Winchester Weekend Trip: Beer Me!

This past weekend, we ventured to Winchester, Va. to see what's brewing (hahahaha) at our friends' nanobrewery, anticipated to open this November! They have big plans to create a great space where you can go hang out with friends and sample small-batch beers with creative flavors, like a chipotle-smoked porter or tomatillo saison. Their biggest project right now: raise $8,500 through Kickstarter. It looks like it's going great! We can't wait to head up there and help out/hang out once they're open.

While we were in Winchester, we stopped by 5050 Taphouse, a burger and beer emporium with impressively wacky burgers I just had to share. Sean had the second waffleburger of his life (it's seriously his favorite thing).

I had the Crunchy and Funky, featuring bleu cheese, Fritos and drunken onions. I'm all about Fritos on a sandwich. Already scheming how to incorporate more of that in my life.

It was a good and productive weekend. If you're so inclined to give, you can take home some truly great prizes, including custom limited-edition T-shirts, beer can glasses and a beautiful turquoise stainless steel growler that I can't wait to carry when I saunter up to the filling station at my fancy Kroger.

Easter in the Valley

We had a wonderfully busy and fun Easter weekend visiting with our family friends in both Harrisonburg and in Northern Virginia. I always love how Easter ushers in the spring, bringing a season of new beginnings and fun. Plus, I love wearing an Easter dress!

We spent the weekend with our friends Holly and Arthur in Harrisonburg. Visiting the Burg always sends me into fits of nostalgia and wistfulness, remembering the year I spent there in my first year out of college. My job was very cool in a lot of ways, but I was in a long distance relationship (with my now-husband) and felt very lonely as I made my way in the world. It's fun to return and see how the city has grown and changed, but it's also delightful to see what's the same. They took us to have a dangerously delicious brunch at Billy Jack's Wing & Draft Shack, owned by the same team behind Jack Brown's. Holly and I split a carafe of mimosas and we were HAPPY by the end.

Sean got the 10-Napkin burger, complete with bacon nuggets. I mean, have you ever?

They have an incredible menu of sliders, so I had two super-bad-for-me options: a fried chicken slider with dill pickles and sriracha mayo (get on that, Chick-fil-a!) and the Greg Brady, a wagyu beef patty topped with mac and cheese and barbecue potato chips. That inspired combo was tasty, but actually a bit rich. I think salt and vinegar chips would help cut the richness of the mac!

From there, we headed to Three Brothers Brewing, where Sean enjoyed a flight...

And Holly and I both downed glasses of Good Adweiss! We had dinner at Local Chop & Grill House; one of my first articles in Harrisonburg was about the restaurant that opened there initially...it's surreal to think that was almost 10 years ago.

On Sunday, we piled into the car to go meet Arthur's family and my sister-in-law Katie for an Easter brunch. On the way, we stopped in downtown Winchester for lunch. I loved the green trim on this old home's windows!

And I had the best beer-battered fish and chips of my LIFE at Union Jack.

Two years ago, we put together a baby shower for this little nugget! I can't believe how time has flown.

Obligatory Easter couple pic!

The real occasion for getting together: the early arrival of this new best friend! Adam was only four days old in this picture, and already out socializing!

Cuddling with this pal, who decided my necklace was a choo choo and was trying his darnedest to move it around my neck. He's so adorable, I didn't even mind.

We hit the road, enjoyed a beautiful sunset and cracked up through a late show of Furious 7.

Sadly, our weekend trip had to end, but happily, it ended with my favorite sandwich from all the time I lived in Harrisonburg: the Santa Fe turkey sandwich, on a jalapeno bagel. Bliss is when you can leave a place for 8 years and still be able to get your regular order. The world changes, but hopefully this never will. 

"I'll Make It Fit": A Story of IKEA Failure

On Monday, Sean and I ventured to IKEA to stock up on some new house essentials, like bookcases, a kitchen cart, shelving and other little doodads.

Have you been to IKEA? I didn't grow up near one, so the first time I went, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! It is heavenly...for the first two hours. And then somewhere around the first bend of the "marketplace" downstairs, it turns to this:

We were fading fast by the time our cart rolled into the warehouse, where you pick up a million boxes to take home and somehow turn their contents into the dream house rooms you saw in the showroom section. Our wish list included the Billy bookcases, the Hemnes daybed to trick out our additional guest room, a pair of Kallax shelving units for Sean's man cave and a kitchen cart, PLUS shelves for the walls. We knew it would be a stretch to fit all of it, so we started with our first priority: the bookcases.

Sean took one look at the boxes for the bookcases and informed me there was no way they'd fit in our car (a crossover SUV with seats folded down). I didn't believe him, so he literally took one of their freebie measuring tapes out to the car to check. Let's just say I was wrong, and my Evil Stepsister tactic of "making it fit" was not going to work.

