Shrimp & Grits and Sweet Southern Christmas!

Merry Belated Christmas, loyal readers! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your families and friends. Unfortunately I was sick for most of the festivities on the 24th and 25th, but on the 26th Mr. Handsome and I hopped on a jet plane and flew down to Charleston, SC to spend a few days hopping around the south.

We spent most of our time eating and drinking our way through Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA. (Butter was our staple food group for 6 days). We went to 2 local craft breweries and some hot & trendy restaurants like Husk, Fig & SNOB. We saw the famous Mercer house in Savannah and took some interesting walking tours of both cities.

We ate oysters, shrimp & grits, fried green tomatoes and pimiento cheese! We enjoyed the beautiful Spanish moss on the trees in Savannah and took a nap under a Palmetto tree in Charleston. We've decided that when we eventually become rich through one of our schemes, we're going to spend our winters in Charleston and our summers in Seattle. OH, what a wonderful life :)

Cheers, Ya'll!

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble!

Thanksgiving Weekend! What a joy it is that the pilgrims unknowingly gave us a few days off work to stuff our faces with carbo-licious delicacies. Because of the conference last week, I haven't set foot in the office since noon on Tuesday. I've had a much needed break filled with shopping, running, sleeping, eating and seasonal merriment!

Before attending two different feasts on Thanksgiving, Mr. Handsome and I decided we better prep our bodies for the binge with a 13.1 mile run. Our 4th Annual Tofurkey Trot (equipped with official race bibs) was a success!

On Friday morning my mom, grandma and I had brunch at Bayou Bakery (lots of beignets + grilled cheese) then headed to the Kennedy Center to see "Little Dancer," a new play about painter Edgar Degas's ballerina models. It was a little long (3+ hours) but we had a grand old time!

As of Friday afternoon, I have successfully accomplished 90% of my Christmas shopping. (Not too shabby!) Included in my purchases were these two beautiful hand-knit stockings for me and Mr. Handsome. We spent Friday evening decorating the apartment with all of our Christmas decorations. FA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!

Tis' the Season!

Food & Beverage Conference

This past week was probably one of the most stressful times of my life. I flew down to Dallas and put in a 70 hour work week for my company's Food & Beverage Conference in Arlington, TX. Despite getting very little sleep and running around like a beheaded chicken, it was definitely a successful, fun event!

We treated attendees to delicious spreads of local delicacies/nightly amenities and had some great guest speakers come and talk about the state of the industry. We dined at trendy restaurants, had some fun with celebrity chefs, shared our updated operating procedures and ate and drank to our heart's content! (We even had a Grade A cow make a special appearance for a presentation on steak cutting)

After 4 months of hard work and careful planning, I was ready to finally celebrate my birthday with coworkers after the conference was over on Thursday. We popped champagne and ate lots of cake and seafood to commemorate the event.

Now I can finally relax before the start of the holidays! Which, after all, are the MOST Wonderful TIMMMEEEE of the YEARRRR!

Thanksgiving Countdown

Countdown to Thanksgiving?... 12 DAYS!

Start dieting now, hungry readers. It's going to be a joyous, pie-filled day!

"Hoppy" Birthday Brewery Tour

This past weekend was an extravaganza of hops and malts and delicious brewskies! For my 27th birthday (which is exactly one week from today) Mr. Handsome took me on a romantic getaway to Charlottesville, VA for a tour of Virginia's finest breweries/cideries. Over the course of 6 hours we traveled to 5 breweries/cideries and tasted 46 different alcoholic beverages. (These were 2-3 ounce pours, folks. We didn't fall off any bar stools!)

The 5 establishments we visited were Devil's Backbone, Bold Rock (Cidery), Wild Wolf, Blue Mountain and Starr Hill. Because we're educated nerds, we carefully rated each beer/cider we tried and ranked our top 3 favorites at every location. Rankings were based on color, aroma, taste, after taste and name creativity. Here was the breakdown of beers by brewery...

