goodbye, 2014

I'm not sure I've ever had a year that I was truly glad to leave behind - year by year my life has basically improved upon itself, although I am, as I've mentioned, a grossly nostalgic person, so that probably doesn't help matters either.  2014 in particular was pretty solid, though -

January was rung in at the Big House, in a blizzare, watching the Winter Classic with my (Maple Leafs fan) dad - a really incredible experience, even though I thought I'd never get warm again.

It also saw the beginning of my adventures in homebrewing.  I'll never forget spending 5-6 frigid hours in my garage that first batch, trying to chill 5 gallons of wort in a snowbank.  We've come a long way since then, from extract brewing with no worth chiller to building our very own full-on sparging system & brewing all grain from scratch recipes that have come out pretty damn good.

≈

Finally January was also the month of my first trip to Ottawa!  Being reunited with my good friend Deiss, whom I hadn't seen in basically half a decade, and meeting her incredibly generous & amazing husband Pav, skating the length of the Rideau Canal (dream fulfilled!), eating food truck pancakes, making it to the Canadian Tire Centre to see a Sens game, drinking some incredible local brews at Beyond the Pale & Brothers, and of course a morning run across the bridge to Quebec.  I've never felt so welcomed by anyone I've ever visited & my love affair with Canada was renewed again.

February was a little quieter, but I did make my annual half-naked dash through Detroit at Cupid's Undie Run with a buddy from my former life working at Tim's.

March was road trip month - drove 10 hours overnight from Detroit to Philadelphia with my best friend in the world, saw a whole bunch of really phenomenal historical sites and a Flyers game, ate a for real cheesesteak, and visited a couple quality breweries in the process.

In April I ran my first real 5k of the year - the Cocoa Classic in Detroit with another former Tims friend & a group of ladies who were down to make some awesomely inappropriate men & chocolate themed t-shirts.  It was also the month in which I saw my first Taking Back Sunday show of the year - a seriously whirlwind evening with all of my Tims boys, a whole lot of rum and cokes, some dancing, and screaming Tell All Your Friends at the top of our lungs.  The night ended kind of crazy and not on the highest note, but I can't say I regret anything.

Also in April I took a weekend trip out to Kzoo to reunite with some college friends I hadn't seen in ages & to see The National!  Later in the month there was playoff hockey with my two favorite boys in the world & a whole lot of SpaceTeam in very public bars.

In May I mostly just brewed beer & cooked a lot of food.

June started out with a visit from one of my super old friends from the internet, Skye, as well as my second 5k of the year, Mickey's Run in Windsor.  It also marked my first trip to Belle Isle since I was too tiny to remember, and finally (FINALLY!) getting to see the re-opened aquarium.

Later in June I hopped back on a plane & flew back out to Ottawa again!!  Being in Canada for Canada Day for the first time in a number of years was incredible, as was all the good food, good barbecue, and good people Pav & Deiss introduced me to.  One of the greatest vacations I've had in a long time because it involved so much just relaxing - lots of beer, lots of cribbage, and lots of lounging around enjoying good company.

In July my boys from Kzoo came back out again and we celebrated 4th of July with a bunch of sparklers, and then my birthday with a Tigers game and a fabulous dinner at Texas de Brazil where we basically ate our body weight in meat (what could be better?).  I also had the chance to meet up with another long lost college friend Jen and go out for drinks and a whole lot of reminiscing about college, writing, and our respective trips to Prague.

August started out with a Color Run with my gym buddy Emily & some of my Tims friends, and marked the first 5k I've ran in a long time that I legitimately felt really awesome the whole way through.  Of course stupid me didn't time myself, so I have no idea if I PR'd or not...  It was also the month that I finally at long last got my Canadian citizenship certificate in the mail - can't even explain the sounds that came from me when I opened that letter. It sounds silly, but my Canadian heritage means so much to me :)

My best friend's birthday is in September, so I (and a handful of other friends) had the honor to take her to Grand Rapids to see Taking Back Sunday / The Used as well as Frank Iero's band.  Could not have been a more perfect night & I was so happy to give her an amazing birthday.  Also in September I got my hardwood floors installed!!  The month closed out with another trip to Kzoo and a mini brewery tour that took us out to 3 Floyd's, Greenbush, Tapistry & Pleasant House.

