- Mood:
accomplished
Last Saturday was the Decatur Beer Festival which is the granddaddy of the beer festivals here in the Atlanta area. They never fail to impress. I've only gotten into drinking more interesting beers in the last five years and I follow the advice of my friends Eric and Scott who are obsessive beer-ies. (I just made that up, whatever you call beer-loving/brewing freaks). Eric's more of a hoppy, Belgian, IPA man, Scott likes your sweeter beers. I like dark, chocolate-y, coffee-y stouts but also lemon-y/orange-y Heffeweissens. But I'll try anything. The one thing I'm always curious about is the dearth of pumpkin ales at the beer festival - odd considering this is THAT time of year. I love anything with pumpkin in it. This is a very squash-y post.
Key to the enjoyment of this year's beer festival was the fact that they had different food. A Decatur taqueria was added to the mix and I had quite a decent tamale. I am not, by any means, an expert on tamales but I think this is an excellent food choice after drinking much beer. Oh yeah, did I mention that I had a horrible head cold the entire week before which was only about 50% gone on beer festival day. So my tasting judgment can probably not be completely trusted. This is why I won't go into which brands, etc were awesome because, frankly, I don't remember.
Post-beer festival, we headed over to Tastings in Decatur, where my gentlemen friends' wives were hanging out. They are both wine drinkers so they spent the day waiting for their husbands getting minuscule tastings of different wines for $2 and upwards a shot. The cost of the tasting depends on the actual per bottle cost of the wine so you might have a $15 2-oz pour of a $190 bottle of wine. It's a pretty cool system if wine is your thing. You load up a debit card with money and then you insert the card in one of the several wine tasting stations and pick how big of a pour you want and it subtracts the money off of your card. Of course, they offer small plates of food to go with the wine. We ordered a margherita and some type of meat pizza, figs and blue cheese kettle chips. They were all fabulous, but once again, I can't be trusted with my half a head cold. The blue cheese kettle chips were different than the ones at, say, Buckhead Diner, because they were more just hot potato chips and not thick, pillowy slices of potato. Who can say no to hot blue cheese, though?
One more thing - I am totally in love with apples right now. Two weeks ago I bought a batch of golden apples that had the word Crisp in their title. I haven't seen this variety since. They are fabulous and I'm down to my last one. Help!
- Mood:
sleepy
I've had a craving for baba au rhum after seeing Neapolitan baba au rhum on Lidia Bastianich's show, Lidia's Italy. I haven't found a good recipe and none of the major bakeries around here seem to sell it. I did go to Alon's last Sunday morning but ended up buying croissants.
I didn't realize how hard it is to find a non-instant tapioca mix at the grocery store. Is this an ethnic thing? I don't like the taste of instant puddings. I love Kozy Shack but it's always more interesting to make your own.
Have I ever mentioned my favorite dim sum in Atlanta? I always forget the name of the place (China Delight?) but it's a stone's throw from the way-overrated Canton House on Buford Highway. This place is on Chamblee-Tucker, one light up from Buford Highway. The flavors and textures are more varied than Canton House. Canton House's main texture is greasy. I only mention this because somebody said they thought it was closed but I can assure that it is still open and busy on Saturday and Sunday.
I drove by the dim sum place after a trip to the fabulous Buford Highway Farmer's Market. Wisely, they are refurbishing it to look more like a Super H (fabulous huge Korean supermarket) but it can be hard to find stuff because the packaged stuff is divided into ethnic categories. It extends beyond the Asian and Mexican categories - they also have Eastern European, Turkish and god knows what else. I'm usually distracted by hunger when I'm there and I'm trying to figure out what I need. on Saturdays they have an enormous array of sampling stations. They now have an actual Korean food counter where prepared food is served. It looks like they are clearing out their odd housewares section for this purpose. I bought a $4 nonstick pan from there that I love and use for everything.
