dinner at my parents house

the most amazing person that i've ever met passed away recently and i went home for his funeral. i lost my camera charger, so i can't really take pictures, but i think some of the other people who were there maybe took some and i can update this later.

there was a really amazing memorial in richmond on saturday, and then a visitation time with his parents in northern virginia on sunday. sunday was mother's day. so after the visitation, kendall, tyler, melissa, katie, morgan and i went ot my parents house where they fed our sad little faces.

there was a nice salad and grilled shrimp and grilled marinated chicken and beef. my parents take entertaining very seriously and my dad had bought my mother a new patio umbrella that has a base and hangs over the table, rather than coming up from a pole in the center. plus they have a ridiculous grill. but really, it's the meat i wanted to talk about. the chicken was marinated in saffron and something liquidish and the beef is marinated in pomegrante paste and ground walnuts and other things. it's the bomb.

soon i will move into my very own place. there i hope to have many little dinner parties. and i also hope to have a new charger for my dumb new camera. which i also plan on taking on a tubing trip this summer if it ever gets warm enough to go into the water. boo ya!

din ho!

on recommendation from the fearless critic, we went to eat at din ho. while we waited to order we read from the chinese horoscope placemats. we is totally not compatible. i can't remember now who i am compatible with, no one probably. SIKE!!! whatever.
this place was really cheap, i got a big old dish of duck and roast chicken and it was like $8. it was ok, it was a little bit too much though. i never want to share a meal with the person i'm eating with because a)if you both order you can try different things b)ordering one meal is cheap and tacky. i am neither of these things. i can't remember what he got and from the pictures, i can't really tell. was it fish? a fish dish is probable. but my duck had lots of bones and was cut in a way that shards remained embedded in the meat. i hate having to spit things out at a restaurant. i mean, like separating parts of the food in my mouth. anyway, the food was good and cheap cheap cheap. which once again, i am not.

meatfest at cody's!!!!

this post should have been written weeks ago. but well, it wasn't. luckily i have pictures to refresh my memory.
i went with cody, sara, maury, lindsay, and lindsay's gf whose name i don't remember (oooooooooh nooooo, i'm sorry) to hamilton pool one day last month. afterwards we made a really nice dinner at cody's house.

the day prior i had attended this building event that cody's work had hosted and they had served this amazing amazing napolito dish you can apparently get at el milagro on saturdays. i tried to recreate this and was not very successful, but well, i don't think it sucked.
we also grilled scrimp, and snausage, and steak. and lots of grilled vegetables. del.i.cous. i don't even know what the website thing is and i'm pretty sure i didn't write it correctly, but oh well.

T&S Seafood

Maury and I went to Whole Foods yesterday for lunch because i wanted a salad or something kind of healthful and there are a million options there. plus i still don't really know about all the restaurants in town. while we there maury bought some restaurant guide. so we read through it and decided on a place that we had both heard about from others that neither of us had gone to.

in the guide it made it seem like t&s was going to be lined with fish tanks, the premise is that your food is caught in front of you and then taken and cooked up, real fresh like. we ate lots. so much that neither of us could eat our entrees. we got these little shrimp cakes and then a pork and salted egg and mustard greens soup that we shared.

for his entree maury got flounder which was the special for the night and i got lamb stew pot. i forgot how fatty lamb is. i ate a bunch of his flounder though. i even ate the head. like pretty much the whole head. i ate the eyeballs too.
sometimes it's hard for us to have a good time together. this was not one of those nights. thanks maury i had fun!!!

also, the walls were not lined with fish tanks at all. bummer.

