Friday Essentials

Hola Sizzlers! I hope yesterday's post didn't leave a bad taste in your mouth, but I couldn't not tell you about it. I do have some exciting things up my sleeve for today and the weekend though, so perk up!

Last night me and some amigas headed to Uchi for HH. I wanted to enjoy the HH and decided to stow my phone away and refrain from pics. BUT I did snap a photo of my beer. If you read my previous beer/wine post, you'll remember the Kitachino Nest Beer I am obsessed with. Well, last night I tried a new one and it was bombtastic. 

sheer delight.

We tried everything on the HH menu, and everything was fantastic. My stand-outs were the Uchiviche, the Wallu Wallu, and the Machi Cure. #Nomcity. 

Now for weekend plans: 

-Sunshine

-Crawfish

-Tunes

Click here for my favorite sunshine/pool/happy day playlist. 

If you're in doubt this weekend and need some suggestions,I give you this:

-Go walk around the Menil Collection, then drive/ride down the road and have a cocktail at LowBrow. 

-Take your dog out for a walk and head to West Alabama Ice house for a cold one. 

-Hit some balls over at Memorial Park Driving Range or meander to the sand volleyball courts and see if you can catch some court time.

This weekend in Spring, TX, the Texas Crawfish Festival is going on and there are some great bands playing. So if you catch a wild hair head on out!

Have fun, be safe, use your SPF, call a cab, eat like a king and be happy. The end. Happy Weekend Sizzlers!

Weekend Update (But not with Seth Meyers)

'Ello Sizzlers! I hope you had a great Easter weekend and got to have some down time and relax. My inability to blog was caused by the food & wine coma that I'm STILL recovering from. (Not to worry, there will be a long run tonight)

This weekend was phenomenal, quite the chart topper. It started with a half day on Friday, which is always nice. MainSqueeze and I got the weekend started Thursday night at Boheme to celebrate a friend's birthday. We found a new favorite cocktail too; the Old June. What a great name, and what a delightful spring time refresher. We will definitely be re-creating this. 

We tried the Old June (favorite by far) and the Garden Poppy.

We may or may not have gone to a wine bar afterwards and split a bottle of this delightful red blend. ALSO please notice MainSqueeze's sleek and amazing timepiece. (More to come when I publish the Man Style Guide)

Friday morning, we ventured out to Tacos Tierra Caliente (the amazing Taco Truck) by West Alabama Ice House and tried their breakfast tacos. WHOA. For a mere 7 monies, we ate so so much, and even had leftovers. I highly recommend any of the tacos and the Chilaquiles were #NOMCITY. 

Post breakfast coma, we knew the day was too pretty to waste, so we headed out with golf clubs and running shoes to Memorial Park. We ran until we saw sand volleyball courts, and 2 hours and a totally rad racerback sunburn later, we were dehydrated and ready for a break. We popped a few cold ones open and headed out for the driving range. We obviously were starving after all the activities, so we grabbed some fried chicken sliders at Canyon Creek and split a frozen mimosa to take the edge off our increasing hunger.

Dinner date night was at Brenner's on the Bayou. We sat on the patio and had some steaks. The overall ambiance is really fun, and the views are awesome, but we were both kind of just OK with the food. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't the best steak I've had. But we still had a great time. 

My toes glowed in the barlights outside on the patio. MainSqueeze's boots did not glow unfortunately. 

Saturday morning consisted of a marathon trip to the grocery store to prep for Easter Sunday's meal and MainSqueeze played golf while I lounged at the pool and caught up with amigos. Post pool/golf consisted of riding bikes around town to some local watering holes, and a late night meal: Linguine with LittleNeck Clams. It was not as successful as I'd have liked it to be, but alas, we scarfed it down.  I'd post the recipe but I'll save it for later in order to avoid this being a monster blog post!

