Photomoto
So my last post was a bunch of pics of Frog. Now pics of other things.
I think my last picture post was in June. These are pics from my phone (and I did a transfer/delete recently so not much to work with, but I'll work with it).
Brunch one morning, took this toast pic. (Using camera+ app for the iPhone, let's you put some filters on after the fact that I really like).
I finally took my knife skills class. Victoria had gotten me a Shun for Christmas, and a giftcard to The Chopping Block. The Shun had stayed in its box because I wanted to take the class first. I'd originally schedule it, but we had a blizzard that day and it was canceled. Took me forever to reschedule. It was great. Really the best part of it is the opportunity to use a bunch of different knives, so you know what feels best in your hand and which one(s) you should actually spend money on.
I really liked the Shuns and Chromas. And since I have a Shun, I wanted to invest in a Chroma. And since Amazon had a 4-for-3 promotion, I invested in 3 Chromas (and a Boos block). They're actually designed by Porsche. They're bizarre looking, but they fit in my hand really well and I like the weight.
My friend Mindy is from Long Island, and like most New Yorkers is convinced that no one outside of that area can make a decent bagel/pizza/etc. So needless to say she hates all bagels in Chicago. She's not a baker though, so she'd never tried making her own. Well, I'm not what I'd call a baker, but I know how to follow directions so I offered up my help and our stand mixer. And we made bagels. And apparently they turned out pretty good. Recipe wasn't too hard either.
California with Victoria! I have an aunt and uncle in San Francisco and I'd been wanting to do wine country for a few years now. We decided instead of visiting each other, we should take a trip elsewhere, preferably to do something we hadn't done before. I'd been to San Fran, but it's been years.
YAY SEA LIONS!!
On our drive to Napa we stopped at walked through the Red Wood forest. SUPER TALL TREES.
Victoria found this amazing app, it's a winery finder/tasting pass finder, and based on your location it tells you about all the wineries with tastings that are near you. And it has deals you can use and I soooo recommend it. We went to several free tastings, several 2-for-1s (which allowed us to pick the more expensive tasting in some cases, since we were only paying for one). We visited wineries that we'd mostly never heard of and likely never would have visited if it wasn't for this app. The only one we schedule was Robert Mondavi, mainly because it's beautiful and old school and everyone recommended doing the tour.
BRIDGE WHERE PEOPLE DIE A LOT.
So there's this restaurant in Chicago called The Purple Pig. And I really have no idea why no one had brought me to it before, considering it's got the words "purple" and "pig" in the name, and I love both. Possibly my new favorite place, and will be my go-to restaurant for people visiting. AMAZING charcuterie. Great cheese and wine selection. It's mostly small plates, so you order a variety for the table to share. This was the bone marrow. It was so good we got a second order immediately.
Best picture of me in existence: BLOW-POP CLOWN NOSE
My friends' got a dog and I watched it while they were out of town one weekend. His name is Louie and while he looks a little snarly at this angle, he's really the happiest animal ever. All the time.
More to come...
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