FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

3ish Miles Of Chick Rock

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You know all of the holiday traveling and guest entertaining that happened over the past month?  Well, that jazz is totally to blame for my current state of sluggish brain and snuggish jeans.  Kale salad lunches, green smoothie dinners, and yoga/quick jogs around town are all a part of the plan in between real-life plans (don’t worry, real-life plans include blogging about baking!).  And a solid playlist…  A playlist full of new and old favorites should always be a part of any plan, especially if it’s perfectly timed for a 3 to 3-1/2 mile through downtown Austin.

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Enjoy!

Au Revoir Simone – Stars

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Kitten – Cut It Out

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The Knife – Heartbeats

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero

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Tegan  & Sara – Are You Ten Years Ago

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Metric – IOU

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Blondfire – Where The Kids Are

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Warpaint – Undertow

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Beautiful Buckets

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I knew very well that as soon as I dropped Val off at the airport, I would stuff myself full of the greenest of greens with the sole hope of coming out of this week-long food coma as quickly as possible.  But first?  We’d meet another weekend visitor, my best pal Nathan, for our most gluttonous meal yet at Lucy’s Fried Chicken.

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Slurping on a $3 greyhound and eating a few bites of Nathan’s wedge prepared me for the final feast.  It was seriously as if the prior week of acting like a vacationer never happened.  I was momentarily guiltless and oh so ready for fried chicken.

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Beautiful buckets… Of fried chicken.  Our cheerfully chatty table of seven silenced immediately as we dug in.  The chicken was so super juicy and crispy and a tad spicy – all the things you want your fried chicken to be.  Paired with outdoor picnic tables with the greatest of friends on a surprisingly sunshiny, winter day?  Sweet bejeeze, it was wonderful time!

Beer & Cheese School

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The second Val booked her flight, we started compiling a list of fun activities that would vary her vacation. I mentioned to her how much I enjoyed visiting a brewery during my Austin apartment hunting trip and could tell by her reaction that this would be at the top of our list. We came across the NXNW Brewery’s beer and cheese class and signed ourselves up. And then it hit me… Perhaps a brew tour is the precursor to a move to ATX!

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We arrived a bit early and waited at the bar with a few other “students”. Shortly after, a server led us to a back room where Don and Mary Thompson were all set up to school us on beer and cheese. Don started us off with the definition of beer (which I can’t for the life of me remember), gave us an overview of how beer is made, and then took us on a tour of their brewery equipment.

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When we returned, Mary took over by introducing herself, the beer, and the cheeses.

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I knew just by looking which beers I would favor as I’m a light beer drinker when it comes to both color and body. And I was right, I totally dug the Light, Pale Ale, and Dunkelweizen. But what surprised me was that my favorite beer/cheese pairings were with the darkest beers on the menu! Black Ale with Le Marechal and Hey Joe Coffee Stout with Cabot Clothbound were the pairings on the list that I asterisked and starred. And what surprised me even more was how many of these cheeses picky, picky Val tried and liked!

Overall, this class is a wonderful way for an Austinite to change-up a Saturday afternoon!