Fluffy GBS

by Emily

I don’t have a ton of photos to share from last week because I ate a bunch of celebratory meals sans camera. By the time I leave for real next week it is going to feel fairly anticlimactic!

A work friend and I went out for drinks at Vitae {highlights include a maple cinnamon sour with smoked rum}.

A big group of co-workers took me out for lunch at Asado {highlights include a smoked chicken quesadilla}.

And my team took me out for dinner at Junction {highlights include a rum and coke with allspice syrup and charred baby carrots with goat cheese and carrot top chimichurri}.

Other highlights include…

Eggnog and coffee!

A vanilla coffee can with a peanut butter chocolate chip Perfect Bar.

The cortadito from Gaurijos is excellent.

Vanilla bean yogurt with maple pecan granola and cranberry relish.

S’mores pie and a cortado at Pie Chest.

An orange creamsicle IPA my family brought me back from Maryland.

Hardywood has released their Fluffy GBS – a toasted marshmallow gingerbread stout!

My cousin took me out for excellent Thai food. My drunken noodles were super spicy and loaded with veggies (including cauliflower!).

Have a great week (and a happy Thanksgiving, all of my American readers)!

18Nov2019

Oreo Crunch And Apple Brandy

by Emily

This past weekend I took my last trip to New York — last because I am officially moving in 2.5 weeks!!! This move is super bittersweet – I am over the moon to get to live with Adam and Webster and I love NYC but I am really going to miss Charlottesville, and my family here, and my amazing job. I’ll have to really soak in the South the next two weeks!

Our New York weekend was fantastic as always. We had babka and creme brulee doughnuts and walked all over the place. Saturday we met friends in Williamsburg for a walk over the bridge and an afternoon in the city.

Highlights include…

Milk Bar‘s Thanksgiving Croissant. It’s stuffed with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

Drinks at Serra by Bierria. We tried four things from the holiday cocktail list – a buttered rum, a walnut Manhattan, a gin and blood orange drink, and an apple brandy drink.

Caffe Panna. I had peanut butter oreo crunch with fudge sauce! Also Adam got an affagato and I drank his last sip of espresso and it was genuinely the very best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.

11Nov2019

Pumpkin Oolong

by Emily

Cold weather fully hit Charlottesville this weekend so I kept things pretty low-key. I did talk a walk around the neighborhood to stretch my legs on Saturday but then I spent the rest of the night huddled under the covers!

Amazingly, my food highlights from the weekend were not soup and hot chocolate…

Still loving plain Greek yogurt bowls with cupcake almond butter, MadeGood granola, and loads of fresh berries.

I also enjoyed a bowl with this new Chobani flavor, caramel mocha.

Whole Foods hot bar with a side of journal reading. Best bites were the popcorn chicken and Spanish-style brussel sprout salad with sherry vinegar and yellow raisins.

Pumpkin oolong milk tea(!) with boba and Oreo.

I made the best sheet-pan hash. Preheat the oven to 420 degrees Fahrenheit / prep a sheet pan with foil and baking spray / bake chopped Japanese sweet potato for 20 minutes / add chopped bok choy and green onion and bake another 25 minutes / top with smoked salmon candy / add kewpie mayo and Sriracha if desired.

Candy break.

8Nov2019

Bunnies And Bears

by Emily

My Ohio trip was absolutely perfect! My grandma had a great 90th birthday and it was fantastic to spend time with my family!

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Highlights from the week back home include…

La Colombe caramel oatmilk draft latte.

Adorable elderberry Wild Kombucha with adorable Trader Joe’s tiny gummi bears.

I had the best yogurt bowl toppings – Made Good Cocoa Crunch granola and Noosh cupcake almond butter.

So I made the best yogurt bowls! Plan Greek with almond butter, granola, and blackberries and blueberries.

A friend and I met up at Hardywood to celebrate the release of Gingerbread Stout and discovered their newest beer – Christmas Pancakes, aka GBS with maple syrup!

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18Oct2019

A NY Weekend > A New York Minute

by Emily

I spent Friday night – Tuesday afternoon in the city enjoying a New York long weekend with my boys! So much fun! We ate ice cream at least once a day, took long walks around Williamsburg, the Lower East Side, and Long Island City, and had a great night with friends at a delicious dinner (Baoburg – I don’t have photos but it was fantastic!) followed by a trip to Barcade!

Highlights include…

A malted cold brew.

Is one of my favorite things about NYC the ability to find weird and amazing drinks absolutely everywhere? 100% yes. And we took full advantage of that this weekend. New canned coffees from Chameleon Cold Brew, churro and cinnamon dolce.

Strawberry sparkling water and a soursop and sea moss drink.

Cinnamon Coke with rum. <– strongly recommend!

Baohaus‘ spiceland bao is a thing of beauty! 24-hour brined fried chicken served with lemon-garlic aioli, an 8-ingredient Szechuan chili oil, pickled cabbage, crushed peanuts, Taiwanese red sugar, and cilantro. Their menu is limited because the things they do they do exceptionally well.

Great ice cream at Four Winters. They make each cup individually with liquid nitrogen. This was brown sugar speculoos with fudge, biscoff cookies, and extra sprinkles.

