Newlyweds In New York – Page 67 – Livin' and Lovin' in the ROC city

When Did Boerne Get Hip?

Post author:Lara
Post published:June 7, 2011
Post category:Blog T&L

I moved away from my hometown in the Texas Hill County nearly eight months ago. Apparently, a lot has changed.

As a kid, growing up in Boerne could have been described as “peaceful.” We had a town swimming pool, a library, a nature center, a gymnastics center, a bakery, an old-time bowling alley frequented almost exclusively by seniors with a nicotine addiction, an animal league/thrift store from which I hoarded cats, a German polka band, a Main Street full of antique stores, and – for a little spice in our lives – there was the Dairy Queen. There were also a lot of ranches with rolling hills perfect for the dreadful 5k walks I was dragged on and an outstanding population of longhorns, horses, roadrunners and armadillos. Please don’t think us uncivilized – we did have 20 churches, 10 bars and a post office. Hardly a child’s paradise. I didn’t quite appreciate the charm of Boerne back then.

As my high school years rolled around Boerne became slightly less dull with the addition of a Sonic Drive-In restaurant, a Blockbuster for movie rentals, a great snow cone stand with at least 100 flavors of awesomeness to choose from and the nicest snow cone lady in existence, one or two shops on Main Street that carried clothing a teenager might consider wearing, and – the crown jewel – a Super Wal-Mart which was blessed by Preacher Bubba Stahl while the BHS band marched through the aisles playing lively orchestral tunes (I’m serious). Impressive indeed.

In college a few more young-adult worthy shops appeared on Main Street, Marble Slab Creamery opened its doors, a pampering massage salon went up, Beer Fest began, the Urgent Care Clinic and Hospital were born, and a delicious Thai restaurant (ethnic food in Boerne? Amazing!) and an organic vegetarian restaurant also came to grace our small town. We had hit the big leagues (but really, it was that Super Wal-Mart that pushed us over the edge)! In the year before I left Texas to get married and become a resident of Ohio, I lived with my parents in Boerne and worked at an excellent youth theatre in San Antonio. At about this time people suddenly decided San Antonio was getting too crowded and the Hill County was the place to be. New homes and big commercial developments began cropping up along I-10 West, looming closer to our dear little town. The Boerne of my childhood, which in the 1990’s was certainly in no imminent danger of being labeled as a “cool place to live” (just ask the escaped trio of alpacas that ran rampant down Main Street one Christmas during the Dickens on Main celebration), was getting just a little bit cooler – both a welcome and unwelcome change.

I arrived home this weekend and, upon driving into town, one thought came to mind: When did Boerne get so hip!?

A Main Street full of happening young stores stocked with mod yet vintage-inspired clothes and accessories that even I had to try on! A popular 50’s burger joint that serves the latest and greatest fry trend – sweet potato fries! An HEB Plus in the works the size of Rhode Island! A brand spanking new state-of-the-art library with energy efficient instruments, the latest technology, and stunning views of the Hill County from its multi-level windows and dry-erase walled kid lounge! A women’s shelter breaking ground! A swankily decorated gluten-free, sugar-free, non-fat, low-cal Frozen Yogurt shop with odd hippie toppings like boba beads in place of the old pewter store! Marketing firms with funky logos and creative advertising materials!

Very cool, very hip, but what’s happened to the Boerne I knew? The Boerne of the girl scout troop, 4H club, vacation bible school, rodeo, tiny 4th of July fireworks displays, and the annual Berges Fest parade? I mean, those are all still there and we’re still a long ways off from getting anything as outrageous as an art museum, movie theatre, shopping mall, Brazilian Steakhouse, Sushi bar, or sports arena and concert venue…but a hip frozen yogurt parlor and stores that carry stylin’ maxi dresses instead of blue jean vests with embroidered horses? Now we’re pushing the limits! On one hand, it is really great to have things to see and do without the 30 minute drive to the big city, but it’s also hard to imagine Boerne as anything other than a tiny little German town with a blooming senior population, parched grass in desperate need of water, and a small handful of basic country amenities. I love it all the same, but I can’t wrap my mind around Boerne as the new hip place to be.

