Instead, let’s think back to a warmer time of year. A time when I just had taken the Step I exam. A time when my hair was a different shade, and I had yet to step foot on the wards. After arguably the two most stressful months of my life, I was ready to NOT study for a little while. I was in need of a major party. And what better way to celebrate than a wine tour and a week in Boston?!?!

I found a groupon with a tour company called Experience! The Finger Lakes. The specific tour I decided on was called Vinifera Varieties: Wines of the Seneca Lake   Banana Belt. Two of my favorite people in the world (my mom and Michele) joined me for a day in wine country. We started off in Ithaca where we met our tour guide and boarded our tour van.

On the van, we each received a reusable Experience! The Finger Lakes water bottle. It’s always good to hydrate!

First stop: Standing Stone Vineyards. Look at that view of the lake.

We started out by taking a tour of the winery.

We even got to do a barrel tasting.

Let’s just say as cool as it was to drink from the barrel, I like my wine from the bottle.

After the tour it was time to start the tasting. We sat down at a few tables they had set up for with LOTS of bread. First lesson of the day: I LOVE gewurztraminer.

Mmm brie!

Michele taking some photos for her blog.

Some of my favorites.

Next stop: Penguin Bay Winery

Bring on the bubbly!

At this winery we not only tried a bunch of champagnes, but we also learned how to properly open a bottle. My favorite wine and cheese pairing of the day was the combination of the Swedish Hill Spumante Blush and Yancey’s Fancy Strawberry chardonnay cheese.

On to the next stop! Red Newt Cellars

Another excellent pairing but it wasn’t of the wine and cheese variety. At this winery they combined a goat cheese with herbs and honey. Holy cow this was so good I wanted to take it to Vegas and marry it!

Last stop: Damiani Wine Cellars. It was time for dessert! At this winery we paired various chocolates with wines. Yum!

The chocolates came from Hedonist Artisan Chocolates of Rochester.

After a day of fantastic wine and food, I enjoyed one last view of the lake.

All of the purchases throughout the day.

All of my purchases from the day.

After the wine tour, Michele and I headed to Boston for a week of fun times including a 4th of July celebration and lots of quality couch time. One of my favorite things we did over the course of the week was visit a little store called Kickass Cupcakes.

This place was AWESOME. The different flavors were so creative and everything looked delicious.

Michele and I couldn’t pick just one so we decided to buy a bunch and have a cupcake feast.

With our wine purchases, we also made some of Emily’s Dangerous Sangria.

And spent some quality time with Renate watching John’s 3D TV.

What better way to celebrate the boards being over than food, wine, and some of my best friends?

Theme of the week was thyme. I love cooking with fresh thyme. There’s something about those little leaves that give every dish an extra punch of flavor.

Recipe #1: Chicken with Balsamic Vinegar, Sweet onion and Thyme

Adapted from a WW recipe

On a plate, I combined flour, 1⁄2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and coated 1 pound of chicken breast.

Next, I cooked the chicken in a large skillet with 2 tsp of olive oil until golden brown.

Chicken was set aside so I could make the onion sauce.

In the same pan, I sautéed a whole sweet onion.

After about 6 minutes, I added 1 cup of reduced fat/sodium chicken broth, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1 tbsp fresh thyme, and 1/4 tsp salt/pepper. The whole mixture was brought to a boil.

I let it boil until the onions were tender and added 2 tsp of butter.

Final product! I served it over brown rice…

…and with a fresh green salad.

Franco definitely loved the smell of this dish. He almost fell off the coffee table trying to get a better look at it

Recipe #2: Turkey, pumpkin and white bean chili

Originally posted by www.skinnytaste.com

My favorite new kitchen gadget: my garlic press.

God I love the crock pot. After cooking the turkey until it was white…

…I just threw the rest of the ingredients in and set it on low for 8 hours.