I took a vacation day today because I have three weeks to burn before the end of the year. It is now almost the middle of October so I need to take at least one day off a week for the rest of the year. Sounds good to me. Unfortunately, I don't feel so awesome so I wasn't able to take advantage of a free day. On the positive side, I have done nothing house-chore-y to make me feel like I'm not "vacationing". Laundry doesn't count, especially if I don't fold it when it's done!
- Location:living room
- Mood: tired
Post-Dragon*con parade brunch plan was get away from downtown Atlanta. There aren't a lot of places to eat downtown on the weekend. Even worse during Dragon*con - everywhere was crowded with orcs, hobbits, Dr. Whos, stormtroopers, faeries, sub-military dorks and the like so I escaped with the Gongoras to Parish. They've done a great job of making this place look old. It's like an airy courtyard restaurant from the French Quarter except a lot roomier and less muggy than it would be in NOLA. The hot beignets are worth the whole meal. A slightly breadier texture than donuts but still light enough that you could eat the whole bowl of them, covered in powdered sugar that melts on your fingers from the heat. I got the shrimp and grits because, like reubens, I have to try them everywhere I go. Very good, hearty grits, small shrimp, a little kick. I got a side of andouille because it is hard to find decent andouille outside of Louisiana and make it right yourself, I've found. Fantastic. Crisp skin, spicy firm meat.
Cheryl had an omelette that had crab in it - tasty. Eric had a spinach salad and the chicken gumbo. He said the beignets went well with the gumbo - salty/spicy/sweet.
After lunch we went downstairs to check out the market. If you're by yourself and don't want to eat in a restaurant setting, you can order the same menu plus sandwiches, salads and pastries downstairs, where the kitchen is located. There's one big communal table that you can sit at and drink coffee and read newspapers. There's soaps, candles, wine, beer, cheeses and the like downstairs. The atmosphere is more like homey basement.
Across from Parish is Hall's Fine Wines. Cheryl's a wine person so we checked it out. They have lots of brands I'd never heard of, not that's difficult since I'm not a wine-y(?). I'm more beer-y. But they have unusual choices, cheap-ish and pricier. Maybe good for gift wines?
We've been plagued by Einstein's bagels at work for the last four years. Every Friday is bagel day and it's been the same since the dawn of time at my company. The girl who buys the bagels decided to try Goldberg's, which is a more traditional Northeastern bagel. The cream cheese is much more homemade and the bagels are denser and chewier. I was made fun of because I ordered a salt bagel. People in my office had never heard of a salt bagel. True, I am completely bloated from the overconsumption of salt today, but I'm proud to have introduced the salt bagel to the uninitiated. The general consensus in the office was that they like Einstein's better. To each their own. I can't wait to try the sandwiches at Goldberg's.
- Mood:
relaxed
I am boiling water so I won't have to get up early tomorrow morning to do it. We have a boiled water advisory in my area because of some power outage at the water treatment plant on Tuesday, blah blah blah, precautionary...etc etc. I'm showering in it and running my dishwasher with it but I'm not drinking straight from the tap or even giving my dogs water from the tap. It would seem stupid to risk E.coli or doggie diarrhea. Anyway, I spent way too much time this morning boiling water and waiting for it to cool off so I could use it to pour back into my coffeemaker for coffee and pour in the dogs' water bowl. I'm not somebody who always has bottled water sitting around so it's been a little bit of a pain in the ass. And ice cubes. I'm an ice cube fiend. I'm being sparing with the cubes.
It's too hot to eat. I went and got fried chicken at Publix tonight and the lady was trying to convince me to buy the eight piece box for two dollars more since I was paying $5 for 3 pieces. I felt where she was coming from, in these trying economic times and all, but I wasn't that hungry and if I have eight pieces of fried chicken in my fridge, I will eventually eat eight pieces of fried chicken. I still only ate two out of the three pieces. Dessert tonight is a Brooklyn Lager. I just read an article in the NY Times about the angst of the Brooklyn brewery possibly having to move to Long Island. Who cares, as long as it still makes a decent beer?
