Friday Fave: Crab Rangoon + Year 22 of Chinese

Our annual tradition of Chinese on our anniversary (we’re at 22 years!). Sometimes it’s dinner, sometimes it’s lunch. It’s usually Crab Rangoon and General Tsos chicken but today we went outside the box with coconut shrimp and it was super delish!

Today’s were the most unusual shape we’ve ever seen—cute little octopi!

BTW, if Crab Rangoon is on a menu I’m getting it. And especially if it’s our wedding anniversary—we randomly had Chinese after our wedding and then randomly had it on our anniversary for the first few years so now it’s obviously a tradition!

Happy 21st Anniversary

Happy anniversary to my lobster—21 photos for 21 years! I wouldn’t want to do this life with anyone but you.

And then I realized our marriage is old enough to drink today!

Trying to take an anniversary pic before we left for dinner with Anna and David and we had two photobombers! And I caught Tom mid-scowl.

And we left the kids home with this:

Chinese Sauerkraut or Pickle Fish?

Soooo on our anniversary we stopped at an Asian grocery store and I splurged on like 10 different bags of awesome sounding potato chip flavors. Except… Some don’t have names on them—just photos.

We tried this nameless flavor tonight that we decided was some type of soup with broth and mushrooms and peppers…? They were definitely yummy but I really wanted to know the flavor. I reverse image searched and googled to no avail so finally went to friends on Facebook and learned that the translation must not be exact because it was listed as both Chinese Sauerkraut and Pickle Fish. But others translated the actual language on the bag and got salted fish and Laotian pickled cabbage fish flavor.

Then there was this exchange:

THOSE AREN’T MUSHROOMS!!!

Lordy, taking a closer look—no, those definitely aren’t mushrooms!

But I liked them so all was well, whether they were salted fish or Chinese Sauerkraut!! I can’t wait to taste the other flavors!

Back to Chinese for 20 years!

We ate Chinese for our first married meal so for a bunch of years after, we would eat Chinese on our anniversary—we even managed when he was deployed. Then we got out of the routine. We decided today was a good day to jump back in as we had to make an unexpected trip to Milwaukee so we had a lot of good options.

This was a definite winner as every single thing was DELICIOUS but our fave was the Sliced Pork Belly in Garlic Sauce.

Epic Paloozafest Blowout

Y’ALL, IT’S TIME TO PARTY!

We’ve all been cooped up with Covid and missed ALLLLLLLLLL the excuses to party…and you know we like to throw a house party…so we’re doing them all at once!

  1. Post-Covid Celebration
  2. Cascade Housewarming (7/2020)
  3. Tom’s USMC retirement (6/2021)
  4. BFF Anna-versary (8/2021)
  5. Our 20th Anniversary (8/2021)
  6. End-of-Summer/Back-to-School

Saturday morning and the Jello shots are here and ready thanks to Angela (she took the assignment when I ran out of time). But look at how well they fit in our garage fridge? It’s like it was meant to be.

About an hour before the party and I wasn’t even dressed yet. You think “Oh there’s only a little bit to do” but all the little things add up! Angela came over to help with a bunch of it and I’m eternally grateful. (Anna was picking up my kids from a class and getting the cupcakes.) It takes a village to throw a big party!!

Getting closer—getting the mixed drink dispensers ready! Peach Bellini, Rum Punch (empty), Vodka and lemonade, Beergarita, Bahama Mama.

David making his famous Trinidad rum punch! Yes that’s two full bottles of rum going in.

I forgot to take a pic of the food table but the dessert table was insane so I did takes a pic of that! We wouldn’t have needed to buy cupcakes at all! We had a few different kinds of cookies, two smoked cheesecakes, a German chocolate cake, a white cake, mini cupcakes, and Sam’s Club cupcakes!

Local-ish TiVo peeps!

We had to do at least one LipSense selfie!

The ribs were a hit. The pulled pork was amazing. And we have a ton of leftovers!

The only pics I snapped outside during the party!

The slide was a huge hit as expected. A few adults did go down towards the end of the night—butb it was actually cold by then so it didn’t last long.

