february aka the month of handstands

You guys, 2016 has been fabulous so far.  2016, the year of making shit happen, has been happening all the fuck over the place.  And thus, February: A Summary. I LOVE beer school.  I have learned so much, I have met so many people and networked with them and gossiped with them about the industry and I know so much SCIENCE.  My actual brewing is on a whole different level than it was even just last year.  I was never much of a science/chemistry/biology person before, but I am soaking this up and it’s fascinating.

• I put beer in my barrel for the first time!  My lil’ eggnog porter child is soaking in those delicious charred bourbon flavors & coming along very nicely.  This weekend I’m going to give it another little boost of vanilla, and hopefully by April we can bottle.

• I went, on a total whim, to a sour beer blending seminar in Westland on Valentine’s Day, sponsored by Fermenta (more on this later).  I was on my own because fuck it, I’m an independent adult and I can do things that interest me without needing someone to tag along, and I ended up seeing someone else who was alone and deciding we were going to be instant best friends AND THEN WE WERE, and by the end of the day we had drank all the Belgian beers, watched all the hockey, and then gone to another new-to-us brewery in Dearborn.  I’ve never in my life had a local, female friend as into beer (and hockey!) as I am, and I am over the moon about it.  We instantly decided that we were going to become immediately more active within Fermenta (okay, fine – Fermenta is a nonprofit Michigan-based society, basically, committed to camaraderie, networking, and education of women within the craft beer industry and it’s FABULOUS and full of so many awesome people & opportunities), which led to being involved in 2 brew days for the upcoming International Women’s Collaboration Day – so within the next week I’m going to have 2x actual large scale brewhouse experience (one of which we even got to be involved in planning the recipe for, and guys it sounds brilliant). Making shit happen!

Pretending like I didn't blend/drink two flights like this...

HI NEW BEST FRIEND.

• Also beer(ish) related – in lieu of Winter Beer Festival, said friend and I went on a mini beer tour (Griffin Claw, M-Brew, Michigan Growler Company, & then duck legs at The Bird & The Bread) which also included a stop at Valentine Vodka!  I’m much more of a beer girl, but first of all that place is amazing inside and second of all bourbon/brown sugar/cherry. And gin. All the gin.  Plus a complimentary tour and a little bit of knowledge about distilling?? Yes.

This weird yet badass thing at M-Brew.....okay sure??

Valentine Distillery old school looking bar.

The ambiance of this place was just fantastic.

Learning some distilling ;)

Gin/basil/cucumber + bourbon/brown sugar/cherry.

Nightcap Pine Drops IPA.

•  In the gym, I’ve still been doing boot camp 3-4x a week and yoga 2x, which is phenomenal and I can actually feel myself getting stronger, using heavier weights, feeling better during workouts, nailing balancing postures better.  I did a one on one session with my boot camp trainer to get more comfortable with barbells (not the movements themselves so much, but more so how to structure a workout, how to check my form, when to go heavier and how much), and now I’ve added in 2x a week sessions with the bar, and I can’t even begin to explain how good it feels to have a barbell on my back. (My super tight hip flexors tend to disagree, though).  I have a couple new lifting buddies, and our boot camp group has really started to coalesce into the fit fam I’ve been craving so much that I don’t even mind how insanely expensive it is on top of my (already expensive) membership.

Bootcamp Fit Fam <3

What a good shot I am!

• I also decided February was the month of handstands.  I’ve been wanting to do them for AGES now, and when I finally started being able to get them on a total fluke in late January, I instantly decided I was going to practice EVERY DAY in February in hopes of getting some more consistency.  I still struggle with pushing up into them without having momentum behind me, and it’s still a toss up as to how long I can hold them, but it’s progressing. I’ve even started trying without a wall behind me – but that hasn’t been so pretty.  It’s coming!

