Weekend Recap

  For Christmas DFH's parents gave us tickets to see River Dance for this past Saturday.  We started the night at Sharps Edge, a restaurant known for their extensive selection of beer. 

 I tried a Cappichino Stout which was delicious

We then went to the show, which was was so entertaining and the dancing was amazing.

We had great seats in the beautiful Benedum Theatre.

And we ended our night at one of our favorite down town bars with a Tonic and Tonic

Victory Beer Tasting

     Thursday night a group of us went to a Victory Beer Tasting at a local restaurant.  It was a really neat event, where you were served  a three course meal, each meal was served with a different beer pairing, and each course was also cooked using the beer in the recipe. 
    When served each course, the restaurant chef and the local beer distributor would discuss the beer and food pairing and give you a little background on the beer. 

   Baltic Thunder Porter

Roast Beast on Sourdough with Smoked Gouda 

   The Courses consisted of :

I

French Onion Soup, Bleu Cheese, Garlic Crouton

Victory Headwaters Pale Ale
 I
Roast Beast on Sourdough, Smoked Gouda and Banana Pepper, Poutine
Victory Baltic Thunder Porter

III.
                 Genuine Belgian Waffle, Banana Ice Cream

       Victory Golden Monkey

   It was definitely a fun and delicious way to enjoy both the beer and the food and you even got a souvenir Pint glass.  Everything was fantastic, but I think my favorite part out of all the courses were the  french fries with gravy and poutine aka fancy disco fries ( cheese fries and gravy)  --> See picture above.

   Victory Brewing Company is an Eastern, PA brewery, so it is always nice to support a small local brewer even some of the food, including the Poutine was locally made cheese, so it made the event even more worth it knowing you were supporting local businesses. 

National Margarita Day

Yesterday February 22, was National Margarita Day!  If that is not one of the best excuses to go out for a drink, I do not know what is.


   DFH and I wanted to take full advantage of this, and went out for a drink to celebrate delicious Margaritas. It is funny how we each have our own technique in consuming our Margaritas which we both enjoy with salt and on the rocks.  I have no organization to my sipping, I take a sip from whichever side is facing me, regardless if there is salt or not, so my salt is scattered around the glass, a little chaotic.  DFH on the other hand sips his Margarita in a very organized manner, slowly turning the glass in a circular manner so that each sip has the next available amount of salt in it and the remaining salt is in a perfect line/half circle.  ( I wish I had a picture documenting this).  Although I wouldn't say I am unorganized, DFH is a very anal and an organized person in life, it is funny how your personality can shine through even in your Margarita drinking :)

CHEERS!!
 

Junior League and Lilly: A perfect match

 As a member of Junior League and a Lilly lover I found the perfect accessory!!  Introducing the Lilly Pulitzer Special Edition Junior League Murfee Scarf



If you look closely, you can see the "Lilly loves the Junior League" written in pink script around the flowers...love it!

 

Click Here to get a better look and to check out some of Lilly's other Murfee Scarf designs

A SOUPer Day

   This past Saturday LES and I volunteered at the South Side Soup Contest for the Junior League.   It was an awesome event where twenty five different restaurants participated in making soup to compete in the categories of Best Soup, Most Creative, and Best Vegetarian.

It works like a "Crawl."  Each restaurant was partnered with a retail store where the soup was served.  The twenty five different soup tastings, were scattered in stores over a twenty block radius on the same street in the South Side.

Each stop on the Soup Crawl was labeled with signs and balloons so you knew where to go next.  At each stop you would sample the soup, and could browse/shop in the store. 

All the participants wore this card on a lanyard and you would get each soup-stop punched so you knew which stops you hit.

At the end of the crawl, you would vote on your favorite soups.

  It was a ton of fun to volunteer at this event as well as particpate in the crawl.  LES and I tried some amazing soups and such as an awesome Sausage and Pepper Soup, a Jamaican Pepper Pot, and a Cool Ham Jook, which won Most Creative.  The soup stop  where I volunteered was the Over the Bar Bicycle Cafe, and they made a delicious beer cheese soup called the Cheddar Peddlar Brewhaha which won best vegetarian soup. 

  There were other soups we tried which we unique, but not so good.  One restaurant made Rust Belt Borscht which I did not like, Ironically, the winning soup of the day was one of my least favorites, it was a Parsnip Soup, which I did not particularly like...ohh well

I'd been on bar crawls before, but this was my first soup crawl, and I loved it, obviously anything that involves sampling food is always great.  I am already excited for next year!

Color My Life with Jonathan Adler

 I love love Jonathan Adler, everything he does is so unique and colorful.  I just love how you could competely change a boring room with one or two of Adler's accent pieces.  His needlepoint pillows are my favorite, I want to line my couches with a variety of  the designs....some day *sigh*

    When I was in New York a few weeks ago, I was able to go into one of his stores, and loved EVERYTHING he has right now.  I wanted to share some of my favorites:

This Chandelier is so pretty and fun and could add a unique look to many rooms.

I love this Zebra rug, its a little crazy, but I think it could look really neat it comes in a variety of colors and patterns, I love the houndstooth.

In a room with neutral furniture these chairs would make awesome accents.

Check out these Jonathan Adler room designs:

He also has great gift ideas:

I love these needlepoint cases for sunglasses, ipod, and cell phone.

To check out more Jonathan Adler click HERE

Three Cheers for Beer

        DFH has talked about making beer FOREVER, so finally for Christmas I got him a beer making kit.  DFH is a bit of  a beer snob, he is not much of a Coors Light/Bud Light guy,  he prefers a dark beer specifically Belgian beers.  When researching beer kits, I found that most kits encouraged your first brew to be a light beer, as it was easier to make, but I knew DFH would be up for the challange so I settled on a Belgian Honey Sage. 

DFH and I had a lot of fun making the beer, DFH decided it would be a great idea to make our own recipce and add our own ingredients such as cinnamon to the beer, so I was a bit nervous about our first batch,

 DFH Mixing the Wort

The Wort mixture

 Straining the Wort

I was really nervous especially after it looked like this.

The beer sat like this for two weeks before it was bottled

But after one month, it was finally ready to taste test!

At first it did not smell too good, but I was surprised by the taste.  I wouldn't say it was the best beer I'd ever had, but it was not bad.  It had a citris taste almost like a Hoegaarden , I think it would have been best with a lemon. 

   It ended up being a success, I think we have some brewing in our future, it may be wine next.  CHEERS!!