A Minnesota Wedding Road Trip

This is a busy summer - summer school, lots of weekends in Saint Peters, Sommer and Justin's wedding. It seems life is a-bustlin'. So Matt and I created a vacation around my friend Christa's wedding in Minneapolis instead of planning a long trip for this summer. I'd never been and Matt had only visited briefly so it was fun to explore a new city. Minneapolis was so fun - clean, easy to navigate, and full of great areas and things to do.

We did the math and the cost of driving + a midway hotel stop was cheaper than flying so that's the route we took. With AAA map in hand and a hot tip from a friend to stop in Pella, Iowa, we drove to a city a few miles away and stopped for the night on Friday July, 1st. Bright and early, we drove a few miles to the very cute Dutch settled town of Pella. Specifically, we went there for the Jaarsma Bakery on the square. Even more specifically, we were headed straight for a Dutch Letter. If you've never had one, you must. We happily started our day with this dense, but flaky and almond paste filled delicacy. We both put it on our list of places to return to soon.

And then, since all we ever seem to do when we go on vacation is scope out the good eats, we spent an afternoon comparing the famed Minneapolis Juicy (Jucy) Lucy. We learned about this goodness on the Travel Channel. Apparently two places claim to be the original creator of this cheese stuffed burger. We started with Matt's Bar - they spell it "Jucy Lucy." It is a very small place with only one waitress and a small grill station right behind the bar. We didn't even stop at the hotel before meeting Laura and Rachael and jumping right in at Matt's. The four of us split a couple of beers, two Jucy Lucys and two orders of fries (you know, to save room to try the other "original" Lucy). We forgot to take pictures of any food this weekend, dangit. Not cool since eating is pretty much all we did :-)

After Matt's DELICIOUS burger and fries, we headed over to the 5 - 8 Club to try their version. We ordered the exact same burger to make a fair comparison - even though the 5-8 Club offered a variety of cheeses while Matt's Bar only had one, we decided to eliminate any variable that might skew our study. And we have to say, what Matt's Bar had in atmosphere, efficiency, cool, no fuss attitude, and awesome dive bar food the 5-8 Club lacked entirely. We were disappointed. Which means....

there was a very clear winner! Way to go Matt's Bar!

After a quick stop at the hotel, we hit up a Twins game at Target Field.

And ended the day with a hotel room gathering of old MU Tigers before bed.

On Sunday afternoon, we were expected for the wedding, but that left the morning free for sniffing out a great brunch. Matt, Rachael and I found Al's Breakfast in the Dinkytown neighborhood. We were in absolutely no way disappointed. We had to wait for almost two hours in a line outside to get into this 15 seater countertop joint. After some great music, some smoked cheddar and bacon omelettes, hash browns, and some FANTASTIC blueberry pancakes we emerged stuffed and happy.

Then came the wedding followed by a reception that took place on the rooftop of the Historic Grain Belt Brewery! It was such a surprisingly cool evening after a hot summer day and a rooftop overlooking the city was the perfect location to enjoy it.

We had this gorgeous view of Minneapolis skyline all night.

The happy couple. Congrats Christa and James!

There are those MU Tigers again. All of us began as Journalism majors. I'm the only one who dropped that title.

Laura and Rachael - our partners in Jucy Lucy comparisons, hotel rooms and crime.

Matt and Daniela had quite the chemistry on the dance floor. Break it down, white man overbite!!

Dear Minneapolis,

Thanks for the mini-vacation filled with friends and food. We loved our time up north and hope to return soon.

Carolyn and Matt

The Best Dad I Know

We took Dad to his favorite new park in Saint Charles for some fishing on Father's Day. It was a bright sunny day, so we grabbed the 80 spf sunscreen for Audrey and Sommer, the bug spray for Matt and a drink from the QT for dad before heading out to the lake. We stayed for a few hours and watched as Mom, Claire, Olivia and Dad tried their best to reel in some fish. There were lots of nibbles, many worms, a few excited shrieks, and a gar or two to show for all of their fishing efforts. It was a good day and I think (I hope) Dad actually found a few minutes to relax. He's a hard one to pin down :-) Happy Father's Day, old man!

