my life in pastry review

If I found out eating any amount of gluten could kill me, I'd change into my pj's and spend the whole day making a tray of milk bread cinnamon rolls. And then eat them straight out of the oven.

Bake Sum - Oakland

holy hell this okonomiyaki pastry is what savory dreams are made of

musubi croissant is close second

picnics

Count on Jared to break in the propane grill for me. Not that it hasn't been used since I moved in... just not by me.
carne asada
lemongrass chicken
charred tomatoes
roasted eggplant
jicama and apple slaw
pickled carrots/cabbage/turnip
avocado
cotija
cilantro
all wrapped up in warmed tortillas

i am amsterdam

I start every trip like "I'm going to write everything down as I go. I'm going to take notes on my life and my food and quirky happenings." But lol, I never actually do. Even when I bring along my tiny purse sized notebook (well actually, I did a pretty okay job documenting Greek food last summer).

But solo traveling allows ample time for that. No I get ample time for sitting and reflecting (and wifi) between the walking - so much walking. Maybe not promptly, but at least before the memories get hazy and the timeline gets jumbled. Also thank goodness for cameras and my business card compulsion.

Anyways. Amsterdam.

I'm not sure why I was super set on going. Partly because it wasn't expensive from Copenhagen. Partly because it's just arbitrarily been on my list for awhile. And I thought I wanted to combine it with Brussels until the thought of going to Belgium was unsettling. But if you know me, you'd know it's kind of a strange choice of all my choices. I don't smoke or seek out prostitutes, and it's not exactly the first place you think of when you think good eating. But if you know me, you'd know I don't make a lot of sense.

I don't regret it.

Madison bucket list

Nance Pants used to be in the habit of making bucket lists when she was home for another summer in the Thrill. And now that the end is in sight.. on the horizon, pretty far away, behind walls of towering mountains covered in thorny bushes... but still in sight... I'm going to do the same.

• bike around lake first time on a bike in 3 years definitely hurts the crotch 
• Tipsy burger one more time 
• Concert on the Square best one yet
• pitcher on the terrace during the wonderful in between of student rush
• paddle boarding and/or some kind of lake activity full moon paddle #romance
• throwback party dress code: romper
• dumplings, way overdue x2
• sand volleyball
• New Glarus brewery
• Door County
• Apostle Islands (this is ambitious)
• run a 5k
• go to the free zoo.. because it's free
• aerial skills starting June 12
• Lion King at Overture so beautifulll 
• Field Table
• Duck Blind 2 sandwiches, 1 brat, potato salad, everyone's fries, and not drunk enough because I could only stomach 2 beers
• Shake the Lake
• sunflowers

More to add, probably.

Now let's see how well I do.

jackson thrill

Reunions are fun.

Especially when everyone's all grown up... but hasn't changed a bit.

Officially kicked off the trip with a sunny Friday lunch on the patio at Pinegrove Market. Where Allison's CK's family has gone for generations... if I remember that correctly. Friday also means fish fry down in Jacksonville - and here I was thinking it was a Midwest thing I was introduced to 1.5 years ago. So I went with a humble platter of shrimp and grits because being by the ocean again means needing to order from the sea when possible.

jojo has odd fans

Today I was thinking about how my baby brother is Class of 2020 (for high school).  What a nice and even number.  But also, what the hell.  When exactly did I grow up and get so old?  And yet, why does it simultaneously feel like nothing has changed while I'm sitting in my old (read: real) bed, pretending like I'm doing some productive work but getting mental blocks and blogging instead?  Jojo's comeback is like a metaphor for my life.  I remember listening to "Leave (Get Out)" on repeat with Pati on the bus to volleyball games and thinking she knew so much.  I remember her performance of "Baby It's You" on Nickelodeon and thinking she was the coolest.  I remember watching RV and thinking, "She's just like me."

 Definitely still knows so much.  Definitely still the coolest.  Except just a little ahead of me in life.

facts and myths

This is a giant plant of kebab, souvlaki, gyro, and psito pork/lamb.  And it was freaking delicious - intense, tender, smokey, salty.  Mmm, meat.

