SNOB's Banana Cream Pie Recipe

Just in time for Thanksgiving, I must share an incredible recipe for Banana Cream Pie.

Rob and I spent our honeymoon in Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC. As expected, the food was a major highlight of our trip.

This pie in particular blew my mind. I ordered it at Slightly North of Broad (aka SNOB), a Charleston restaurant originally recommended to us by @CarpeDC and then by every review site we visited looking for good Charleston eats.

Here's the recipe, as given to me by SNOB's adorable hostess when I was raving to her about the pie:

Banana Cream Pie
Makes 2 pies

• 3 cups milk
• 10 bananas
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup 10x sugar
• 1 cup banana puree
• 2 tbsp gelatin/ 7 sheets
• 3-4 cups whipped cream (firm peaks)
• 12 oz white chocolate

Use 1/4 cup milk to dissolve gelatin. Bring milk, bananas, puree, sugar & vanilla to simmer. Break down bananas with whisk. Add dissolved gelatin and white chocolate and mix until blended. Cool completely over ice bath, and fold in whipped cream. Fill prepared pie shells.

MAKE THIS. The intense banana flavor is incredible, and the white chocolate is definitely the secret ingredient that made it so sweet and velvety but not sugary... OH MAN...

The consistency was more like a creamy cheesecake than a pudding like most cream pies are. Yeah gelatin! It was served in a dense, buttery graham cracker crust. WHOA!

(*Note: SNOB gives out all their recipes! The hostess had a huge binder full of them. So if you go there and love your entree/dessert, don't forget the recipe!)

Breaking the Silence: I'm a Wifey!

It seems appropriate that before I start blogging wedding recaps, honeymoon stories, etc, etc, I should announce that I GOT MARRIED TWO WEEKS AGO!!!

Yay!!!

It really was the best day of my life. It sounds cliche, but it was absolutely, without a doubt, the best_day_of_my_life!!! It started off so emotional, beautiful and meaningful, and then turned out to be the most fun party I've ever been to.

It was such a surreal day. Being able to honor my love for my now-hubby while surrounded by the people I love most was amazing. Seeing all those people ALSO having fun, made it even more spectacular for me! And the fact that Rob and I pretty much planned the whole shindig ourselves (and he will say that he deserves just a tiny bit of the credit--I dove into the planning like it was my job) made the party's success so gratifying.

It was all so worth it. It was worth the time, the energy, the money, the anxiety, the stress. Even though I devoted so much energy to "just one day", it was a day that I will remember vividly for life.

So I hope my readers don't get bored with wedding recap stories, because I've been obsessing over wedding stuff since January 16, 2009 (our 10 year anniversary and night of our engagement) and need to document some of my trials and tribulations. I relied so heavily on wedding bloggers throughout the whole process (especially A $10,000 Wedding, The Thirty Something Bride, Brooklyn Bride, Relentless Bride, 2,000 Dollar Wedding and many more), and can can only hope that other brides-to-be find insights here as well.

Did I mention that I hated weddings? Not anymore!

Alaska Cruise - Photo Recap

Most of my non-work-related energy has been 100% focused on wedding planning over the last few weeks. I have an hour to myself this evening where I've decided to abandon the final touches and look back at some photos from the Alaskan Cruise I took this September:

The view from our balcony. After a choppy day/night on the Pacific after leaving Seattle, we awoke to this stunning view as the fog cleared with the morning sun.



In Juneau, we took an excursion to the Mendenhall Glacier.


Juneau, my first experience on mainland Alaska wreaked of "tourist trap". It was filled with souvenir and jewelry shops. I desperately searched for an authentic experience, and after getting turned around a few times, I dined at the amazing Tracy's King Crab Shack. The king crab legs and crab cakes were INCREDIBLE and the employees were fun to talk with:



We stopped in a little town called Ketchikan, the salmon capital of Alaska. There were tons and tons of salmon in the streams, but not all of them were faring well in their journey towards mating areas. Lots must have accidentally jumped out of the water during their journey, because there were dead salmon everywhere:




The most beautiful scenery of the trip was our sail through Tracy Arm Fjord. The water was pristine, the air crisp, and the icebergs abundant. Check out this glacier! Funny story: As we approached glacier and got as close as we could, a huge piece of it cracked off and crashed into the water. This is called calving. Everyone on deck started cheering. I was near a member of the crew and mocked the crowd, "Woohoo! Global climate change at work!!" The dude got a kick out of me:



What's up with the telephone booth usage at the Victoria, BC port?