Liberty Bar in San Antonio!!!

i first went to liberty bar last may when my friend helene was visiting from DC. maury and i took her to see the alamo and we had a lot of fun on a water taxi on the riverwalk. i mean, it was totally shitty fun. not like real fun. sike!

so anyhow, that day we ate at liberty bar which totally reminded me of the east coast. the building has high ceilings and the whole thing is slanted. it's just really charming and the staff is nice.

today jonny and i went to san antonio so that he could see the wonder that is the alamo and go to thrift stores and to eat at liberty bar.

what a joyous occasion! i ate steak tartare!!!!! i was actually pretty worried about it and it wasn't bad, but it was very similar to eating cream cheese and lox with all the good good fixins, and i think that i would prefer to do that. also, i was afraid to finish the whole thing because i figured it would feel pretty horrible to be full on raw ground beef.



jonny ate some boring pasta dish. tighten up jonny! i think he liked it.

also, jonny and i being the voyeurs that we are watched people (seemingly homeless? or maybe just adventurous) doing it under the bridge just catty cornered to the restaurant. we had pretty good seats for the show. but then the fuzz busted it all up. is the fuzz the police? because that is who i am talking bout.

also, one time jonny was reading this here blog aloud whilst sitting next to me. my writing sounds like a high school paper. never read mi blog aloud.

p.s. while we were in san antonio we went into a hall of mirrors. it was actually really cool. here you see too too many jonnys. two too many.

LBJ Ranch

on sunday we took our friends who were visiting from virginia to LBJ national park. while en route my boss called and was like "why are you going there?" i realized when we got there why she had asked that question. there really wasn't anything there. except for a bangin picnic we had packed, a box of records and a portable record player, and a box of wine.

first off, i think the portable record player heightens any experience. we had a nice meal that consisted of proscuitto, some funny cheese, hummus, fig and hazelnut spread, and spinach and strawberry salad. oh and bread. oh and chocolate. oh and anchovies. was that it?

at some point we realized that there were longhorns and white-tailed deer fenced not to far from where we were eating. we checked them out and walked past that area to the pedernales river.
we hung out for a while on the river listening to records and being kids. i love my friends.

Woodland!

Roomate DATE!!!

i had received an email from my friend, Janelle, who lives in Philly about a blog she had read on apartment therapy about a restaurant in Austin, called Woodland. (pant, pant, pant)

so our lease is about to be up and our rent is going to be raised and we took this as an opportunity to get together and discuss our options.

we figured woodland would be a good place to try out. it is super cute, the staff is nice and there is a fake tree in the dining room. we got in there pretty early so we didnt have to wait for a seat and were able to just jump right in with our wine drinking.


i like friend dates. we laughed and laughed and made sure everyone knew that we were having a better time than them. sike! double sike!

Holy Cannoli!

I have eaten several meals between this meal and the last I posted about, however, they were all just small gatherings at area restaurants and having waiting this long to post about them, they have lost their sentiment. or whatever. i don't really know what that means.

but i want to write about a really amazing meal i ate at my friends, Virginia and Eliot's house. Eliot's mother is a chef and was in town visiting her son and his beautiful wife. i love love love virginia and eliot. from the first time i ever met them. i loved them.

i don't really know their good friends and i always think it's nice to have a meal with people who are new and different. later on in the meal some of my closer friends showed up who had been working on an installation at a gallery. friends!

so, a meal of polenta souffle, mixed greens, mushroom soup, and green beans was prepared. delicious.

eliot's mom told us funny stories of things eliot said and did as a child. i should have written this post last week. so sue me!

i wish i didnt write such a boring post!

oysters on the half shell

jonny and i were goin to make salmon and asparagus and orzo tonight for dinner until we entered quALity seafood on airport boulevard. i asked about raw oysters and the guy scooped a ladle into this little bowl of oyster meat. it looked gross. when i clarified and asked for oysters on the half shell he told me that they sell them in boxes of 100. the price seemed reasonable and we took them home.

all 100, unshucked oysters.

some people got stabbed. others enjoyed raw oysters with horseradish, lemon, sriracha, and tabasco. gorgonzola and saltines were also added to the fixin's bar as the night progressed. we drank a lot of beer and wine and i think that a good time was had by all.

free meal!!!!!

so this was not actually my first meal back in austin. i drove 15 hours from atlanta to austin on wednesday, all alone. my first stop back in austin was my friends house, where my dog had been housed for the two weeks that i was away. my friend, maury bought me dinner which was so nice but unfortunatly my throat was too sore to eat.

my first real celebratory meal in austin was held after i picked jenny, my roomie up from the airport. she had just come back from a week in mexico, who knows what she ate! so she had plans with beatrice for lunch and i wanted to join in.