I only made one minor change to the original recipe by adding some fresh thyme in the crock pot and sprinkling some over the finished product. Also, instead of serving with sour cream, I had some plain yogurt in the fridge. Still not sure about the yogurt, but it did add a nice touch of cream to the chili.

Preview to next week: Hopefully I’ll be able to make those other 2 recipes. I also found some fantastic recipes using rosemary. I may have to mix those in too!

Anna started off the night with mini stuffed mushrooms, and she let me try one!

The bread was awesome! They brought it to us right out of the oven.

The best part about the bread was the mini sauce tray they brought to each one of us. The first was a garlic butter followed by olive oil and herbs and balsamic vinegar.

My entree came with the house salad which was easily the best house salad I’ve ever had. It was full of tomatoes, gorgonzola cheese, dried fruit and sunflower seeds. The salad dressing was a tangy puree with tomatoes, mushrooms and olive oil that went really well with the fruity cheesyness of the salad.

Now we all know how much I love my red wine, but I decided to mix it up and go with a white tonight (spoiler alert: I ordered seafood for my entree). I chose a Chardonnay from chile. I was excited to try something with “touches of marzipan.”

Unfortunately I couldn’t taste the almond but it still was a delicious white wine.

And finally, the main course. I ordered the Northern Italian Scampi. Yum!

As the menu says, “Large shrimp sautéed with garlic, vermouth, demi-glaze, fresh lemon and butter, and served over rice pilaf”

After dinner, Christopher snapped a few photos of the girls.

“Prom” style!

Overall the food was awesome and the service was fantastic. Our waiter Zach was particularly appreciated by Cynthia because of his speedy ginger ale service I’m definitely coming back again!

I drove out to Webster MA, Saturday morning. For some reason I thought it wouldn’t be a problem to drive through the “storm.” Big mistake. My car could definitely handle the snow (thanks to my snow tires) but the roads were terrible. Everyone (without snow tires) tended to drive very very slow, and a ride that should have taken 3 hours (from Fonda) took over 4. When I finally arrived, Em and I made a quick trip over to her local salon so she could get her hair done. After quite the adventure, we made it back to Em’s house and she started prepping for dinner.

When I wasn’t helping out, I managed to get a few good shots of the set up before the other guests arrived. Em was going for an Italian restaurant vibe. The lights were a nice touch.

Emily crafted up place card holders out of wine corks and some ribbon. She’s so crafty!

The menu was not only delicious but beautifully designed. Emily and Katie embossed them on one of their recent Craft-ernoons.

Some of the wine.

By 6 the guests had all arrived, and it was time for the festivities to start!

The view from my seat.

Vicki and me!

Vicki and Nick. I managed to snap several other fantastic photos of Vicki and Nick, but because I value my friendship with Vicki and want to keep it intact, they will not be posted

Michele, me and our amazing hostess…after we all had enjoyed a few glasses of wine.

On to the food!

First course: Lemon chevre stuffed fig wrapped in prosciutto with balsamic glace

Course two: Red pepper and portabella mushroom pizza…

….paired with herbed provolone and Dolcetta D’Alba.

Third course: Chicken and mushroom risotto and asparagus paired with pecorino romano and pinot noir.

Fourth course: Dark chocolate biscotti paired with gruyere and zinfandel

Night in Review:

Favorite individual food: It’s a tie between the herbed provolone and the pizza.

Favorite pairing: The biscotti and gruyere. I honestly didn’t expect to like this combo, but holy awesome tasting party in my mouth! These two mixed with the zinfandel were pretty incredible.

Favorite Wine: All of them! After intermission wine, they all start tasting like the best wine I ever tried

Favorite surprise: A charlie the unicorn button from Michele!

Favorite funny moment: Tie between the Vicki/Nick photo shoot and any conversation with Emily after intermission wine (part deux)

Favorite PJ pants: No contest, Nick wins with all-season satin

Favorite overall moment: Any moment I got to spread with some of my favorite people in the world (awww sappy but true!)