David ended up making drinks for people at the bar…

And as we were saying goodbye to people, I discovered someone left a fern in our empty pot! (I had wanted to get succulents planted in it but never got to it with all the house stuff.) Turns out it was Ava, one of my gardener friends!

We just have great friends—from everyone who offered to help to the ones who loaned us things to the ones that jumped in to help before, during (putting away leftovers and doing the first round of kitchen clean up, and after (cleaning up the yard and house)… Thank you. We had a great time and I think everyone else did, too! Now to clean up some more and relax…

18 years!

Wow. Eighteen years (22 if you count since day one). And there’s no one I’d rather have by my side in this crazy thing called life. 💕

So, we weren’t planning on doing anything to celebrate, then we realized today was our golden anniversary (18th on the 18th). So we decided to take the kids to The Chocolate Sanctuary for a chocolate fountain!!

She wanted to lick the plate!

I never expected to cross off two bucket list items tonight!

So let me backtrack a bit and say that back in July I saw a news article come across my Facebook feed about the most unique margarita in Michigan. Of course I clicked the link…and was happily surprised to see that it was a thimbleberry margarita in a restaurant in Calumet—exactly where we’d be headed later in the summer to pick the kids up after grandparent’s camp. What are the odds?

I tried to figure out when we could stop, hoping it would work on the way through as it would be about an hour from where we were staying (and since we’d only be there two days, we didn’t have much time to be traveling two hours for a margarita…even if I REALLY really wanted to). We planned to be passing through about 9pm which was perfect…except we left later than anticipated plus ran into construction and rush hour traffic so by the time we were driving by it was after midnight and they were long closed. 🙁 And then I kind of forgot about it since we were busy with family.

But then we went on our date night—which was about 20 minutes from the house—and actually put us about halfway to the margarita. Tom suggested we go and I thought about it for a minute, thinking I’d love to but that would mean a 45-minute ride home afterwards and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. And he looked at me and said “REALLY?! Let’s go. We won’t be this close for at least another year.” #vacationbucketlist

I love this man.

So off we went. We walked in to the restaurant and headed to the bar. An older gentleman sitting at the bar welcomed us (which seemed slightly odd, but whatever) so we thanked him then ordered the margarita. It. Was. Delicious. Here’s me enjoying my first one.

I asked who came up with it and the bartender pointed and said “The owner—and she’s right there!” So we started chatting with them. They were a husband and wife (which, had I reread the article, I would have seen their photo) and they were really great and super nice.

So as we were talking, I jokingly asked if they would let me drink from the dispenser (because who hasn’t wanted to do that with a drink or ice cream at some point in their life?!) and the owner said yes! WAIT, WHAT?! I was kidding. But they said it was a first and no one had ever asked! Ha! Free margaritas? I’m totally in. She said I’d have to let them take pictures to post on their Facebook page and I said that was no problem!

So I did it.

My first thought was it’s harder than you’d think to line your mouth up under it—the dispenser shoot is pretty close to the machine itself which doesn’t lend itself well to putting your mouth directly under it. Plus I had to hold my hair out of the way so it didn’t get in the machine, get covered in margarita, or get in the way of the pics being taken. Plus you couldn’t just crank it open full force or you’d choke—and it obviously have you brain freeze! So it was a delicate balance…but I handled myself like a pro. 🙂

Tom, the owner, and the bartender were snapping pics the whole time. Unfortunately noone took a video.

And from the bartender’s view:

It might have been dripping out of my mouth.

What a total riot! I mean seriously. I never would have guessed this is how my night would end. I told her I’m sure people would PAY to do that (I would!) and she joked that maybe that would be her new business model.

I took a pic with the owner and we exchanged pics and I posted them right then and there.

We even joked about me doing it again because we didn’t get a video and she said I could but then it didn’t go any farther. She said she’d let Tom do it if he wanted but he’s not a margarita guy. She then offered him the beer tap of his choice but as Marine Officer he declined. But, she did give me my second margarita on the house! Oh, and we also had a piece of delicious chocolate cake that the owner made!

