Hello again! I’m going to start assigning Mondays as my inspiration day. So for this week my inspiration will be numbers 29 and 32. Now some of these on the list a already do so I’m trying to select new options for myself.
29. Sub oil and balsamic for other dressings. This is gonna be hard, especially with my love for ranch dressing. However, I do enjoy oil and vinegar dressings. I may not always use balsamic but there are many healthy vinegar options (red wine, apple cider, etc). Wish me luck!
32. Sub Greek yogurt for sour cream. Now I already love Greek yogurt, but I never thought of using it as a sour cream like food. Well…I made enchiladas the other day and used it. Man that was amazing! I may be substituting it much more often.
Summer list update!
So, this weekend Mike and I went to the LivingSocial craft beer festival for his birthday (Tuesday). It was amazing and a lot of fun. Luckily it was easily accessible to me by public transportation which meant we didn’t require a DD.
So, getting there was fine. Took the train further into the city (I live in an outer part) and then transferred to the L. If anyone has been on the L in Philly, you know how shady it can be. One woman came on with a stroller full of random stuff held together with Saran Wrap.
So after getting lost because of my phone GPS we finally found the outdoor venue for the fest. The line didn’t take long to get in, but we were a little early so we had to wait for the event to actually start. As soon as it opened, the mob of people dispersed after getting their 3 oz taster glass and free (cheap) sunglasses. Around the outer edge that lined the piazza were about 20 or so different beer stands. Some companies I was familiar with, others I had never heard of. In order to get beer, we had to stand in line for the company we wanted to try. Most of the lines were about 30 or so people long, but they moved quickly.
My goal was to try new beers instead of going back to my comfort beers. We avoided the breweries we were very familiar with unless we noticed they had a new brew. (Sam Adams was there but only brought Boston Lager). Victory (Mike’s favorite brewery) came out with a very good Saison (which I particularly love in the summer) and their summer love ale, which mike really enjoyed. I also found another brewery I really enjoyed called Evil Genius. They had a wonderful IPA that I went back for multiple times. We also discovered a lot of local brewery’s we didn’t know existed (e.g., Doylestown) that we’ll be looking out for now.
Food. So I read on the website that there was supposed to be food trucks at this event but we couldn’t find them. We were getting hungry after a few beer samples, and there were a good amount of restaurants lining the piazza. We stopped at the first one we saw and found that we came at the right time. It was still happy hour there, which meant $1 chicken fingers. I decided not to over indulge so I only got six. I was cheap and convenient so that’s what Mike and Chris also ate. They were pretty good chicken fingers (and chicken fingers are my guilty pleasure food) and we were finished pretty quickly. However, they left me feeling a little hungry still, but we paid and went back to the fest. I was a little disappointed that they falsely advertised for food trucks, but we went on our way and continued to drink beer. Then I had to go to the bathroom. Porter potties are not my favorite but I can manage. Especially when they have outdoor sinks. On our way to the bathroom, that’s when I spotted them. The food trucks! So I told Mike at after I go, we’re getting more food (he knew better than to argue 😛.) There were about 4 trucks there, a hotdog truck, grilled cheese, and another truck I didn’t get a good look at. The truck that attracted me was called the Cow and The Curd. I was curious so I looked closer. They only had one item on the menu. Fried cheese curd. Now I have had fresh cheese curd before when we visited Wisconsin, but never fried. And how can you go wrong with fried cheese. I expected them to taste like cheddar versions of mozz sticks so we ordered a small to split with chipotle ranch dipping sauce. Oh. My. Goodness. They were amazing and I couldn’t even process it. This was before the sauce came into the picture. It was stringer than any mozz stick I had ever eaten, it was tastier than most cheese (as it is still in the curd state) and then once we dipped it in the sauce it just became a party in your mouth. The chipotle ranch was smokey and not too spicy. These bad boys were gone in a matter of minutes. About 2 hours later we went back for more and got a large this time. They were out of the chipotle ranch at that point so we got the siracha mayo. Wasn’t as good but still a unique and complementary flavor. Although a large was a but large at this point, we shared it with some of the beer reps, who were grateful. I will be stalking this truck in the future.
Entertainment. So there was some entertainment included at the event (because not everyone wants to ask the beer reps 100 questions about their brewing processes.) the band was a generic top 40 cover band that probably wasn’t ready to leave the garage. I will be nicer than some other people making comments; however, the female singer was not the best person to be entertaining by singing. Many times her mic was turned too low to hear her well, and we think this may have been done on purpose. Aside from music, they had many games set up including a huge connect four board, ping pong, and a huge beer pong like game but using buckets and a volleyball.
They also had a photo booth that was a lot of fun, Mike picked me up and spun me around, which the photographer liked. Overall it was a great time and I would definitely do it again!!
Nicole's Endless Journey 