Mr. Blogsky has already deemed this post "boring" so I will end with that ;) I'll return to my regularly scheduled blogging with lots of wedding recaps and planning stories soon!

p.s. This post is in no way an endorsement of Alaskan cruises. I enjoyed the people I was with and the sights were beautiful, but did not like the inauthenticiy of the ports towns, the claustrophobia that accompanied being stuck on a ship for days, the rough Pacific seas, and the cheesy ship activities, etc.

In fact, I think this image belongs on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. It sums up the on-ship experience:

Haha: No flowers?

Just received this email from Mr. Blogsky, who is clearly worried about the fact that I haven't selected a florist yet:

"NO FLOWERS! The answer! We don’t need no stinking flowers. The centerpieces for the tables can be pictures of us. Pictures of us can be on the walls. The gifts to people can be pictures of us. Instead of throwing a bouquet, you can toss a picture of us. Basically, if anyone leaves the wedding thinking we are not narcissistic a-holes, they weren’t at the right wedding."

Commemorating 27: Things I did this year for the first time in my life

Today is my birthday. Turning the big 2-8...Unarguably my late twenties...Granny territory is approaching. Like I honored the experiences I had while 26 yrs old, I'd like to celebrate the past year by listing out some experiences I recall doing for the very first time in my life.

[I wrote this post in advance. When you see it, I'll likely be on a plane to Seattle, my first trip to the west coast, for an Alaskan cruise with a friend and her parents. This will mark my first cruise, first vacation with a friend's family, first glacier-siting, and lots of other stuff...but I'll have to save that for my 29th birthday recap.]

Here's the list:

____________

Let me start with a bang so you don't get bored. The most random experience I had this year was attending a nude figure drawing workshop around Christmastime with my bf, called something like "Santa's Naked Sex Slave Workshop". We found the event listing in Time Out, and thought we'd check it out, haha. It wasn't pornographic--We drew geriatric naked men wearing wrapped gifts on their heads, lots of santa hats, and a girl hoola-hooping.

Now for the other stuff...

Stating the obvious:
First (and hopefully only) time getting engaged, planning a wedding & having a bachelorette party.

Aside from the first time feeling all the emotions related to wedding planning and building a future with the person I love, what this process boils down to is that it’s my first time hiring other people to do things for me: Hiring a photographer for our engagement shoot, wedding day and my bachelorette party, hiring a DJ and wedding officiant, choosing a venue that will coordinate the whole event and handle the catering. Interviewing florists, having make-up trials, and getting advice from the blogosphere…Trusting other people to execute my vision for the party hasn’t always been easy for this control freak!

Staycations & Vacations:
First tasting at a Long Island winery, first time visiting Fire Island.

First time staying at hotel in the city I live in just to escape daily life (We celebrated our 10 year anniversary—and surprise engagement—at the Soho Grand). I also skiied for the very first time in my life (for 5 minutes), during an impromptu trip to Vermont with the boys.

Cool experiences because we’re lucky and strategic:
Rob won the opportunity for us to play football at Giants Stadium.

I won a contest at work after coming up with the best ideas for improving a product critical to our company’s future success—resulting in an all-expenses paid meal at any Manhattan restaurant. I chose Le Bernardin, and it was my first 3 Michelin Star dining experience. (This year was a good year for my palate—also dined at Sushi of Gari, Nobu & Aureole, each with a Michelin star of their own.)

Speaking of food, I ate Kobe beef, beef Carpaccio, crosnes & venison for the first time in my life (all during my anniversary meal at Aureole).

First time my wardrobe has been upgraded thanks to my fiancé's and my own investments:
Being a Manhattanite has finally rubbed off on me and I’ve succumbed to labels like Christian Louboutin, Diane von Furstenberg, and BCBG Max Azria: The Queen of Cheap is now the Queen of Chic ;)

First time my blog writing has gotten me into interesting circumstances:
I was quoted in USA Today because a reporter read my post and about Madison Avenue’s store closure epidemic. The PR firm, Intencity Global provided me free services at the Stuart Hirsch Salon in exchange for a review on my blog—I'm still getting good SEO from it.

There’s lots to do in NYC, but I don’t always take advantage of everything this city has to offer. I’m able to muster up the following “firsts” this past year: First time buying the latest gadget the day it came out at the Soho Apple store, first visit to Williamsburg (yeah, I realize how crazy that sounds, being from Long Island and all…), first trip to the Cloisters and the Central Park Conservatory Garden.

First time being personally affected by the recession—losing mentors due to layoffs, surviving several rounds of layoffs, re-prioritizing my budget after a pay cut, seeing the changing streets of Manhattan. For the very first time in my life, around the time when I wrote the Madison Avenue piece, I thought New York was totally over. What I once thought was the infallible “best city in the world” lost its vibrancy and all the great things about it that make it the only place on earth I want to live. I now think/hope its slowly coming back.

Oh, and for better or for worse, I’ve taken up Twittering.