A sad day in beer land

So about a month ago we bottled our Rail Yard Ale clone, based off the most popular brew at Wynkoop Brewery in Denver. It tasted decent, but was a bit more bubbly than most beers we've made so far. It wasn't a big issue, though, so we have actually been saving most of it to share with our friends at a party this weekend. At least, we thought it wasn't a big issue...

Then I was cleaning the house this morning, and came across this, kind of under the bed in the guest room:

This is a picture of a bottle of beer without a bottom on it. That means at some point in the last couple days, we had a bottle burst. And it blew with enough force to blow the bottle right out of the cardboard box it was being stored in! We were in Iowa with Joe's family for the last couple days, so I think it happened while we were gone. Must have been a crazy noise, though!

Now we're chilling the rest of the beer, to relieve a little pressure. Then we're going to try to take the caps off, let off some pressure & foam, and then rebottle them. We'll see if there is any carbonation left at that point, or if we end up with a lot of bottled flat beer. There might be a lot of PBR served at my birthday party on Saturday night...

Attempts at Urban Gardening

For the last few years I've been talking about attempting to grow some herbs on our back porch, but for one reason or another we've bailed on the plans each summer. This time we were out of excuses and decided to bite the bullet and give urban gardening a try! I love cooking with fresh herbs, and was excited at the idea of having them available to me right outside the door. Also, to know that I've grown a part of the food I'm eating is an exciting concept that I wanted to try.

We decided to get our garden started on Memorial Day, when Joe and I were both home from work. Unfortunately, this ended up being a relatively rainy day, but I refused to wait any longer! So we got soaked while wondering around Gethsemane Garden Center, and them embraced the rain while planting at home.

This is a Czech Bush heirloom tomato plant. They recommended it for our small space, because it grows like a bush and doesn't need the typical steaks for a tomato plant that grows up. I also couldn't resist the cute little gnome to watch over our plants!

We bought two kinds of basil. Typical sweet Italian basil, and also lemon basil. It has already been growing a ton, and I used some of the basil in a pasta sauce I made last week. We also are growing French thyme, which I added to the quinoa loaf that I blogged about. The herbs taste fresh, and it's wonderful to just cut them straight off the plan while I'm in the midst of my cooking. Below is the final product. The tomato plant is already sprouting some small green tomatoes, which we've been checking in on every day. I can't wait to taste them!

Washington D.C.

Last weekend Joe and I had the chance to visit friends in Washington D.C. I hadn't been there since I was a teenager, and Joe had never visited, so we took the opportunity to really make this a vacation. We soaked up the touristy requirements around the mall, and took in plenty of history at the various Smithsonian museums. Our friend Nick suggested a Segway tour of the main sites around the Mall, and we decided it was a great idea. Not only was it totally fun to ride the segways, but it was also a quick and easy way to see so much in just 3 hours. It was a perfect overview of the important buildings and monuments in D.C., and our tour guide made the whole experience a lot of fun. This was a great way to start our trip!

After the segway tour, we spent the rest of Thursday just hanging out. We started drinking around 2:00... are you impressed? We had a great time just wandering around the city, bar hopping and sampling different beers and food menus. My friend Janice, who I've know since second grade, met up with us after work. It was so fun to catch up on the last few years! We also got to hang out with our friend Jay, who used to live in Chicago. His girlfriend Becca was busy starting her own law school graduation celebrating, but did get to meet up with us towards the end of the night. I wish we could get this crew together more often, because it was so much fun to hang out with everyone!

Friday was our super tourist day, and we made the most of it. We started at the American History museum, where we saw Julia Child's kitchen, Michelle Obama's inauguration dress, the Beastie Boys boombox, and other important American artifacts. We did a quick tour of the Air & Space museum around lunchtime, then met Nick at the Native American museum for lunch. We enjoyed a little relaxation at a quiet sculpture garden, then braved the lines for the National Archives. Seeing the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence was facinating and well worth the wait!

We met up with Danielle that night, and had a fantastic dinner at Marvin. Joe had the southern experience of Chicken & Waffles, and we got to sample some fresh, local soft shell crab. More bar hopping followed, with special cocktails at a sorta secret throwback bar called the Gibson. The weather couldn't have been better, and we loved exploring the nightlife in a new city. U street was packed with people, and seemed to have something for everyone!