Eaten half in the rain, while watching the hustle and bustle of Monastiraki Square as the sun sets and all the lights come on.  I like crowds when I'm not entangled within them.

The one thing we never found was kokoretsi.  Regret.

windy island

"It's a young people island."
Fine words... when I'm not with my family.  No beach rave parties and drinking for 12 hours straight for Amelia.

mountains and sea

If there's anything I learned from island hopping, it's that you never get tired of gazing at rocks and water.  More majestically known as the mountains and sea.

So drive to Fira - and I can officially say I used that International Driving Permit I purchased at no hassle.  Cable car down to Skala Port.  Ferry to Nea Kameni.  And hike all the way to the top of the volcanic crater where you can still smell the sulfur.  Apparently, an eruption during the Bronze Age wiped out the Minoan civilization and carved out the caldera that outlines the West of present-day Santorini.  And some theorize that buried Akrotiri is the inspiration for the legend of Atlantis.
[This is me actually interested in a history lesson.]

πανόραμα

I'm convinced the panorama setting on cameras was created to capture Greece.

Oh, Paris too.

sunrise sunset

Caught a bit of the sunrise over Crete from the hotel balcony before ferrying off to Santorini.

pinkish

A morning exploring Elafonisi.
The oceans surrounding Greece and it's islands are so impossibly blue.  Like the kind of blue toddlers use to color their Crayola ocean landscapes.  Like this-has-to-be-dyed-because-how-can-earth-be-so-naturally-beautiful?!?!?! blue.
Ordinary-looking beach pictures?  Maybe.  I mean, how many ways can you photograph the ocean from the shore?  But trust me when I say this was the most beautiful beach I've seen thus far.  Despite the intense wind (and grains of sand being pelted into my legs), I was not ready to leave.  The place is so big with so many sandy lagoons, it didn't feel crowded, and I had enough room to run and splash around like a Midwesterner seeing a real beach for the first time.

old and new

I might have gotten a little carried away in Chania.
But if you got almost lost in these streets, you wouldn't be able to resist either.
New fit seamlessly over old and old blended into new and old and new seemed to be tossed together into this beautiful little city on the northern coast of Crete.
With so many distractions - markets to find all the varieties of olives and little shops boasting leather goods and museums and boutique hotels hidden in the alleyways and churches and restaurants each claiming their own unique flair - I managed to soak in about nothing our tour guide shared.  Got a little too excited to see the math/science themed cafe (complete with giant colorful abacus on the wall).  Obsessed over the streets that reminded me of places I've never been.  Awkwardly held up pedestrian traffic to peak into every door along the way.  Pretended to be photogenic while strolling up and down and back up the harbor.  And dined at one of the waterfront restaurants as the sun slowly descended somewhere behind the rows of sailboats.  Days are long on the Greek Islands.

yiassus from Greece

all of the lights

Happened to be around for the Northern Spark Festival that goes into the wee hours of the night, aka 5am.  No thanks.  I was dying and delusional when we finally fell into bed at 2am. 

life on a keychain

It all started with a dinner reservation at Nostrano.  That I was 30 minutes late to in my casual work clothes, looking as frumpy as possible in a nice restaurant.  We awkwardly entered in through the back, and I was hyper aware of the fact that I was in flip flops with an overstuffed backpack on my back.
The Chestnut Pici with rabbit confit, savoy cabbage, leeks, oyster mushrooms, and juniper was satisfying but didn't have much flavor beyond salty, and I was occasionally thrown off by a bite of cabbage that was too sour and didn't mesh well with the rest of the dish.  I guess I was expecting a strong chestnut flavor (making up for it now by downing much chestnut coffee).  I did like the crunchy bits that coated the noodles though.

After agreeing our waitress was a bit cold and that the $11 desserts on the menus that were forced upon us were ridiculous, we decided to bounce over to Cooper's.  My Guinness chocolate cake was a dry, but I couldn't bear to let them throw it away even after I tore it apart and mashed it up.  So I boxed it up and ate it with Julia's mint cookie ice cream the next day.  Let's just say I'll be sticking with the sliders and fries and beers.