No wine dinner would be complete, without Emily’s famous brunch the next day. This Emily whipped up a tasty broccoli quiche and a french toast bake. I didn’t take as many pictures the next morning because post wine dinner photos are never anyone’s favorite pic. Regardless, the weekend was awesome, and I can’t wait for next year! It’s already on my google calendar!

Recipe #1: Hawaiian Curried Chicken with Pineapple Salsa

I first coarsely chopped the onions and added some of the spices.

Next I added the curry and pushed the onions to the side so I could lightly cook some chicken breast.

My favorite part, the light coconut milk. I covered and simmered for 20 minutes.

Done!

The pineapple salsa was a great touched. I served the whole mixture over some Israeli couscous. This is definitely a recipe I’ll be making again.

Recipe #2: Pork Piccata with Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Spinach

Since I usually cook with shrimp or poultry, I decided to mix it up this week and try something a little different. This was my first official time every making something with a pork tenderloin. First I cut the tenderloin into 16 slices and seasoned with a flour-salt-pepper mixture.

After pan frying the slices.

I made the sauce in the same pan so it soaked up all the leftover bits and pieces.

Mixed the capers in the sauce and the first part of the meal was done!

On to stage two, the mashed sweet potatoes.

I chopped and peeled the potatoes.

The recipe called for the garlic to be boiled right with the potatoes. It smelled delicious in my kitchen.

Final product! Overall this was pretty tasty. I’m kind of biased because chicken piccata is one of my favorite recipes. I didn’t love the spinach with the lemon and it probably would have been better with some steamed broccoli. The pork was surprisingly low in points. Only 5 for the piccata/spinach combo! The website considered the recipe quick and easy. It definitely was easy, but took more than the 20 minutes suggested. As for the second recipe, I LOVED the potatoes. I’ve never made mashed potatoes with yogurt before, and I was a little skeptical. It was actually super creamy and also pretty low in points (only 2 per serving).

Preview for next week’s recipes:

If all goes as planned, I’ll be making not 1, not 2, not even 3, but FOUR recipes. I know what you’re thinking? Who knew a med student had this much time on her hands. Just one of the joys of being on psych! I picked up the Jan/Feb issue of Cooking Light, and there’s at least 10 recipes I want to try. Next week I’ll just be trying one. I also have a recipe from a website Michele just passed along, another WW, and one I’m making up but is inspired by Katie’s recent blog post.

Off to watch the latest episode of the Vampire Diaries and pack for Emily’s.

Another one of my new year resolutions was to cook more often. It’s so easy to just rely on some type of frozen meal that I can just throw in the oven, but we all know how unhealthy that can quickly become. So my goal for 2012 is to try at least two new recipes a week. I can make them in bulk and then eat for the rest of the week!

Recipe #1: Crock-pot fiesta chicken

If I had to pick one kitchen appliance I couldn’t leave without (besides my coffee maker) it would be the crock pot. It’s so easy to just throw the ingredients into the pot and 6 hours later you have a delicious meal!

All the ingredients (sans chicken) in the pot.

Added 1.5 pounds of chicken.

The finished product. I served it over brown rice, added a little cheese and garnished with fresh cilantro. YUM.

Recipe #2: Curried coconut shrimp

After discovering my love for shrimp back in Boston, it has become a staple in my kitchen. I decided to mix it up and try a healthy version of one of my favorite dishes using lite coconut milk and one of the Wegman’s veggie blends. I also added some fresh garlic from Emily’s dad’s garden.

May not look like it, but this smelled delicious.

After adding the coconut milk and shrimp.

Scallions went in next.

Finished product over brown rice.

Another thing I was working on this week was planning a baby shower for my friend Jackie. Jackie, Cynthia and I spent 4 long weeks together during our Ob/Gyn clerkship. Jackie is due in February and Cynthia and I have been talking about planning something for way back when we were spending our nights together on the labor and delivery floor.

For favor, I decided to make little candy bottles on a stick.