• I’ve mentioned before but my mother is a CPA, so during the heavy tax season months I cook two meals a week for my parents so that they don’t starve – and this year’s have been SPECTACULAR as seen below: (Grilled Cuban wraps & curry cauliflower, honey sriracha IPA & lime ginger wings, some badass superbowl pizzas [shrimp/onion/bacon/garlic & chorizo/spinach/mushroom], chicken thigh & chickpea tagine cinnamon roasted carrots, Thai turkey/chorizo meatballs with peanut butter sauce over sautéed kale & brussels with coconut aminos, Mongolian beef with cauli rice mushrooms & broccoli, smoked paprika shrimp & andouille sausage kebabs with grilled baby bok choy, and tomatillo pork chili verde so far. I’ve never cooked this many things so consecutively delicious & I’m dying.

So that’s it! February, you were badass.  March, bring it on – heavy back squats, heavy deadlifts, handstand pushups, a trip to NYC & ALL the brewing experience <3

michigan winter beer festival 2015 (aka: "i've never heard anyone say 'butterfly' with such anguish")

Greetings from Day 4 of an attempt to detoxify myself from the wildly absurd amount of alcohol I imbibed over the course of this past weekend.  I was a straight up tour de force of craft beer consumption and I regret none of it except the way my body felt midway through a 75 minute hot yoga session the other night.

Last weekend was Michigan Winter Beer Festival in Grand Rapids – and since my nearest and dearest college beer snob friends still live on the west side, it was basically a given that we’d be going, so when my Christmas present from them was a ticket & a membership to the Michigan Brewer’s Guild, I was zero percent shocked.

I’ve been to the Summer Beer Festival about four years running now, and it’s always a lovely experience – you romp through a really lovely green park in downtown Ypsilanti, it’s in the middle of the summer, so you can wear sundresses and stick your feet in the river and take drunk recovery naps in the grass all afternoon.  This is NOT that.  This is brutal Michigan cold (thank god for the sun) in a parking lot full of slushy snow that soaks through your ill-advised cable knit definitely not waterproof boots and numbs your fingers to the point that you forgo Untapping your beer selections after about stop #2.  This is spilling your sampler glasses because you’re bouncing up and down trying to regain feeling in your limbs.  Fortunately, this is also high gravity beer lover’s paradise filled with a whole lot of barrel aged glory that makes a bit of a dent in warming you up.

I rang in the weekend at my buddy Tom’s with ALL THE SHAWARMA and sampling a slew of beers he’d saved up for my arrival, including but not limited to a coveted bottle of Dino S’Mores – (it’s everything you hope and dream it will be) – before heading up to Grand Rapids to round out our party and get Festival day started off right at Brewery Vivant’s Brewer’s Breakfast.  Vivant’s always been one of my favorite breweries because it’s in a building that used to be an old church, so it’s full of vaulted ceilings, ornate wood beams, and stained glass windows.  Plus they make a MEAN farmhouse/sour/ beer.  For breakfast we all picked out a different option so that we could share – I went with a red-wine barrel aged saison with brett and the crispy breaded chicken and cheddar-bacon waffles with an herbed cream sauce and maple syrup and I definitely won the breakfast lottery on that one.  We also made out on an exciting limited can release that sold out before we even paid our bills….

From our friends in New Holland......my favorite liquor to kick off the night.

The newest in Bell's planet series - maybe the best brown I've ever had.

ALL THE SHAWARMA KING.

At last, my precious nightcap.

Brewer's breakfast at Vivant!

Second best chicken & waffles I've ever had

The festival itself was, as expected, seriously chilly, but a good time – full of bearded dudes with carb necklaces (my favorite by far this year was the guy who upped his game from pretzels/bagels to a necklace of English muffins [??? Don’t you toast those???], and one I saw that was straight up Samoas and beef jerky sticks) and semi-frozen tap lines. I’d made a pretty solid list beforehand of brews I DEFINITELY wanted to try…..and I hit maybe half of those.  Still, there were quite a few standouts:

• Gravel Bottom – Jonny Applebottom [rye whiskey barrel aged apple butter brown ale].  Never in my life did I think something barrel aged or something brown would be one of my very favorites, but this was SOLID. Perfect amount of sweet and tart and crisp and liquor – I could have drank dangerous quantities of that.  (Side note #1 – the RISin Dead [maple bourbon barrel aged Russian imperial stout] was a very close second here, and Side note #2 – I’d say Gravel Bottom was probably the brewery I was most impressed with overall for having never heard about previously.)