the weather was super nice and we wanted to eat outside but we didn't want it to be too meaty and we also couldnt really have mexican food. on the way, we picked up beatrice's friend stanley who took his lunch break with us.

beatrice ordered her favorite app and was enjoying it until stanley asked for a bite. we all watched as her face turned sour and she stuck out her tongue to reveal a shard of glass. and then again to push out a large piece of glass. we all stared in disbelief and she spit the rest of her mouthful into a napkin. we told the waitress who apologized, took the plate, and sent the manager out who comped our entire meal. only we hadn't ordered yet. all of our "should i get the soup AND the salad?" concerns were alleviated and we were all able to get everything that sounded appealing.


all though we were all pretty taken aback by glass in beatrice's appetizer, this had put a whole new spin on the meal and we all enjoyed ourselves fully.

also, the service was superb and the poor waitress more than made up for the kitchen's mistake. i felt bad because she pretty much was kissing her butt's for the rest of the time. or maybe she was just really sweet. you should eat at this place for suuuuuuure! plus i'm like pretty sure that luke wilson was eating inside while we were there. i mean, he was covered in glitter, so it must've been a celebrity? right? yes/no?

atlanta on tuesday

i got to atlanta on tuesday evening and went to see my friend, shauna's new baby. i definitely said things like "wierd, you have a baby" "baby's are so wierd" "wierd, you are like responsible for something". stuff like that. i guess babies are cool, or whatever, but like carrying a baby for 9 months and then giving birth to it and then raising it seems insane to me.



alien almost.

this is little eliot. just you wait until he's big enough to wear the onesie i got for him. jsut you wait.

i went to my friend katie's house to sleep and to eat. she had invited her friends over and i was really excited to hang out with some cool atlantics. ha. i know that's not what people from atlanta are called, but what the heck, right? so katie had invited some of her gf's over and she and i went to get groceries when i arrived. we decided upon a menu of fish tacos and quesadillas.


katie had come out to austin last sxsw and at that time i had met her friend shana, who i actually stayed with last may when i passed through atlanta. they are both very fun people. together we prepped and made our dinner.

i was just slightly disappointed that this dinner did not seem as interactive as others. i really enjoy sitting in a round table environment and having some sense of community. that is what i strive for with every gathering and shared meal. this meal lacked that sense and i was really upset when most of the guests left shortly after the meal was done. everyone was spread out among the living room and the front porch and i didn't get to engage in too many conversations. maybe i was just tired or something.


katie, i hope that this post does not upset you. thank you for keeping me! am i betch?

oh katie and priss being cute together.

oh i forgot perly's

the morning that i was leaving richmond melissa, katie, bonnie and i went to perly's for breakfast. i love coffee. and i ordered my drink first and for some reason i ordered iced tea. then i heard "coffee, coffee, coffee" and i felt like somehow i had missed out on a morning tradition. but really, i didn't want coffee. i really love coffee, but when i'm actually tired, coffee does me more harm than good. i crash really hard from coffee. so i guess that's why i ordered tea? who knows. iced tea makes me nausueous faster than coffee, it's got a higher concentration of caffeine.

so anyway. at one point the waitress heard me mumble something along the lines of "i can't believe i ordered tea" and she was like "you want a stupid cup of coffee?" so then she brought me one and i drank it totally unwillingly. sike. DOUBLE SIKE!!!!

um. i'm drunk right now and don't have anything else to say. i love these bitches. here we done gone drinkining dem dumb cofferties! what uppppppppppppp?

Apple Annie's in South Carolina

I left richmond on monday morning headed to Florence, SC to see an old friend and former roomate, erika. i haven't seen her in about four years and we had much to catch up on. it's all the same, we can still just sit there and talk and talk. no stories ever get told in their entirety because each detail sparks questions which route the conversation in all different directions.



we went to a cute sandwich place called apple annie's where they serve $3 pitchers of yeungling. i love sandwiches. i love yeungling. i picked up four 12 packs of yeungling to take back to austin since we can't get it there. i always used to drink it when i lived in richmond and it was cheap and good. but now, i realize how cheap and how it good it really is. it's a shame we can't get it, but it probably wouldnt be so cheap if we could. right?

so we did so much talking that i totally forgot to snap pictures of us enjoying our meal. i had big filet of salmon and lettuce and bacon on a croissant. croissants are so decadent. erika ate a club sandwich.

the menu said that all sandwiches were served with fries and chips. we joked about it also coming with a baked potato and potato salad. it actually only came with potato chips. but i like chips and i especially love crinkly ones for the added crunch. and that's what they were.