In October I made a trip up to Upper Lower Michigan to see my family in Cheboygan and one of my hockey blog friends from back in the day, Cat.  We got to experience super authentic Polish Food at Legs Inn and all you can eat literally everything at the Dam Site Inn, as well as troll around Mackinac and Petoskey & hit up Leo's for all the whiskey sours and bar popcorn in the world.  Then I took my Kzoo boys out to Frankenmuth (they'd never been!) & a Lions game!  Also hockey was back!

The biggest highlight of October though was Cask Days in Toronto - a weekend trip up with my dad, during which we met up with all my Ottawa friends, tasted some seriously incredible beers, ate a whole lot of cheap shawarma, went shopping at ZARA(!!!!), hit up Bellwoods, and then went out to Collingwood to see my Canadian grandma.

In November I finished putting together my studio - added mirrors & a mounted TV!  Also hosted my annual Friendsgiving party - this year we even themed it so that we all had an excuse to dress up fancy & celebrate.  The sheer amount of food and beer consumed still hurts me to think of.  I got to spend some time with a college friend I hadn't seen in a few years, too, which really made the holiday special.  Also my gym buddy Emily & her husband took me to the Wing season ticket holder open house, which was a pretty cool (free!) opportunity...

Finally, in December I went tree-shopping with my wifey, made it to practically every Red Wings home game for about 3 weeks straight, took my papa to see the Leafs game (which they won, AGAIN), cooked a thousand cheesecakes, sampled some more beers, made an entire Christmas dinner, had Christmas with my family and my wifey's family (and got seriously the best presents from my best friend <3), made out like crazy on Christmas day, and in one of the most fun nights of the whole year, got to meet up a couple times with my beer pen pal Nate (an aquaintance from college who I reunited with via Facebook thanks to my 2013 hop harvest.....no joke), drink a whole lot of awesome craft beer, eat sushi, and plan about five thousand trips we're about to go on in the future.

All in all.........I'm ready to make 2015 a seriously incredible year on all counts, but 2014, you were pretty damn all right.

get to know me

Wayyyyyy back in the day when LiveJournal was the place to be, I remember spending hours of my undergrad avoiding doing work by instead incessantly filling out & posting silly 'get to know me' style internet surveys - so when I stumbled on this one over at Carrots & Cake I got immediately nostalgic (newsflash: I am really well and truly the biggest sucker in the world when it comes to basically anything that gives me that nostalgic feeling) & had to fill it out at once.

Four names that people call me other than my real name:

1. Steph
2. Yates
3. Red
4. Maroon 5

Four jobs I’ve had:

1. Supply Chain Managment / Materials & Releasing Analyst at RCO Engineering
2. Tim Hortons Store Manager
3. Athletic Facilities Staff at Western Michigan University
4. Church pianist at St. John's Lutheran

Four movies you’ve watched more than once:

1. SLC Punk
2. Battle Royale
3. Bon Cop Bad Cop
4. Drive

Four books I’d recommend:

1. Saul & Patsy / Charles Baxter
2. The Time Traveler's Wife / Audrey Niffenegger
3. The Years of Smashing Bricks / Richard Katrovas
4. Everything is Illuminated / Jonathan Safran Foer

Four places I’ve lived

1. Shelby Township, MI
2. Kalamazoo, MI
3. Praha 6, Czech Republic
4. Washington, MI

Four Places you have visited:

1. Japan
2. China
3. Hong Kong
4. Canada ;)

Four places I’d rather be right now:

1. At a new brewery!
2. Toronto (my favorite city in the world)
3. Somewhere warm and/or tropical - I'd love to go to Mexico!
4. Kalamazoo with my college besties

Four things I don’t eat:

1. Bell peppers (especially the green ones, UGH).
2. Pop of any kind except ginger ale and the very occasional root beer.
3. Milk chocolate (ew - but dark chocolate: very yes).
4. Raw onions (I can do them cooked if they're small, but raw - no.)