We will definitely go back there…and I highly recommend the thimbleberry margarita.

Anniversary day in Chicago: a foodie adventure!

Since the kids were away at grandparent’s camp, we decided to take advantage and go to Chicago for some foodie experiences to celebrate our anniversary a bit early. Of course I hadn’t thought far enough ahead about making reservations so the one place I really wanted to go had nothing available until September so we planned on walking in and hoping to eat at the bar (friends had done that so we knew it was possible).

Stop 1: Frontera Grill by Rick Bayless

We got there about 10 minutes before they opened and there was a line of about 10 people. By the time they opened there were probably 30 people waiting. We had a reservation and they sat us in the bar area at some reserved tables.

The menu wasn’t what I’d been looking at…I had downloaded the lunch menu, not paying attention that weekends had a brunch menu. (Rookie mistake!) So of course the two dishes I’d previously decided on weren’t available. I did ask if I could still get the dish I really wanted (one of their three ceviches) and he checked and said no. Dang. So it took me quite some time to pick what I wanted.

We started with drinks. Tom had a Chupacabra and of course I had a margarita. I really liked his and I’d order that above my margarita.

CHUPACABRA
Milagro blanco tequila, fresh and roasted vegetables (tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumber, celery, garlic, onion), fresh lime, Worcestershire and chipotle.

TOPOLO MARGARITA
Milagro reposado, Royal Combier, housemade limonada, shaken tableside.

FRONTERA CEVICHE
Hawaiian albacore, tomatoes, olives, cilantro, green chile. Crispy tostaditas.

The ceviche was amazing. It was a tie for my favorite dish of the entire day. I would eat that every day for the rest of my life. And it was one of the three ceviches they had that I didn’t think I’d like because I don’t like olives. But I’d never have known there was olives in it. I’m drooling now just remembering it. The tostadas were amazing—they stayed wonderfully crispy even with all that juicy ceviche on it.

I opted for two starters as my lunch:

GRILL ROASTED ELOTE CORN
Serrano mayo, cilantro, and fresh cheese

I had recently had Mexican corn at a farmers market and it came in a cup. I totally didn’t think this would come on a cob. LOL So it was messy but yummy!

SOPECITOS RANCHEROS
Crispy corn masa “boats,” braised beef shoulder, roasted tomato-serrano sauce, avocado, queso fresco.

Sooooo good. Unbelievably good.

Tom went way outside his box and got a vegetarian dish! I am not a huge mushroom fan so I’d never order it but it was good. (I forgot to get a pic once he unwrapped it and dug in.)

MUSHROOM MIXIOTE
Shiitake, maitake and oyster mushrooms, dark pasilla chile sauce, potatoes, chayote & local greens cooked in a parchment package. Creamy goat cheese, sunflower shoots.

And then dessert. We weren’t going to get any because we knew we had to eat again at 4:30 but…screw it. We both immediately went to this:

DOS, TRES, QUATRO CAKE
Dos candied nuts, tres leches, cuatro chocolates (chocolate-infused tres leches cake, house-ground chocolate ice cream, chocolate cookies, hot fudge), candied almonds & pecans.

We both love tres leches but weren’t huge fans of this. It was okay but we apparently like less fancy versions of this dessert (we joked give us your 9×13 pan instead of this crazy thing).

Stop 2: Chicago’s Original Architectural Tour by Wendella

We had asked friends for recommendations of things to do in the few hours between restaurants and this river tour was highly recommended. It was a quick walk from Frontera so seemed perfect. However, we hadn’t anticipated the hot and humid weather (it was probably 93° with 80% humidity) and we both decided there was NO way we’d enjoy any of it sitting topside in the blazing sun…so we each had a drink in the bar for most of the tour (they had margaritas so it seemed like fate). We will go back again with the kids when it’s cooler.

Stop 3: Hubbard State Cigar Shop

Because it was on the way back toward the car and Tom needed new cigars.

Stop 4: Firecakes Donuts

Because donuts. And it was right on the way.