Dinner at Ipanema

On Saturday night, my friend lauren came to hang out after she got off of work, but my msg induced coma prohibited us from making any real memories. i was given a raincheck for dinner the following evening in a tight window of time, between lauren getting off of work and then having to buckle down to finish a presentation for class.

also, my good friend bonnie had been out of town checking out a school with her boyfriend in pennsylvania. so the three of us decided to share a meal and lauren suggested ipanema. ipanema was always a favorite of mine, however, all that comes to mind is a hummus sandwich they served. although they have a more expansive menu, i was not in the mood for hummus, therefore, tried tirelessly to suggest other options. lauren and bonnie had a problem with every suggestion i made and then the few they agreed with were not open on a sunday night. while we decided, i had a sweet photo shoot with lauren's dog, dollie madison.


so ipanema it was. we ran into some friends as we entered, and what do you think they were eating? hummus sandwich, that's right.



we checked out the menu, made our selections and sat in a corner booth. i ordered a chick pea crepe thing and bonnie got some gouda sandwich and lauren had rockfish. obviously, i don't care as much about what we eat as the whole process, so let's not focus on that.



it was nice to catch up with my ladies over a bottle of wine and much shit talking. actually, it wasn't shit talking, it was more future plans talking.


and with much prefacing, i told them about a "career" i've been thinking of. i don't even want to mention it on here, but i am so not interested in being responsible and having a career and being a real adult. they thought i was silly for being so hesitant.

we all tried to look really displeased and bored in our pictures. it's really hard for me to keep a straight face.

Kuba Kuba

On sunday afternoon melissa and frayser wanted to go to kuba kuba for lunch. i always love love loved that place and knew immediatly that i was going to eat a pesto jack sandwich. melissa and frayser's friends nate and matt joined us. when the waiter took our orders i kind of changed my mind because everyone else ordered california huevos rancheros. those sounded so good but i had my heart set on the sandwich. so then a second later the waiter returned to tell me that they were out of pesto, so i got to have what everyone else was having and not have any inner turmoil since my other option was no longer one.


i actually wasn't terribly into the huevos once i started in on them, i think it's because i live in texas now and eat a lot of tex-mex? i don't know. maybe i'm just a bitch. sue me!


i drank a fresh limeade which was delicious and also we shared a bowl of tostones. i also got to show off my portal that i was knitting while we waited for a table. ask me about it sometime!

Homemade Corndogs with my corndawgs

i got to richmond, at about 3ish on saturday afternoon, after sitting in unneccessary traffic on 95. slaughterama was going on down at belle isle and melissa was already down there, so that was where i headed. i ran into my friend mike on the way and talked him into locking up his bike and riding with me in the car. so sue me!

anyway we got down there and it was dirty and overwhelming and i got to see some faces that i have not seen in a while. we had plans to make dinner over at katie's house and headed over to her place at about 8pm. we stopped to get some groceries and my piggy little face was munchee and i bought some pringles to hold me over. melissa and i shoved those cheesy pringles down in the back seat of kendall and tyler's car. i like those cheesy pringles.


so we got to katies and the little bitch had made her own corndog molds and melissa's request and made homemade corndogs for us.

katie is the hot mom of a bunny named junior. she lives with her bf, morgan. morgan is the father. so we all start chowing down on these corndogs and melissa and i had bought ingredients to make veggie tacos. then there was bratwurst and pork chops and i can't remember what else because i ended up getting an msg induced migraine that caused me to vom for a long time in the bathroom and then pass out in katie and morgan's bed. total bummer.

the light was killing my eyes and i was trying so hard to be a trooper, but then i realized that melissa was missing and i found her in the bed, waved my littlest white flag and plopped down next to her. i'm a lame-o too.