Five of my favorite foods:

1. Nut butter (and nuts!)
2. TRAIL MIX
3. Sushi
4. A good bar burger + fries with malt vinegar

Four TV shows I watch:

1. The Following
2. The Walking Dead
3. Supernatural
4. Scandal

Four things I’m looking forward to this year:

1. Christmas!
2. 2015 Toast of Hockeytown with my wifey Alyssa
3. February trip to COLORADO!
4. Next October's Canada Tour with Tom

Four things I’m always saying:

1. I got this!
2. Fuck
3. I'm cold
4. Is it 4:30 yet?

On that note, I'm going to peel myself away from my warm couch, warm kitties and the book I can't put down even though I'm not really well and sure if I even care for it (I've finally deigned to read through the Game of Thrones novels - I'm on the third, and I'm not sure how I'm feeling about them but yet I can't stop reading, so I guess that's a victory for George R. R. Martin), and get in a morning workout in my new beautiful completed-at-last studio!

red wings open house!

Gym buddy Emily & I enjoying my second home.

Awww yeah, Jonny.

One thing (and they are few and far between) I love about working in the Automotive industry is that every so often we get some great perks like free sports tickets.  Wednesday night I had pretty much zero plans except hitting the gym on the way home from work and then a night in with my cats making shepherd’s pie and taking down Halloween decorations, and then a buddy of mine (also in the industry) sent me a text asking if I wanted to head down to Detroit with them for the Red Wings Season Ticket Holder Open House, which – of course!

I’ve done a lot of Red Wings events, but I’d never been to this one before – it ended up being similar to their HockeyFest event, but a little more focused & unique, being tailored to people who spend a whole ton of money on tickets every year and all.  There was a two hour window to get players’ autographs (you were guaranteed two with your tickets, but you didn’t get to choose who you got), which gave me the opportunity to pick up a handful of new autographed pucks to add to my living room wall decorations (I’m not a huge autograph person, and if given the opportunity I’d prefer to have a picture or a conversation, but I’m also a sucker for fun home décor & I have a set of autographed pucks adorning a couple mounted sticks above my mantle, so this was a fun chance to get more autographs without having to sacrifice something I’d want more – especially since you weren’t allowed pictures at all), and then bunch of other events going on around the concourse.  

400% where I want to be at all times.

Joakim and his sweaters; most favorite.

Table of beauty, right here.

I'd make that face too, if I were stuck between those two, Gus.

Swedish beauty.

Got my BFF a personalized puch; Kronner only misspelled her name twice...

My living room sticks are getting a little full...

We did a quick locker room tour (I’ve been in there before at the Toast of Hockeytown a couple years back, but never got to come in through the back way, so it was pretty neat seeing the bowels of the Joe), nabbed some autographs, took some cheesy pictures with a slew of banners, giant octopi, & whatnot around the concourse, and then it was time for the best part of all: skating on the ice at the Joe!

On the ice at the Joe!

Best gym buddy <3

Again, I’ve been down on the ice before for a post-game MACPA event, and also for the Toast, but never gotten to actually SKATE on it.  It was definitely awesome to be able to look around and have the same view the players have during games.  I spent hours teaching myself the tricks of skating at WMU’s Lawson Arena when I was in college, but I don’t get the chance to do it much anymore, especially not in an arena that seats 20,000+! 

We were only able to skate for 30 minutes, which didn’t satisfy my craving to be on the ice AT ALL, so I’m planning on making up for it by hitting the rink near my house tonight! (After a sparge structure-planning meeting at “K-Building”, of course…Aldebaran is back on tap!)

Thanks again to Emily & Jerry for giving me an awesome opportunity – hopefully my auto industry job comes through with some freebies I can return the favor with!

cask days 2014 standouts

Welcome to Quebec!