From top: Espresso something or other, Pistachio old fashioned, Cherry fritter, Malted milk ball, Strawberry marscapone, Chocolate cake, PB cup, Creme brulee, vanilla with coconut

Stop 5: Three Dots and a Dash tiki bar

This bar was named one of The World’s 50 Best Bars so imagine the coincidence that it was ALSO on the way. It was only accessible via the alley—they had tiki torches outside (you can see them behind us).

Then it was down into the dark, cool depths of a basement bar.

The drinks were amazing…but expensive as hell. We only had one each. Tom said he has found his retirement job.

Stop 6: Girl & The Goat by Stephanie Izard (Winner of Top Chef)

So we got to Girl & The Goat way early. We wasted some time at a nearby coffeehouse since it was still like 90° and humid. At about 4:10 we walked down. The doors were locked but the revolving door was open so I walked in and asked the first employee I saw if it would be okay to sit at the bar until they opened since we’d just driven a long way and it was so hot out. He said he didn’t think legally we could do that and then suggested we sit in the waiting area. Okay, that was fine with me.

But my anxiety started kicking in as more people started lining up outside and then trying to come in (at one point a huge gaggle of like 20 people came in). You could see the manager getting irritated with people wanting to come in and wait but they obviously weren’t open yet. And the people looked at us sitting there like why did we think we were so special. I’m a rule follower at heart so I was torn between going to wait outside with the rest of the herd and keeping my seat (which no one was telling us we had to move…). I really wanted those first seats and we had been there first but I was getting paranoid that something was going to prevent it. Tom said he was ready to make a dash to the seats if need be. I know it’s just food and it would have been okay if we ended up needing to wait a bit, but I was still anxious.

Fast forward to 4:30 and a lady came over to us and asked if we had a reservation and we said no, we wanted to eat at the bar…and she said to go grab seats. Yay! So we were seated before anyone from outside even walked in. Phew!

That’s a goat topiary behind us.

And of course another margarita because why not?

I’d perused the menu ahead of time—as well as all the dishes our friends had ordered—so I had a good idea of what I wanted. I told the bartender that friends had been there and sat at the bar and had an amazing experience and he said he’d try to live up to the expectation!

We had drinks and picked four dishes. This is the order they came out (they serve them in the best order to eat them):

SWEET CORN PIEROGIS
Charred scallion sour cream, sweet corn-tomaro chimichurri

Everything was good, of course, but this was by far our favorite course of the night. The bite of pierogi with the chimichurri was pure delight.

SQUASH BLOSSOM CRAB RANGOON
Almonds, chive yogurt

We love crab Rangoon so had to try these. They were delicious, of course.

DUCK TONGUES
tuna and black bean poke, crispy won tons, piri piri

Just as delicious as our friend mentioned. (It was a toss up between this and the pierogi for the winning dish but the chimichurri pushed the pierogi over the edge.)

Then they surprised us with a dish, compliments of the chef, for our anniversary (we’d been talking about it with the bartender). It took me by total surprise and I forgot to get a pic. I’d never have ordered them but they were DELICIOUS.

SAUTÉED GREEN BEANS
Fish sauce vinaigrette, cashews

And the final course… We debated between a few and I let Tom pick.

GOAT NECK
Perilla marinated heirlooms, pickled grape tomato, green plums, tahini yogurt, wood fired pita

Mmmm. The meat was so tender and flavorful, the marinated tomatoes were perfect, and I’m not a tahini fan but it worked well together.

Before this dish came out we had discussed that we might need to order one more dish. While we’d had three planned dishes and one surprise dish, it really hadn’t been THAT much food. Did we need more? No. But we’d probably never be back so why not. But after the size of the goat neck, we opted to just go with dessert.

CARAMEL CORN & MALT BALLS
Vanilla malt ice cream, popcorn caramel, chocolate magic shell

When they delivered it (with the lit candle) they wished us a Happy Anniversary, as did all the bartenders behind the bar as they walked by! This was a crazy dessert that totally worked on all levels. Each component was delicious but a bite with everything was sublime. I’d order that again in a heartbeat. (They should really also add chocolate ganache squares to the description.)

