Good morning, and happy Mondaayyy!  What a fun day I had yesterday! I took the train into the city, and my friends at the Kimpton Hotel Monaco hooked me up with an awesome king bed suite.  So spoiled!

Could the view from my room be any more gorgeous?!

I was meeting up with my friends Erica and Dan to meet Bobby Parrish and his wife Dessi who just came out with their first cookbook.  My sister first told me about Bobby probably a year or two ago – he’s got amazing videos on YouTube, and you can check out all his recipes on his blog here.

Last week on one of his live Instagram posts, he wore the shirt I am wearing, and I just had to buy it.  Now I just need to find a shirt that says “lick my balls (meatballs!). ”

My Instagram daughter Christina met me at my hotel before the event.  We each had a drink and shared a couple appetizers.

I tried the hamachi crudo, and sans the onions, it was delicious!

And you can never go wrong with burrata – it had grilled asparagus and delicious crusty bread.

I love how Erica and Dan get my sense of humor already.  And I call Dan my Chicago boyfriend 😀

Sadly about 100 people didn’t show up last night- maybe because of the season finale of Game of Thrones??

Erica, Dan, their daughter and I had “family dinner” downstairs from the event.  I was able to meet Chef Todd Stein, the Executive Chef – their restaurant group has three restaurants, can’t wait to check out the other two.

Let the food porn begin!

More burrata!  

Okay, I said the other day that I didn’t like raw kale, but this kale salad was incredible.  It had a slightly sweet dressing, with the salty and nutty pecorino romano cheese, and I think it had golden raisins too.  So good.

Sauteed mushrooms – swoon.

And the bucatini carbonara – buttery, velvety, perfectly cooked pasta.  I have a recipe for a shrimp carbonara this is really good – you can check that out here.

I don’t remember what this dish was, but it was a stuffed pasta with the lightest cream sauce.

And sugar snap peas.  I need to recreate this dish at home.

And what’s dinner out without dessert?  We split the chocolate cake and tiramisu.

And their almost three year old daughter was so cute at dinner.  Perfectly behaved, danced when she felt like it, and ate fish roe and alfredo sauce together.  I love how the restaurant presented her with an etch a sketch!

Sadly I didn’t get any pics of the people I was with, but it was so inspiring to be with Bobby and Dessi – they created the life they wanted, and there is nothing from stopping any of us from doing the same. 

You just have to put yourself with the right people, and it’s amazing where that could take you.

I am giving a copy of their new cookbook away – you don’t have to be on the keto diet to like this cookbook – its using whole foods and I can’t wait to try some of them.

To enter:  tell me what you dream job is!!  I’d love to hear.  I’ll pick a winner on Wednesday.

I had to laugh at Bobby’s inscription on my copy:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have about 45 minutes before I have to walk three blocks to my office.  I am pretty sure 30 minutes of that will be in the deluxe shower. 

Happy Monday friends – make it a great day!