EASTER TIME! Sunday morning was go-time. I had marinated my leg of lamb overnight, so I popped her in the oven and got to roasting. FACT: I am really really bad at math. So naturally, I had to leave church in the middle of the service to go home and change the roast temperature and add the veggies.... I know. 

However, the final result was amazing. Talk about a food coma. 

Roasted Asparagus with Gruyere and a lemon butter sauce.

Leg O' Lamb with roasted taters and the asparagus. We started with an arugula salad with dried Montalcino Cherries and chopped almonds. 

My mama happens to be quite the cook herself, and she brought over her world-famous Tres Leches cake. I can't even begin to tell you how good this cake is. It's just unreal. 

Fresh strawberries and homemade whipped cream. #NOM

Of course we all got Easter Baskets. Of course I gorged myself on chocolate. And cake. And leftovers. Sigh. At least we made an attempt to be active when we capped off the night with a bike ride, some croquet and bocce ball, and the latest episode of Game of Thrones. 

This precious nugget stared us all down during lunch. How can you say no to this face!?

And there you have it my friends, the Easter Weekend Recap. Phew. Any interesting things on your end? Pray tell.... 

M is for anything but Mondays.

I love my job, but I love my weekends, so given the choice between fun adventures and being under fluorescent office lights....I'm going to have to pick the weekend gallivanting. Wouldn't you? 

Some weekend snippets/recommendations for your viewing/auditory/olfactory/tastebud pleasure:

VIEWING:

I made it out to Memorial Park on Saturday for a nice 3 mile run, and of course the 'ole ankle isn't up to snuff so it was more of like an injured antelope hobble. But I saw some beautiful Bluebonnets on the way, so that helped. 

Later on, I sunbathed like a desert lizard who hadn't seen the sun in months (oh wait, I haven't seen then sun in months) and ended up with an embarrassing raccoon tan. Beverage of choice: Red Stripe. It's a delicious beer that also tastes amazing with a lime. Highly recommend.

#totes

Auditory/Ear Snacks:

As I've aforementioned, I'm really into music. If you haven't started following my 'starred' list, please do so; I guarantee you'll like it. Even if it IS a work in progress. 

Here are my current obsessions:

The Wood Brothers- "I Got Loaded" just amazing. In fact, I love it so much here's a youtube vid of them. 

CLICK HERE to see the latest and greatest songs that I'm currently spinning constantly.

OLFACTORY:

Sunday night I made a trip to Central Market and bought some fresh gulf redfish (recipe coming soon!) and couldn't help but buy myself some lovely flowers. Sometimes it's just nice to be nice to yourself. I highly recommend it. If you're a dude...maybe this is like buying yourself a nice six pack? (though I do love that too....) Anywho, these smell phenomenal. Sorry you can't smell my screen.

Garden roses and stock from CM.

TASTEBUDS/#NOMCITY:

Friday night I headed to one of my favorite gems in Houston, Giacomo's Cibo e Vino. 

Great menu selection (our friend gave up pasta & bread for Lent and was still totally able to find some delightful options) and their wine list is extensive and amazingly well priced. Amazingly. 

I ordered the torteli di bietola which is ravioli stuffed with Ricotta cheese, swiss chard and finished off with a sage butter sauce. I get the 1/2 order because that means there are no calories in it. You didn't know that? You're welcome.

My friend ordered the pasta bolognese and WHOA. Mind blown. It's probably the best bolognese I've had since I left Italy. I'm not kidding. Perfect perfect pasta, and sauce that was 1,000,000% on point. 

every.last.bite.

It's a perfect casual date spot/friend spot/just a great spot in general and when the weather finally decides to be stable, get out on that patio and feast. 

MORAL OF THE STORY/YOUR TO-DO LIST:

1.) Try Red Stripe lager. 

2.) Listen to cool tunes 

3.) Buy yourself something to say "hey, thanks self!"

4.) Go to Giacomo's 

As always, leave your comments/arguments/suggestions below! Can't wait to hear from y'all!