We were there for almost two hours and we had a great time interacting with the bartender—I can’t imagine sitting at a table. When the bill came, they hadn’t charged us for the dessert, either, so we left him a huge tip. Overall an awesome meal. Just delicious all around. I highly recommend it…

And a last-minute photo as we were leaving!

It was such a great day and I’m so glad we did it…

Surprise anniversary adventure, day 2!

Tom told me to get dressed and be ready to go by 8:30! I had no idea what was in store…but I could only imagine it would involve more delicious food…somewhere north. I love adventuring with this man!

Sushi for lunch! Yes, please!

Then we walked around the downtown river area of Milwaukee. We might have done a little shopping and exchanged anniversary cards at one store. 🙂

Tom had made plans for dinner, too, but we didn’t spend as much time walking around as he had thought so we just headed home. 🙂

Happy 16th Anniversary!

Waiting for Tom to get home and enjoying the weather on the front porch. 


Of course we had to start with a traditional anniversary selfie. 🙂

Our dinner of choice this year was…sushi! This was called the Willis Tower and had layers of crab salad, sushi rice, avocado, spicy tuna, and a few sauces. You ate it with a spoon!

We couldn’t decide between three rolls so let the waiter choose for us. Why yes, that IS gold leaf on there (right).

We wanted dessert and were trying to decide where to go. Our waiter, knowing it was our anniversary, said he’d give us a mochi on the house. We’d never had it, but were game to try it—all we knew is that it would be strawberry flavor. This is what came out: it was strawberry ice cream on the inside. It was tasty but not quite what we had in mind. (I Googled later and learned that mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of mochigome, a short-grain japonica glutinous rice. The rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape.)

So we headed toward home and somehow ended up at The Chocolate Sanctuary where we both indulged in our own desserts! (We rarely get dessert and when we do it’s shared between all for of us.)

Tom had Pecan Bourbon Crème Brulé (Jim Beam infused crème brulée with toasted pecans, topped with toasted meringue and Sanctuary caramel) and I had S’mores Dark Chocolate (Dark chocolate flourless cake with toasted meringue, cocoa graham cracker sable, cocoa graham crumble, Sanctuary spiced caramel, and cocoa-candied bacon).

We may also have let it known it was our anniversary (the couple across from us was celebrating their 38th!) so we may have also indulged in free champagne and raspberry chocolates. 💕

And then this was waiting for us when we got home. (Well, they actually weren’t quite finished when we walked in so we were forcefully instructed to go wait upstairs!)

The kids helped Grannie make rice krispie treats (decorated with our cake topper!) and they drew and colored a sign. They were so excited to surprise us.

It’s kind of hard to see, but they drew and colored lots of wedding-related things (my ring and flowers, the train, the cake, the horse and carriage) as well as some of our favorite things (Petoskey stone, a saw, dolphins). We loved it! And then of course we had to have a bite of still-warm rice krispie bars!!

It was a good day. 🙂

The dress in 1991 and 2016.

Okay, folks, who wore it better? Yes, here’s a DOOZY of a Then & Now. I first wore this dress to my high school Senior Awards Night and then to my graduation party (as seen in the photo, 1991). I loved the dress and kept it at my mom’s house all these years, wanting to get back into it someday. And that day was today to celebrate our 15th anniversary! And I traded the single-strand pearls for the pearls I wore with my wedding dress!

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Sidenote 1: Owen took the picture from tonight.

Sidenote 2: When Owen saw me working on the collage, he said “WAIT. YOU HAD THAT DRESS 25 YEARS AGO?” 😯

Leaving the island…

The weather was great in the morning, and we could tell it was going to be a perfectly gorgeous day. Of course. GRRR. :p

And better pics from Sunset Rock.

But, since it was so nice, we decided to walk back to town instead of paying $15 for the shuttle.

Stopping to pick wild raspberries.

Stopping to rescue snails from the trail! They were all over!

