Monthly Archives: August 2019

Coconut, Coffees, And Chickpeas

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Excitement from last weekend: I hung out with my extended family!  At their cabin on the river in Maryland where we went boating and ate fresh crab!!  And my boys were there!!!

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Upcoming this weekend: Nothing as exciting as seeing Adam and Webster.  Actually, I am working on Sunday.  And on Saturday I am signed up for a 4 mile race with several of my coworkers.

Food highlights from the week:

Trader Joe’s coconut cold brew.  The coconut is nice but this is too sour for my tastes.

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Triple Draft La Colombe cans are kind of ridiculously frothy.

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Yogurt bowl win.  Vanilla Siggi’s with chocolate hazelnut and almond butter and blackberries.

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This was a I got hungry while grocery shopping and couldn’t wait snack but it ended up being quite tasty.

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This double IPA is my favorite beer I tried all summer.  Honestly all of the things from True Respite look amazing right now, they have a sour beer brewed with Gushers?!!

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The best dinner I ate all week was the night my cousin had friends over and we had crab cakes and salad with fresh corn.  But this Greek-style salad wasn’t bad either.  Romaine / TJ’s Greek feta dressing / green olives / cucumber / roasted chickpeas / dolmas.

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And one night I made a yummy tasting plate.  Dubliner cheese / chicken and maple jerky hard-boiled eggs / dolmas / roasted green beans.

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BLT FTW

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Life highlights from the past six days –

  • I survived my 2nd week without my boys.  Adam has been super sweet about sending me a million photos of the most handsome dog in the world!
  • I’ve had a ton of TPNs at work lately and I realized the other day just how comfortable I feel managing them now – I will never stop being grateful for this job opportunity, I have grown so much as a clinician the past year.
  • I saw, and loved, The Farewell.  Such a sweet, funny movie; I can’t recommend it enough.
  • I went to a free yoga class with one of my coworkers and loooooved it!  I had forgotten about just how much I enjoy yoga.  I haven’t been in several years and it seems my balance has gotten much worse but my flexibility has gotten much better – I got myself into camel pose easily and comfortably.

Food highlights –

All of the coffee.

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Hey Day Cold Brew.

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Black and white milkshake cold brew – Grady’s with vanilla bean powder and chocolate milk.

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Still obsessed with this chocolate chip cookie dough Perfect Bar that seems to only be sold at Trader Joe’s and has no internet presence.

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This mango and nut mix is perfectly spicy-sweet.

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This yogurt bowl was amazing.  Strawberry quark with pluots, maple cashew butter, and homemade chocolate chip cookie.

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I had a great assortment of gummy candies for the movie, lots of cola options.

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These s’mores mochi have graham cracker ice cream and and a marshmallow center and all three of us thought they were fantastic.

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Raspberry Short Kate!  Hardywood‘s newest IPA brewed with milk sugar and raspberry.

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Whole Foods hot bar – kale salad, cabbage crunch salad, carrot and harissa salad, breakfast potatoes, chicken sausage – with a side of chicken and waffle chips.

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A swoon-worthy sandwich – local heirloom tomato, turkey bacon, and kewpie mayo on a bun.

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BLT salad.  Sweet baby lettuce with champagne vinaigrette, heirloom baby tomatoes, bacon, Dubliner cheese, and hickory smoked peanuts.  Plus spicy roasted okra that my cousin made.

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Leftover salad with delicious crab cakes that my cousin made.

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Trader Joe’s frozen scallion pancakes with mayo, sriracha, and a side of roasted green beans.

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All By Myself

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<– that title is facetious, I’m actually living with my cousin and her fiance and they are taking very good care of me!  But this was my first week surviving solo without Adam and Webster.  On a related note, look at the stickers I just bought!!!

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We had a fantastic, fantasmic, over-the-top wonderful vacation, by the way!  We hung out with some of our favorite people, ate some of our favorite things, and got to walk up and down the beach fifteen times, all the while exclaiming how beautiful the water was.

I brought back the best ever cold brew (Grady’s) from New York.

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Plus my new favorite cup, from St. Thomas!

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I got back to Charlottesville from New York on Sunday night so I didn’t have time for a grocery trip this week which meant I mostly ate a bunch of (tasty) nonsense.  Like cafeteria food that I carted home.  Chicken tenders + fries + seaweed salad.

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A Beyond Burger with hot sauce and tomatoes.

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And Wegman’s hot bar.  I pretty much got every chicken and vegetable option from the “Asian” section.

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One night my cousin threw a dinner party and cooked an honest-to-god, grown up meal – eggplant parmesan and garlic bread (plus a fancy cheese plate and homemade chocolate chip cookies).

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And Thursday I finally made it to free pretzel night at Hardywood because my work hosted an after-hours journal club there.

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