• Brewery Vivant – Fat Paczki [Belgian inspired ale with prunes & powdered sugar]. Brewed for Fat Tuesday, it’d be easy to dismiss this as just another kitsch beer (Rogue Voodoo donut beers anyody?), but this is actually really great. Drinkable, like a nice, dark, fruity Belgian, but a little lighter. Upset I missed out on the can release.

• Harmony – Capricorn [chocolate donut absinthe stout]. At one point during the day I met up with my lovely friend Kristine, who I had met for the first time in Colorado & who I had bonded with immediately over our shared experiences traveling to Prague, which of course entails drinking massive quantities of absinthe.  We toasted the lovely memory of Praha while drinking this beer, which, while I deign to say was “good,” definitely did taste exactly as advertised.  (To be fair to Harmony – we also tried the Fee D’Hiver [Belgian dark strong with sugar plums] and I was really impressed/pleased with that one…)

• One Well Brewing – Xalapa [jalapeno blonde].  Yet another style I wouldn’t expect to see show up on my own highlight list, but One Well did something really cool here – they used a very mild jalapeno to flavor the beer itself, & then offered raw jalapenos that you could add on your own to hit the spice level you desired. Pretty neat, and pretty strangely tasty.

• Perrin – No Rules [maple bourbon aged Vietnamese porter]. If I’m being honest, I don’t know what on earth a “Vietnamese” porter is, but it tastes friggin awesome.  We actually got this twice.

• Pigeon Hill - Oatmeal Crème Pie.  I’ve had various types of ambers and browns that tried to go for “oatmeal cookie,” with varying levels of success, but this one nailed the sweet spot right in between “delicious disgusting overly processed sandwich cookie” and “that one really creamy cinnamon shot you had twelve of before you realized it was a really bad choice.”  Awesome.

• Tapistry – Reactor [dry-hopped American IPA]. I had quite a few good Tapistry beers, but the thing that stood out about this one was that it was EXACTLY what I want in an American IPA. Crisp, a little green, nice hop bitterness……the sophisticated beer drinker’s lawnmower beer (and I mean that in the best possible way).

• Stormcloud – Red Wine Barrel Aged Fun Guvn’r [Belgian black IPA aged in red wine barrels]. I love hops. I love bitter things. I love Belgians. If I had to drink wine it would be a dry red with lots of roasty dark fruit flavors.  This was the first beer I had all day and damn if it didn’t set the tone.  Kind of wish I’d tried the straight up regular Fun Guvn’r just to compare.

• The Livery – A toss up between Maillot Rouge [oak aged sour biere de garde with raspberries] and St. Valentine’s Day Massacre [wild ale aged on blood oranges]. The first was the sour fruity delicacy I dreamed of all day, and the second was its sparkly, drier, less approachable best friend.

• Witch’s Hat – Bourbon Barrel Cherry Cordial Night Fury [imperial stout]. I mean….damn. Already a good beer, but now it’s syrupy and liquor-y and like a malty, roasty chocolate covered cherry melting in my mouth.  I wanted to never stop drinking this.  I’m still dreaming about this beer.

My Space Team <3 <3

Xalapa!

Met this lady in Colorado, reunited in Michigan.

Long lost beer running buddies.

Stella's Lounge in GR - good food, good beer, good arcade games - and also a ton of skeleton stencils.

Basically the coolest ceilings I've ever seen.

My poached eggs were a little cold, but they were covered in habanero hollandaise, so win some lose some.

