Sunday Funday & Community Support

So we got that last bit of snow I wanted! Haha..ha..ha....oops. Sorry to everyone for ruining your first week of spring with my unfulfilled wintertime wishes! I can’t say I’m completely sorry though! It was really quite pretty. I was fortunate enough to remember to take pictures of some of the spring time flowers in the area before this weekend--something I’d been meaning to do!

I love crocuses (croci?) because they're the first hint that spring is coming!

Sadly, most of the flowers I’ve seen post-snow look a little bit worse for wear.

Sad flower is sad.

Another casualty of the snow, Church Hill’s Irish Festival was forced to close early on Sunday. But that was not before a few friends (@rvaplaylist, @kevinclay, and Cristina) and I had a chance to peruse the festival.

Perhaps put off by the forecast and cool temperatures, the crowds were thin--which made Andrew and I VERY happy, as we despise being rammed in the ankles by strollers (being driven by distracted parents who also forget the importance of the phrase, ‘I apologize for that!’) Kevin got his “best ever mac and cheese” made by the lovely people of St. Patrick’s Church. I’m not the biggest fan of their mac and cheese--though I know many would disagree with me. I have ridiculously high standards for one of my favorite foods. Still, that didn’t stop Kev from enjoying it.

I could watch this .gif for hours.

Andrew too. He’s enjoying it so much he had to look away from the camera in order to hide his tears of joy.

After that, it was a quick loop around the festival because the temperature was dropping RAPIDLY. I picked up my long sought after RVA Beard League sticker from Dash.

I fucking love mustaches.

And I got some green beads from the Irish American Society to add to my ever expanding collection.

I really love beads.

And we perused the wares of the vendors. We particularly enjoyed the Say Something Hats.

Don’t they look so handsome? Those hats are definitely saying something. Sadly I neglected to get a picture of Cristina in her fabulous fuchsia chapeau. She definitely looked Strawberry Hill ready!

After the hats and nearly getting run over by a herd of bagpipers (Kevin screamed when he turned around and saw them bearing down on us,) we all decided we wanted a sweet treat, so we headed to one of my favorite places in Church Hill: Sub Rosa Bakery. While en route, the impending winter-esque weather we’d been hearing all about began to come down in the form of painfully sharp bits of ice. (“You know how I--OW! DAMNIT!”) Sub Rosa was a welcome haven, after a few blocks of having this stuff pelted at us.

This picture is from their Google Places page.

It’s amazing. This bakery is one of my favorite places in RVA. It’s so amazing, I didn’t get any pictures of the food because I could only think of consuming the delicious baked goods when I got them. This “problem” has been the case every time I’ve gone there. My favorite item they have is, so far, the seeded braids. They’re chewy and buttery, and they have a spice that I can’t quite identify that makes the flavor so unique and lovely. We headed back to my place after the bakery where pastries were consumed and couch cuddles were had.

Soon thereafter everyone else left, and I got into my PJs, cuddled up in front of my space heater with Season 2 of The Simpsons, and proceeded to take a nice nap. Only to wake up to this:

It was so pretty out! I got a chance to enjoy the snow on my walk with the lovely Brittney, with whom I went to Patrick Henry Pub for some drinks and dinner.

Sunday Funday indeed! It was a really great day, I must say!

It’s worth noting that people attending the festival were much more well behaved this year than last year, aside from continuing to forget that you’re not supposed to park next to a fire hydrant. I’m not really worried about that though, because I have faith the Richmond Fire Department won’t hesitate to do this if my house catches on fire and there’s a car parked next to the hydrant:

Update: So I held off on posting this entry for over a week because I was determined to get up early, go back to Sub Rosa, and get pics of the pastries, but I never was able to get up early enough. Sadly, around midnight on 4/3/13, a fire broke out and Sub Rosa and the above apartment were badly damaged, which led to the building being temporarily condemned. It’s so sad and my heart goes out to the Sub Rosa family and the residents affected by this. I’m really glad everyone is okay.

Efforts are being made to assist both parties in the interim, while insurance does its thing. The community has been rather amazing in their response. It's made me an even prouder Richmonder. Three fundraisers have been organized, and I hope you’ll participate in one.

There's Indiegogo, which is raising funds to help both the residents and the bakery. Over $14,000 has already ben raised!