Even better ice cream at Caffe Panna, the best ice cream I’ve ever eaten, in fact! I got a cone with housemade whipped cream – panna – on brown butter straciatella and chocolate berry crunch (<– this flavor was the best ice cream we’ve ever tasted).

Plus we got an affagato special – ice cream and espresso with whiskey caramel and cacao nib hazelnut brittle.

Adam and I had an incredible dinner at Case Enrique – a Michelin starred, traditional Mexican spot in Long Island City. I went for the drinks and they did not disappoint. I had a soursop caipirnha!

Plus a tamarind margarita.

We started with the rojas con crema – roasted poblanos with onion, corn, cheese, and cream. Scooped up with tortillas that were out of this world.

And I ordered the mole de piaxtla – mole sauce over chicken and rice.

Dessert! Tres leches, flan, and cafe con leche.

Other fun things… I pulled out this St. Thomas bag my parents got me. It makes me happy every time I reach into my purse.

And Adam bought me this gorgeous bracelet at a shop in Brooklyn.

🙂

7Oct2019

Pumpkin And Paw Paw

by Emily

I am headed to NYC next weekend so I kept these past three days especially low-key. I went out for drinks with a coworker, bought a couple of sweaters, and caught up on tv while eating take-out. And that was it! I didn’t even make it to the gym.

Highlights in TV so far include All Rise, Evil, SNL, and The Rookie.

Highlights in food this weekend include…

A paw paw margarita from Vitae.

I didn’t really care for this latte but I loved the new pumpkin pie Perfect Bar.

These seaweed thins are delicious and way easier to eat than typical seaweed snacks (less crumbly and less greasy).

Yogurt bowl perfection. Pumpkin Noosa with blackberries and vanilla almond butter.

Biggest wins so far in Pumpkin Month = Prairie Artisan Ale‘s Basic Becky (an imperial stout with pumpkin, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, coriander, clove, and caraway) and Coolhaus pumpkin pie cheesecake ice cream (pumpkin and cheesecake ice creams with a graham cracker swirl).

30Sep2019

A Perfect Weekend

by Emily

An ideal weekend would involve time with my boys, but this weekend did include several (quite yummy) snack items from the Perfect Snacks company! Also a trip to the Farmer’s Market, an afternoon of day-drinking with my cousin, and a Sunday shift at the hospital. Also, apparently, me being way too excited about everything I ate.

Highlights…

Cinnamon bears with espresso is the best combo.

Whole Foods uses a chocolate powder – versus a syrup – in their iced mochas and I am obsessed with them.

This local cold brew – with chicory, cinnamon, and lavender! – was pretty good too.

Still obsessed with this chocolate chip cookie dough bar that has no internet presence (they seem to be sold exclusively at Trader Joe’s?).

Breakfast biscuit from Ace with pimento cheese, a sunny side up egg, and jerk chicken.

Perfect for Apple Month – a caramel apple cocktail from Vitae! Vitae Golden Rum, Zirbenz Pine Liquor, lemon juice, salted caramel syrup, and cinnamon apple cider.

Still obsessed with the IPAs at Hardywood.

These new peanut butter cups are extra-strength delicious! They aren’t overly sweet and they don’t contain any palm oil, my two requirements in peanut butter cups. They’re still not a “health food,” but compared with Resse’s they do have an extra 3 grams of protein and 10 grams less sugar.

The last of my superior salad mix – romaine with Greek feta dressing, chorizo seitan, honey butter almonds, celery, and zhoug.

23Sep2019

Quality Time

by Emily

It was the best weekend ever; my boys came to visit me!!!!!

The three of us had just the absolute best time. It helped that we ate and drank such yummy things but mostly it was great to hold Adam’s hand while Webster sat in my lap.

We really made the most of Charlottesville too, we went to our two favorite restaurants and our two favorite drink spots, walked a ton downtown, ran at Riverside Park, and even went to a polo match with a group of my coworkers.

Highlights (including some random things I ate on Friday) include…

An Apple Month breakfast, Trader Joe’s caramel apple yogurt with cinnamon cereal.

Brunch at Quality Pie. We split an egg and cheese biscuit and salmon with scrambled eggs and cream cheese on rye.

Also a chocolate chip cookie.

Hail Merry cookie dough bites.

Beers at Hardywood. Tropic like it’s Hot sour with dragon fruit, blueberry, passionfruit, and pineapple // Tropication IPA // The Great Return IPA // Raspberry Short Kate milkshake IPA brewed with milk sugar and fresh raspberries.

Cocktails at Vitae. S’mores = smoked rum, chocolate bitters, marshmallow simple syrup, orange, and a graham cracker rim.

Hawaiian take out from Mochiko. Mochiko fried chicken with cucumber kimchi, slaw, and rice. Plus a passionfruit shortbread bar.

A simple salad at home. Romaine with champagne vinaigrette, celery, cashews, and curried chicken salad.

Dinner at Little Star = the best meal of the weekend and also maybe the best thing I’ve eaten in 2019. We ordered all of the things but it was serendipitous that we overordered because now Adam has dinner for tonight after his long drive.