Whoa!!!! I just realized it's been over a month since my last post. I know you all missed me. I missed you all too. I have been busy! It's been a nomadic living for me. Over the past year I've spent a lot of my time traveling between three points in the Mitten. I also head to DC on a bi-monthly basis. And, when I'm lucky I head to Chicago to see some friends there. Usually when I head to DC I'm there for serious stuff and don't get to hangout much. However! Last month I got to go walk around Chocolate City for a whole week! I also got to attend the wedding of a good friend of mine. Let's discuss!

GBD

That is the most delicious acronym ever... it stands for golden brown and delicious! What do they sell? Fried chicken and donuts! SO tasty! While in DC for a week I went to this place at LEAST three times. Literally. First I went to get some chicken. But, they have strange food hours so it was between breakfast and dinner. So I had to settle for just free smells. The next day I went back for lunch and it was well worth it.







That biscuit... not made with buttermilk. Instead it's got creme fraiche. I was skeptical... and GBD won me over. The creme fraiche gives it a tang similar to buttermilk and it was super moist. I didn't even need butter! I went back the next day to try their chicken breakfast sandwich. It's a sweet potato biscuit with spiced honey and a chicken tender. This was also good. The only issue I had was the chicken to biscuit ratio favored the chicken. I ended up with a huge bit of chicken and no biscuit for my last bite. All in all, not a bad problem to have. I also nabbed a couple of donuts for the ride to Maryland before my mini-roadtrip to the wedding. Being an equal opportunist I got one cake and one raised. The cake donut was an homage to tres leches with coconut flakes on top. The yeast was a take on coffee cake with a cinnamon and sugar crumble. A+++ all around for GBD. Additional raves about this place... they have beer! A happy hour! They have beer pairing menus not only for chicken but also their donut selections!

Wedding Bells

My friend got married ya'll! I had been looking forward to this wedding all year! I was way too excited to see my friend's DIY crafty chic wedding vision come true. When the save the date came in the mail I raved over the chevrons. I discussed the importance of color choice in setting the tone with my friend over Google chat. So when she asked another friend and I to pick up the flower arrangements the day of? The answer was YES. I wanted to be part of this wedding so bad. Also the drive over gave me a chance to have a Thelma and Louis moment with the coolest Iowan ever. The hardest part of the drive was getting out of DC but we had music to listen to. My friend made a great playlist and we were those obnoxious girls singing loudly in the car next to you in the construction backup. It.Was.Awesome. I also played a couple new albums for my  friend so all in all it was a great music swap.






Since we had to get there early with the flowers we had plenty of time to rest up before the wedding. The flowers were done by Whole Foods (awesome and relatively cheap according to the bride) so we stocked up on snacks. After checking into the hotel it was time to kick up our feet and read a book.




The actual wedding was... a super fun party. I think this is what the bride had in mind. She confessed she was more worried about the DJs set list than what the flowers looked like. This is why we're friends. We have similar priorities. There were many other types of special touches throughout the venue to make one coo.

Touristy Chic

Since I lived in DC for a while I don't always go to the big must-see spots. However, I did take the time go visit some old familiar places and at least one new site this past trip. The Sunday after the wedding I met up with another set of friends for brunch. While out I had an amazing Bloody Mary at Tortilla Coast. I originally asked for a Bloody Maria (tequila instead of vodka) but the bartender surprised me. He makes his own chipotle infused vodka so he snuck that into my drink. I am now convinced more spirits should be smokey. Maybe this is why I like mezcal so much?




I road the metro around town as usual and ended up on the green line. I took a picture of my old metro stop.



Lastly, I met up with some friends from undergrad who have been living in DC since I lived there. They are true city people with a city kid. He is the cutest. He had red hair and chubby cheeks. We met up at the MLK monument because I had never been there.




Overall I had a great trip. I love going places that are familiar enough that you can count on some old favorites as you explore and try to find new things. Mostly, I hate getting lost and having to ask for directions. All the sunshine and good times got me excited to summer. I also got a few new songs to add to my summer playlist. We'll talk about that next time;)

Wow. It's been a while guys. I have been spending a lot of time away from my official home front and kitchen. Instead I've been keeping my gramps company on the West side of the Mitten. While I have no aversion to small kitchens I do like to remain on good terms with my PaPa. One way I do that is by not making a "mess" in his kitchen. So my baking and kitschen adventures haven't been as frequent as of late. But, being in the city of rapids has allowed me to do some foodie exploring! So without further chitter chatter here's a little bit of what I've been up to this past month-ish.

Back in February I planned on sending Valentine's packages to people. I did... for the most part. But two of my favorite ladies didn't get their packages due to life (it's a biotch sometimes). I was able to make it up to them by sending some spring sweets.

I have gotten over me fear of yeast but sometimes a lady just wants some bread... quick like. So I looked through my bookmarks and found a recipe for a mocha swirl quick bread. Then I pulled out my favorite peanut butter cookie recipe and made a batch of those too. I have been really into giant cookies lately so I made those suckers BIG. I portioned them out with a 1/4 measuring cup!

After mailing out those goodies I hopped into the car and drove to Beer City! No. I do not have any pictures of breweries- although I have gone to a few. But I did find a nice coffee and tea place where I can use wifi and get my daily dose of fancy caffeine.