I’d be remiss to go to a beer festival & not even chronicle the most delicious, interesting, and uh…questionable?? beers I sampled, so here goes! 

Cask Days was broken up by region – so each province had its own section, plus a section for some UK imports and this years featured US region:  California.  It was so funny to us to see all the Canadians going crazy over the California beers – they cost double the tokens and everything!!  Then again, if I didn’t live where I had constant access to Stone, Green Flash, Lagunitas, Ballast Point, etc., I probably would have done the same.  The cool thing was that a lot of the California breweries had modified their beers for the cask process – so it wasn’t just Stone IPA, it was “Stone IPA with raspberries and jasmine and etc., etc.”.  Kinda cool that us Americans did get a little surprises taste as well.  So, for posterity (and so I can remember when they finally start internationally distributing!!), a brief list of some of the notable tastes:

Ballast Point Brewing - Victory at Sea with Cacao Nibs & Ghost Pepper;
I actually tried this pre-Cask Days at BarVolo, but had it again on Saturday as well.  The cask notes on the tap list at BarVolo didn’t list, of all things, the ghost pepper part!?!  My dad ordered it accidentally (his intention had been to pick up Dieu du Ciel’s Peche Mortel, but he misread the numbers), but this baby was delicious.  The ghost peppers gave it some serious heat at the end, but the thick chocolate stout part of it was the perfect balance for the spice.  I’m a big fan of the chocolate/chipotle beer (Odd Side Ales’ Mayan Mocha Stout is one of my all-time favorites), but usually the spice is a little more muted.  I really liked just how dominant it was in the this one.

Monkish Brewing Company - Brown Habit W/ Thai Basil & Sriracha;

This was my, “I couldn’t drink a whole pint of that, but…” beer of the festival.  I’ve never had the original Brown Habit (although now I’d really like to), but this casked variation of it was amazing.  It literally tasted like drinking a glass of Pad Cashew – but despite how that sounds, it was NOT disgusting.  The basil and the sriracha worked perfectly with the malts to give it that Thai food feel (sans-spice), and in a way that created this weird delicious savory beer.  Sometimes I feel like the additions to cask beers are just too much (seventeen kinds of fruits/flowers/spices are SO not necessary – now it just tastes like I’m eating somebody’s fruit salad floral arrangement & I can’t pick out ANY individual flavors), but this was cask experimentation done 100% right.

Stone - Sublimely Self-Righteous with Spruce & Cherry;

All of Stone’s offerings were variations of their mainstays (Go-To IPA, Ruination, etc.) with about a thousand different mix-ins added when they were casked.  Like I said above, I think a lot of them were just too much (my first beer was the Stone IPA with Raspberry, Jasmine, Lime, Chili and Mango, and I honestly couldn’t pick out a single one of those flavors except raspberry on the nose and a tiny bit of soapy jasmine at the end – it was just a cloying sweet muddle interrupting my IPA), but this one was spot on perfect.  The especially cool thing was that I’m not honestly a huge fan of Sublimely Self-Righteous in and of itself – it’s not a BAD beer, I’m just not crazy about the black IPA style in general.  The piney, resin-y spruce flavor and the tart cherries worked just PERFECTLY together, though.  They really brought out the roasty, malty flavors in the beer in a way that just worked.  I feel like hops often get buried in the roasted flavors of black/dark/whatever IPAs, but the spruce helped to really make that flavor pop and the cherry just added this lovely finish.  I tried a friend’s glass of this one, and I definitely wanted seconds.

Brasserie Dieu du Ciel! - Isseki Nicho Special Amarillo;

A collaboration between Dieu du Ciel & Shiga Kougen in Japan.  I’ve been interested in black/dark/brown/etc. saisons lately, and I tend to like them a hair better than their IPA breathren, but this one is billed as a hybrid of a Belgian saison and an Imperial stout, and it accomplished this brilliantly.  Strong, but tart, but roasty, and Amarillo are one of my absolute favorite hop flavors, so it had that bit of spicy, piney finish to it that set it apart from its Mosaic brother.  Also I thought it was really cool to see single-hop varieties of something that WASN’T an IPA – interesting to see how hops affect the flavor in a beer that isn’t necessarily hop-central.

