March 26, 2011

At The Elan with Notes on the State of New Jersey photographer, Christina Rudczynski

 

The Elan
Thursday night, I attended the grand opening of the new reception hall in Lodi, The Elan.

Ari Starkman, owner of The Elan, was there to energetically greet and welcome guests to his open house.  During the event, I had a great time chatting with Kelly Adams from RSVP to Me and Sophie Stone  from the Paramus Post.  The food was delicious and the entertainment from Uptown Swing got everyone on their feet. Anyone looking to have a wedding or other banquet event will definitely want to check out The Elan in Lodi!

The sugar bowl I painted at The Clay Pot!

 

My Sugar Bowl
Back in January, I went to The Clay Pot in Spotswood on a snowy Saturday.  I painted a sugar bowl (the colors of my kitchen), and left it there to be fired.  It was ready for pick up in just a couple of days.  My friend, Lauren, picked up the sugar bowl for me, when she got her own pottery piece,  but because of (lots of) snow and busy schedules, she and I just recently connected.

It was definitely worth the wait! I am very pleased with the way that my sugar bowl came out and I’m looking forward to going back to The Clay Pot and making another piece!

Best of Jersey
My copy of New Jersey Monthly’s Best of Jersey issue  arrived today.  Once again, Walter Bauman Jewelers has been voted as the Best Jewelry Store in NJ.  (Yay!)  I’m going to get myself a cup of coffee, and sit back with the magazine to see what other great NJ individuals and businesses made the list this year!

~Melissa
The Jersey Girl

Painting Pottery and Pizza

One of the best things about having a birthday is getting to choose where to celebrate.  A good friend of mine, Lauren (of the very funny blog LaurenVision), chose to celebrate her recent birthday at two central New Jersey spots that I had never been to before.

We started out at The Clay Pot in Spotswood (where I painted a sugar bowl).  The promise at The Clay Pot is that you don’t need to actually have any talent when it comes to painting or pottery (which is a very good thing in my case) to wind up with something nice.  The owners of the studio even helped me figure out how to apply a very nice sponge technique to my sugar bowl.  We were there with a party of about twelve, and I think everyone actually did do a great job with their pottery pieces – and had a lot of fun in the process.

 

The painted pieces before they are put back into the kiln. (Photo by Erin Amaty)

I’m looking forward to seeing what my sugar bowl looks like after the second firing in the kiln this week!

 

Who knew that painting pottery would work up such an appetite?  But it sure did.  So, next we headed over to Mancini Pizza in East Brunswick.  There, we had rice balls stuffed with ground meat, steak sandwiches, penne alla vodka, a grilled vegetable panini, and a delicious Italian chicken panini.  The service was great too; it really was the perfect place to celebrate a birthday on a snowy January afternoon.

And it looks like even more snow is on its way this week.  If you’re in the East Brunswick area, you might want to head over to Mancini Pizza and stock up on some good food before you get snowed in.  Personally, I’m hoping to try the pizza alla vodka the next time I’m there…

~Melissa
The Jersey Girl