This morning is the first morning of the Boulder Farmer’s Market, but I skipped it and went to Denver for brunch with Cara at Sassafras. This is the truffled mushroom and peas grits and a buttermilk biscuit. I made the perfect choice. 

I learned from Mel that the Boulder Farmer’s Market has a CSA for flowers and this sounds a 1000X better than vegetables. Also, I read in 5280 Magazine that the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art also has an art share for $400, which is downright brilliant. 

Two recent recipes I’ve tried: greek quinoa salad and sweet baked potatoes with beans and kale. Both are easy and healthy. I need more healthy, quick recipes in my world.

Speaking of recipes, my friend Jackie has a list of freezer meals she made before she had a baby. 

We picked the contractor for our house! The renters move out at the end of May, we’ll gut the place and get to move in October or as late as December. Our decorator, “HGTV really puts a lot of unrealistic ideas into people’s heads on timeframes.” Guilty as charged. 

My friend Sarah got us the cutest engagement present — wedding magazines and champagne wrapped together. She has an awesome post on great engagement presents on her blog. 

I still need to get my ring sized as evidenced by this picture of me asleep on Vikas’ coach. Related: the blankets don’t come with us when we move into our new home. Even more related: Vikas now sings to me, “If you liked, you should have put a ring on it.” Karma. 

• Tags
• Boulder
• Denver
• Sassafras
• Grits
• farmers market

Every year we host our friends for Beerster, a tradition where we have brunch and then the Beerster bunny hides beer bottles and our friends run around finding them. Being in Colorado, most people aren’t from around here and it is a fun way to spend the holiday with friends.

Last year though we really might have had the Beerster to end all Beersters. Vikas surprised me by renting me a miniture pony from Pony Express named Bananas. Ponies really make the party. Since there will be no pony this year, I feel the decorations are going to have to step it up a notch. One sneak peek of this year’s decorations are the Peeps Pinatas! 

Supplies:

• Cardboard and or/ poster board 
• Hot glue gun
• Crepe paper 
• Scissors
• Cutting mat
• Exacto knife
• Black construction paper

I freehanded the Peep shape of the pinata, but if I could do it again, I would make the ears longer and more pronounced. I cut one inch strips of poster board for the edges of the pinata using a cutting mat and exacto knife. 

I hot glued the edge around the Peep shape trying to be as exact as possible. This makes it easier to put the other side of the Peep pinata on top of the edges. 

I lined the pinata in crepe paper since I think edges make it hard to have full coverage of crepe paper on pinatas. Then I cut a bunch of crepe paper fringe and slowly lined the pinata. I glued the fringe on the edges down, so I wouldn’t have a furry Peep.

 Then I added the nose and eyes! 

While I am sad there won’t be a miniature pony this year, I am getting excited for the decorations!

• Tags
• Peeps
• Pinatas
• Easter
• Beerster
• Parties
• Craft
• DIY
• miniature pony

(Photo courtesy of The Makerie) 

I love taking classes. It is a quick and easy way to try something new. Plus, it’s relatively affordable unless you get all crazy and end up pretending it’ll be your new hobby and buy a bunch of supplies. This is what happens to me every time. 

Here are the classes in Boulder, Colorado, that I’ve found and wanted to share!

DIY/Craft/Art

Factory Made Boulder - This is where I took my terrarium class (inspiration for our DIY Terrarium Party) and am thinking about their Adobe Illustrator and upholstery class.  

Common Threads Boulder - They have sewing classes, and I took an intro to sewing class. A bunch of great sewing sessions for children too!

Two Hand Paperie - This store is the death of my budgets with its beautiful papers and stationery. Have a great selection (many free) of paper related craft classes. 

Fabricate Boulder - More sewing lessons! 

Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins - Classes on knitting and weaving! 

The Makerie - Amazing semi-annual workshops on sewing, pottery, block printing, letterpress, etc. Have always wanted to take their classes but whoa! The prices aren’t exactly affordable. 