Les Trois Mousquetaires – Reserve de Noel 2013;

When my buddy Pav handed me his jar of this, he did so with the information that this was “Christmas in a glass.”  Billed as an “extra strong” red lager brewed with Christmas spices & balsam fir and French oak, I’ve also see it called a “Grand Cuvee” (and we know how I feel about cuvees….), and weighing in at 10.5%, this was most definitely Christmas in a glass.  It was warm and welcoming and spicy and made me want to curl up on my couch and watch the snow with slippers on and Christmas carols playing.  The spice blend was just beautiful – not too strong that it overpowered the malty background (which was interesting in and of itself – I read later that the beer was made with 100% Quebec malt, and the bill included pils, rye, wheat, oat, cara 160, and roasted buckwheat, the last of which I think REALLY made this beer go a step beyond what I expected) like some “holiday” ales.  Somebody find me a bottle of this for Christmas, please.

Townsite Brewing – Timewarp;

When I got the initial list of beers available at Cask Days, this one was my “I HAVE to try this weird sounding thing!” selection.  I have gathered from the Townsite wesbite that this beer is normally a standard wet hop, but what really grabbed me about it is that it was listed on the bill as a wet hop with SMOKED HOPS.  Not smoked malt, but smoked actual fresh hop cones (Applewood smoked, at that!).  I generally like smoked beers, but moreso things like smoked saisons than smoked darker beers (although I have had ones I’ve enjoyed before, as well…), and this sounded so bizarre I had to try it.  It basically tasted like liquid smoke, earthy and ashy and….not awful, but not something I wanted to keep drinking.  Completely different than a smoked malt taste – and not quite the same savory beer experience I had earlier with the Monkish beer.  I’m glad I tried it but I’m not sure it’s an experiment I’d want to repeat.

Weirdly enough, a large chunk of my favorites were in the first couple hours of tasting – maybe, just MAYBE, my senses became a little dulled, as the festival went on???? ;) What I can’t believe is that there are pretty much NO IPAs on my list!  Then again, that was another kind of cool thing about the festival – IPAs are notoriously not the first choice of beers to cask, so many of the most interesting choices were a lot different styles than I would normally go for.  I tried to get in a good sampling of a bunch of different styles from a bunch of different regions, and while I did have some good IPAs (Fat Tug by Driftwood stood out, as did Four Winds Brewing’s Protect Your Nect, and Cameron’s Brewing’s To Catch a Brettator [although that one had Brett in it as well, so not just a standard IPA], but in general, they weren’t the stars of the show.  I think the best IPA I had all weekend was actually from Thumb Coast in Port Huron (although I did buy a bottle of Witchshark at Bellwoods, so it can’t be said that Toronto isn’t IPA-friendly).

Overall I sampled  HUGE number of mostly delicious beers – I don’t think there was anything I found completely awful, and definitely nothing I didn’t finish.  The only (and most!) devastating thing about the festival was that outside of the California beers, it’s going to be awfully hard to get any of these back here in the states.  Guess I’m going to have to head back…

toronto cask days 2014!

Daddy-daughter day at the Cask Festival!

Having been home from the Motherland for two days now, I can say with confidence that I vastly prefer trolling for craft beer and shenanigans in my favorite city in the world to working in the automotive industry.

Last weekend was a blur (literally, given how much beer was consumed on Saturday) of friends, family, cask beer & the Great White North.  I was invited by my dearest Ottawa-based friends to come up for Toronto Cask Days – to which I took the opportunity to invite my pops, who is not only my best beer drinking buddy, but also a native Torontonian who hasn’t been to the city he grew up in for over a decade – and immediately RSVP’d a resounding YES.