This was my first time working with the melted chocolate and the molds, and it definitely took a little while before I got a rhythm down. My Aunt Judy who passed away back when I was in high school used to make these for my brother and I for almost every holiday. I remember them being one of the tastiest candies ever. Making the candies definitely brought back some great memories from my childhood.

Back to the crafting. I quickly realized a brush would make filling the molds way easier.

The melting process

Done! I wrapped them in plastic and used some cute frog and polka dot ribbon.

Throughout the week I also worked on a diaper cake for Jackie. Emily is a pro at these and she helped me with the rolling when she was up for New Years. After several trips to the Hobby Lobby this week, I finally got the cake decorate just right. Everyone who was coming to the shower chipped in a few dollars.

Another diaper cake shot.

On the day of the shower, I made my first quiche. I got this recipe off Allrecipes.com and I highly recommend it. Cooked up some onions, broccoli and mushrooms.

Add it to and egg, milk, cheese, miracle whip combo.

And placed it in a ready made pie crust. Before….

…and After. It came out great and honestly it was that bad for you.

On Sunday, the party guests started arriving. Everyone brought some type of delicious dish to share.

Anna came with her famous truffles and she made melted snowman cookies.

Definitely the cutest food item at the shower!

I borrowed this and a few other picture from my friend Lauren’s facebook page. A little blurry, but Jackie was definitely surprised.

Mommy and daddy!

Cynthia’s awesome cupcakes.

All of the tasty treats.

Caitlyn and Anna enjoying.

We had several party games planned, but the best one had to be “Guess the Do-Do” as Cynthia called it. We melted a bunch of different chocolates, stuck them in some diapers and the party guests had to guess what type of chocolate was in each diaper.

The girls hard at work.

Sarah getting an extra good smell.

Lauren, Megan and Emily comparing notes.

Cynthia announcing the anwers.

All of the party guests (minus Sarah and Suma).

I had a fantastic time! If only every weekend could be another party!

Preview to the next “Sarah’s week in review:” Emily’s 4th Annual Wine Night! Get excited!

Vicki and I met up after my classes finished on Friday and headed out to Worcester. After a few quick pit stops that included a trip to Panera and visiting with Erin and Ian, we arrived at Emily’s and Trevor’s apartment. In true Emily style, she already had most of the prep work done for Saturday’s dinner. After some quick catching up, we all headed to bed to get a good nights sleep before the following day’s festivities. Unfortunately, I had to spend most of Saturday studying (a few hours of micro and 5 path lectures), but I finally got to enjoy myself during dinner.

Our gnomes were the first guests to arrive

Vicki helping set up the table settings. I loved the tissue paper flowers/snow balls hanging from the ceiling.

Em and Trevor managed to seat 16 people in the apartment. Very impressive.

Emily decided to create a winter wonderland theme with the directions. Everything was white, glass or sparkly!

Our lovely hosts for the evening, Emily and Trevor!

Emily and I before the guests started arriving.

Just some of the wine that was consumed throughout the evening. We had five different varieties during dinner.

My place setting. Emily actually made all the labels and place cards with her favorite crafting tool, the cri-cut.

Wilbur getting a closer look

My favorite part of the meal was the cheese course. We had a French double-cream soft cheese made from cow’s milk, a cheese made in the La Mancha region of Spain from the milk of sheep of the Manchega breed, and a goat’s milk cheese native to the Loire Valley in France. When it comes to cheese, Emily doesn’t mess around.

My favorite of the three. It was so creamy and delicious.

Emily served this course with a fennel, apple, walnut salad and a pinot gris.

We also had these little fennel twists. They were super tasty!

My plate filled with cheesy deliciousness!

Emily and Trevor used this cool bottle top decanter when boring the wine. Oh so fancy!

Vicki and I during dinner.

The next course was a endive, roasted fennel and mandarin orange salad with dijon dressing. It was served with an awesome chardonnay.

Third part of the meal was sweet potato fries with a raspberry dipping sauce. AMAZING and made even better with a merlot.