Ready for the picture proof?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — DIY pomegranet tart swirl FroYo topped with Nerds, blue raspberry gummies, and mango boba beads from Kuhl Yogurt on Main Street. Um, yes. It was delicious.

EXIF_JPEG_T422 — The Patrick Heath library was dedicated and opened on Saturday, June 4, 2011. With its water reserve system, request for a windmill, computer stations, rock star parking for fuel efficient vehicles, a second-level reading porch, a fireplace in the quiet room, study rooms, neat architecture, dry-erase walls in the kids library, and stunning views of the Texas Hill Country, this library is a shining example of what a library should be! Pretty good for a small town.

How has your town changed?

More to come in the next few days – Wildlife at Enchanted Springs Ranch, a Texas food diary guaranteed to make you drool, Sancho lovin’, my awesome friends, and a surprise for me!

The San Antonio of my Childhood

Post author:Lara
Post published:June 5, 2011
Post category:Blog T&L

I’m still tremendously enjoying my brief Texas vacay but thought I’d drop by for a minute to regale you with a little late 1990’s-early 2000’s nostalgia brought on by a highly entertaining discussion at last night’s dinner with my dear friends. I think these few things just about sum up the gradeschool experience of any child who attended school in San Antonio between 1993 and 2001.

First, we have the popcorn shirt. This was fashion excellent at its trendiest. My friend Julia from Wisconsin wasn’t familiar with this sexy style. Apparently this was a Texas thing? The best part was that it started out itty bitty and stretched to fit you. We saw a lady wearing one last night and it brought back all kinds of stylin’ memories. If you were a kid growing up in San Antonio, don’t even pretend that you didn’t own or seriously wanted to own one.

Do you remember the ever-popular rainbow pencil that was sold for $0.25 out of a pencil machine at every single elementary school in south-central Texas? They were top-notch and cool enough that they were actually prone to being stolen by your peers. You definitely didn’t lend these babies out to your friends. If you had these, you were officially rad. These little gems ranked right up there with glittery gel pens and mechanical pencils, which were about the hippest thing ever to an 11-year-old. Last night Emily divulged that she used to participate in the black market purchasing of mechanical pencils for $5 per pencil in elementary school. They were that cool. She said that $5 per pencil seemed reasonable at the time. I about died laughing.

Ah yes, the power bead bracelet. Another must have accessory. Again, don’t pretend you didn’t own at least 5 in a variety of colors and wore all five daily because they brought you powers such as stregth, patience, grace, wisdom, and skinnyness.

Here we have The Battle of the Alamo Imax film that played at Rivercenter Mall’s Imax Theatre. If you went to gradeschool in San Antonio, you DID see this film. If you were extra lucky, as many of us were, you saw this film every. single. year. for six years in a row. You had it memorized. You preffered field trips to the actual Alamo, The McNay Art Museum, The Witte Museum, the HEB Treehouse, The Children’s Museum, The Tower of the Americas, The Magik Theate, The San Antonio Missions, and even the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra performances you were dragged to, but let’s be real, if anyone escaped their schooling years without seeing this cinematic masterpiece at least once (you didn’t), you must have been home schooled. This film is still playing 15 years later.

Pogs and slammers. I have to be honest – I have absolutely no idea what the point of these were, except that you played some kind of game with them (that I obviously don’t remember) and you traded them back and forth and they were a blazing hot commodity. As kids we had millions of them in every imaginable color and pattern and you traded for prettier ones and kept them in special pogs scrapbooks. They were glittery and metallic and the biggest waste of space and time ever. I cannot get over how big the obsession with these things was. I had them, but what was the point of them again? It was just one of those things you had to have in order to exist as a kid in San Antonio.