Another day I used my handy dandy Yelp app to find a place that sold pho. Have I told you how much I like a good soup? Pho is harty! And it's a party in my mouth. I am not a fan of beef tendons and tripe so I played it safe and got pho ga. I know! All the foodie purist are booing me right now. But I know what I will and won't eat. So that leaves more for you!


Over the weekend I took some time to head back to the Deuce for some quality time with friends. I also had some bizness to take of. A lady be busy ya'll! While in A2 I made my usual stop for some supplies at Trader Joe's. While there I scored a new favorite....



When I got back to GR it was right around Easter... this meant a big family dinner. Luckily I was only in charge of bringing a side. I ended up making a dessert and some cornbread. Who doesn't like cornbread?
 

I have an awesome friend. She works for the Michigan Brewers Guild. She has a really funny husband who also enjoys beer. I have another friend who was willing to drive 2+ hours to go drink tasty craft beer. All of these people came together for a day of fun in the Grand Rapids area. Sometimes things come together and make life wonderful. 

Anyone who's been to any event based around beer drinking- be it a Superbowl party or  the opening of the latest brew pub- knows that having good salty snacks is helpful. A favorite of many a beer festival goer is the pretzel necklace. For many this DIY treat is created by stringing pretzel twists onto some twine. I took things a step further an made pretzels to use in my necklaces. I used Alton Brown's recipe for my savory sticks. I didn't even need to double the recipe - I needed 4 necklaces- since I was making "sticks" instead of twists.

After adding the dry ingredients let the dough rise for 2 hrs. I learned somewhere that the best place to let dough rise is in your oven with just the oven light on. It's a warm dry place where the yeast likes to party. I now do this every time I make a yeast dough and it hasn't failed me (yet). Once the dough has just about doubled in size take it out and knead it till smooth.






Pre-drilling holes into the pretzel rods made assembling the necklaces a breeze! Just cut some twine and hang them pretzels on down the line. [Ugh, I'd never make it as a rapper].

Here's some pictures of us Beer Festin' in action!

...and I'll treat you better than you ever had before. I think that's the chorus of a Slackers song. It's Valentine's day mofos! I may be single but I still like to play cupid and spread a little love. It's my personal assault on the holiday industrial complex. In the name of Saint Valentine I'mma make a massackery (massacre+mockery) of V-day being all about couples.

As usual I began combing the interwebs for DIY crafty projects to make/bake and include in my Valentine packages early... Like the beginning of January. I needed things that were both foodie and kid friendly. I made 2 sets of V-day treats. One for my nieces/nephews and another for friends.I found quite a few kid Valentines I liked online.

• Lego jewelery valentines
• Animal valentines
• Mustache valentines
• Funny valentines

In the end I chose (surprise!) the punny (funny+pun) one. As my nieces and nephews get older I am finding it hard to transition the crafts I make them for them into more age appropriate things. Small tchotskes no longer really cut it, so the animal bracelet valentines were out. I wanted something a bit more gender neutral so the Lego jewelery valentines were nixed. That left the mustache and funny valentines... I chose the funny valentines because ALL kids love a good fart joke! I couldn't find mini-whoopie cushions at my local dollar store. So I bought regular sized ones and made do.

FLAVOR BUTTONS

I saw this instructable for not-Altoids online. The whole process was so easy! How could I not take half a day hunched over a counter top and making these little pieces of sweetness? I'm hesitant to call them mints since they don't really have mint flavors...except for one. I chose 2 foodie and 2 kid friendly flavors:

• red licorice
• cola
• mint chocolate chip
• mango

COFFEE LOLLIPOPS

Hard candy... I've been wanting to make gourmet lollies for a while. The first time I burnt the sugar and had to scratch the whole batch. I then took the time to test my candy thermometer and found out it was 50 degrees off! With this mental note in mind I gathered together some sugar and tried it all again.  Sprinkle Bakes has a lot of fun with sugar recipes and this is one of them.





Having a good  candy thermometer is the key! Also, I like to think making hard sugar candy is kind of like BBQing. Low and slow is the way to go. I started my mixture on medium heat and gradually cranked it up to a boil. I was wary of everything boiling over, making a mess, burning or melting my skin off. It takes a bit of time but keeping your eyes on the prize (and the thermometer) is worth it.

Friends' packages included these lollies, some flavor buttons and those crispy chocolate wafer cookies. My momma also didn't raise no fool so I included a hand written note too. Both the friend and kid packages got wrapped up assembly line style and shipped out.

A paper bag... simple and classic!

ME MUM

Who's my greatest love of all? My mother of course! She birthed me. What's a greater gift than that? I love my mom lots and sometimes I want to give her more than a hug. She's a busy lady and it can be hard for her to take the time to do something she wants to do. I spotted a great Valentines day deal on Travelzoo and conspired with my siblings to get it for our mother. The voucher was for a massage with wine and chocolate! The sad thing about online vouchers is there's really no tactile opening experience. So I got out my craft crate and made something for her to open. I've seen similar set ups used for save-the-date/wedding announcements. Kelly over at Studio DIY even took the idea and put it in a box (literally).



I cut out some ID card sized pieces of white card stock. The 1st included a "dear mom we love you lots" message. The 2nd were the details of her massage voucher. Finally the 3rd promised a ride to said spa and dinner after. I strung the cards/tags on the bakers twine and some craft punched holes to make a garland. I taped one end into the envelope and carefully layered it all in. I used some double sided tape to keep the pull-tab of the garland separate to make it easier to pull it out.




That's how I do Valentine's Day. What about you?