The main entree was a hot and sweet sausage in a classic red sauce served over linguini with a side of squash, zucchini and red onions paired with a sangiovese. YUM!

We finished off the night with a syrah brownie pie made with graham cracker and marshmellow crust. I was so full with the rest of the meal, I only could squeeze in one bite of the brownie

Right around this part of the night, I got this picture of Emily. I know its a little fuzzy, but I think it’s a beautiful picture of our hostess

117 Lanark reunion. Renate, Michele and I

All and all, it was a wonderful evening filled with friends, fun, and REALLY good food. I wish I got more pictures, but I was too busy having a fantastic time. As usual, Emily and Trevor thew a great party, and served one of the best meals I’ve had in a very long time. I can’t wait for next year

As if Emily didn’t serve us enough amazing food, the next morning she served a post wine dinner brunch for those of us who stayed over night.

I had hash browns, veggie quiche and some grapes. Perfect way to start the morning!

Vicki and I spent the rest of the day hanging out with Emily and Trevor. I managed to get a surprising amount of work done too:) One of my favorite parts of the day was watching Emily in her element. Getting her craft on! Here she is whipping up a diaper cake for her friend Kat.

Finished product, gnome not included

Let me explain why these past few days sucked (or skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to hear me vent about school). After driving back from my weekend at home, Monday was spent working on mini cases and going through our renal pathology midterm. In theory, this shouldn’t have been to bad, but it ended up taking up a huge chunk of the day. Tuesday involved waking up at 6:30 for a 3 hour POM small group session on office diagnostics. I can now cross off catheterizing a mannequin, peeing in a cup to test my own urine, and doing a fecal occult blood test off my bucket list. A fecal occult blood test detects blood in the stool by placing a small sample of stool on a chemically treated card. Luckily, they had us working with cat food. After a lunch meeting for a group I’m secretary for, we had two hours of lecture. Then it was off to meet up with my MIRACLE class partner to work on the 45 minute presentation we needed to give later that evening. After finishing the powerpoint, I headed to my advisory dean meeting for 30 minutes and then left early to make it to my MIRACLE class. The presentation ended up going really well. I was nervous that it wasn’t going to be one of my better speaking sessions as I was exhausted and hadn’t spent much time practicing. In fact, we never actually did a run through before class. Luckily it all came together and my professor said it was one of the best MIRACLE presentations he’s seen! After 1.5 hours of listening to two other presentations, I headed home to start cooking dinner at 9 pm and to START prepping for an MLC quiz. Because I spent so much time working on the presentation, MLC had to wait. Luckily, I made it to bed by 1:30. Wednesday involved several hours of lectures, a quiz and then a 2 hour medical spanish class. The rest of the week consisted of more studying, more lectures, more lunch meetings and more late nights. Man, I’m tired from just typing that all out. All I have to say is thank God for coffee.

Because these past few days have been so busy, I didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time in the kitchen. After coming home late earlier in the week, I went to my pantry and hoped I would find something to inspire a quick meal. I remembered I had a box couscous and that sounded absolutely delicious. I love the texture of pearled couscous. Because I made so much at once, this one pot of couscous actually got me through several meals AND saved me a ton of time. Kudos to couscous!

I really liked this variety. The directions had me add a tablespoon of olive oil, and the oil really helped keep the couscous from sticking.

Meal #1. I gathered the ingredients to make an veggie egg scramble. Who doesn’t love breakfast for dinner?

Using my awesome new griddler, I precooked the veggies. This was the first time using the griddle side of the plates, and they worked really well.

Red onions with a little chopped garlic

There was a little bit of a cooking hiccup and I was busy trying to keep things from burning and spilling. I didn’t get any pictures of the eggs cooking, but I did get one of the final product. I know what you’re thinking, coucous and eggs? The flavors actually worked really well together and the consistency wasn’t weird at all. It reminded me of eggs and hash browns, just smaller and rounder.