Waiting for the boat off the island. 🙁

Our 15th anniversary night on Mackinac Island

We decided to celebrate our 15th anniversary just a bit early (since we had available babysitters!) and spend the night on Mackinac Island. (It’s actually a bit longer story. I had wanted to go to the Headlands International Night Sky Park in Mackinac City so Tom was in charge of picking the hotel. He thought he was making a reservation for Mackinac City, but when we had to change nights, he realized he had made a reservation on the island—he had a few tabs open on his computer and called a different one than he was looking at! So our plans changed to go to the island instead!)

Unfortunately, we knew bad weather was on the way, so we chose not to do anything time-intensive like biking around the island…so when this happened…

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…we stopped our shopping for a quick lunch at Seabiscuit Cafe. We had yummy whitefish chowder and a mediocre whitefish reuben.

The weather app we were checking seemed to predict that it would only last an hour or so, but the rain just kept coming. We decided to take the shuttle back to the hotel and wait out the rain in our room.

Our room was GORGEOUS with an AMAZING view…or a potentially amazing view if it hadn’t been raining and foggy.

The Cudahy room at the Inn at Stonecliffe --- click for a larger version.
The Cudahy room at the Inn at Stonecliffe, Mackinac Island — click for a larger version.

This was our view before the fog rolled in and obscured the bridge:

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It was quite chilly in our room and the heat was slow to come on, so we pulled the extra blanket out of the closet, rearranged the chairs, and crossed our fingers that the front passed soon.

We rechecked the forecast in a different app and that showed rain pretty much all day. 🙁 So Tom took a nap and I sat and tried to catch up on writing blog posts…while listening to a wedding taking place below us on the covered back porch 🙂 and watching it rain and rain and rain.

We had almost the same view at dinner:

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And then we got to watch the wedding guests wander around during the reception:

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Our meal was very, very good. We knew we’d blow NS principles out of the water, but we didn’t care because it was our anniversary and everything sounded amazing. And everything WAS. We were very happy with our dinner. 🙂

  • Appetizer: Cheddar-Crab Fondue | Thyme-Lemon Gremolata | Toasted Brioche
  • Soup: Lobster Bisque | Lemon Tarragon Oil (which surprisingly Tom loved—he’s not a big lobster fan)
  • Entrée (me): Sea Scallop | Cheddar Polenta | Bacon-Fava Succotash | Ver Jus | Citrus Micro
  • Entrée (Tom): Battered Whitefish BLT | Smokey Caper Aïoli | Peppered Bacon | Tomato | Frisée | Toasted Brioche
  • Dessert (Tom): Chai Crème Brûlée

It had stopped raining during dinner so we went for a walk around the grounds and out to Sunset Rock.

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And the panoramic view (click for larger version):

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And do you see what we saw in the water? 🙂

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It really was a pretty place.

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After our walk we headed back to the room where we listened to the reception rave on while we watched Breaking Bad on Netflix. 🙂 Then it started raining again but thankfully didn’t storm since it was bedtime (though I wouldn’t have minded watching a storm from our room).

While overall it stunk that the weather was so crappy, we still enjoyed being together—alone!—all day! That’s always worth something. 🙂

Anniversary dinner…outside the box!

Tom and I were celebrating early since he will be out of town on our anniversary. Fourteen years. Holy wah.

First, my obligatory pre-dinner selfies since I’m dressed up (and wearing a dress I haven’t worn in who knows how many years!). 🙂

Love.

We didn’t take our traditional pre-event selfie because we were running late and then of course the traffic was horrible and it took 45 minutes (instead of 25) to get there so as it was, we were 15 minutes late for our reservation.

So, as you may remember, we have a tradition of eating Chinese on our anniversary. And I’m sure there are many über delicious Chinese places in the area, but we decided to go outside our box and have a Greek dinner at Mike Isabella’s (from Top Chef) Kapnos Taverna (recommended by a friend). Delish. Three “small plates” was too much food and we each left a few bites (we did technically eat too much but it was seriously a quarter of what we’d normally have eaten!). We splurged and shared a chocolate dessert, too. 🙂

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Then we got back to the parking garage and saw this:

How funny is that? You know they saw this car and parked next to it on purpose!

And then we finally took our anniversary selfie! 🙂