Pottery Lab - I love this studio. Never taken a class but it’s based out of an old fire station in Boulder. Also, I just learned that you can host parties there, which sounds awesome. 

.

Food

Centro -  I’ve taken a wine class here before and they offer other culinary experiences/classes. 

Cured Boulder - Have awesome wine and cheese classes and free tastings on Tuesdays from 4 to 7 pm. Also, my company once hired them to come in and do a beer and cheese tasting. 

Sur La Table - All kinds of cooking classes! 

Piece, Love & Chocolate - Amazing chocolate classes! 

Frasca - Lots of different, fancy, wine events.

Oliverde - The olive oil store has cooking classes! Hat tip to @SaraheWelch. 

Lucky’s Market - The grocery store has cooking lessons and an upcoming butchery class! Hat tip to @sewo_sewo! 

School of Natural Cookery - Vegan cooking classes. Hat tip to @alessandradyer.

Outdoor

REI Boulder - All kinds of awesome talks about the outdoors, travel and adventure. 

Other

Twig Hair Salon - They offered a class on how to do your own blow out. Nothing on the horizon now, but I am very sad I missed this class. 

Chautauqua - All kinds of culture related lectures! 

Boulder Bookstore - Mainly book readings but the occasional class or too!

Lyons Farmette - This is where Vikas and I took our amazing class on raising chickens. They also have classes on raising bees, composting, cooking and more! Amazing resource to the community. 

 The Pottery Lab, which is housed in a former fire station! 

• Tags
• Boulder
• Classes
• Colorado
• DIY
• Sewing
• Crafting

I have joined a new group - Women Against Scurvy. 

Women Against Scurvy is a Boulder, Colorado-based Book and Brunch Club.  While mimosas are not always the chief focus of our gatherings, they do tend to be a constant. The six ladies of Women Against Scurvy simply love to read, enjoy one another’s company, and of course, fight scurvy one mimosa at a time.

This is not my first foray into a book club. I was in one years ago and it didn’t exactly stick after only one person read Love in the Time of Cholera.* But I am thankful for finding a group of women who are incredibly smart and thoughtful and dedicated to drinking mimosas. (Jill’s at the St. Julien has an all-you-can-drink-and-eat for $35.) 

The latest book was The Fault in Our Stars, which is about two teenagers that have cancer that fall in love with each other. I read the book coming back from Austin. You know what is a mistake? Reading a book about teenagers with cancer on a plane. 

I sat there bawling hysterically likely making the man next to me incredibly uncomfortable. At one point I became so desperate to find a tissue that I considered blowing my nose on a receipt but remembered I would need to use it in my expense report later. It was two flights and a whole lot of ugly crying. 

Despite my inability to keep it together for a young adult novel, I am incredibly thankful for this group. 

*I believe Cara was the only one who finished, and I still feel bad about our collective slacking. 

• Tags
• Boulder
• Book Clubs
• St. Julien
• Fault in Our Stars
• Mimosas

In my ongoing attempt to visit as many of Bon Appetit’s 2013 Most Important Restaurants as I can, I was able to hit two in one day in Austin for SXSW. Ending my evening with Uchiko was a pretty amazing way to round up the day. SXSW is exhausting, especially for an introvert, and if you don’t carve out down time, it’ll really wear you out. 

My friend Sarah Jane was my SXSW roommate and was up for a good culinary adventure. (You may remember her from such posts as my trip to Boston and our DIY Terrarium party.) I also loved going with Sarah Jane because my chopstick skills are caveman like and you don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of just anyone. 

And guys, it was love at first sight for Uchiko. LOVE. I keep waiting to have a subpar experience, but with the three places under my belt, they’ve all been great so far. 

The waitress told us that they were known for their cold plates so we selected three cold plates, plus caramelized brussel sprouts and short ribs. The small plates combined all of these interesting flavors - one we ordered was the loup crudo (mediterranean sea bass, texas grapefruit, avocado, fennel vinegar). For dessert, we ordered fried milk. which had me wondering but was really good. 