Saturday Danielle teamed up with friends to make an amazing brunch at her house. The food was out of this world, and that combined with breakfast cocktails made for some major sleepiness by early afternoon. We forced ourselves off the couch, though, and spent the afternoon exploring Georgetown. I couldn't stop commenting on how much I loved the whole neighborhood! We managed to stuff our faces a little more when Danielle brought us to her favorite cupcake bakery, and then went home to relax a little before a very late dinner. The pizza and small plates we had a 2Amys was some of the best food of the trip, and this relaxing dinner was a perfect end to a busy trip.

Thanks Nick and Danielle for hosting us! We had a fantastic time!

Celebrating across the Midwest!

My cooking blog has been a bit slow lately, because in the last two weeks my personal life has been a whirlwind of traveling and seeing old friends. My Abstract Algebra final was May 5, and as soon as it was over I started running around like a crazy person! My good friend Chris came to town to be sworn in as a lawyer with the Illinois bar, and we joined him and his parents to celebrate his accomplishment. What a fun night we had! The next day I taught a cooking class with Common Threads (which you can read about here), and then we joined a group of friends to celebrate our friend Dan's graduation from grad school. After a busy semester of studying and working too many nights and weekends, I really enjoyed just hanging out and catching up with friends!

Joe & Chris enjoying some brews at Rock Bottom

We decided to check out The Roof at the Wit Hotel. It's an open patio bar on the 27th floor of the hotel, offering amazing views of the city. We agreed this was an awesome spot to go, even if we were under dressed and totally not cool enough to really hang out there!

Congrats Dan!

After all that celebrating in Chicago, I took the train down to St Louis for the next week. My mom was on her last few days at the rehab hospital, and I was able to help my dad get the house ready for her homecoming. I also made easy, portable, healthy dinners to bring to the hospital, since my mom had grown really tired of bland hospital food. I was so happy to have the opportunity to go down to lend a hand, because I knew the last month had been really challenging for my family. I was there when my mom finally came home from the hospital, and helped her start the transition back to living at home. Thankfully, the wheelchair is only temporary, so she's only having to learn to live this way for a measured amount of time! Joe came down for the weekend, and we all joined together to celebrate my sister Colleen's graduation from high school. It was so uplifting to celebrate these accomplishments with the people who are most important to me!

Welcome Home Mom!

Celebrating with my sisters... brother didn't make back to StL until waaay later that night.

My aunt and grandparents also came to St Louis to see my mom and celebrate with Colleen.

After Colleen's graduation party, Joe and I snuck out to see some old friends. Josh was Joe's college roommate for 3 years, and was in our wedding. We've known him and his girlfriend Christy for years, and it was fun hanging out like old times!

Once things calmed down in St Louis, my sister Laura and I went to Kansas City for a couple days. Laura and her husband Dan are starting grad school at KU this summer, and Laura needed to find a place for them to live. Since I lived in Kansas City after graduation, I volunteered to help her with the apartment hunt. I also knew this trip would be a chance to catch up with other old friends, like my college roommate Jess and our friends Kieth and Tara. We also had lunch with Joe's brother and his wife, who are expecting a baby this summer! Once again, it was a wildly busy two days... with a lot of fun thrown in the mix!

Jess just bought a townhouse, and we were honored to be her first guests!

Kieth and Tara have an adorable little guy named Jack, and I finally got to meet him. He looks pretty darn cute in this picture, and is really even a million times cuter than that. I had so much fun playing with him!

Celebrity sighting for beer nerds

Erin and I had a nice surprise a few weeks ago. We were at Whole Foods beer school, which has kind of become a regular thing for us, when happened to notice that Garrett Oliver was going to be in town for the Craft Brewers Conference and he was hosting a dinner in the Whole Foods kitchen. In case you don't know, Mr. Oliver is the brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery and the author of a pretty amazing book entitled The Brewmaster's Table. Obviously once we were done peeing our collective pants due to the excitement we immediately signed up.

This dinner absolutely blew away any and all expectations. First of all, there were only about thirty people there, so it was a really small, intimate crowd. Also, not only did Garrett drop some knowledge on us about beer/food pairings, but he actually did the cooking himself. We were treated to a three course meal consisting of crab cakes, deliciously juicy hamburgers (to which he added an absurd amount of butter), and lamb chops. Each course was paired with a unique Brooklyn Brew.

The first beer was Local 1, a Belgian style ale. We both agreed this was our favorite brew of the night. Then we had their IPA, which was balanced with great spice flavor. Their Lager was our third offering, and it is the beer they are best known for. Finally, their Brown Ale tasted good... from what I can remember!

This picture is pretty significant. Erin decided in 8th grade that she was done eating red meat, and hadn't ever looked back. Yet when we gave up meat for Lent this year, she started feeling the urge to try beef again. This dinner was about a week after Easter, and was the perfect opportunity to get back on the bandwagon. She ate the entire (well done) burger, and was surprisingly delighted!