So we decided to buy ice cream accoutrements to keep at the office. Considering there are only about five of us that actually talk to each other anymore (out of a total of 12 people in the office), this wasn't that expensive. Ice cream, double-chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, whipped cream, maraschino cherries, Magic Shell and cake cones are our starting point. On Friday 13th, we were all having a particularly hard time keeping our interest in the extreme amounts of work we have at the moment so me and Jessica bought cheesecake bites at Trader Joe's to go with our ice cream.
I did eat at Popeye's on my birthday. This was the first time I've eaten at the Popeye's on South Cobb Drive near the Big Chicken. Very good, excellent service. Got awesome news that the Ponce de Leon Popeye's is now open and still giving awesomely bad service but they cannot be as bad as the Memorial Drive one. I've always loved the Ponce Popeye's even when crackheads were soliciting donations in the drive-thru line. It's fun to watch the crackwhores work the corner and the drug dealers looking shady in the gas station parking lot while you wait 15 minutes to order.
This week I had awesome Chinese pork belly buns at Shaun's and really good margherita pizza at Little Azio on Moreland. I think for Shaun's I might have to go with the gluten-free stuff, other than the pork belly buns. I had fish and chips there that made me feel a bit sick. The breading was ridiculously crispy but soaked up all the grease that they fried it in. I love the atmosphere and intimacy of the space at Shaun's but the food sometimes isn't worth the money (not that I was paying this time. My awesome friends bought me dinner for my birthday). Little Azio is worth the money (didn't pay, Wendy paid, also for birthday - good stuff). It's close by, good flat, crispy pizza, cool space. Near a gym, that I desperately need to join.
I need to give special mention to Wendy's (my friend's) ice cream-making skills. She made an excellent chocolate and an interesting bacon ice cream this week which I got to sample. She said the first batch of bacon ice cream was better because she used a fattier bacon. The chocolate had a really nice texture. The bacon ice cream that I sampled was like vanilla, with bacon bits, with a hammy aftertaste.
- Music:Stayin' Alive
I could probably do with a salad today. The last two days have been an eating/drinking frenzy.
Friday: co-worker's birthday so I took her to lunch at Ted's Montana Grill. I was craving a steak and her pregnancy is causing her to need more iron. So we both got 8 oz. fillets, with garlic mashed potatoes and I got the parmesan creamed spinach. Steak - medium rare, excellent. Garlic mashed potatoes - excellent. Spinach - more parmesan/cream than spinach. I prefer Boston Market's or Stouffer's frozen to be totally honest. Also we both had their excellent lemonade. They serve it with crushed ice which means it is the perfect summertime drink. Immediately after lunch we went next door to Cold Stone Creamery. I got the cinnamon ice cream with chocolate chips folded in. I probably should have gotten some nuts folded in, instead. Oh well.
Saturday: I made myself a cheese omelet and bacon to provide a base for the East Atlanta Beer Festival. Met some friends, walked over and was not happy with the heat. It was definitely the right thing to get there as early as possible because the crowd got larger exponentially every minute and the beer got warmer and they ran out of the good stuff early. We were toast about three hours in. We walked over to La Casita and I shared queso fundido with a couple friends. Gross. Small cast iron skillet with a quickly cooled glob of cheese with an oil slick the size of the Gulf of Mexico with bits of chorizo floating on top. We didn't even see the sad peppers underneath all of this. It did not allow for chip integrity to be maintained and was completely ridiculous. We headed over to Green's to stand in the Belgian beer cooler to cool off for about 15 minutes. Seriously.
Dinner was at Cakes and Ale in Decatur. 7:30 on a Saturday night, we were all hot, sweaty, not well-dressed, and they kindly sat us almost immediately. Their beer taps were broken but they do have a pretty excellent selection (although pricey). The wine selection was good too. I had a Dale's Ale - mild. The menu selection changes with what's available locally, fresh, yadda yadda. I had the potato gnocchi with fennel sausage. Yum. Somebody else had the half roast chicken with beet green and potato mash, a side of radishes in sea salt and butter and somebody else had the roast pork loin with morels that looked awesome. For dessert I had the strawberry tart. Others had the "phatty cakes", the rhubarb sorbet and Neapolitan ice cream with chocolate chip cookie. Hilariously, the restaurant thought one of us was a food critic because Eric kept taking pictures of the food for his blog. They gave us a chocolate eclair complimentary. I would have recommended them without that anyway.