All we could manage to imbibe at Osgoode's after the Saturday binge.

After all that…………………………………the obvious choice was to dump our things off at the hotel, change into dry socks, and head out to downtown GR for disgustingly big slices of spinach stuffed pizza, arcade games, and a growler of Anderson Blood Orange Gose from Hopcat, which we proceeded to drink until we passed out in front of some cooking show.

Sunday was mostly full of driving back to the real world – but not before hitting up the bloody mary bar/brunch menu at Stella’s Lounge (my salmon-y eggs benedict was all right, but the breakfast pot pie stole the show…..), and a quick flight at Osgoode’s – MI brewery #96!

what to do in upper lower michigan

Up North selfies with the Pappy the 25 cent forture reader.

Last weekend I made a quick pilgrimage up the mitten to spend a few days in Upper Lower Michigan with one of my dearest friends (from Dallas!), Cat.  When I was younger, my relatives (mostly great aunts and uncles) owned a fully-functioning farm (crops, livestock, hay-baling season, barns, a grainery, breakfasts of eggs from our own chickens, dinners of milk from our own cows, potatoes from our own fields, and hamburger ground up from our own cows, wood burning stoves & million year old beds you had to clean the dead hornet bodies off of before you could sleep) up in Cheboygan, MI, which we used to go spend weeks at a time at - something I didn't appreciate at all as a child, and now would kill to be able to experience as an adult (isn't that how it always goes?).

As a tiny kid I loved spending all day outside chasing barn cats & catching the tiny kittens under the idea that I could domesticate them & someday talk my mother into letting me bring one home.  As I got older, I graduated to begging my dad to take me golfing with him (AKA he golfed while I drove the cart and ate candy bars, and then we went and played some riveting mini-golf afterward) I remember being so bored by the farm as a kid that I literally brought my little 13" TV set and video game console up there so I could plug it in on the dusty couch in the "living room" & play Suikoden III all day long.  Seriously.  I could kick myself now - but to be fair, 16 year old me had no idea I'd one day be more obsessed with the idea of homesteading than with console gaming.

So I hadn't been up to Upper Lower Michigan for a number of years, and god knows when I ever planned on going again, until Cat revealed she was going to be in Michigan visiting her family who run the Dam Site Inn (shameless plug: this place is THE LITERAL BEST family style chicken dinner type restaurant I have ever been to in my life, and this is coming from someone who's been going to Frankenmuth, both Bavarian Inn & Zehnders, for just about as long as I've been alive), which is only about 20 minutes from my family's digs, and thus began a yearly tradition of Upper Lower Michigan excursions.

Extra lovely Polish family luncheon at Legs Inn.

In my church jeans (forgot to pack a pair that weren't oversized comfy travel pants...) overlooking the gorgeous Michigan coast.

Polish platter - veggies, three kinds of pierogi, kielbasa, sauerkraut, & golabki with the world's best sauce ever.

After a few visits we've sussed out our very favorite spots - we spent this past weekend revisiting all of them.  I haven't been up north during the fall in quite a while, and it's absolutely beautiful this time of year.  The leaves had all turned gorgeous shades of orange and bright red, and other than a dreary, rainy early Saturday, it was absolutely beautiful.  There isn't a lot to do up north except eat, but there were surprisingly few tourists, so we really got to experience the slow, easy pace of the area, indulging in a whole lot of whiskey sours, a bar simply called, "BAR," about a million fudge and popcorn samples, rice krispie treat tea, and homemade Dam Site noodles (thanks to the seriously awesome generosity and hospitality of the owners - thanks again for being amazing!).

My dream, since my first time at the Dam Site meeting everybody, has been to see it during all of its Halloween glory.  This year I finally got my wish.

Nothing is cooler than Pam's hundreds (literally) of super intricately carved pumpkins. I can't even fathom gutting all of these - or how many seeds you'd go through.

I love the wolves!!

The best breakfast in Pellston (or anywhere thereabouts).