We took off for the city Friday after work, but didn’t hit the Blue Water bridge without a quick stop at Michigan Brewery #93 on my list – formerly Quay Street, now known as Thumb Coast (much catchier, IMO).  I had optimistically mediocre expectations, but was actually really surprised by how GOOD their beer was!  We tried both the Hitch Hiker IPA (solid, malty) and the Wet Hopped on Quay (bitter but not grassy with a sweet kick at the end), and then because they were so good, had to sample the Expedition Coffee Stout as well (very roasty, lots of coffee, but drier than a lot of coffee stouts, which was a nice change).

Back on the road with raisin tea biscuits in hand, we made AWESOME time to Toronto, where we checked in to our hotel, tossed our stuff down and bee-lined for Bar Volo for some cask beer pre-gaming and charcuterie.  I ended up sampling Great Lakes & Amsterdamn’s collaboration, “Maverick & Gose” (chardonnay barrel-aged Gose), and Bellwoods’ “Skeleton Key” (13% ABV spiced stout – wow).  My favorite thing about Bar Volo is the atmosphere – I’m not even sure how to explain it, it’s dark and homey and has a really great sort of comfortable after-hours coffee shop feel to it.  My last time there was early 2013, so I was pleased to see it stood the stand of time well (although I missed the couch!).  Having finished our beers, we somewhat fuzzily headed back to the hotel (but not without stopping for some late night hole in the wall shawarma sandwiches)…

Maverick & Gose!

The BarVolo tap list - 90% perfect except where are all the hops??

Saturday morning we rolled out of bed early, packed in some hotel breakfast buffet, and then hit the hotel fitness center where I got in a quick workout (ran 1.5 miles, did a little bit of weight and core work, and then practiced some headstands), and then it was time to meet all our Ottawa Beer Blogger co. friends!  We shuttled out to Evergreen Brickworks (which was just an incredibly cool venue for an event like this – half outdoor & half indoor, bustling with music & people & beers, and this really awesome urban outdoorsy steel-wood-greenery kind of vibe) and handed over our tickets in exchange for some really cute Cask Days mason jars and 4 (HA) tokens to begin our adventure.

The cool thing about having such a big group was that we basically set up a meeting spot and then we’d all break, get a sample, come back and pass it along until everyone had tried everything – rinse & repeat.  Of course when you figure in how much beer that resulted in all of us drinking….

Love & lagers with my ones of my dearest Ottawa friends, Pav.

Inside the Evergreen Brickworks - don't ask me how I managed to get a picture with not one cask in it!

I plan to do a separate post on some of my favorites, some standouts, and some uh, “interesting” samples – this would get waaaaay too long otherwise.  I’m not sure how many beers we tried, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I thought it was probably up around 100.  So many, in fact, that my distinct memories of the evening AFTER the festival are trying to do pull-ups on the subway car, and passing out in my hotel bed and missing our evening English Pub reservations (oops…).

Surprisingly (or not – as except for a hourish reprieve to wake up, go get Thai food carryout and stuff our faces, we slept about 12 hours), I felt AWESOME the next morning & was all geared up to meet the group for breakfast, exchange beer presents (them from Ottawa and me from Michigan, obviously!), and part ways as they sadly had to leave to get back to Ottawa for the evening.

My dad and I took the opportunity of a bit extra time in Toronto to walk down to the Eaton Centre so I could have a mini shopping spree at Zara (I fell in love with the store when I was in the Czech Republic – and there still are none in the US except Chicago!) and wander through the Hockey Hall of Fame store.  From there, we decided to be really adventurous/optimistic and walk the 5ish kilometers to Glory Hole Donuts (cheesecake donut, I will dream about you), and then back to Bellwoods Brewery (I had a Farmageddon, which was good, but did not live up to my expectations – I was definitely spoiled by my first Bellwoods experience being Omerta & Witchshark).  At that point we waved the white flag and took the street car back to the hotel to begin our journey to Collingwood to see some family and, excitingly, discover a new brewery had opened only moments from my grandma’s condominium!

My Eaton Centre dream come true~

Roman Candle & Farmaggeddon at Bellwoods!

Canadians know how to do frites right - with herbs, vinegar, and mayo.

Wise words from downtown Toronto.