Watermelon lollipops covered in chili powder, Lucas, and Twang. Nowhere else on Earth other than in Mexico and Texas would it occur to people to coat everything from fruit to lollipops to pickles in absurdly spicy, salty or sour candy powder that, like an acid, eats away at your intestines. This stuff was addictive. It could be purchased at the sketchy south-side Walmarts, from gas stations, street vendors, and the gradschool black market where kids bought it and sold it to other kids for a $0.25 profit (so you could in turn buy a metallic rainbow pencil). You’d think these were drugs and not candy. Unless you’ve had this before, I don’t think I can explain Lucas to you. It’s red and spicy and sour and hot and to automatically decrease the nutritional value of nearly anything, you just spinkled this on it. I may have to buy some today and bring it back to Ohio so Ted can experience the life of a child in San Antonio.

Along those same lines were the most popular after-school snacks for San Antonio school children, all of which were sold at the school by the cafeteria ladies – giant sour pickles spinkled with hot sauce or (what else?) Lucas and Twang, the rainbow popsicle, and Flaming Hot Cheetos. Please keep in mind the organic nature and excellent nutritional content of all these healthy snack choices. Flaming Hot Cheetos are ridiculous. They turn your fingers and tongue bright red and even for me they still require the drinking of milk afterward to tone down the fire in my mouth. Sour pickles are still a guilty pleasure of mine. I love them. Most kids after-school snacks consisted of something like this. Welcome to San Antonio. Be jealous.

While we’re on the subject of food, I’ve had two “Of course. I forgot this is Texas” food moments this weekend. Yesterday morning I bit into what I thought was a lemon poppyseed muffin, only to discover that it was, in fact, a jalepeno cornbread breakfast muffin. Then I remembered I’m in Texas and that of course that wasn’t going to be a lemon poppyseed muffin. What was I thinking? Clearly, I’ve been away from Texas for too long if I couldn’t expect a jalepeno cornbread muffin for breakfast at a buffet. And last night at dinner I ordered a watermelon margarita. When it arrived, the rim of the glass was glistening with what I assumed to be crushed orange flavored sugar crystals to compliment the watermelon flavor of the margarita. I immediately began sucking the sugary powder off the edge, like any normal person, only to be slightly taken back by the discovery that it wasn’t orange sugar at all, but chili powder. Because here in Texas (see chili watermelon lollipop above), we line our magarita glasses with Lucas. Note taken. Now I remember. You know you’re in texas when…

Stay tuned for recaps of my trip to texas!

Summer Book Club: Bossypants

Post author:Lara
Post published:June 1, 2011
Post category:Blog Reads

I just finished reading Bossypants by Tina Fey. It was released less than two months ago and I was lucky to snag a copy of it early on. I opted to check it out at our local Cincinnati library, which is excellent and stocks new releases, because I’m always a little weary about spending a lot of money on new hardcover books I’ll read once, enjoy, but then resell or donate for far less than what I paid. I’m on a mission to save money and reduce household clutter. It’s very noble of me, I know. I love books and I’d love to be able to financially support authors by purchasing their books, but at this point in my life it doesn’t seem like a wise financial investment to me when we have to pay rent, and buy food and gas with a limited income. By the way, can I just mention again how much I truly endorse the institution of the public library? It’s good stuff folks. If you don’t have a library card and you are still spending money to rent movies and buy books, you really should reconsider your options. Back to the book. Regardless of your political beliefs or what you think of Tina Fey or her political comedy sketches and portrayal of Sara Palin on SNL in 2008, it’s a good book. I really enjoyed reading it – it’s a great summer read if you’re looking for something entertaining, light, humorous, and relaxing. She’s funny and candid but without being pretentious. Last year I tried reading similar types of books by Chelsea Handler and Kristin Chenoweth, other female comedians/celebrities, but I found them inaccessible and uninviting. I couldn’t finish either book because I was so fed up with the lack of cleverness, the paragraph upon paragraph of excessive name dropping and the endless recitation of achievements. With Bossypants Tina Fey is relate-able and I think she could be understood and enjoyed by men and women of all ages. She’s very funny and her book contains some excellent stories and hilarious advice and other comical snippets, but she’s real. She doesn’t let her talent or luck or success overwhelm her graciousness, honesty, or personality. She’s all these things, but still personable and friendly and respectful. Yes, I can tell all of this about her from her book without even having met her. I’m that deep. Or that great of a judge of character. Or that mistaken. Anyhow, all of this is to say I was impressed. I enjoyed her writing style, I liked her sense of humor and jokes, she’s bold yet kind and it’s a great read. I actually kind of wish I hadn’t devoured it all this week so I’d have something relaxing to read on the airplane ride to Texas on Friday! The next book I have on hold for me at the library: Spoon Fed by Kim Severson.

