Lotta Liquids, Lotta Fun

Thanks for letting me take the night off guys! It was nice not to have to bike 12 miles with my laptop on my back

We had a wild, fun time with our friends!

Matt and I biked to Kate + Nate’s around 5:00 for a quick bite to eat before the party started. The brews were already on ice!

I waited a bit and then sipped on a Shocktop. I may like these better than Blue Moon…

They had a sampler pack of wheat beers from Michelob. I normally don’t like anything by the great American breweries, but ALL of these were excellent (I had sips of Matt’s). The Honey Wheat was very honeyey!

We put a few veggies (eggplant + zucchini) on the grill along with our leftover Al Fresco chicken sausages and some homemade Dakota Great Harvest buns -

This was one heck of a hot dog!!! I LOVED the red pepper asiago flavor on a dog. The asiago was more pronounced than in the pasta the other night.

 

Veg

And some salad made by the infamous salad creator, Kate

I switched over to water for a bit – I was feeling a little hungover from just my one beer!

Kelsey made blondies. They were fab – I had 3 little squares. I wonder how they compared to the famous VeggieGirl Blondies!?

The blondies were swarmed by food bloggers!

And Kate put out cookies – I had a taste of one

There was also hummus + pita put out. I had a few too many pita chips after dinner as we all chatted.

Later on Matt made me a mini mint julep 

And I had one more Shocktop before we left for the bar at 9:30. I should have skipped this because I drank it pretty fast and didn’t really enjoy it thoroughly.

Kate let me taste her Coors after I turned my nose up at it. It actually got a “not bad” from me in the atmosphere.

We walked about half a mile to our destination: The Yellow Rose. It’s a hole in the wall billiards and karaoke bar.

We had a huge group!

We actually went by earlier to pick up pizza for some of our friends and realized there was SMOKING inside. Ugggggggggg. I cannot stand cigarette smoke at all. What’s with Charlotte being so behind the times. I don’t know why it never crossed my mind there would be smoking when we planned this night. SOooo…Kate and I came prepared!!!

No, we didn’t wear them the whole night, but it was nice to put on a breathe a bit because the masks smelled like fresh laundry from Kate’s garage!!

Coronas were on special, so I ordered one and a water. I probably should have passed on the beer because I was way more interested in the water, which I couldn’t get enough of at this point. That was my first and last drink at the bar. 3.5 drinks in 1 night is too much for me.

I can’t say the same about my friends though! There were tons of buckets floating by..

The night was young and Matt was brave to start off the karaoke with a little “Movin’ On Over”

And then Kelsey and I sang Green Day’s “Basket Case!”

Then all the girls stood up for a little Madonna with “Like A Prayer!”

I wanted to do my Celine Dion song (“To Love You More”) as well as “All That Jazz” and Matt and I had plans for a Disney duet, but the line was long and the crowd packed, so we’re saving those for a more private karaoke occasion

Shortly after “Like A Prayer” I hit the wall. It was past midnight and I was exhausted, dehydrated and ready to go home. A few of our friends had left and I walked back with Diana and Dan. The rest – Kelsey + Austin, Matt, Kate + Nate – stayed and had a crazy time singing more songs with some of the locals. I snuggled in bed with Gilbert!

AM: The Juice

We were all up pretty early this morning despite the late night. No one was feeling great, but I’ve definitely felt worse after a night out. I thank the beer – I think wine gives me worse hangovers.

I had a cup of Butter Toffee Coffee when I came down to find Kate + Nate sprawled on the couches

Kate loves to juice vegetables and I was excited to give her juicer a try this morning. My stomach was a bit queasy for a big breakfast, but vegetable juice sounded like the PERFECT cure She’s got this cool Breville (I think).

Here’s what she put in: 3 apples, 1 pear, a huge bag of kale, 3 carrots. This served 2 big glasses. It was AMAZING to watch. I can’t believe you can put a whole apple in seeds and all. Very cool that there’s no prep work.

We had to fiddle with the proportions a bit. The apples really helped sweeten it up. The juice had a pretty bad kale-bitter smell, but the taste was awesome. It was almost a gritty/fluffy texture. But overall I loved it, most likely because it just felt so healthy.

My cup. I had a little bit more than this total with a small refill. The verdict: I really liked it!! I don’t know if I’ll convert to a juice person though. I probably won’t go out and buy a juicer, but if someone were to make me juice every morning I think I’d definitely enjoy drinking it regularly. I always say I prefer smoothies because you get the FIBER of the veggies too, but I’m not sure I’d make a smoothie with all the vegetable variety you could put in a juicer, so that’s a plus. And I don’t know if my blender could handle apples and carrots. So someday if I have a big kitchen and someone gets me a juicer for my birthday, I’d probably use it happily, but these days, probably not

I found the juice to be incredibly filling too. You wouldn’t think a little liquid would do much to the stomach, and maybe it was my alcoholic system, but this glass felt like a BRICK in my stomach for at least 2-3 hours. No sloshing – just filled up.

We had plans to make oatmeal and french toast, but no one was really in the mood to cook or eat a big breakfast. Breakfast was green juice, bananas and water.

We ended up going on a really nice walk on the greenway with Gilbert after “breakfast.” We walked 2.14 miles (wore the Garmin!) and then I was energized to do a little running when the others went inside. I ran a quick 2.4 miles to be just over 4.5 total. It felt great to breathe hard and get some fresh air.

After exercising we decided to go out for brunch. After much debate, we decided on The Flying Biscuit, a brunch favorite. We quickly showered and were off. But the wait turned out to be 50 minutes long (Thanks to Michelle and her family taking up the tables inside!) so we went over to Qdoba instead. The group all got burittos, but I wanted a salad so I got a salad + sandwich combo from Dean + Deluca and met them at the patio.

(My camera also died at this point so these are iPhone photos. They turned out pretty good all things considered!!)

Big salad with veggies + olives + sundried maters (Ate about 2/3 of this and was full)

And half a ham + brie panini sandwich. (If this was a half, I’d hate to see the whole!) I ate about 75% of this and shared the rest with Matt

After lunch Matt and I had to bike back home – about 5 miles. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it ended up being pleasant. I am catching up on my computer and he’s at Costco getting some groceries. Tonight is the Charlotte Symphony Summer Pops!!! I don’t think our friends are in the partying mood, but I hope they will still all come for a casual picnic.

See you tonight!

by Kath on June 7, 2009

in Dinner, Lunch