Tag: Harry Potter

And in with 2017

Lauren2 Comments

Joey and I have very different ideas of the perfect New Year’s Eve.  While his involves friends, family or crowds in general, and doing something that really feels big and celebratory, mine involves a good meal and some kind of low-key activity that allows me to be in my bed shortly after midnight.

I felt like we’d been doing that celebratory thing for years and I was ready for a quieter start to the new year.  (Go figure that the one year we didn’t have solid NYE plans was the year it landed on a Saturday night.)  So I made a dinner res, we picked a movie, chose a brewery within walking distance to that movie and lo and behold, we ended the night in our pajamas in our very own living room.  Hardly exciting, but to me, it was so perfect.

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You may not have NYE plans, but if your nails look like you do, then it’s all good // Dinner at ChoLon involved those French Onion Soup dumplings and we haven’t stopped talking about them since // Post-Rogue One beers at New Image Brewing // Starting 2017 with my #1: PRICELESS

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I’ve started many New Year’s Days with a hangover so starting one with coffee, waffles and Harry Potter is much preferred.  My sister and Wayne got us a waffle maker for Christmas and we had major success using it.  I think it’s all in that flip feature.  Harry Potter Weekend is what I live for ♥  I feel like I usually catch the last 4 movies, but I caught the first four (they skipped MY FAVORITE one: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and I was only semi-livid about it) and I forgot A) how teensy they all were when the series started and B) how good the third movie is!

 Let’s hear it for the families who celebrate actual New Year’s Day.  My mom pulled out all the stops — Mom, aren’t you exhausted after Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s?! — and I made an actual gluten-free/dairy-free pie that tasted pretty good and, more importantly, looked beautiful.  Pretty proud, in case you couldn’t tell.  Afterwards we all watched The Grand Budapest Hotel and for a second I forgot how shitty the end of 2016 was and felt like 2017 might be alright.

My resolution is to take more human face photos — which doesn’t necessarily mean less food photos — and I think I’m starting out strong.

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We started the Monday that felt like a Sunday with breakfast at Stowaway.  I got a Mushroom + Thyme Tartine and holy moly, it was so good.  I’d like that for breakfast every day forever, thank you.  Mostly Monday was a quiet day of grocery shopping, black-eyed pea cooking (for good luck in the new year!), getting my haircut and watching When Harry Met Sally.  Because, even though Carrie Fisher is probably best known as Princess Leia, let’s not forget she was also Rolodex-toting, “he’s never going to leave her”-repeating Marie, who “will never want that wagon wheel table” and I love her so much for that role.  Please let all the good food in this post be a sign of things to come in 2017.

2017, please be kind to us.

Thanksgiving Weekend 2016

LaurenLeave a comment

Extended title for this post is “Thanksgiving Weekend 2016: A mixed bag, but mostly good.”  Because, uh yeah, it’s been a blurry roller-coaster type of deal for the past four and a half days.  And while I didn’t spend the entire time in the best of moods — I took a three day coffee break and I think my emotions are all over the place now that I’m back on the caffeine train — most of it was the custom food/family/fun explosion that makes Thanksgiving my absolute favorite time of the year.

Was that intro all over the place or what?  Oy with the poodles already!

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If Thanksgiving is my favorite day of year, then the three days leading up to it are my second favorite.  I get to tap into my plan -ahead, list-making, over-preparing talents and oh what a Type A high it is!  I looked forward to making this Salted Butter Apple Galette all day on Tuesday.  It turned out perfectly!  Pretty impressed with my apple slice feathering skills 🙂

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We managed to sneak out of work early on Wednesday, spent a couple of hours assembling/prepping dishes for the next day and made that one emergency trip to the grocery store, because something just HAS to go wrong when you’re cooking for Thanksgiving.  I totally made the Brussels sprouts with apple cider VINEGAR instead of actual apple cider and Joey had to pick up another two pounds so I could re-make them.  Yikes.

Crisis averted, we took ourselves to dinner at Uncle because after last year, I vowed to make ramen dinner our new Thanksgiving Eve tradition.  We people watched during the 45 minute wait, then sat in the exact same spot as last year!  What are the chances?

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THANKSGIVING ♥

Morning time perfection brought to you by a mug of coffee and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  It feels so wrong to give up our Turkey Trot tradition, but it also so feels so relaxing and right.  Joey even had time to draw a little Christmas tree on our wall 🙂

Afternoon perfection brought to you by Meal #1, which involved the best turkey, the David Blaine special (I could not roll my eyes hard enough…), a nap for Jory and the Cowboys game.  They won, I guess.

Meal #2 at my parents’ made complete by festive cocktails, my sister ladling gravy onto her roll, MOM’S STUFFING (!!!!!!!) and James Bond.  We found a whole slew of the films on Amazon and went with Spectre.  Oh and that apple galette… YUM!

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On Friday, I watched Joey’s first game of the alumni tournament before heading off to Loveland with my family to see my brother & co. at their new house!  Guess I was too busy scootering with my niece, holding my nephews cup of coffee for him while he rode his bike (start em young, right?), sipping beer with brother and admiring the penguin cake my sister-in-law made to take any pictures.  Fail!

But afterwards, Mom, Joey and I headed back to our house for GILMORE GIRLS!  I got us matching shirts to celebrate the arrival of the revival (I wanted to say that so bad!) and while we only made it through two episodes together (they were 30 minutes longer than we had originally thought), it was still so fun.  It only makes sense to watch a mother-daughter show with your mother 🙂  Debating a full out post about the series, but we’ll see!

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Saturday started with pancakes (my turn!), progressed to the last episode of Gilmore Girls, followed by a run for me and outdoor Christmas decorations for Joey, who was just up on our roof when I got back from my run… normal, so normal.  Then we got ourselves together and headed over to the Denver Central Market!  It is BEAUTIFUL in there and I love all the restaurant/market stations, but I also think most people will use it to eat instead of taking advantage of the butcher, cheese shop and produce section.  I grabbed a tuna salad sandwich from Silva’s Fish Market and while the bread was Texas Toast-esque perfection, I kinda didn’t want to pay $12 to put the two halves together myself.

One major snafu later — paid $10 to park at the 16th Street Mall Pavilions only to discover the movie we wanted to see was sold out — we ended up in Arvada for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.  Okay, I ADORE being in the Harry Potter world but if you took away any prior HP knowledge and judged the movie on its own, it’s a lot less interesting.  I felt like the dialogue was so lacking.  Wait, was there even any dialogue?  Caught the winning end of the CU game afterwards though!

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Sunday started with breakfast tacos and ended with Thanksgiving leftovers pizza and that’s really all you need to know about that day.  Also, I’m guessing your attention is dwindling at this point.  Wishing you a quick recovery from this weekend hangover 🙂