Unbridalded Spirit: Our Weekend in Kentucky

Post author:Lara
Post published:May 30, 2011
Post category:Adventures Blog

The past three days we’ve been busy hosting my sister, her husband and their two boys in Cincy. They came down from the Chicago area to visit us for Memorial Day weekend. We loved spending time with them, showing off our home turf, and exploring uncharted Kentucky territory that was new to all of us in the warm and toasty 90+ degree heat. In the past three days we chowed down at a fabulous Mexican restaurant with an equally fantastic view on the river between Newport and Cincinnati, visited the Churchill Downs grounds and museum, watched a few live horse races, experienced the festival-like atmosphere and tasted a slew of treats at the annual Taste of Cincinnati foodie fest, cooled off at the Children’s Museum and The Museum of Natural History and Science, introduced our guests to some classic Cincy favorite eateries – Hype Park Pizzeria and Skyline Chili, visited with famous retired racehorses at the Kentucky Horse Park, and walked to the ice cream shop down our street to savor some delicious homemade UDF ice cream (their peach ice cream is totally out of this world!) while enjoying each others company. Here’s a photo sampler from the weekend (as always, click to enlarge):

3-1 — At the Children's Museum Lochlan dove into the water works area with glee. He also grew quite attached to the construction workers scene and grocery store setup!

And Declan learned to drive. They boys also crawled through the woods, played in a sand pit, toured a cave, walked through Cincinnati's ice age, and explored the ball pit.

We had a beautiful Memorial Day weekend, thankful for the gift of freedom, and hope you had the same!

The Great Travel Insurance Debate

Post author:Lara
Post published:May 27, 2011
Post category:Blog

Yesterday I said there wouldn’t be an Open Letters Thursday. However, I said nothing about an Open Letters Friday. So before I regale you with my thoughts on the deep subject of travel insurance, I’d like to start with a few short open letters.

Dear Justin Bieber wannabe kid bagging groceries at Kroger,

I realize that the swinging of your hair and the impressing of girls is high on your list of excruciatingly important priorities, but next time, could you please pay a little more attention to the work at hand that you are being paid to do instead of flirting with the pretty cashier. A single plastic grocery bag is not meant to be stuffed to the brim with every single item in my shopping cart. It does not and should not fit. Furthermore, I do not appreciate spending a crap ton of money on groceries only to have you smash my strawberries and bag the cosmetic items so poorly that the hand soap squirts out all over leaving a soapy mess on the produce. You should spend a little less time talking and flaunting your ignorance and a lot more time paying attention.

Sincerely,

Lara

Dear Mother Nature,

Are you quite finished being a witch and brutalizing everyone?

Sincerely,

Lara

Well, that’s that. Onto the travel insurance!

Insurance. A touchy subject. By now most of us not living beneath a rock have realized the importance of health, renters, auto, home-owners, and life insurance. You have it, you pay it, and you hope you don’t need it. But what about travel insurance? I’m always a little iffy on this one. Usually if it’s a small trip like a weekend getaway, a short cheap vacation with the family, or if we’re going somewhere within the U.S. or just taking a flight and booking a hotel somewhere, I don’t worry about it. Depending on the plan and what you feel you need coverage for, travel insurance can be hundreds of dollars. Is it really worth even more of your hard-earned and often unavailable cash to purchase hundreds of dollars worth of insurance for a thousand dollar trip? For me, the answer is usually no. But when it comes to any kind of international travel or an expensive trip, I waver back and forth but ultimately settle into feeling obligated to purchase insurance. I feel totally guilty until I do it, racked with the anxiety that if I don’t buy it and if I don’t make sure that I’m as prepared as possible, something will go horribly wrong and I’ll absolutely regret not forking over the extra two hundred dollars.