Meal #2. I combined some of the leftover couscous with broccli and fresh edamame. Again, I didn’t get a picture but I found a snap shot that looked an awfully lot like my dish online at this website.

Meal #3. I packed some of the couscous for lunch. I combined it with chicken, peppers, tomatoes and beans for a tasty, protein-y, packed lunch.

Although I would love to take credit for making the chicken and bean mix, it actually came from a frozen smart ones. These things are perfect for a quick meal on the run.

Meal #4. I combined some garlic, olive oil, chunky chopped red onion and shrimp in a small frying pan.

I also cooked a bunch of arugula and spinach.

Bam! That whole thing took last then 10 minutes. The shrimp-onion portion of the meal came out amazing and some extra pepper gave it a nice extra kick.

Check back tomorrow for my next post which will be about Emily’s annual wine dinner

Thoughts:

• Wow, Natalie Portman is doing a romantic comedy?
• A romantic comedy with Ashton Kutcher? Really Natalie? This is Kelso from That Seventies Show. You get nominated for oscars.
• I forgot how attractive Ashton Kutcher could be…
• Oh, she’s a busy doctor with no time for a love life. Sounds familiar…
• Ludacris is in it! He brings back so many good memories at the Jug.
• It’s a romantic comedy. Who am I kidding? I’m going to see it…because that’s how I roll.

At the end of this conversation (with myself), I was all set to see the movie when it came out. And then the Pandora commercial happened. Approximately every 15 minutes (at least that’s what it feels like), I hear the same commercial. Over and over again. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Natalie Portman scream “Why can’t we just have sex” and one of the supporting characters refer to Ashton as “the old man from Up!” Maybe its because I’m listening to Pandora more than usual, but this has been driving me BONKERS!!!!

Therefore, as of this evening, I’ve officially updated my Pandora. Granted, I was going to have to do this very soon regardless of the commercial. I only have one hour of free listening left, but I couldn’t deal with another hour of this movie preview. Their advertisement has failed. I will NOT see this movie (at least in theaters) on principle. Also if you listen to Pandora at work how incredibly inappropriate.

In other news, we got Chinese take-out for dinner tonight. I ordered the chicken with veggies over brown rice, and I think it’s going to last me for three meals. They give such huge serving sizes!

After dinner, I cracked open a fortune cookie. Student. Yup, that’s me.

“Everything will now come your way.” I’d like to think that means all the answers will pop into my head, but it more likely means I have a whole lot of bugs to learn my micro shelf and I should get back to studying

As you may or may not know, Bethenny is a natural foods chef, television personality, and author. She was a contestant on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, where she placed second, and then went on to star as one of the Real Housewives of New York. Since leaving the show, she has starred in her own reality show, Bettheny Getting Married, and as we learned on Friday, she will be returning to TV in Bettheny Ever After. Bethenny also has a local connection to the capital district. She spent her summer’s in Saratoga Springs where her dad worked as a horse trainer. She even gave a shot out to the city during the show, saying all of her favorite childhood memories took place in and around the area. Emily and I both fans. She is by far my favorite housewife of all time, and I watched every single episode of Bravo’s highest rated show of all time, Bethenny Getting Married.

Emily got our tickets and I just have to say what an amazing job she did picking seats. Not only were we A) on the end and B) in the center, we were C) EXTREMELY close to the restroom. Not surprisingly, the audience was primarily female and the ladies’ room filled up fast after the show. Luckily, Em and I were the first people in line!

Emily and I had plans to grab a quick dinner at the cafe outside of the theater. Unfortunately, they stopred serving real food after a certain time and our choices were coffee and cookies. We decided to wait and pick up something once we were in the theater. The choices were also fairly limited inside (nuts or alcohol). Em and I opted for some bottled water and almonds.

The show started with Jay Z’s song Empire State of Mind. Once she came out on stage all 1300 audience members were pretty excited. She wore a cute little red strapless dress (French Connection for $30) and a new watch that must have been fairly pricey (she mentioned her “buyer’s remorse”).