N = Mr. Handsome Rating
H = Hilary Rating

Devil's Backbone
Spider Bite
Pumpkin Hunter (N#3)
Chengdu Weizenbock (H#2)
Pilot Brau Pilsner
Bravo Four Point IPA
Vienna Lager (H#3)
Gold Leaf Lager (N#1)
Schwartz Bier (N - Honorable Mention)
Striped Bass Pale Ale
Pear Lager (N#2)
Eight Point IPA (H#1)

Bold Rock
Virginia Apple
Virginia Draft (H#1) (N#1)
Crimson Ridge Volume #1
Crimson Ridge Vintage Dry

Wild Wolf
American Pilsner
Blonde Hunny Ale
Wee Heavy (H#2)
Alpha Ale
Dry Stout (N#2)
Folktoberfest
Primal Instinct
Howling Pumpkin Ale (H#3) (N#3)
Strawberry Schwarzcake
Kick It Hunny (N#1)
Area 151 (H#1)

Blue Mountain
Classic Lager (N#3) (H#3)
Kolsch 151
South Street 365 Shandy
Wallonia (H - Honorable Mention)
The Steel Wheel ESB
Hibernator (H#2) (N#2)
Full Nelson
South Street Bar Hopper
Local Species (H#1)
Original Nitro Porter (N#1)

Starr Hill
Starr Pils (N#2)
The Love (H#2)
Boxcarr Pumpkin Porter
Northern Lights IPA
Grateful Pale Ale (N#3) (H#1)
Monticello Reserve
Double Platinum (H#3)
Snow Blind
Sabbath (N#1)
Shakedown Imperial Chocolate Cherry Stout

Asheville (Take #2)

As some of you might remember, Mr. Handsome and I took a delightful, romantic trip to Asheville, NC in March of 2014. Unfortunately, both of us caught the stomach flu and spent a majority of the trip with our heads in the toilet. As you can image, we were a little nervous to drive down there again last month for the wedding of my friends - Monica & Ryan.

I'm happy to announce that this time around... we did NOT catch the stomach flu! We drove down to Asheville on Friday and got there in time to have some delicious food, (best fish tacos EVER), and beers at Highland Brewing. We stayed in quite a sketchy place (run-down motel) in the heart of the city where the bride OH so kindly told us afterward that "all of the hookers stay." Obviously, we will not be staying there again.

 

 

 

 

On Saturday we spent the morning strolling around downtown, looking in cute local shops & walking through various fairs and festivals. The wedding was at 2:00pm on the rooftop of a building downtown that overlooked the Blue Ridge mountains (cue the string quartet). Right afterward we headed to a hipster bar called "Sovereign Remedies" to get our pregame on before the reception. At the reception we ate SUPER fantastic food including oodles of pies, roasted harvest vegetables & gouda mac'n'cheese. NOM!

The best part of the weekend was seeing some of my old Camp Thunderbird friends that I hadn't seen in 10 years. It really felt like we hadn't spent anytime apart, true friendship! It was fun not being sixteen years-old anymore and being able to drink together (legally). "T-H-U-N-D-E-R-B-I-R-D... Thunderbird, Thunderbird it's where I want to be, HEY!"... The second best part of the weekend was finding out that the bride and groom were adopting their own, original last name, "Le Blanc." I will happily refer to them as the wizard couple from now on... Monica and Ryan The White! (A little LOTR humor for you folks)...

Congrats to the bride and groom!

Hans Franz Oktoberfest!

Happy October, loyal readers! I've been incredibly busy lately celebrating the BEST SEASON EVER (aka - FALL) with some fun festivals, trips and races. Here's a quick rundown of my FALL-tastic adventures...

In the last two weeks I've gotten to fly to both Dallas and Chicago for work trips. In Dallas we checked out some AWESOME restaurant concepts and were treated to a lovely evening amenity at our hotel - a sampler platter of local nibbles including cheese, nuts crackers, jerky & chocolate.

We flew to Chicago to hold a photo shoot for our next food promotion launching in January 2015 - SOUP! In between shots, we checked out some amazing local restaurants and speakeasies equipped with classic cocktails & jazz musicians. It was like time traveling to the 1920's!

Last weekend I made time to Metro over to Union Market for the Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Festival. Hundreds of local artists came to sell their beautiful handmade goods. I ended up buying some cute new magnets and greeting cards.

In true fall fashion, Mr. Handsome and I found a local Oktoberfest celebration at Mad Fox Brewing in Falls Church. We paid $20 each to get into the festival and fill these adorable little glasses time & time again with tasty IPAs and Oktoberfest brews. PROST!

Last but certainly not least... I woke up at 4:30am this morning to drive my butt over to Mount Vernon for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Half Marathon. My goal was to finish the race in under 2 hours. I absolutely CRUSHED that goal and finished in 1 hour, 51 minutes, 59 seconds. New PR!

Happy October!!