While I’ve never actually had to file a claim or rely on my travel insurance, the peace of mind it brings me is typically worth the cost of the plan. Is travel insurance just a big money-making scheme designed by some bigwig company to weasel more money out of us in exchange for a feeling of relief and security, and are we just a bunch of suckers to fall for it? Maybe. Arguably yes. But how would you feel if you truly needed it and didn’t have it? That’s the toss up. It’s a risk, and it’s a gamble. Do you waste a couple hundred bucks on something you most likely won’t need instead of using that money on lavish fruity cocktails or an adventurous volcano exploration trip, or do you lose it all when you fail to make the investment and your luggage gets shredded from being dragged behind a donkey in Istanbul and you miss your connecting flight due to a freak airline strike or inclement weather?

As a child traveling with my parents, I obviously never purchased travel insurance. I’m not actually sure if my parents did either. I assume they did, but I honestly don’t know. We took several major overseas trips, but since I, thankfully, wasn’t responsible for any planning details at the tender age of 11, I have no idea if we traveled insured or not. I do remember purchasing travel insurance for my two-week Shakespeare intensive study abroad program in college. I didn’t use it, but for the money that was being shelled out for me to participate in this fantastic opportunity, I didn’t want to miss out and I thought it was important. I do not regret purchasing it. When my friends and I treated ourselves to a week-long Caribbean cruise as a college graduation present to ourselves, I don’t know if I purchased insurance or not. I know it crossed my mind many times as it was a big purchase with an international itinerary, but I can’t remember what I decided. I wouldn’t be surprised if I did buy into it, but I’m nearly positive my friends did not.

Yesterday Ted and I purchased a travel insurance plan for our honeymoon. I feel really good about this decision. Our itinerary isn’t particularly exotic, but it does involve several major modes of transportation, multiple cities, detailed and timely schedules, a few wonderful adventures, some unreliable weather, and (the most important deciding factor here), A LOT of money that I worked really, really hard to save. Accidents happen. Luggage gets lost. Flights get delayed. People get sick. Jobs get terminated. Things go wrong. Inclement weather rears its ugly head. That could happen on any trip. It’s a risk we all take when making plans so many months in advance. But I like the peace of mind knowing that if something out of our control happens that we wouldn’t be out thousands of dollars that we’ll never see again, in addition to a screwed up vacation. Travel insurance doesn’t guarantee that this stuff won’t happen to us and I know it wouldn’t solve all our problems if it did happen to us, but at least I know that I found a great plan and an affordable plan that we are happy with, and I feel good knowing that for less than $200, should something go wrong, that we’re not going to have to just cut our losses and sort this out alone.

What do you think about travel insurance? Is it worth it to you? Have you ever used it? Would you? Under what circumstances did you bite the bullet and buy in?

Have a safe and blessed Memorial Day weekend!

Epic Fail Friday…(a day early)

Post author:Lara
Post published:May 26, 2011
Post category:Blog

Per Ted’s request I’ll be attempting to implement a weekly Epic Fail Friday post on our blog. I say “our” blog because it pertains to our life together, but knowing full well that I’m the only one writing here. Ted is still avoiding swooping in for a guest post like the plague. Clearly you people aren’t pestering him enough. Get on that please.

I’m still partial to my Open Letters Thursday as I relish the opportunity to sock it to the big dummies out there and tell it like it is in a non-confrontational manner (I hate confrontation. I’d rather brew feverishly in solitude), but sometimes just remembering that I have something specific to post on a specific day of the week is quite the task. So I’ll do my best to remember both Open Letters Thursday and Epic Fail Friday, but don’t hold me to it! For example, today is Thursday and I have no intention of blogging an Open Letters post today. Instead, to further the confusion, I’ll be posting Epic Fail Friday on Thursday. See how this works? Excellent. Let’s proceed.