Bethenny sat next to a table with a bouquet of red roses and of course a bottle of her Skinny Girl Margarita.

Bethenny started out with a quick intro, and then got right into her food rules. Overall, I agree with most of what she has to say. She spoke about portion control, eating real foods, and being aware of what you’re putting in your mouth. The message was to stop emotionally eating, stop bingeing, and stop cleaning your plate. Easier said than done. Clearly her food rules do not apply someone actually has a problem with food. It’s not as simple as reading a book and being “released” from the control of food. It takes years of therapy and confronting and dealing with the issues behind the emotional eating for someone to really be freed from the diet cycle. Although her advice may work for some, in my medical opinion, it can’t be applied to everyone. The other thing that detracted from her food rules for me was the fact that she has no nutritional training or any background in psychology. Thus, while I agree with her message of mindful eating, I took most of this portion of the evening with a grain of salt.

One thing that I wish she would have spoke more about was her food and recipes. Essentially her message was keep it simple. Good advice, but as a natural chef, this is something that she’s an authority on, and I’m sure she could have shared a ton of good info. Due to the time constraints of the evening, she didn’t speak very long about this.

The third portion of her evening involved getting to a “place of yes.” What I took from this is exactly what they wrote in the program. “Rules for everything you want to get out of life.” This was my favorite and most useful portion of the talk. She spoke of always doing your best with whatever you’re doing and if you can’t do it to it’s full potential, don’t do it. Bethenny also mentioned that if you really want something, you have to work for it. Solid advice. For me, the rule that hit home the most was “all roads lead to Rome.” She explained that this wasn’t insinuating that we should all be packing our bags for Italy anytime soon, but that everything we do in our life is building towards our future. Things that we’re doing now (for me, studying book upon book of medical information) may not be the most exciting activity, but working hard towards our goal will get us to the places we want to be.

The final portion of the evening was the Q and A session. While good in theory, not so good in execution. Instead of having audience members line up behind a mike and ask questions in an organized manner, it was just who ever she pointed to. A staff member would run over to that person with a mike. It was pretty chaotic. People were running around and essentially yelling “pick me!” While there was some good questions about getting a business going and being a single woman in your 20′s and 30′s, some of the questions were absolutely crazy. The word like was used an absurd number of times. Example question: “So Hi Bethenny. I’m a senior at <insert random high school or college> and I’m moving to New York. Can you like give me advice of how I should like navigate the city so like I don’t get like mugged or liked raped?” I was impressed by how well she dealt with all of the ridiculous questions. Quite a few people didn’t really have questions, but instead asked for hugs and autographs. She was a good sport and actually did sign books (as she’s doing below)….

….and come into the audience to give a hug.

Some of my favorite parts of the show:

• Jason was there! He’s such a good sport. Several times during the show, Bethenny gave him a hard time about everything from the first time the met to his love of protein bars. He even posed for pictures afterwards.
• She did a Jill impersonation! As usual, spot on.
• She gossiped a little about the show. Apparently, Kelly IS that crazy, the Beverly Hills ladies ARE that rich, and Max will NOT be returning to the show. “He just wanted to be on TV.” Also, she mentioned that from the show, she only speaks to Ramona and Alex.
• She announced that in addition to the Skinny Girl Margarita, she will soon be releasing a Skinny Girl Sangria.
• After mentioned her dry legs, she borrowed some lotion from an audience member and lotioned her legs.
• She actually came into the audience, gave hugs, signed books. I’m not so sure all celebrities would do that.

Overall, it was a great experience. I came away from the evening feeling like I just had a good pep talk from a close girlfriend. When Bethenny speaks, she’s absolutely hilarious. She’s an intelligent and witty woman who has worked hard to be where she’s at in life and is very open about the fact that it wasn’t an easy ride. I very much appreciated her general message of work hard, be the best person you can be, and single girl power. Job well done and thanks for a great evening Bethenny!