I also loved how unpretentious the restaurant was. I’m a sucker for not feeling uncomfortable at a restaurant. 

Sarah Jane ready to roll with good food

The short ribs that melt in your mouth

Fried milk. Wasn’t what you were thinking, was it?

Three restaurants down. Seventeen to go. 

1. Husk in Charleston

2. Franklin BBQ in Austin

3. Uchiko in Austin 

• Tags
• Austin
• Texas
• Travel
• Bon Appetit
• Japanese Food
• Uchiko
• Sushi

I don’t actually like BBQ. But I do love lists.

Which is how I ended up waiting two hours in line while in Austin for Franklin BBQ. Because I’m working my way through Bon Appetit’s list of 2013 most important restaurants in America. So despite trying Stubbs and Iron Works and even the venerable Salt Lick BBQ, I always thought BBQ was one of the most hyped up aspects of SXSW. This is saying a lot because SXSW is more hype than substance.

I get in line at 10:50 am, which could be pushing my luck because of how early others line up. But I am helped by two factors - it is raining (scaring those at SXSW) and it is SXSW (scaring regulars). Waiting in line for crazy periods of time is paunful but it helps that they sell you beer in line.

When I finally made it to the front, they fed us a sample of brisket and I knew this would be BBQ that I could get behind. But I didn’t want to go with brisket and had my heart on the Tipsy Texan after seeing this picture. 

It was always you Tipsy Texan sandwich. It was always you. 

It was a delicious combination of meat and carbs and all was good with the world. 

Two restaurants down. Eighteen restaurants to go. 

1. Husk - Charleston, SC (blogged here) 
2. Franklins BBQ - Austin, TX

• Tags
• Austin
• Texas
• BBQ
• Bon Appetit
• SXSW
• Franklin BBQ
• Travel

Our first full day in Charleston we slept in late. Really late. So much that we missed our free breakfast at the hotel, which made me sad because I hate missing out on free food and I hate missing out on vacation awesomeness. I quickly pulled together a plan that just came together awesomely. We’d go to Glazed Donuts, which I’d seen Elizabeth blog about and looked amazing, then we’d walk over two blocks to the Aiken-Rhett house and tour it for an hour and then take the Fort Sumter tour and be back in time to change and have drinks at the hotel and then head over to our reservations at Hominy Grill. Except…except….Glazed was sold out of donuts.

I didn’t even know that was possible. If you’re going to run out of donuts early then make more donuts. So then we walked five blocks over to Sugar hoping to pick up a scone and coffee. Except there was nary a muffin to be found (but we still picked up three cupcakes to go because we’re not not going to eat cupcakes because they don’t have scones). At that point, we go to some stupid cafe on the corner. If we get our order right away, we can still cram in my now not-so-awesome agenda. But then the waitress gave our food to someone else. I sat there with a cloud over my head for like 10 minutes because I can’t stand when life doesn’t go to plan on vacation. Oh, and did I mention it was raining and that our jeans were absolutely soaked? A fellow Denver blogger once posted that, “I have a theory that, when you travel, everything is a little bit better and a little bit worse than it normally would be.”  

This has always resonated with me and I remembered it. It was silly to be upset. Really silly. It’s not like I haven’t eaten donuts before. And so what if we had to skip out on a historical house? I was sitting in a warm, dry restaurant with my boyfriend (hate the word fiance but that post is for another day) and when we got our food, it was amazingly good. Seriously, check out Five Loaves if you’re ever in Charleston. 

We never made it to Glazed. We hit up Circa 1886 for breakfast on Sunday and they were closed on Monday. But really all that does is give us something to look forward to the next time we go to Charleston. 

And without further adieu, I give you the breakdown of what we ate, saw and where we slept for our trips to Charleston in 2013. If you ever go, hit me up for additional recommendations because we hit up a lot more spots when we went in 2011. 