Today I have two Epic Fails. You lucky ducks you!

Epic Fail #1: Looking for an easily-accessible utensil to stir my disease-inducing artificial sweetener into my peach iced tea with at dinner one night last week, I reached for the nearest fork. I ignored Ted’s cross-eyed glance and plunged said fork deep into my tea glass and began to stir. Suddenly, just as the fork was fully submerged, it came to mind that that fork was the very fork Ted was using just moments prior to fish saucy, potent bits of pickled herring out of the jar with. SO disgusting. In case you were curious, pickled herring does not compliment peach tea. Epic fail.

Epic Fail #2: Ted was buying a small pack of OTC allergy meds at Kroger on Sunday after our seven-mile forest bike ride had gotten the better of his nose and itchy eyes. If you remember from this post that I wrote way back yonder (yes, yonder) in March, Kroger has this totally absurd policy of wasting plastic to print up a plastic sticker to reward you for not using a plastic bag. Clearly I love this for all obvious reasons and I particularly enjoy ragging on the extreme stupidity of it all. Well, the young gentleman at the pharmacy counter stuck a big old honking “Less plastic? Fantastic! Thanks! You saved a plastic bag!” sticker on Ted’s tiny little box of allergy meds. Then he wrapped the box (with the sticker on it!) IN a plastic bag and handed it to Ted. When Ted received the bundle, rightfully befuddled by the presence of both the stupid sticker and the plastic bag, he handed it back to the cashier. The naive young man, clearly a few crayons short of a box, took it back and said only, “Oh. You didn’t want a plastic bag?”

“Oh. You didn’t want a plastic bag?” Not, “Oh man, I’m so sorry. My mind was on autopilot hahaha,” but, “Oh. You didn’t want a plastic bag?” How could he have missed such beautiful irony? Epic fail.

If you have a great epic fail that’s still tickling your irony bone, please be sure to leave it in the comments. We could all use a good chuckle. After all, I was up late last night demoniacally constructing a make-shirt tornado shelter complete with bicycle helmets, candles, lighters, flashlights, touch lights, extra batteries, weather radio, water bottles, body pillows, and more in our basement. All that working myself up can be exhausting. So, share the wealth and don’t hold back on those epic fails.

Finishing the Puzzle

Post author:Lara
Post published:May 25, 2011
Post category:Blog

Last night we booked some of the last pieces of the honeymoon puzzle!

Source

We carefully researched, selected, scheduled, then dropped a truly exorbitant amount of money on our airfare and hotel. To celebrate this monumental occasion, the staggering and painful decline in our honeymoon savings account (seriously, who comes up with these outrageous prices and why are they allowed to get away with it?), and the great relief and freedom of finally having nearly everything that we’ll need securely booked, we took ourselves out for a free (thank you rewards coupons!) dish of cold, creamy ice cream from our favorite local ice cream parlor of awesomeness, Graeter’s, which we savored on a bench outside in the perfect, warm afternoon breeze. It was a great day for ice cream, as evidenced by the appearance of at least 3/4 of the population of Cincinnati in our little parlor, an incredibly welcome change from the swirling storm clouds of doom that have been threatening the Midwest lately.

The plans for this vacation are all coming together and it feels so good to be done with most of the planning! Only a couple more things to book, a few purchases to be made, and a handful of other rudimentary and obligatory preparations to be taken care of and then it should be smooth sailing ahead. Though, as we all well know, smooth sailing is entirely out of our hands and the best laid plans often turn into unexpected adventures. And boy, am I ready for some good hearty adventure! – but preferably the kind that involves awesome sights, surprising detours for the marvelous nature, and great fun rather than, say, the delay of flights, accidents, foul weather or troubling mishaps.

More details to come at a later date. This weekend we’re anticipating the arrival of my sister and her family for a Memorial Day long-weekend visit. We’re so excited to have visitors coming to see us in Cincinnati! We’ll venture down to Kentucky to the derby race grounds, stables and museums. We’ll visit with some retired race horses, tour a bit of the Kentucky countryside, get some tasty eats at the Taste of Cincinnati festival, enjoy the company, cookout, and relax. It should be a grand weekend and I’m hoping this is the last of the nasty weather.