At this point, after realizing we'd driven 2.5 hours for this purpose and spent nearly 3 hours in the store already, I had a mini panic attack and my brain cells all shut down.

So What Did We Do?
Our options, as we saw it were:

• Go home with what we could fit in the car and plan to come back with a UHaul, which would probably add about $300 on top of the purchases.
• Go home with what we could fit in the car and try to find a generous friend with a bigger car who would make the trek with us...again.
• Go home with what we could fit in the car and shell out approximately $240 ($199 flat rate shipping + $40 for IKEA associate assistance) to have an IKEA associate pull our items from the shelves and ship them. The max IKEA will ship from a store is 4 hours' distance...and we fall just in that margin.

We ultimately opted for the last choice and decided to go ahead and get everything on our wish list since we know it won't ever fit in our car no matter what we do. It still felt foolhardy and dumb, but every piece will make our home much more functional and having it delivered saves us a lot of headaches.

HOT TIP: If you do have it delivered, you can save on service fees you'd be charged online by going to the store and physically picking up what you want, paying for it and then marching it straight to their shipping area. If we'd been available, we could have had our items delivered within just 2 business days, but we weren't going to be free! Good to know, though, right?

It was definitely embarrassing and frustrating to realize our items wouldn't fit, but I think we landed on a great alternative option and learned a little in the process. Now, we just have to actually build all this stuff!

The Giant Christmas Circle of 2014

 We just completed a nearly 1,200-mile round trip for Christmas and we. are. pooped. BUT, we feel so lucky and blessed that we were able to see so many of our loved ones and enjoy great time in our favorite places. We started out on the road last Tuesday, with Sean nursing a heinous cold that he's thankfully managed to shake off. We returned last night, with my voice completely gone! Sure sign of a fun time! Here are a few pics of our holiday adventures:

We started our trip in Alexandria. I got to eat the most delicious steak tips with lime penne pasta at Mike's American Grill with my California favorite, Mark.

 I loved this present from Sean: a promise that I can FINALLY get a cat. (Side note: I'm a little nervous he might have a pet dander allergy...so we have to investigate that first.) We also got a fireplace starter kit, which I'm champing at the bit to try out! From there, we drove 7 hours to visit my grandmother, and then another hour to my hometown!

 In Wise, we stayed at the newly renovated and reopened Inn at Wise (more on that later!) and I got to celebrate my lifelong BFF Jamie's birthday!

 From there, I carried on to a dinner reunion with hometown friends, and we staged our annual Melrose Place-inspired photo shoot and played Cards Against Humanity with hyper-customized cards that had us dying laughing. The next morning, Sean and I set off for my dad's house on the border of Tennessee, where we had a fun time visiting, exchanging presents and having delicious pizza at Mellow Mushroom.

 I had the Red Skin Potato Pie, which is basically a pizza version of potato skins. Super sinful and super worth it.

 Daddy and I with the Mellow Mushroom's crazy sculpture guy.

 We drove another hour further to Asheville, NC where my grandpa's family rented three cabins for the week! I wish we could have stayed longer, but alas, we only could stay for the weekend. I can't wait to go back.

 It was great to gallivant around the city with my mom...

And admire the mountain sunset with my Papa.

Whew! What a whirlwind trip. We got spoiled to death, with new tools and much-needed house stuff, plus chocolate galore and books for the new year. I also had the pleasure of seeing lots of art, so I'm going to post about my favorite things I saw later this week! How was your Christmas?

Memorial Day Weekend: Half-Smokes, Hikes and Cake

We had a wonderfully busy Memorial Day weekend, full of things I shouldn't have eaten and don't regret at all! We spent the long weekend in the DC area visiting family and revisiting landmarks of Sean's youth, starting with B&J Carry-Out, a classic Accokeek, Md. greasy spoon. After much debate (the BBQ sandwiches come highly recommended), I was intrigued by the "half-smoke," which the Internet tells me is a D.C.-area delicacy.

A half-smoke is, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, "Similar to a hot dog, but usually larger, spicier, and with more coarsely-ground meat, the sausage is often half-pork and half-beef, smoked, and served with herbs, onion, and chili sauce." It was a somewhat spicier hot dog, split down the middle, served with mustard on the most perfectly grilled bun and it was DELICIOUS. Next time, I'll go all-in and get chili.

From there, we went to Piscataway Park, a national park situated directly across the Potomac River from Mt. Vernon. My sweet husband spent his childhood in the woodsy neighborhood right there and it was fun to hike around and explore.

After our mini hike, we met up with Katie for a visit to the grounds of their childhood home...I had driven by in the past, but had never gotten an up close look. It's cool to be able to picture everything when they tell their stories now.

