Fish Fry-day #1

This week was fish fry-day number one on the 2014 Great Fish Fry Tour. 

We started out the year with a return trip to St Margaret of Scottland in Greentree. This is a perennial favorite for us. It happens to be near his office and a couple we are friends with send their daughter to the school. They are required to volunteer at the fish very to help support the school, so we talways go on a week that they work. Since they live on the far side of town this is usually the only time I see them all year :( 

Food offerings are pretty secent - fried cod, baked cod, crab cakes, fried shrimp, a pasta of the week, and a fish of the week (blackened cod). David and I both got the fried cod with fries and green beans (me). I regretted not getting the blackened cod - it wound up looking pretty good. 

The bad - (1) service was slow, (2) they ran out if food early. There are new people running the show and it is week one of lent  they didn't have a good system in place yet. 

The good - (1)  fried food!, (2) great friends, (3) BYOB fish fry, (4) a great atmosphere, (5) our friend who made it BYO Pie!

Even though the running out if food was disappointing, I look forward to returning again next year. This is one of our favorites in the area. 

Sunday laziness

Yesterday started my return to working Saturdays. I only worked a half day, but it was work none the less. David picked me up before lunch and we went to the Pitt game. I enjoyed my first ACC game - and Pitt defeated Wake Forest handily. We finished off the day with a visit to The Strip District, which is definitely my favorite part of the city. We picked up some awesome dry goods at Penn Mac (and some smoked mozzarella ravioli and cheese curds) and fresh tortillas from Renyas. Yum!

Today was a lazy-ish day - yoga and major dog walking followed by a yummy dinner of lasagna rolls!

Tour de Lebo between the two dogs. The time is embarrassing, but they are slowpoke sniffers. 

We de-Christmased the house and rearranged the living room. I think D likes her new hidey hole. 

Welcome to 2014

Today was a beautiful day. Although I went back to work Thursday, today is really the end of vacation time with a return to the real work today. I spent some time cooking (soon to be uploaded to the blog). The weather was amazing. dogs 1 and 2 both enjoyed long walks. It is hard to imagine we will go from highs of 45 degree today to highs in the negatives on Tursday. Post walk Madison was pretty tired out. 

Til next year Christmas Vacation time...

Cookie Tour 2013

Last weekend we headed over to the hipster neighborhood of Lawerenceville in the city for their annual cookie tour. This is a great local event -the neighborhood stores all baked a ton of cookies and print out the recipes. Then as you walk from shop to shop and do your Christmas thing you get cookies!  It is a great local idea. 

We started out with a stop at the Roundabout Brewery where we tasted their newest drafts. It is a little craft brewery in town, relatively new to town. They do growler fills of whatever is seasonal. I had an awesome cranberry wheat. I admit I enjoy a good fruit ear but this was tart and delicious without being sweet or overpowering. I would totally drink it again. And again!  We also sampled the poor man's milk stout, which was tasty enough that we brought home a growler. 

We continued up to Upper Lawerenceville to check out the Wild Purveyors -a cool shop selling locally sourced grocery goods. We saw them on Andrew Zimmerman's Pittsburgh show a few weeks ago, so it was cool to actually check out the shop. 

The afternoon continued on with a mosey back to Lower Lawerenceville, stopping at several art galleries, crafty stores, florists, and the card store. The highlight of the trip was stopping at La Goumandine, the amazing French bakery on Butler Street. Everything in the cases looked like it came straight out of a boulangerie or patisserie from Paris. I picked up some baguette rolls for book club later this week and treated myself to an croissant aux amandes (almond croissant). Depspite the blustery snowy cold day in Pittsburgh I was taken back to our honeymoon in Paris before I even tasted it.  I can't wait to go back -I see us stopping there again to pick up some French sandwiches on baguettes before going up to the reservoir for some geocaching this spring. 

We finished up with a stop at Arsenal Cider House.  Arsenal is quickly becoming a Pittsburgh celebrity putting ciders on tap all over town. We sampled 5 different ciders and an orange blossom mead. The mead wasn't overly sweet and had a nice floral nose. They had ciders in Apple, blueberry, and raspberry. The Christmas spiced cider put anything you have had from Woodchuck to shame. David is heading back this weekend to pick up a growler of the Christmas Cider for over the holiday.  Get ready Kate!

This was a great opportunity to do two of my favorite things-eat cookies and shop local! Our walk up and down Butler gave us a3mile hike, making all the treats worth it!  Maybe if you are (un)lucky your gift came from the land of the hipsters!

Nothing much happening

The bed thief

The kitchen assistant

Difficult times around academy ave....

Hard knock life

Welcome to the ACC

They lost but the Panthers were scrappy. I saw a lot of potential watching them play.  The stadium had an awesome energy (until the thuggy FSU fans started being FSU fans) Here is to hoping the rest of the season will be just as memorable as Monday nigh, only better!