Hope your mid-week is sunny and safe.

How We Got A Weather Radio

Post author:Lara
Post published:May 24, 2011
Post category:Blog

Who rejoices when her husband suggests jumping in the truck to drive 25 miles each way to a Bass Pro Shop at 9 p.m. on a Monday night?

The person with a Bass Pro Shop gift-card who does not ever again want to be caught without an emergency weather radio while huddled under a couch cushion and snuggled up against a sturdy road case in the cold, dark basement the next time the tornado sirens go off, the wind picks up, and the power craps out leaving her home alone with shoddy cell service and no access to a Doppler radar.

That’s who.

Well played Cincinnati.

One new emergency weather radio with 7 channels of NOAA and S.A.M.E technology and a pack of D batteries = immediately acquired.

P.S. – I did, however, find an excellent use for all those beautiful mason jar candles leftover from our wedding. They make fantastic emergency lighting for our home. On the surprising upside, we also were able to enjoy a romantic hot meal by candlelight together even without power since earlier that day I’d randomly decided to cook our dinner in the slow cooker and it was still hot when Ted finally got home to save me from my exhausting fear and misery.

We supposedly have two more days of this tornado crap coming our way. I am not in the least excited for this, but at least this time we’ll know just how doomed we are instead of being forced to succumb to the unwanted element of surprise. Weather radio, I love you.

At a Glance

Post author:Lara
Post published:May 22, 2011
Post category:Blog

If this weekend was any indication of how the rest of this summer is going to be, then bring it on!

After finishing up his road cases yesterday afternoon, Ted mowed the backyard (which looks SO nice, by the way) and then we cooked out, grilling fresh green beans and roasted garlic mozzarella sausages on the grill and topping it off with a fresh baby seedless watermelon. Our first cookout and first watermelon of the year in our first place together! It was glorious. Grilled food is always fantastic and our dinner and evening was no exception.

We ended the night watching the pilot episode of Big Bang Theory and this season’s finale of the show. If you haven’t been watching Big Bang Theory, you’ve really been missing out.

This morning we went to church and then Ted mowed the rest of the lawn – it’s a two day job for him because the grass is so tall that he needs to go over it twice. It’s great to no longer have the most embarrassing lawn on the block – our neighbors are all retired, have plenty of time on their hands, and are supremely proud owners of their favorite expensive toy – the riding lawn mower. Every single one of our neighbors mows at least once a week. We have the time to mow our lawn maybe twice a month, if we’re lucky. They must be humiliated. But now it’s so soft and green and nice looking! Our yard reminds me of The secret Garden. Perfect for bonfires, lawn games, cartwheeling, and bird/bunny/chipmunk/squirrel/coyote watching, it is one of the things we love the most about this house. I can’t wait until the fireflies come out and fill our yard in the evenings!

In the afternoon we loaded the bikes into the truck and drove to the Bass Island bike trail that stretches the 50+ miles from Columbus to Cincinnati and along the path of the Little Miami River. The trail used to be a railroad but when it was no longer needed they took out the tracks and turned it into a paved, two-lane path for joggers, walkers, bikers and roller bladers. The path itself is absolutely great – very scenic with beautiful views of rolling meadows, the river, and lined with tons of lush trees with equal parts of sun and shade throughout and plenty of bikers and pedestrians enjoying their time in the great outdoors. We had a great time and biked a little over seven miles. The weather was in the low 80s and we had a nice cool breeze the whole way. We also saw our first snake in Ohio – a long black and gray fellow slithering across the paved trail. One day, perhaps in the autumn when the weather is getting cool and the leaves are all changing colors, we’d love to bike the whole trail – from Cincinnati to Columbus – then stay in a hotel in Columbus for the evening and bike back the next day. We’d have to work to build up our stamina though!