We’ve been going to Collingwood for about 15 years now, and it’s been crazy to see how it’s grown from a tiny one-Tim little ski/resort town into a still small but definitely growing little area.  They have a really spectacular farmer’s market now, one of the most delicious Thai restaurants I’ve ever been to, and now, North Winds Brewing.  Again, I was really surprised by how quality their beers were, especially since we were told they only opened in August!  We tried a flight, and in the spirit of the weekend thus far, decided to make some choices that deviated from the norm – along with the standard IPA & saison, we tried their lager (DELICIOUS) and their Oktoberfest (which had beets in it!) along with our burger & macaroni, and it was 5 stars all around.  We ended up stopping back the next day for some bottles, as well as to grab some jars of Pickl’d fare (mmmmmmmmmmm pickled beets & wax beans…).

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and Monday we spent the day in the car, heading back to the good old USA.  We made good time, ate more tea biscuits, and toasted our smashing weekend back at Thumb Coast with one more IPA and the fish and chips we missed out on having Saturday night.  I miss my dear Ottawa friends already, the city of Toronto, which I think will always be my favorite place on earth, and even sitting in a car watching wind turbines for miles and miles and miles with classic rock in the background talking beer shop with my papa.  Can’t wait for Cask Days 2015!

fall things i'm loving

Happy Friday!!

I've been at Chrysler training most of this week, so I've been able to take advantage of some "weird" work hours, get in some extra (morning!) workouts, and feeling overall pretty great.  Not to mention I started out the week by getting to spend two days with my college bestie and I'm getting ready to head up to Toronto next weekend - life is pretty great, and here are a few reasons why!

• Hockey's back!  My Detroit Red Wings are looking much improved over last year to start off the season, and there's really nothing like coming home from the gym, flopping over on the couch and watching an evening full of hockey games.  I remember when I was in college and I could stay up all night long I used to get NHL Center Ice every year and literally watch games from 7 pm until about 1 am every night.  I knew every player in the league and then some.  Now of course, I'm focusing a little more just on my beloved Wings (and my latent Toronto Maple Leafs soft spot) and cursing when the game goes to OT cause I just want to sleep, but I'm still pretty stoked to see the season kick off.  It also means much more time spent with my absolute best friend in the entire world going to games, making road trips to other cities and arenas, and coming up with an unreal number of stupid inside jokes.

Opening Night pretty tickets thanks to a pretty great coworker!

The BFF and I - home sweet home at last~

• Kitchen sink spaghetti squash bowls. My new go-to dinner of choice is a big bowl of roasted spaghetti squash with the entire contents of my fridge emptied into it and then heated up with a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese.  My favorite lately has been chunks of chicken thigh, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh oregano, French onion cheese and a handful of mushrooms and broccoli sprouts, but I've also been making them with chopped up pepperoni, and today I had one with swiss cheese, a bunch of cajun spices and some jumbo creole shrimp that was to dieeeeee for.

Pepperoni, mushrooms, chopped up haricots vert, sun-dried tomatoes & broccoli sprouts in this bowl! 

• Family style chicken dinners.  Two weeks ago it was the Dam Site & Legs Inn, this week I had the pleasure of introducing my Western Michigan friends to the glory that is Frankenmuth.  There is absolutely nothing like a good Frankenmuth family style chicken dinner & eating stollen, salads, cranberry relish, stuffing, and chicken until you're so full it hurts.  Plus walking around the quaint little towns that house places like the Bavarian Inn (by far my favorite, but next time I want to hit up Zehnder's - haven't been in years!!) is a joy in itself. 

My very favorite <3  I can't believe people live in Michigan and have never been to this delight!

Of course I had to also introduce the boys to the Christmas insanity that is Bronners - how cute are these science-themed ornaments??

Just lounging in the World's Largest Christmas Chair...what??

