Farmer's Market Fun

One of my favorite things about summer is the farmer's market. We have an amazing farmers market on Wednesdays after work and decent market on Saturday mornings. Both of these are walking distance from home. Plus, downtown they hold a great market at Market Square at lunch on Thursdays. 

I seriously contemplated joining a CSA this year but decided to hold off and focus on the markets again. I just couldn't justify it given my single produce consumer status. I love being able to support local small farmers and getting to interact personally with them. This week I bought the smallest cantaloupe so they have me. .25 cent discount!  I always go to one particular stand for onions because they tend to have smaller onions and I don't use a ton of onions. When they have me my onions she threw an extra in since they were so small. It just doesn't get better than this interaction. 

This weeks takes were a cantaloupe, corn on the cob for street corn, a zucchini for a veggie and black bean quesadilla, a couple of peppers and onions for fajita burgers,and a bag of chambersburg peaches! Looking forward  to enjoying eating this week!

Fish Fry-day #5

This week's expedition to King Cod and his fish loving posse to St Phillip in Crafton. The expedition was a fun one. King Cod was able to stop at the Sharp Edge for a half price Belgian beer while my friend Kristen and I left work at a reasonable time and hung out for a while before dinner. It was a positive change from the norm. Fast forward to dinner andour friends Matt and Laura joined the crew. 

This was my first trio to St Phillip. The church is beautiful and old stone from the outside. One day I will make it in for a peek. The fish fry was in the school cafeteria. It was so tiny, and not too crowded.  The best part was that the tables were the fold down tables with indivisible orange and red seats. It totally made me think of my childhood days at Forest School with fond memories. The food was typical fry fare, but definitely had the fastest service so far this year.  I enjoyed the fried firsh, pierogies, and Mac and cheese. Dinner finished off with a treat from the bake sale staffed by the little old lady. She was struggling with the prices. Pretty sure we all overpaid her - but it went to a good cause. 

King Cod's dinner

My dinner

Fish Fry-day #4

This week was the much anticipated trip to Epiphany Church in Uptown. We had heard rumors of the awesomeness of this fish fry for a couple of years now. They serve from lunch till dinner, and people have walked away at lunch empty handed because the line is too long!  They do a lunch outside if lent that includes some meaty deliciousness that I would like to try one of these days.

http://www.epiphanychurch.net/fish-fry.asp

This week it was just King Cod and I doing the fry-day. We were greeted by this awesome sign:

Fried Jesus fish?

I went traditional - a fried fish fillet with Mac and Cheese and Pierogies. The fish was giant. More giant than any im of the fish we've had so far. The Mac and Cheese was so-so, and I definitely enjoyed the Pierogies and onions. David had the fish sandwich and fries. The bun was on par with the fish, I think it could feed an entire family. Soooo much fish. Neither of us even finished our fish. If Kibg Cod can't finish, that says a lot. 

We weren't super impressed with the Epiphany fish fry. I think our expectations were way too high given the hype. The food was all good though. I could see a return trip and sharing a meal with extra sides. I think I might go try a meaty lunch after lent is over, it's not an entirely bad walk from work. 

After our fish extravaganza we tried to get a drink at one of the new restaurants. We missed the happy hour, but David now knows that 10 Penny and the Meatball Joint have awesome beer lists. One of these days we will make it to one of these places for a drink. :)

Fish Dry-day #3

This werk's fry-day involved a trip to an old favorite, St Norbert's in Overbrook. This has been a recurring favorite. The food is decent, the beer is free, and the atmosphere is good. It was a bit of a struggle to find our way up the hill through the road construction, but we held strong thanks to google maps :)

I enjoyed the fried fish and macaronnie and cheese. The highlight of my meal was definitely my potato pancake though :)

In 3 degrees of Pittsburgh news, we kept looking at this group of people about our age. The one couple looked so familiar. After racking our brains we just asked them if we knew them. After a few minutes of talking we realized we all used to take the same T into downtown and they work with our friend. Such a small world, and yes I totally felt like a stalker. 