I'm doing veal tonight. Yum. So easy, so young, so tasty.
As the lemon shows, I'm relaxed, even though the A/C is out and some neighbors down the street lost one of their dogs after some thugs broke into their house to get their flatscreen TV. I'm working from home tomorrow while my A/C gets fixed and hopefully I won't have to get a new condenser.
- Mood: relaxed
Dinner: linguini, homemade pesto, shrimp
Between-meal snack: Louisiana crunch cake with Wendy's homemade lemon sorbet (refreshing! lemony!)
A/C may be on the fritz. It pooped out last year in May. I might have to get another condenser. Boo. This will cost about $5,000.
Last night: really good BBQ chicken with BBQ'ed okra, all made by Wendy. Fantastic. In celebration of Memorial Day weekend and Maxine's 2nd birthday. There were seven dogs at Wendy's house: two of the neighbors' dogs, Maxine, Wendy's two dogs and Wendy's foster. Surprisingly, we didn't lose much food to the pooches. One jumped the gun on the doggie ice cream treat.
I would be re-miss if I didn't mention that I got up at 7am, walked the dogs and went to Burger King in my pajamas to get a cheesy bacon wrap. I've heard so much about it and I was needing grease but didn't want to cook. I ended up driving all the way down Candler not realizing that the Burger King is by the South Dekalb Mall. All I can say is, I don't recommend it - the cheesy bacon wrap or the South Dekalb Mall. I think if they left the egg and the wrap out of it they might have something - like a pile of tater tots covered in bacon and cheese. I would not have a problem with that. With added tots on the side.
- Location:home
- Mood:
thirsty - Music:Being There
By the time we got to Trappeze I was full and sleepy. Trappeze would not have survived in my college town because it does not serve Olympia or Old Milwaukee. They do serve an incredible array of Belgian beer. I don't think they serve anything else. Their website currently kind of sucks so I won't link. I believe Trappeze is considered a gastro-pub so they do serve food also.
I wanted to comment on Green's Beverages where I went to get my friend his birthday gift. I used to live really close to the one on Ponce and it is the best liquor store intown Atlanta has. It looks like a ghetto liquor store but inside holds an array of wonders. They have a special Belgian beer cooler room where they have a revolving assortment of awesome Belgian imports. They have a very knowledgeable and caring staff and a mixed clientele of college students, hipsters, yuppies, homeless people and the local drunks. It's the perfect Atlanta establishment. The wine guy has pointed me to amazing cheap wines and they have a nice assortment of micro-brews too on top of the usual liquor offerings. Bring cash - it's cheaper (debit cards count as cash).
- Location:home
- Mood:
chipper - Music:Highway 61 Revisited
Panera is a fraud. I'm calling them out. Me and my lovely co-workers went on a lunchtime jaunt to the Marietta Entenmann's Bakery Outlet for some cheap sweets. We encountered a Panera truck pulling out with their alleged Panera-baked goods. I cry foul!
We bagged donuts, Louisiana Crunch Cake and a chocolate cake. The Lou'sana cake had no crunch but the chocolate cake frosting was outstanding. We all crashed about 15 minutes after eating this at work.
Lunch was a salad with hard-boiled egg and then to McDonald's for a hot fudge sundae. Why not?
Breakfast was oatmeal again. I'm just trying to get through this week to the three-day weekend, that's all.