My usual - 2 eggs over easy, 2 sausage patties, and 2 blueberry pancakes with fresh local maple syrup.  I judge diner blueberry pancakes by how blue the berries turn the batter, and these ones rank exceptionally high.

This is what cider mills in Upper Lower Michigan get up to......so cute!!

It's a huge shame that the family farm isn't up and running anymore (though we do still own the land & it is still standing, just non-operational), but we still have lots of family in the area, and trips up there are so relaxing.  Cat and I got away from our yearly trips for a little while because life got in the way, but after remembering everything there is to love about Upper Lower Michigan this year we're planning on remedying that.  (Plus, there's a new brewery in Harbor Springs that I haven't made it to yet!!)

hot date on the detroit river

In my favorite place, showing off my other favorite place; whats a Canadian/American girl to do?

Skye & I and the most obnoxious tech shirts
I have ever seen.

I did the best thing ever this weekend, which was a 5k for a super amazing cause that I wholeheartedly support with NONE of the mega-stress that usually surrounds a race for me (that impending doom leading up to the moment that it starts, then abates for the first two minutes of feeling good, and then picks back up and spirals into the WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF despair that keeps me company for the rest of the race as I feel like my body is being broken down into a thousand miserable little non-runner pieces).  Why? Because my non-athlete friend Skye was in town from Ohio to support the cause with me, so as part of the deal to get her up here I agreed to walk it with her.  HA!  Take that, running!  (I admit though, I felt super guilty watching people pass me knowing I could pace them or even finish before them, had I been trying - and also kind of disappointed that I didn't truly run it because the course was BEAUTIFUL.)

The race we ran was Mickey's Run up in Windsor, sponsored by the Windsor Spitfires hockey team. The Spits are near and dear to my heart, and even more so is former captain Mickey Renaud, in whose honor the race is held to benefit the Windsor Spitfires Foundation.  I wasn't able to run the inaugural race last year because it was the same weekend I had another 5k planned, so I was extra excited to run this year.

Part of the track we ran - the whole thing was this beautiful & I want to go back and run this course for real some day.

The beautiful finisher medals we got.

After the race, we headed down to take a nice walk by the Riverfront before coming back to Detroit, & then decided that it was such a beautiful day that we should take advantage of it by staying outside, so I drove us over to Belle Isle to spend a few hours!  I can't remember the last time I was on the island, but it was definitely a perfect decision. I've been wanting to go to the aquarium ever since it reopened.  I wasn't disappointed - it's AMAZING to see it in working condition again - and even more cool is the fact that it's still undergoing renovations, but instead of trying to hide it, the aquarium almost flaunts this fact, filling open display tanks with local artwork, advertisements for local interests and signs for coming attractions.  Hallways under construction are only haphazardly blocked off, so visitors can see the work being done, and the employees are more than happy to tell you what they're working on renovating next. Such an amazing display of what makes Detroit so special.  We also spent some time walking through the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum and dipping our feet in the river before heading back home.

Riverwalk selfie!

Belle Isle Aquarium.

The beautiful koi pond out back of the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory made me long to be back in Asia. I could sit out there all day just basking in how peaceful it was. Unfortunately there was a wedding photo shoot going on when we were there, so this is as close as we could get :(

Enjoying the beautiful Detroit River.

Of course I couldn't leave without some spoils from the LCBO..........

Amazing Michigan history including a full spread on the Edmund Fitzgerald (which, as I pointed out about forty times as we walked through, is also an awesome beer).

We could have probably stay there all day to be quite honest - but we ended up leaving around the middle of the afternoon to meet up with some friends, grill some delicious venison burgers topped with blue cheese & horseradish sauce & marathon as many episodes of Orange is the New Black we could before passing out (which was way early....being out in the sun all day is exhausting!). 

Most delicious lettuce wrap I've had in a while....

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you feel guilty when you don't put your all into a workout, for whatever reason? Do you find yourself spending the rest of the day trying to compensate for it?