A food truck event has been organized, featuring some of Richmond's best mobile restaurants!

And The Roosevelt, along with several local (FANTASTIC!) chefs are holding a dinner next week--something I'm really looking forward to!

Also, very important, the residents managed to get their cats out, but they ran off in the chaos of the night. Please help them find their pets!



Here’s hoping the bakery will be up and running in some capacity soon (the owner thinks it could be anywhere from 4-6 months.) I'm so happy they'll be rebuilding!

And since that update was a bit depressing, even with all of the community support, here's a .gif of Kevin dancing in a wig.

My Valentine's Evening Was Better Than Yours

Any grandmothers or easily offended persons ought to go ahead and head over to YouTube and start searching for "pug puppies." It's just better this way because I'm going to upset you otherwise. Also, colorful language alert! If you don't know what that means you're also probably going to be offended by this post.




So yesterday was Valentine's Day.

Being a person who gives no shits about being in a relationship, I continued my tradition of cooking a really delicious meal and drinking copious amounts of wine, sans Valentine. I watched Criminal Minds (because what isn't romantic about a guy cutting off a girl's lips and putting them on his dead mother's corpse?) and I ate lots of chocolate. Feel free to tell me at any time how this picture could have been improved by a romantic companion. It couldn't have. Well…fine, no, no, I know what you're going to say, and yes, I suppose that could have improved things, but that involves all kinds of leg work—cleaning my room, putting on fresh sheets, shaving my legs, buying and cooking two steaks instead of just the one, I'd probably would have had to get a gift of some sort, plus a card that explained my feelings just so, it's just a lot of effort to put into that. Again, filing all of that under reasons why my Valentine's evening was better than those who had a Valentine.


I digress. Sort of, that's generally something I'm not known for.


So I made dinner for myself and it was delicious and terribly unhealthy. Paula Deen would have been so proud of me.

I made my "Dirty Girl Steak," along with a baked sweet potato, accompanied by lots of Flip Flop's Cabernet Sauvignon.

The steak was so delicious I had to brag to the world of social media, and in doing so, I caught the attention of a few people who wanted the recipe. Being a couple glasses in, (and by glasses I mean blue Solo cups,) I tweeted my recipe in a fashion that pretty much cements my future in the culinary world.



"Filthy Fucking Recipe for my Dirty Girl Steak:


Enough brown sugar until you think you have enough, enough McCormick's Montreal Steak seasoning until it's enough. Rub on steak. Massage steak--it's had a hard day. Rub the tension out of it. Let it rest for an hour. Melt a stick of butter. Dice 3 cloves of garlic. Heat pan to med-low (about 3 out of 9.) Introduce butter and garlic. Let the butter and garlic make friends--let the garlic get golden. Salt and pepper the garlic while it's in f$%king butter. Let the steak make sweet, sweet love to the melted butter and golden garlic for 10 minutes—don't interrupt their time together. DON'T. Flip steak when it's browned about a 1/3 of the way up. Let it f%#king cook for another 5 minutes, spoon butter and garlic over steak. Don't let the garlic burn. Keep it cooking for another 3 or 4min, depending on how you like your steak. Put on plate, pour butter and garlic onto steak, put in mouth."



Clearly my career path is set, and yes, that all went out to the world of social media. And they are all waiting for my cookbook.

 In all seriousness, the steak was probably lightly poached by cooking in that much butter and at that low a temperature. The result was a really nice texture—the meat and the fat practically melted into each other, and if you know my tastes, you know I can't stand fatty meat, but this time I really didn't care, it was that good. The garlic got crisp and the caramel-y crust that the brown sugar and Montreal seasoning created this really amazing, chewy, crunchy feel. The sweet potato was a lovely side with its salt, pepper, butter and brown sugar (seeing a theme here? It's called "tying together the meal." I think Sandra Lee taught me or something…). I must say though, the sweet potato, while tasty, was hardly needed. Not with that steak. The steak was the star. The foodgasm was everything I needed.

I'm sorry Grandma(s) if you've continued to read this. I did warn you though. And maybe I should apologize to my parents. Maybe. They shouldn't be surprised. In any case, here's a picture of a pug puppy in pajamas to make it better.

Sorry.