On our way home, Sean and I decided to do a quick visit to check out the National Harbor, a kind of grown-up Disneyland resort area. It's sort of disconcerting because it's so well-planned it doesn't seem real, but we definitely would love to go back for a day of paddleboating, dinner and maybe a ride on the Ferris Wheel.

I mean...how could you not want to paddleboat a giant swan? You can even get there by taking a water taxi from the Alexandria waterfront. Let's do it!

My sister-in-law is moving soon and my mother-in-law just celebrated a birthday, so I called ahead and ordered two cakes from Alexandria Pastry: a black-and-white mousse cake and a lemon mousse with raspberry filling cake.

They were scrumptious and incredibly moist. The folks at Alexandria Pastry were also incredibly easy to work with and now I'm hoping to go back for breakfast or lunch. They've got a customer for life!

On Sunday, we headed out to have brunch and to test-drive some Warby Parker sunglasses for Sean. I think the Thatcher style is a winner!

Our brunchmates were Katie, our friend Lindsey and her cuties!

Who isn't mesmerized by Sean's beard? I mean really.

Funny story: a few months ago, I dreamed we were in Paris and I bought waffleburgers from a street vendor. When I woke up and remembered the dream, I thought I might be on to something. So imagine my delight to see they serve waffleburgers at FireFlies in Del Ray! Sean ordered it and let me have a bite and let's just say, it's worth dreaming about.

Butternut Squash Gratin + Thanksgiving 2013

Another year, another giving of thanks, or as Sean has dubbed it, "National Food Instagram Day." It's true, and it's grand.

 My mother-in-law set her table with her brand new one-of-a-kind artist-made runner and red plates in what she called her "Fire & Ice" theme. I insisted on putting out my guinea feathers.

 Miss Margaret with the beautiful turkey!

 My sister in law Katie made the most amazing root vegetable salad, with chopped carrots, parsnips and red onions covered with an olive oil-rosemary dressing. So good!

And I was excited to try to recreate a dish I had recently at a restaurant: butternut squash au gratin! I used my mandolin slicer to cut the squash into disc-shaped slices, 1/16th thick (or thin). I buttered a dish and then, between my layers of butternut squash, I sprinkled grated parmigiano reggiano and shredded gruyere cheese.

On the stovetop, I heated 2 cups of heavy cream with minced garlic, nutmeg, thyme, salt and pepper (I eyeballed the amounts of each...not helpful, I know). I let the mixture bubble up and reduce a bit, then removed it from the heat and poured it on top of my layers of squash.

 I let the mixture settle and then did the fun part: smothered it in shredded gruyere!

 I finally put it into an oven preheated to 375 degrees and let it cook for a full hour...

Until the cheese was perfectly browned and burnt on the edges and scrumptious!!! 

Click below for the full recipe!

DC Vacay: Marine Museum & Mount Vernon

We're back from my family vacation! This was the first family vacation we've taken since I've been an adult, believe it or not. My grandparents really hadn't ever spent any time in DC, and my mom was itchy to go, so we decided to play hosts and be tourists where Sean grew up. I thought I'd share some recaps of our time there, along with the little Pro Tips I've picked up along the way.

We stayed at the Hyatt Arlington, which was not only pretty and affordable, but across the street from the metro and within walking distance of some decent food options. 

We decided to spend one day visiting a couple Virginia attractions: the U.S. Marine Museum in Quantico and Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington.

The Marine Museum is a pretty astounding museum, where my father-in-law just happens to be a docent. Even if you don't think marine history would be your thing, it is a really well-interpreted, well done museum. I was very impressed with how engaging the exhibits were, including an exhibit on the flag from Iwo Jima, which inspired the shape of the building. It's also FREE!

 We regrettably weren't able to finish all the exhibits...it's just got so much more to see than we even realized! We'll definitely be going back.

We then headed to Mount Vernon. First Pro Tip: If you can, scheduled your DC trip for the week after Labor Day. Everywhere we went, they were having slow days because school had just started. Also, the weather was as close to perfect as you can get.

We took a family portrait on Washington's porch! Not too shabby.

Afterward, we went and met up with Sean's family in Alexandria and had a scrumptious dinner at Evening Star Cafe. Believe it or not, I forgot to take pictures, but I had Crispy Peppadews (peppers stuffed with pimento cheese and fried), chilled tomato soup and mac and cheese, paired with Schafly's pumpkin ale. It was all scrumptious, especially the tomato soup! 

If you're in the area, be sure to check out their outdoor front porch while it lasts...they've taken over an empty spot on Mount Vernon Avenue, covered it with a canopy of cafe lights and basically created a little corner that resembles something out of Star's Hollow on "Gilmore Girls."

Next up: Ford's Theater & the Spy Museum!