So, this is what we've really been up to all winter...Please read my husband's new blog to see all the news.  To all our family and friends:  thanks for the support and help to this point, and we hope to see you all there this summer enjoying a Mojito at the bar or a lobster on the patio!

Free publicity

Recently, a lot of people have been coming in to the restaurant saying they saw a picture of us in the NY Times. So, with the help from my dear friend Cathy, I tracked down a copy. It was actually in the style section a couple of Sunday's ago...cute!

Photo:  Dean Isidro for The New York Times

The article was about menswear style.  Apparently, cutoffs are back in for guys (See above photo).

On another note...we had another celebrity sighting in the restaurant the other night. Anthony Bourdain and some friends and family came in to eat. He said that everyone told him that we were the "Place to go". VERY cool.  I love him...cool food point of view-he tells it like it is.  His book Kitchen Confidential is a great read.  In fact, parts of it took place in Provincetown where he got his culinary start.

Happy Festivus!

Tonight is opening night of Provincetown, Massachusetts Portuguese Festival and Blessing of the Fleet.  This is a big weekend in town that celebrates Provincetown Portuguese heritage and the towns fishing fleet.  Our restaurant is once again invited to make and serve up the opening night dinner.  Dinner for 250?  No problem-o!  Hubby, I and our crew are making our restaurants famous clam chowder, salmon, shrimp, scallop and veggie kabobs served over Portuguese rice (hot and spicy!) and I just finished making and baking 300 assorted cookies for dessert.  It's a pretty casual event but fun.  We get to drink some great Portuguese wine and beer too!  Neither my husband or I are of Portuguese descent so it's an honor that we keep getting asked to make the food for the event.  

Other happenings in town this weekend include a fishing derby, kids games and a cookout, Portuguese soup tasting, lots of food and drink, a block party, a parade (of course, Puma Park will be represented!) and the weekend culminates in a mass and the blessing of the fishing fleet on Sunday.  Pretty fun stuff.  Now, if only the weather will cooperate....

incommunicado

I have an excuse....

I've been so busy helping get the restaurant open and fill many Memorial Day Weekend orders for Seaside Designs that I literally have not had a second to catch up.  We opened the doors to the restaurant yesterday at noon to a great response.  This is our seventh (!) season open.  We have grown in leaps and bounds since that first Memorial Day Weekend....we actually know what we are doing now!  If you are in the area between now and Columbus Day Weekend, stop by and have a bite or sign up for one of our Lobstering excursions.  Cape Cod Life Magazine just voted us the gold award for "Best Kids Activity on the Outer Cape" as well as the silver award for "Best Restaurant Reachable by Boat".   very cool.  

Playground

I strongly feel that one should embrace the community that they live in and support any and all projects that they can.  My pet project in addition to my design company and the restaurant is a community playground in my town of Truro, Massachusetts.  About two years ago a town selectman, Curtis Hartman, and I got to talking about what our town needs and I felt that it really needed a playground.  So, fast-forward a couple of years and here we are elbows deep in planning an amazing playground for our town.  Yesterday was "design day" when a designer from Leathers & Associates, came to our little town to gather all the ideas about ideal playgrounds from the children of the community.  He then took their ideas and drafted a design on the spot with our location and budget in mind.  We concluded the day with a party to celebrate the design and we look forward to the community building of the playground in October.  We have an amazing group of people backing this project and I feel honored to be a part of it.  

Cookies!

Our restaurant and fish market will be opening again soon, well actually, Memorial Day Weekend, but I have been spending some time, like I do every year, coming up with new recipes, ideas and overall fun things that we can incorporate for the season.  We (hubby and me) work hard every spring to get the place in tip-top shape, ready for the throngs of tourists that visit the Cape tip every summer.  We offer the usual clam-shack fare; chowder, lobster rolls, fried seafood, etc. but we also have some great dessert selections that are homemade by moi daily.  Great cookies and cupcakes are my passion and I've been working on these beauties, testing and trying.  The only problem is that they are quite time consuming to make, but each one is like a little work of art. 

 Yummy, sea-critter shaped sugar cookies with lemon zest royal icing and colored sanding sugar...what's better than that?!?!?

FINALLY!

I meant to get to this all-important first post oh, about forever ago, but life happens, kids need you, work beckons and the blog gets put on the back burner.  So, finally, I'm just making the commitment to sit down and begin writing.  

ANYWAY.....

For those of you who don't know me, I am first a mom and a wife, but I have this secret life...the life of a designer of all things Seaside.  You see, I own this little company aptly named Seaside Designs .  I design and make home accessories, ocean-inspired stationery, home fragrance products, jewelry and textiles.  I sell to stores around the country and some not in the country. I LOVE being my own boss, creating things that I love and getting to be home for my kids when they get home from school.  I live way out on Cape Cod (hence the beach bum) and I work from my little seaside studio close to home.  I am a one-gal show with the exception of my fabulous mom who is my right-hand-gal when I need her.  Right now I am in the midst of creating my new lines for 2008.  Almost March, I know...totally behind the 8-ball, but this is how I work...frantically playing catch-up at all times.  Life would be totally boring if I got everything done when it's supposed to be done.   I'll be posting some little peeks soon!

My other life is being my husbands right-hand-gal at our family restaurant and fish market.  Every spring around Memorial Day Weekend through every fall around Columbus Day Weekend, we are elbows deep in yummy coastal cuisine.  It's a typical clam-shack, but we have some award winning recipes that keep 'em coming back year after year.  If you are in Provincetown, Massachusetts during the summer months, stop by and have a lobster roll and an ice-cream cone...the best in town!

This is our famous Wall 'O Buoys.  You cannot go into a gallery on Cape Cod without seeing a photo or painting of it.  We've had commercials filmed in front of it, Jeep did an advertising spread with it in the background, there's even a Hallmark card out there somewhere with it!  This is just a small portion of the wall, but practically our entire building is covered...makes it easy to tell people where we're located though!