Spring Catch Up

I've said it before, but the interesting and unfortunate thing about keeping a blog as a scrapbook of a life lived is that during the busy times, the blog tends to go, well, untended. In an attempt to catch up to present day, I will cut out many of the words and highlight our lives since March via pictures.

• At the end of March, we went on a spring break trip to Dauphin Island, Alabama and it was SO much fun. Peacefully uncrowded, more than economical, downright tropical compared to the blizzards Missouri was experiencing as we rolled south and a real treat of unplanned time and relaxation.



• We returned from Alabama just in time for me to help host Sommer's wedding shower at my mom and dad's house. All of the aunts, cousins, sisters, moms, grandmothers and friends who made that possible are the greatest a gal could ask for. We went English Tea Party for our theme and we went all the way including floppy "Ladies Who Lunch" hats, tea, other tea party delicacies and as many flowers and doilies as we could shove into the house.

• The Hickman Review staff pulled off another event at Orr Street Studios for our 2011 magazine debut.

• We celebrated Cinco de Mayo with a margie or two....

• I helped Matt celebrate some professional success at Les Bourgeouis. He claimed it was his favorite meal ever. And I must admit, it was absolutely delicious from the starting wine to the dessert ending.

• I said goodbye to one crazy school year, and one of the most enjoyable batches of students I have ever had (Dear Universe, please, please, please give me a nice group in the fall)!

• We've celebrated a few birthdays: Olivia, Dad, Mom and Matt have all had a birthday in that order.

• We've also done it up for Claire's confirmation, her graduation and Mary's graduation.
• For Mother's Day, we did our usual big brunch - I'm officially the egg lady and Sommer can make a mean fruit salad by this point :-)

And that gets us pretty caught up on all the big events. There has been, of course, lots of day to day stuff, summer school teaching and summer bbq-ing happening, but those events go without saying. I was better about taking pictures for father's day so, I'll give that one a whole post later.

What We're Eating

So far in 2011, we've been meal planning. Our reasons are for convenience at the grocery store, to save money and to use the twenty or so cookbooks I have in my possession. I have to say it has been mostly good - we pick recipes that sound good, obviously. It has been really helpful to see that the low-carb (or no-carb) orders my doctor has recently given me aren't a death sentence for my love of cooking.

As we get ready to repeat our first recipe since January 1st, I thought I'd compile the list in one spot. I gotta say, sometimes I miss just throwing together a meal from "whatever is left" but I think it has been good for me to stop making so many casseroles that can't be repeated (because I don't measure what goes in them) and to start making a more varied menu. We usually pick 3-4 meals per week since there are just two of us and there are usually leftovers. And on busy nights, I will sometimes just eat a quick omelet (especially if Matt is gone to ref a basketball game). There is also the occasional date night or the night at a friend's house for dinner.

Below is a list of the main dishes we've made so far this year. We eat a steamed vegetable or salad with every meal that doesn't already include a lot of veggies, but we usually don't follow a recipe for that. And while it's just natural for me to tweak recipes as I cook them, I've tried to stay true to most of these in order to keep an accurate record of whether or not it's a recipe we should keep or never make again. Here's to happy cooking and eating!

Cast-Iron Skillet Sloppy Joes

Ratatouille over "Cauli-rice"

Soy-Marinated Chicken with Asparagus

Cajun 15-Bean Soup

Pumpkin Harvest Soup

Pot Roast Beef with Guinness

Golden Chicken with Tomatoes and Olives

Turkey Meatloaf

Southern Beef Chili

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Grilled Salmon Salad

Kale, Bean and Chicken Sausage Stew

African Beef Curry

Alaska Burgers

Broccoli Chicken Supreme

Charlotte Cady's Ground Beef Soup

Sweet Potato Hamburger Pie

Pork Chops with Mustard Cream Sauce

Almond Chicken with Apricot Sauce

Beef and Barley Soup

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Ricotta Stuffed Bell Peppers

Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti with Spicy Shrimp

Feta Asparagus Frittata

Pork Tenderloin with Nutmeg and Garlic Spinach

Meatless Mexican Lasagna

Loaded Baked Sweet Potatoes

Brenda Kay McIntyre Munoz

We lost Matt's mom on Friday. Please keep him and the rest of the family in your thoughts.

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e.e. cummings