• Blue Hubbard squash.  The menu at Frankenmuth always involves one rotating seasonal vegetable - when we went it was clearly some sort of squash mash, but when I asked our (adorable!) waiter what type it was, he said blue hubbard, which I had never even heard of!!  I took one bite of it and I was IN LOVE.  It was sweet and buttery and nutty and a thousand percent perfect.  Luckily for me, the Bavarian Inn grows them out back & had a ton for sale at only 39 cents per pound!!  I ended up picking up the SMALLEST one I could find, which was 12 lbs (!!!!) and taking it home, where I conquered it, roasted it, mashed some with butter, froze some puree (with which I plan to eventually make "pumpkin" butter), and used some to make these Ooey Gooey Pumpkin Bars from Paleomg (just subbing blue hubbard for pumpkin, obviously - THE BEST EVER).  If you have never had this, you need it in your life. Right now. Go.

12 lbs of rock hard blue glory.

Gooey, squashy, chocolate chipp-y delights.

Frankenmuth chicken dinner also always comes with soft serve ice cream dessert - I usually go with the vanilla/orange sherbert swirl, but when I heard they had a pumpkin seasonal, and then that the pumpkin seasonal was made WITH THAT GLORIOUS SQUASH, I was done for. I didn't think I'd ever eat again after that meal, but I could have ate twenty of these.

• Barre classes.  My new workout du jour.  I've been interested in barre for a long time, trying out some classes here and there both at Nafas and at Xtend Barre Rochester (which I enjoyed!), but my home gym (Life Time Fitness) introduced a new format, LifeBarre, recently, and I am OBSESSED.  For the first time I love a "strength" class almost as much as my beloved dance fitness cardio.  I've found two instructors I absolutely love and I've been doing barre just about every other day - plus my little home studio is coming along quite nicely to where I'll be able to do these workouts at home very soon!!

• Lions football.  Every year I try to get into football (I'm a sports girl, but I lean hockey/baseball), and every year I kind of fail.  I LOVE live football, but I have a hard time getting into it on TV.  This year, though, I've been turning the Lions on as background noise on Sundays, and after going to last weekends epic come from behind victory that we had NO right to make, I think I'm becoming a football girl at last.  I can't wait to go again!!

My very first piece of Lions gear and a seriously incredible game was a great way to end last weekend - and to lose my voice.

We instagrammed this one and ended up featuring on the #onepride screen at the game. Famous!!

Tom paid like $25 for this horse head. Everyone around us LOVED it.  What....???

Not bad seats - although we were at the wrong end for the exciting finale.

• Siggi's yogurt. I cannot get enough of this stuff.  It's the perfect thickness, creaminess, it's not gross and overly sweet, but it's a little smoother than super tart Greek yogurt - I love taking a carton of this, mixing in my body weight in blueberries and homemade granola & topping it all off with a big scoop of my other favorite (guilty) obsession - seasonal Jif Whips.

• Podcasts.  I never used to care for podcasts in general & I never really got the appeal, but once I got a desk job that initially involved a lot of data entry (not...so much anymore). Obviously I couldn't get away with watching movies (although I DID used to "watch," aka listen to with my phone's screen upside down so you couldn't tell it was playing video, documentaries at my desk), so I started getting deep into the world of podcasts.  My current favorites are: Girls Gone WOD, Strange Brews, Balanced Bites, Serial, and Welcome to Night Vale, among a huge list of others.

• Stillwater Artisanal Ales Gose Gone Wild.  AKA a remix of Westbrooks Gose, AKA the beer that introduced me to, and got me obsessed with, Gose.  I got lucky enough to stumble on this mega rare bottle yesterday at 8 Degrees Plato while I was picking up some Michigan beer treats for my Canadian friends, and of course I had to snatch it up.  Can't WAIT to experience this one all over again.

 

• My new studio mirrors.  At last!!  Hardwood floors complete, mirrors up, now I only need my TV mounted to truly have the mini-home studio I've been dreaming off.  And they were only $60 each from Home Depot!!

Now I'm going to go eat another "pumpkin" bar, catch the rest of the Red Wings game, and get myself ready to head up to Toronto for Cask Days with my pops and my Ottawa besties tomorrow!!