It was then that I realized I lost my keys.  Aka access to all of my life.
Thank god for Leslie because otherwise I would've lost my shit in the middle of downtown Madison on a Friday night.  So we had to forgo getting happily tipsy on the Terrace to retrace our steps.  No luck at either restaurant.  No luck with the two Bus 3's we intercepted.  No luck at the dispatch station where Leslie geeked out about the buses.  (Although I admit if I wasn't in a state of panic, I would've been snapping pictures too.  How often do you get to see where the buses go to sleep?).  And each time, I 85% thought someone would appear before me with my too many colorful rewards cards and the pikachu keychain hanging off a green snap hook.  But each failure had me calculating the cost of replacing car, office, and apartment keys.  As well as trying to convince myself that no thief would be persistent enough to try to unlock every door (vehicular or otherwise) in Madison.  Throw in the brief downpour and my recent financial recklessness...and let the self castigation begin.

PC: Leslie

But luckily in addition to encountering a sweet hostess, a good natured bus driver, and friendly bus dispatch supervisors, we also ended up with the nicest, most helpful cab driver (should've gotten his name, should've tipped him more), who basically talked me through my hectic end-of-work day, so that we ended up back at Babcock... and I had never been so relieved and excited to see my keys sitting so innocently on my desk.
I loathe myself sometimes.

hashtag two thousand fifteen IFTSA N... C... R...

Five hours in a mini van ain't so bad when you're telling life stories.

Free shit is awesome... always.

I can eat... always.

But besides that... most important points of the last 48 hours are as follows.

Always cite your source - do I stand out maybe?

 "You are not the shit!"

"Parking" at a bar.  To take burfday tequila shots before noon.

Everyone can rock Oreo makeup.

I grinded on Abbey in a dairy facility.  (And she def appreciated it).

"Ladies, when you breast feed..."
"If I were 7 months pregnant, I would not be galloping."

Wisconsin's favorite dairy food is cheese.

"I'm so hung."

Who is Amy DeJong... and did she win some sort of reality show?

What is 270 degrees?

Line and ballroom dancing = excellent workout.

But my hips don't move in a figure 8.

"Are you following us?!?"

Iowa dudes being real thirsty.
"He had a knife."  "I think he heard you." "Because he had a knife!"

Feeling conflicted in the meat processing labs.
"That's awesome."
"That's horrifying."

"And in the words of DJ Khaled, featuring Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, and T-Pain, 'All I do is win win win, no matter what.'"

How tequila should actually be classified: "Young, aged, old, very old ...and middle-aged."

ΛΚΙ for life.

Laughs, tears, sass, too many emotions in too little time.

And COW.

#feelingMidwestern

that time my roommate worked at Jimmy John's

Let's celebrate the fact that last night was Kasia's last ridiculous late night shift (9pm-4am) at JJ's.  Meanwhile Audrey and I spent a productive night making soups, visiting Kasia, making mulled alcoholic drinks, and visiting Kasia with a thermos full of wine.  I don't care what anyone says, her co-workers loved having us there...on that randomly slow Saturday night.

FreakFest in Madison

I've been in love with love

And the idea of something binding us together

-The Mowgli's

feels like fall

I'm on a mission to check off all the fall activities before the Midwest starts spittin' snow.  After 8 years in NC, the most fall thing I managed to do is go to the State Fair three times.

Last weekend was kind of the perfect representation of what fall should be, as this cold weather is forcing me to slowly transition from bar hopping to piling into an apartment and warming up with Bianca's chili, mulled red wine, Julia's blueberry wine, and homemade (home-popped?) cinnamon sugar popcorn.  What a productive hangout sesh it was, Crazy, Stupid Love, Settlers of Catan, and The Amazing Race (supporting the #sweetscientists).

The next morning I dragged myself out of bed to move my car (*rant about city driving/parking*) - being up at 7:30am on a chilly Saturday is not fun.  But all was right with the world when I found my way to Lazy Jane's to journal with a fantastic raspberry scone.  Oh man, this scone.  Short and cakey, sweet and lemony, it was decorated with whole raspberries and filled with jam.  Amelia was quite pleased.