Charleston 2013:

Food 

Husk (blogged here) - Amazing farm-to-table Southern food by Sean Brock

Hominy Grill - The only restaurant we went to both trips. For price, I don’t think this Southern food with a twist can be beat. Plus, Vikas and I think it has the best pecan we had in all of Charleston. Also, their shrimp and grits and are outstanding.*

The Ordinary - Oyster place. I thought it would have more seafood options than it did, but it was definitely an oyster joint, and we’re meh about oysters. But the seafood we did have was outstanding (yay lobster roll) and it was named as a James Beard semi-finalist for the best new restaurant of the year. 

Circa 1886 - We got free breakfast here, so why not go. Otherwise, I wouldn’t make the effort. 

Virginia’s on King - Hadn’t heard of this place but our concierge recommended it because Vikas wanted okra. Simple and good Southern food. 

Five Loaves - Despite the annoyance above, the food was really good. After Husk, I kept thinking about my meal here the most even though it was just a simple sandwich (hot ham & brie with green tomato jam, mustard & vinegar slaw). 

Sugar Bakeshop - Cookies and cupcakes galore. 

Kaminskys - Strictly dessert and coffee. The portion sizes were definitely Cheesecake Factory-ish but it was a super cute date night place. My favorite was seeing a student from the Citadel wearing a blazer while his girlfriend (in sweats!) picked out her dessert. 

Stayed:

Wentworth Inn (blogged here) - Fancy pants hotel. I’m really glad we tried it but I don’t know if we’ll be back. While I loved all of the amenities, we really don’t need our own sunroom. Or porch. Or giant jetted tub (well, maybe we do need that). 

Things we Did:

Charleston Cooks - Really great cooking store. In 2011, I picked up two cookbooks and learned to make pecan pie. This year I picked another two cookbooks including Southern Cakes, plus two bags of grits! 

The Battery - Charleston is not big and one of the most beautiful walks you can take is to the Battery, their park named for all the cannons it used to have in order to protect Charleston. We also walked all over their downtown area. 

Fort Sumter - Took a ferry over to Fort Sumter, which was heaven for Vikas because he loves history and he especially loves the history of wars. 

Custom House - We toured their old custom house. I hated it. It was gimmicky and I was tired. 

Shopped on King Street - Great antique shopping that I wish we had more time to explore. 

Edmonston Alston House - Beautiful historical home on the Battery. Interestingly enough - the original family still lives on the top floor. 

Looked at Beautiful Houses 

Their famous rainbow row. The houses weren’t considered prime until they painted them a rainbow row of colors. 

Charleston Harbor. Not a bad day for February. 

St. Michael’s Church

St Michael’s Graveyard

Vikas in history heaven at Fort Sumter

The Spirit of the Lowcountry 

Sugar Bakeshop doesn’t sell scones but they nail cupcakes. 

• Tags
• Charleston Battery
• Charleston
• Middleton Place
• South Carolina
• Travel
• Sullivan's Island
• Fort Sumter
• Hominy Grill
• Glazed

My nephew had his birthday party recently and it was pirate themed. My aunt did such a great job helping my sister, and it reminded me so much of our birthday parties that we used to have as children. Pizza, cake and games but not over the top. My favorite part was picking out the birthday present with Vikas who went crazy for picking out boy’s toys. I had to keep reminding him that Xander wasn’t into the Hobbit. Vikas finally picked out a Star Wars light saber, and it was a big hit. The children got treasure maps and were so excited about the thought of finding treasure. 

Vikas and me with the birthday boy! We brought our own pirate hats. 

My aunt made these red velvet cupcakes and I love the candles. 

My niece goes to take a swing at the pinata. She is so cute and looks so much like my mother. 

My nephew won’t let the pinata win. 

I loved this sweet girl with her mustache. 

• Tags
• parties
• Pirates
• Birthday Parties
• Pinatas