Category: Restaurant Review (Page 1 of 58)

Two Birthday Week Meals

Parental Murphy’s Law states that every time you request time off in advance, someone gets sick.

It could be you! Or, it could be one of the kids. Someone’s going to get sick and so you’ll all or part of your days off taking care of someone sick.

During my birthday week, Artie got sick.

Our pediatrician told us to bring him in before the weekend when everything seems to implode.

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Frozen Food Reviews: Summer Edition

So, some of this stuff isn’t frozen, but it’s just easier to call it that.

Unfortunately, I can’t remember the prices on most of these items. Costco trips are a blur since we take the two kids. They always end up with us sharing a hot dog and slice of pizza in the food court until the baby has a melt-down.

This summer has gone by fast. Work has had some unexpected twists and turns – and then the weekends are busy with trying to entertain the kids at parks or family parties. We’re really looking forward to the state fair.

This might be the first year in seven that I can actually celebrate Halloween! I’ve either had a job that was involved in Open Enrollment on Halloween – last year, I had just given birth to Artie. As always, I’m planning to get an early start on celebrating fall.

Such is life taking care of two tiny ones, some weeks we’re thriving, other weeks we’re surviving.

Here’s a run down of frozen/refrigerated foods we’ve tried from Costco + Fresh Thyme. Plus a few bonus favs at the end.

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Lost

When’s the last time you’ve been lost? Really, truly lost?

I’ve always been prone to getting lost. To this day I have no sense of direction.

Back when I learned how to drive, we relied on maps. We had to.

My parents and grandparents always had maps laying around – AAA maps and giant Rand McNally maps that unfolded into a million squares and were impossible to put back together.

Eventually the internet brought us Mapquest. You could simply type in two destinations and it would give you a route. My generation’s car floors were carpeted with Taco Bell and Mapquest directions.

Sometimes the instructions were wrong or you missed a step.

Boom, you were lost!

When I was a new driver, I got lost on the way home from a friend’s house. They thought it was funny when I called them crying asking, “WHERE AM I?!”

Without smart phones, a common thing to do when you got lost was pull into a gas station and ask for help. I haven’t had to do this for decades.

Smartphones were the best thing to ever happen to me. 

I haven’t been lost since. Well, until last week.

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Summer update + Two Patios I Like

A quick summer update. . .

Baby’s actually sleeping well! Work is stressful, but you can’t say they aren’t giving me learning opportunities. I haven’t gotten to watch anything good on TV but I did read Killers of the Flower Moon in a single weekend because I couldn’t put it down.

The toddler is as busy as ever. Last night she ate half my bowl of spicy Desert Fire from Green Mill. I was too impressed to be mad.

We’ve been eating out less and grilling more.

I made this Spicy Pork Bulgogi marinade and it was fantastic –  worth the work. I bought most of the ingredients from Seoul Foods in Fridley.

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But is this the best banh mi? Gion.

You know how sometimes someone you know will claim something is the *best* restaurant or food and you know it’s probably not?

At my previous job, I worked with two women who would bicker all of the time. They would turn staff meetings into Dwight Schrute vs. Dwight Schrute pissing contests.

Even though I’ve attended culinary school, worked in restaurants, and dedicated most of my life to trying and writing about food, they acted completed disinterested and dismissive about anything I said about cooking or dining.

One in particular would lecture me on how I could prepare very simple dishes.

I started to play it off and pretend I was actually really bad at cooking.

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