I love Pen & Jen

First, consider yourself forewarned about two important things. I have to go have lunch with my future bosses today, so I'm taking off soon and I ain't coming back! Ha ha ha ha! Don't feel bad, though - I have to wear a suit and that's punishment enough. Second, after the summer I had last year, I am bound and determined to make this summer extra fantastique. Part of that means I need to do my work so that I can go on a trip in August, as well as the Vienna and Toronto trips scheduled in July. What this means for you is that I will still post every day, but unless I have something I really need to write about, I'm not going to post 4 times a day. I just can't do it. Remember - I'm not Gawker or Defamer (Anh, I'm talking to you!) and I don't get paid to do this. I get paid to do.... I'm not exactly sure what my boss pays me to do, but it's definitely not write a blog.

So, yesterday I dined at Aquavit with, well, basically the two people who read this blog - Anh and Gena, their respective husband-to-be and husband (Dave and Mike), Gena's b-fry Eda, and my date, the lovely Lynn. Lynn's hubby was stuck sitting on a runway in Atlanta, poor guy. Not that nouveau Swedish food is his thing anyway.

This post isn't about Aquavit, though, it's about Pen & Jen's Tea Bar in the Maplewood train station. Lynn and I took the train into Manhattan, and so, I stocked up on tea last night. First, I had an iced blood orange and pear tea with some simple syrup, which I sucked down so quickly I got a terrible brain freeze. It was delicious and totally worth the pain, though. Then I bought a blueberry rooibus loose tea for my lovely cast iron tea kettle with diffuser that Anh gave me. Rooibus is a South African herbal tea with all sorts of anti-oxidants and other good things. I had a cup when I got home last night and it was quite nice, with strong blueberry accents.

Anyhoo, I love Pen & Jen and want to be just like them when I grow up (even though they aren't much older than me). P & J are old friends and they were both working Wall Street jobs. One day they wondered why they were working so hard at jobs they didn't even really like that much. So they quit their day jobs and opened a tea bar. They give me hope.

More on Aquavit later.