Bring on the Sweets: Pre-Valentine's Day Indulgences

Friday's trip back to Wisconsin proved to be a little heavy in the driving department. Big ups to gerg for driving his truck (my heater went out this past week, so he offered his truck so we wouldn't freeze). We helped ourselves to my favorite car treat: Twizzlers (photo snagged from Kate Eburg). We stayed with the hermans; joshherman is hilarious. In a goofy celebration of snow, we were surprised with joshherman's self pile drive into a gigantic pile of snow in his backyard at 2am; as you might be aware from the above photo, they love winter.

Had a surprise dinner in Oshkosh with the Miksics. It was great to catch up with the three and to check out Water City Grill. The sesame seared ahi continues to be my favorite (it's accompanied by shredded Napa cabbage and enoki mushrooms then topped with wasabi oil).

What made the drive super interesting were several podcasts that gerg and I both really enjoyed, about 12 from Inside Home Recording and a bunch of Musicheads podcasts from The Current.

Saturday night we bopped over a little on the late side to Brandi's bday party. Happy birthday Brandi! Unfortunately, we left our camera in the car. Highlights: the brie with dried cranberries, brandi's new sock monkey slippers, and talk of the new house.


photo from www.roadfood.com


On Sunday, after errands, gerg treated me to Cafe Latte. He's mentioned this joint a couple of times, but yesterday we finally made it there, and boy-oh-boy, I can't wait to return. It's a gourmet cafeteria, basically. The first thing you notice when you walk in is their dessert case. However, you must somehow drag yourself away to go and order some of their amazing salads, sammiches, breads and/or soups. I ordered the Tuna Francais and gerg had a Chicken Ceasar Pasta. It's one of their most famous salads, apparently. I appreciated the snappy green beans paired with fresh albacore. I sided mine with a hunk of freshly house-baked 10 grain bread and gerg selected the st. paul sourdough. We even selected a bit of basil and sun dried tomato spread for our bread. SO TASTY...creamy, savoury, with slightly tart tomatoes.

Then finally, DESSERT. gerg had a piece of German chocolate cake (pictured above); I opted for their raspberry white chocolate cheesecake (they serve over 30 varieties o' cheesecake). The buttery crust was tickled with small chunks of white chocolate, which added a welcome sort of crunch to the cheesecake, which was light, creamy, and sweet, and dotted with raspberries; the whipped cream piled on top was folded with chilled raspberry compote to make it perhaps the best-tasting restaurant cheesecake I've ever eaten. Definitely the best in the Twin Cities, for me.

Did I mention they also have a pizza station? And coffees! And teas! And even an high afternoon tea with scones and heady teas. I seriously would go back today, except I've used up my lunch hour writing this blog!

We took everything for takeout to get home in time for the Grammys. Highlights: Imogen Heap's hair, Justin Timberlakes performance (My Love is my new fav jam), and The Police performance. Lowlights: gnarls was a bit boring, Mary J Blige gave an annoying acceptance speech; Beyonce's song was blah (even though her dress was VA VOOM!).

During our outing, we caught a bit of the Original Mark Edwards interview on the Local Show. Word on the street is that he gave a shout out to Dallas Orbiter, although we missed it. Check the archives latron for the full interview and in-studio music making of OME. His CD release party will be at the Varsity Theater on Saturday, Feb. 17. gerg and I will be there; FO SHO. Also, don't you think his site is super cool? I do.

Looking forward to the OME show, my Valentine's Day date with gerg, and the Oscars!!