I am seriously craving a piece of cake. Last week I went to Willamson Bros. with my co-workers and got a piece of coconut cream pie to go. Around 3:30 I tucked in and it sent me straight to sugar heaven. So creamy and delicious. I've been obsessed with coconut for a while but their coconut cream pie was a thing of beauty. I've been trying to achieve the perfect coconut cake for a few years. Of course the very first one I made was the closest I got to achieving what I wanted to but I lost that recipe in the great apartment flooding of, oh, about four years ago. Stupid slumlords. Who knew that storing your recipes on the top shelf of the kitchen pantry would result in everything on the top shelf getting soaked by a leaky roof?
Lunch: spinach salad with cherry tomatoes and baby bella mushrooms, Newman's Own light balsamic Vinaigrette (awesome! highly recommended for its oddly Worcestershire tasting meatiness), Kozy Shack pudding cup, orange.
Breakfast - raisin, date and walnut oatmeal, coffee
I have been nailing the coffee lately. Trader Joe's Costa Rican Terrazu makes a nice cup of coffee.
I am happy to report that the Popeye's on Ponce is being renovated after their tragic fire. This is awesome news because I am completely done with the one on Memorial. Everytime I go there I curse myself because it is a crap shoot as to whether or not I'm going to get what I ordered or that they will even give me spicy chicken versus non-spicy. My last trip there was my last trip there. They burned me by making me wait for about 10 minutes at the drive-thru ordering box with cars stacking up behind me and then when I finally got my food it was the wrong side order and the chicken wasn't spicy. Done.
I am aggravated tonight because Cosmo, my old man dog, nearly got hit by a car, completely his own fault. He is 10 years old and getting more ornery by the day. He slipped out of his collar in his frenzy to attack a couple of dogs across the street. They weren't even close enough to be considered a threat to him and he managed to run out in front of a car. He is SOOOOO LUCKY that he didn't get hit and he's also so lucky that one of the other dogs didn't attack him. He was being such a total jerk, I was going to kill him myself. He will also probably throw up tonight because a few minutes later he found a sandwich in a plastic bag lying in the road in my awesome neighborhood and he swallowed the sandwich and the bag while trying to keep it away from my other dog.
This past weekend I got to go to Spiced Right in Roswell. The ribs are the thing. Very smoky. The sides, not so much. I had the hash brown casserole. I could probably shit out a better casserole in my sleep. Their banana pudding looks tasty though. This was all just a side trip from my pilgrimage to the new H&M at Northpoint which will have to do until the one in Midtown opens on June 13th. I'm taking the day off work.
- Mood:
aggravated - Music:Coward of the County
Halloween parties - a couple of meatballs, some mac n' cheese (Barefoot Contessa recipe modified), barbecue, spinach dip, peanut butter cookies and beer and sangria.
- Mood:
cold - Music:Diff'rent Strokes
My friend David and I spent four hours in the exhibit so we felt like we got our $20 worth. We had questioned whether he and his wife could bring their three-year-old. There were some kids viewing the exhibit but they didn't seem to stay that long. A lot of controvery here in Georgia stems from the fact that there is a room of fetuses. It is sad but interesting.
Overall, I wasn't as grossed out by it as I thought I would be. They really blind you with science: did you know adults take 15 breaths a minute while babies take 40 breaths a minute? I was grossed out enough that I probably won't be eating red meat for a while.
I'm heading to Popeyes for lunch today. It's been about three weeks. It's time.
- Mood:
awake - Music:Standing in the Way of Control
Anyway, this weekend I didn't feel like cooking. I made chocolate chip cookies (off the back of the Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chips, of course) but even that was a struggle. I'm looking for another job and I'm a little stressed about it. I need to decide if I'm going to buy a house or move into another apartment because my current apartment does not have central air conditioning and last summer it got over 100 degrees in here - I'm not kidding. Anything that makes me not want to cook is not good but that will do it.
No fried chicken this weekend, yay!
- Mood:
lazy - Music:Johnny the Boy
- Mood:
irritated - Music:Ring of Fire
I just finished making spinach lasagne for the week. I am way too tired at night to do anything but heat something up.
- Mood: hungry
- Music:If You Leave
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