After our bike ride we stopped at Eastgate Adventures for a few laps around the go kart track, a quick game of mini golf, and two rounds of air hockey. Since we were in the area we tried out a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant we’ve been wanting to try for months now to fill our hungry bellies and dodge an afternoon rain shower, and it was really good! The place had authentic tortilla chips, totally authentic Mexican cheese, and fantastic steak fajitas. It is in my top 2 list of Mexican restaurants in Cincinnati! Leftovers for tomorrow? I think so! Tonight we’re taking it easy – throwing in a DVD and relaxing before it’s back to the daily grind tomorrow. By the way, here are Ted’s road cases. He does such an excellent job! Can you believe he made these from scratch? Every piece of laminate and foam cut, every latch, every handle, every wheel, every pop rivet, every hole drilled. Count me proud. He custom creates all kind of cases for cables, tools, and lighting and audio equipment. Below is the logo he’s having designed and produced to put on all his cases so we can hopefully drum up more business! What a dream it would be to own our own successful company that we could subsist on as our only source of income except for freelance gigs. We’d make a great team! With Ted’s lighting and set designs, equipment rentals and construction, production, budgeting and managing experience and my acting, directing, teaching, education, and artistic management experience, we’d be unstoppable. Anyone want to fund us as a start-up company?

The Gourmet’s Burger & Fries

Post author:Lara
Post published:May 21, 2011
Post category:Blog Recipes

Last night I made this recipe for dinner and i served it with these. Holy. Smokes. That’s some good eatin’! I would suggest you cook these up immediately! Both are easy and quick to whip up and I found that I had almost all of the ingredients on hand already.

What a fresh way to get your fish and veggies in! The only changes I made were to add a healthy handful of chopped green onions to the salmon burger mix, cook the burgers on a skillet with a bit of spray oil like Pam instead of vegetable oil, and to use Sandwich Thins instead of burger buns.

It’s safe to say this stuff blew. my. mind. Who would have thought adding a dash of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and fresh cilantro to low-fat mayo could yield such incredible results!? This is good stuff. It complimented the salmon burgers perfectly and was also really flavorful as a dipping sauce for the sweet potato fries! I’d totally recommend this low-fat mayo for nearly everything requiring mayo. You don’t need a lot to get a mouthful of flavor!

Sweet potato fries are always a bit of a battle because they soften as they cook and, short of frying them (which would take away any potential health benefits), they’re a difficult beast to make crispy like regular fries. I think next time I won’t spray them with cooking spray and see if that crisps them up a little. I love sweet potato fries because they’re a fresh flavor and fairly healthy. Especially when you use only a minimal amount of olive oil and lots of potent spices like coriander, cumin and oregano instead of the brown sugar that most sweet potato fries are seasoned with. The honey lime dipping sauce was really refreshing and its cool temperature paired nicely with the hot fries. Though I think I actually prefer the cilantro mayo as a fry dip over the honey lime, which I was not expecting.

I also learned that the 32nd annual Taste of Cincinnati is next weekend! I’m so excited! Ever since I heard about it last year, I’ve been looking forward to this year’s. I’m glad I saw the ad for it last night because I would have been really bummed to have found out about it after it happened. Essentially a bunch of great restaurants in Cincinnati take over downtown for a weekend with food booths and offer samples of their most spectacular dishes (from appetizers to desserts!) for the general public to taste and vote on. We’re talking baklava, lamb burgers, lobster ravioli, noodles, spinach and artichoke rangoons, lettuce wraps, cheesecake, crepes, fried pickles, gyros, corn on the cob, bread pudding, bisques, funnel cakes, mac n’cheese, Bavarian pretzels with beer cheese, BBQ, crab cakes, ribs, sushi rolls, vegetarian dishes, duck sliders, tiramisu, bratwurst, and more.

I have one thing to say about that.

YUM.

Today I replanted some herbs, Ted is working on road cases and I’m keeping him company. In a rare change of events I have four days in a row off and Ted has two. We’re taking advantage of the time together to get things done and have a little fun. We’re hoping to mow the lawn, pull out the grill for a mini-cookout, and take our bikes to the bike trail if we have time. Happy weekend!