Laramie Food

A few weeks ago I visited my wonderful family in the great western town of Laramie, Wyoming. Highlights from the visit home:

• spending time with a fabulous mother, father, and brother
• enjoying the unbridled affection of a certain labradoodle
• enjoying the sleepy indifference of a beloved yellow lab
• 16-mile bike ride heading towards the mountains
• favorite restaurants

Going home always makes me feel like there’s just not enough time to fit in all of my favorite restaurants and at-home meals. During this latest visit, two restaurants made the cut. The first: Altitude Chophouse and Brewery.

One of Laramie’s finer eating establishments, Altitude almost always has a wait. After a little confusion as to where we could be seated, we got a table and ordered quickly. Our choices: burgers (with waffle-cut fries, of course!) and a vegetable pizza.

Delicious. As usual. 🙂

The second restaurant we ate at during my visit was Jeffrey’s Bistro. My obsession with this restaurant started during my sophomore year of high school. Yes, obsession was the right word to use in that sentence. Why? It’s a simple answer: tortilla soup Tuesday. This is not your grandmother’s tortilla soup (if your grandmother even makes such a thing). This soup is creamy, tomato-y, topped with melted cheese and tortilla strips, served with warmed wheat rolls, and has the most unparalleled taste of comfort I have ever experienced. Hyperbole, you ask? No way. GO TO JEFFREY’S ON A TUESDAY AND TRY THIS SOUP. You will see what I mean. 🙂

Starting during my sophomore year of high school, myself and a group of about 20 others went to Jeffrey’s every Tuesday for lunch. Sometimes our bowls would even be waiting when we arrived. 🙂 Often times, I would go back for dinner and get it again that night. Sometimes I would go after school to get it again as a snack before sports practice. Like I said, obsession.

Anyway…unfortunately, I was not back in Laramie on a Tuesday, so there was no tortilla soup in my life during this visit. Outside of the tortilla soup, Jeffrey’s is still top-notch with several delicious menu items (and their desserts are phenomenal!). We ordered marsala chicken with apples and sage, Asian-glazed halibut, and the Thai burrito.

The thai burrito was my order, and it was tilapia, cabbage, mushrooms, carrots, and spicy thai sauce. It came with refried black beans and brown rice.

As I mentioned before, although the food is great, dessert can really steal the show at Jeffrey’s. All of the desserts are homemade (including the ice cream), creative, and deliriously delicious. We ordered a health bar mousse torte (which was milk chocolate homemade ice cream layered with heath bar bites) as well as a blackberry crisp.

In case you couldn’t tell, my visit home was definitely a food success. Thanks, Mom and Pop! ❤

Free Birthday Fitness

Great things about having a birthday:

1. People you haven’t talked to in years will write on your facebook wall to wish you well

2. People you talk to regularly will do something nice to reinforce your mutual affection for one another

3. FREE STUFF

Lots of restaurants give you a free dessert (and haven’t we all misused this perk to surprise an unsuspecting friend on their non-birthday…or just to get a free dessert? nope…just me?), a lovely sandwich shop in Northfield, MN will give you a free hoagie sandwich, and right here in Minneapolis you get the gift of fitness. Gym rats, yogis, and cross fit addicts everywhere know that fitness doesn’t come cheap. Just a few examples…

Cross Fit monthly membership: $170

Yoga Studio Monthly membership: $120

Pilates/Barre Monthly membership: $160

So, the birthday gift of free fitness is really a gift. Instead of paying $38 for drop-in class rates, I received a free class at Corepower Yoga and a free class at Allign Pilates – just for being born.

I’ll take it! Naturally, I knew right away the only Corepower class I could even consider was sculpt.

Corepower sculpt, I love you. If only our relationship depended on more than money…

At Allign Pilates, I took a barre class. Holy cow, this was a tough class! Although I wasn’t quite as fatigued as after a sculpt session at corepower, the exercises at a barre class are more unique and make me feel like I’m using totally new muscles (or at least using them a lot more than I’m used to). If your legs don’t shake at a barre class..hats off to you!

And, since I can’t justify doing another birthday post more than a week after my birthday, the last b-day related pics are from a lovely dinner with friends. Featured dishes: cheese and crackers, sauteed summer squash, and rosemary flatbread from Smitten Kitchen (topped with caramelized onions and blue cheese).

Good things all at once

Have you noticed that often good things come in sets? Maybe it’s the inertia of the universe, but things are on the up right now, and I mean really on the up. Tonight, for example, three great things happened in quick succession.

First, pedicures at Darrin James:

Second, a stop at Whole Foods for dinner from the hot bar:

Did anyone notice that I wore my pedicure slip-ons into the store?

unknown….

Third, flowers!!!!!

You may think my above usage of five exclamation marks is a bit excessive. But really it’s not. Because that’s how excited I was to receive this package. 🙂

In other news…I recently returned from a trip visiting my family in Laramie, WY (more on that coming soon). After being at home a couple days, I already feel nostalgic for the ease of being at my parent’s house. No overflowing fridge and pantry? No doting adults eager to do whatever you want all day? No complete and utter lack of responsibilities? At home, even our dogs get magazines:

Now, I’m back in the independent world. But I can’t complain. It’s summer, there’s watermelon, and – like I said – good things come all at once.