it was time to go pick out cakes…

I got a huge profiterole type thing. It was filled with Nutella whipped cream and topped with chocolate!

I laughed at Jeff for getting plain cheesecake with so many interesting choices available, but it was so good that I ended up eating more of it than he did!  Wise man, my husband.

Here’s a pic of Johns’ 7 Layer Amaretto, another one of my favorites…

I actually used to work at Cafe Intermezzo back when I was 19, so I get warm fuzzy feelings every time I go in there. Also, I know which cakes are the best, as I’ve tried every single one of them.

Another great night out. Can’t argue with sushi, booze, and cake!

I can cook a lot of things very well, but I sure do suck at making pancakes.

These were made from a package of Bob’s Red Mill 10 grain pancake mix, and for the record, they were delicious despite their rather bedraggled appearance.

This is inevitably what happens every time I try to make pancakes: First batch, put too much batter in and everything melds together…

Second try: teensy blini-sized cakes that fit in the pan and come out quite nice…

Third: We have enough pancakes ready to be eaten but there’s still batter leftover and I don’t want to wait around flipping pancakes when I could be eating….so I just make one giant one with what’s left…

Some day, I will remember to use two pans and make smaller cakes from the start. Until then, ragged cakes for Jeff and teeny blinis for me! (It’s fun to say teeny blini over and over, try it!)

We’re headed out in a few minutes to go get sushi with some friends, see ya later!