After the dinner, Brooklyn Brewery treated us to more of their offerings at the bar downstairs. It was a fun chance to chat with other beer geeks, and we even got to spend a few minutes talking to Garrett!

Laura and Dan's Wedding in Denver

Last weekend my sister Laura got married in Denver. Her and her husband Dan are so cute together, and it was so fun to come together to celebrate their marriage! It was a weekend full of eating, drinking, and catching up with friends and family. It was hard to limit this post to 13 pictures (we took over 150), but I tried to pick my favorites!

We got to town on Thursday morning, so I could help Laura celebrate her bachelorette party on Thursday night. We started with dinner at Lime in Larimer Square. There was a magician and a blow job shot, and we laughed A LOT. Then we went to a few other bars in the area, laughing, dancing, and just generally having a good time. She has such fun girlfriends, and we had a blast commemorating Laura's last night of freedom :)


Friday was the rehearsal, and it went so smoothly. Then we had some time to kill, so we went to Vine Street pub to get some good Colorado beer. They had a blackberry wheat brew that was to die for! It was a nice chance to just hang out with a smaller group before the crazy partying started.

This is my parents at the rehearsal dinner. Aren't they cute? Dan's parents did an excellent job hosting this party, with great food and drinks. Laura and Dan provided a bunch of homebrews that they'd been saving for the occasion, and the beer was great!

Saturday was when the real party started. We took pictures before the ceremony, and the beautiful Colorado sunshine did not disappoint. The blue and yellow combination looked fantastic, and I'm sure the professional pictures are going to turn out great.

Laura & Brendan having some fun!

Colleen and I waiting for for the ceremony to start.

It was so special to have our grandparents there for the celebration! There was a great representation from both sides of our family and from Dan's family as well. We had a great time catching up with each other!

Finally, it was time for the ceremony to begin. It was a beautiful celebration, and I think the minister did a great job. The weather stayed warm enough to be bearable, and I only slightly lost feeling in my toes thanks to my lovely new shoes. Haha! Seriously, the ceremony was a wonderful testament to Laura and Dan's relationship, and there were plenty of teary eyes in the house.

Then it was time to party! The food was great... so tasty that I was almost too full for cake! Wine and beer were free flowing, and people managed to laugh at all the right places when I gave my toast. The dance floor was pretty much jammed full until the end of the night. I've seriously never seen so many people dancing at a wedding!

Laura & Dan cutting the cake. I did manage a few bites at the end of the night, and it was excellent!

Father Daughter Dance

See? Seriously packed dance floor!

The beautiful bride

I wish I could tell you that this picture was the end of the night. But it was the end of the reception, which is different. Then we went to the hotel bar, then a tavern down the street. Suffice it to say we had a fantastically fun night!

Catching up...

The month of March has flown by! We've had visitors, hosted a dinner party, brewed some great beer, and just enjoyed some downtime when I'm not working. Last week was spring break, and I used it as an opportunity to pick up some extra hours at work. Not a lot of time to relax, but before I know it this semester will be over and I can breath a little easier. I'm doing some extra studying for the mathematics content knowledge test I have to take in order to gain my certification, and I've been trying really hard to stick to a dedicated study schedule. So this hasn't been the most exciting month, but Joe and I have tried to squeeze in some fun times whenever we've had the chance!

One of my coworkers recently got a great new job, so we went to help celebrate at a going away party. My friend Michelle was the host, and she has an excellent party house. Her landlord is obsessed with the fact that Earnest Hemingway lived in the house at one point, and he has a museum honoring Hemingway in the basement. It was pretty crazy! No Chopping Block party is complete without a little flip cup, so we had to play a few rounds before heading out. It was fun to hang out with some of my coworkers in a purely social setting!

The weekend before St. Patrick's Day, my mom and sister came to visit. The main point of their trip was for us to go to the Flogging Molly concert with Colleen. We had so much fun hanging out with them during the weekend! Having visitors is a great excuse to enjoy our city, and we took advantage of our Chicago History Museum membership after Mom and Colleen took a cooking class on Sunday morning. We also went out for Ethopian food, which is always a fun treat. It was so fun to catch up and just relax together!

We also had friends over for a dinner party on a rare Friday night that I wasn't scheduled to work. We ate way too much, and Haley brought over some amazing cupcakes from Bleeding Heart Bakery. The day after the party I ate a leftover Salted Caramel cupcake, and it was freaking awesome! No other way to describe it :)