I Went to L’Accademia di Vino and Learned Nothing About Wine

So I’m going to do one of those year-end posts, too, but for now, I think we can all agree food is more interesting, yes?

Yes.

Yesterday I got out of work at 3 (yes!) for the holiday weekend, and I skedaddled home and got into my running clothes before I could get comfortable on my couch. It was pretty cold outside walking back and forth to work, but once I got into some running tights and my favorite long-sleeved tee and a headband and got back outside, I was just fine. I’d planned on running about 3-4 miles, but felt good and had all the time in the world and ended up running 5. Score.

I was supposed to meet up with Lacey to go shopping for New Year’s dresses, but our texts totally crossed wires, and instead I met up with her and her boyfriend for some food and drinks.

You should totally carb-load when you’re planning on looking for the little-est little black dress you can find for New Year’s, right? No? Oh…

We went to L’Accademia di Vino, but all I learned about wine there was that the two I had (both red and white) were wonderful. In all seriousness, I do want to take a wine class one day.

Everything on the menu looked amazing, so we decided to go splitsies and share this arugula and prosciutto pizza.

And do their tasting of three pastas. This was actually the perfect amount of food. We got to taste the pastas, but i didn’t feel too full on them.

We had:

• whole wheat penne alla norma, marinara, eggplant, mozzarella and basil. This is the one I was probably going to get on my own, mostly just because it was whole wheat penne, but it was the most underwhelming of the three. There was just too much going on here.
• RAVIOLI WITH DUCK. This was every bit as amazing as it sounds.
• Orecchiette with pork sausage, broccoli rabe and parmesan. My parents like to judge restaurants by their carbonara; I like to judge restaurants by their orecchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage, and this orecchiette got an A+++. I think I liked it so much because it was pretty cheesy.

I haven’t gained any weight over the holidays/since the marathon and my pants aren’t any tighter, but I definitely see the carbs showing up in my belly. I regret nothing, but one of my New Year’s resolutions/goals is definitely going to be to cut back some on the carbs.

I’m also going to have a fun half-marathon training challenge coming up in the new year for those of you training for a spring half with some special incentives thrown in for NYC readers. We’re still putting it together, but is there anything you’d be looking for in a half-marathon training challenge? And tell me about your spring races!