Fish Fry-day #2

This week the 2014 tour brings king Cod and his fish fry loving posse to Church of the Ressurection in Brookline. I knew there was another Church in Brookline, but I honestly didn't even know where it was. This gem was right off Brookline boulevard, nestled in a residential neighborhood. Unfortunately, by the time we finished eating dinner the church was closed so I couldn't check it out. Rumor has it that this may have a gorgeous wooden interior. Next time we are geocaching in Brookline we will be sure to check it out. 

The important stuff.... We got there around 6:15. There was not much of a line at all. Once our dinner posse joined us we went straight to ordering. The options were pretty simple - a fish dinner (baked or fried) for $11 which included a roll, stewed tomatoes or vegetable of the week, Mac and cheese (homemade) or fries, and slaw or applesauce with coffee, tea, and iced tea; or a la cart fish sandwich on fresh local bread works bun, any of the above sides, homemade Pierogirs, and pizza. I went with the dinner, King Cod went with the sandwich. It was a lot of food for the price. I even wound up sharing some of mine with my dinner buddy Wyatt. Only down side was the normal rule - show up late and they might run out of the good stuff. 

I loved the atmosphere here. It felt like a neighborhood event. The room was smaller and even had a play area for the kids. It felt intimate and like everyone was glad you were there and most knew one another's names.  Lots of little old ladies were working the food line. We even ran into some friends of friends leaving while we waited for our posse!

Puppy love

Who would have ever thought that this day would come?

Table Greenery

I thought that this was a pretty take on storing my leftover parsley until later in the week ;)

Who doesn't love mason jar craftery?

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!  

Geocaching Panhandle Power Trail I

We took advantage of the long weekend with very few plans and not much work on tap and planned to go out geocaching. The original plan was to go do some cleanup at South Park. However, last weekend I had gone for a walk on the Panhandle Trail with my friend Laura. I was looking it up online since it was my first visit and noticed that there were a ton and a half of caches there. Clicking on Cache 0 I noticed that they are archiving the power trail of 80 caches in November of this year, so we decided to start working on it to try to capture it before the grand disappearance.  

A long and sometimes winding (rail)road. 

We walked well into Washington county. 

While in McDonald we heard a strange Noise. Nope. Not gang violence, but some sort of historical reinactment with old fashioned shots being fired on the other side of the trail. 

Resting while waiting for fellow walkers to pass us by before the last find of trail for the day. 

Warning: recent flooding has been damaging. 

Took a little longer than this to find some caches and take a short sheetz picnic lunch. 

Success:  5 miles walked, 4 miles cached, 26 total caches!

We grabbed one last cache at dinner to give us a PR of 27 in one day. Go us!

You Go Girl

This month marks the 97th anniversary of  the ratification of the 19th amendment, giving wonderful ladies like me the right to vote. Last week also marked the Pittsburgh Federal Executive Board's annual luncheon honoring  women and their achievements. I was honored to be nominated by the Corps of Engineers for the FEB's Woman of the Year in a Professional Non-Supervisory Series. While I didn't win the Gold or Silver awards, my competition was pretty good - there were about 20 other federal women in our category - and it was an honor to be selected by my office and to win a bronze level award. 

Plus, it's really cool to think of how my great grandmother was a suffragette and four generations later I'm able to win an award for women in a professional aerie job. My how the world has changed. 

The Commander with myself and the two other nominees from the District. 

Garden haul

Today's pickings. I had given up on the peppers, and now we have a purple that made the cut!

Fallingwater

Took a little trip downtown Fayette-nam while my parents were in town to see this gem. It was a beautiful walk and worth the drive. Dad loved it since he grew up in Frank Lloyd Wright's hometown. The rest of us all enjoyed too - somehow this was the first time I went inside a Wright home?!?!?

Vackation Highlights - Yosemite National Park