Tag: Sassafras

Weekend Things & a Summer BBQ

LaurenLeave a comment

You know when your weekend was so good that just thinking back on it has you doing a little good mood dance in your office?  No?  Yeah, me neither…

But seriously, this weekend we had a very chill Friday that involved cooking vegetables from our garden, a Saturday that started with a new coffee shop and ended with a summer BBQ with our friends and family and a Sunday that was so blissfully relaxed it almost felt wrong but mostly felt so damn right.  THE BEST!

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To say I had been looking forward to this dinner all week long would be a major understatement.  We pulled four cute little beets from our garden and used them to make this flatbread from my new cookbook and then I sauteed a HUGE bag of chard we harvested from our garden and Joey raved about it all through dinner.  I was like “it’s just some chard!” but yeah, it was actually VERY GOOD.  Also, I guess I’m just gonna quit my job and be a beet farmer now, okay?  Please tell us the difference between pizza and flatbread though!

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Everyone was coming over at 5 on Saturday and our house needed to be cleaned and burgers, sangria and broccoli salad needed to be made, but there is ALWAYS time for coffee first!  And Blue Sparrow Coffee was ADORABLE, so I’m 100% glad we made it there.  I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, RiNo is just the coolest neighborhood in Denver!  We got our coffee and headed up to this rooftop patio and had the whole thing to ourselves.  It was so cool and peaceful and quiet up there ♥  We went full-on dorky married couple and inspected those garden beds so hard.  I loved every single second!

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Afterwards, we cleaned and prepped (hallelujah for husbands who mow and pull weeds and water lawns and put out tables, chairs and cute little drink stations so that when you come outside everything is already perfect!) and it was all so low stress that I even took a hammock nap and finished a book afterwards.  WHO AM I?!

As for the actual BBQ, I loved it SO much!  Everyone brought such delicious things and Joey grilled the burgers (x3!) to perfection and everyone was like “this water with fruit in it is so good!” and I got to see and laugh with all the people I love best in this life.  It was magical indeed.  Also, for the record, the pregnant lady outlasted everyone else and was the last person out the door at the end of the night.  Guys, Hannah and Josh are having a baby boy and it is fucking fun to talk about HIM instead of IT now.

P.S. Totally ate a brownie while cleaning up after everyone had left.

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Started Sunday with a run breakfast at Sassafras and yeah, those roasted vegetable grits with goat cheese and a side of jalapeño cornbread were as good as they look!  Afterwards, while Joey being a bike mechanic in the backyard (don’t ask…), I I re-stocked myself on granola and made some hummus with extra virgin olive oil that Lori brought back FROM GREECE!  She also got me thee most stunningly beautiful blue opal jewelry and I am actually the luckiest daughter-in-law ever.

Then…our first Sunday Rockies game of the year (how?!) and we biked and had seats in the shade and won 13-3, so I was in my happy place for real.  Afterwards, we tried to move as little as possible and keep all the lights off because summer heat is not messing around this year.  Plus we had our groceries delivered and decided to wait till Monday to do our weekly salad prep so we really had nothing we needed to do.  It was honestly SO NICE.

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For dinner, I picked our first squash and tomato of the year (!!!) and then we ate outside and I was like “I LOVE SUMMER!”  Big Brother and Game of Thrones afterward!!!!  Ummm how incredible was that episode of GoT?!  I had literal chills so many times and even Joey couldn’t stop talking about how crazy good that ending scene was.  My sister and Wayne just started watching the series and I’m simultaneously jealous that they get to watch from the beginning and disappointed that they’re JUST NOW watching from the beginning.

This week, I have book club, birthday celebrations for my sweet mama and a weekend concert to look forward to so I think I’ll be riding this summertime high for a while 🙂

Weekend Things

LaurenLeave a comment

Sorry about the later than usual “Weekend Things” post (I know you were all dying in suspense…), but I figured I’d rather get my Olympic wrap up out first.  And because there’s “a lot of verbage” (as Joey kindly put it) in this post as is, I’ll just jump right in!

I guess Friday fun really started at 11:30 when we attended a “trial dining” lunch at a brand new Modmarket location.  I ordered this behemoth of a Cobb salad (seriously it was huge) then ate the whole.dang.thing. and proceeded to be hungry 2 hours later 🙂  Oh and I’m all for free lunch, especially from Mod, but I didn’t know asking for “light” dressing, meant no dressing.  Let’s hope they work that kink out before their grand opening.

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On Friday night we met up with Bobby and Becca at a tiny little brewery that brews “English-style ale,” which I’m pretty sure just translates to “super bitter beer.”  Okay, maybe that’s a quick judgment but I’ve never had a beer quite as bitter as the IPA I chose.  Also, fact: my qualification for a friend is if you’d also like to be home and in bed before 11 PM on a Friday night.  Bobby and Becca pass this test.

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Saturday started with this!

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You guys!  Chicken fried poached eggs!  Over cornbread and buffalo hash with the best hollandaise I’ve ever tasted… and I don’t even like hollandaise!  I’ve been dying to go to this tiny little breakfast place called Sassafras that serves up fancified Southern favorites.  They actually had a whole section for grits and believe me when I say I had thee hardest time choosing what to order.  This dish was killer but I actually think I liked Joey’s “Deep South Benedict” better.  Goat cheese jalapeño grits, I die!

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The rest of Saturday was spent at my nephew’s 5th Birthday Party.  Seriously, FIVE?  When did that happen?  Anyways, he avoided Joey and I the entire time and we then we found out it was because he broke his Christmas present from us and didn’t want to tell us, ha ha!  We also made a spontaneous decision to go to the movies while on our way to Home Depot because the movie theater (and almost anything else)>Home Depot.  I thought all the yelling at the beginning of August: Osage County was a little forced but then I ended up really liking the movie, although it looks like I’m in the minority there.

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Sunday was a day of Joey working hard to get drywall stuff finished in our living room (yes, our couch is still in the kitchen…) and me doing stuff like working out, boiling eggs, watching Food Network, writing about the Olympics and generally being no help to anyone but myself.  However, later in the afternoon, my mom and I went to a calligraphy class!  I learned a few things:

  • There is SO MUCH MORE to calligraphy than I thought!
  • You can buy a Cartier fountain pen
  • I don’t have a hidden talent for calligraphy
  • I don’t know how to spell my own name

No joke, at the very end of the class, the teacher gave us all some fancy paper to write our names out on and I spelled my own name wrong.  I realized it right as she was saying something along the lines of “Now you can keep your paper as a memento and I hope you keep it for a very long time.”  Yeah, probably not…  I now go by Laurene.  It’s the French version… or something.  Anyways, I wasn’t as sold on my own calligraphy skills as much as I was on the lady who taught the class.  She was incredible!

Wishing you all a Happy Tuesday and the ability to spell your own first name!