adventures

the county fair!

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it's happened. i've suddenly found myself knee-deep in county fair culture and i don't see myself ever coming back. and i don't think i need to because there are multiple county fairs every weekend during the summer in minnesota and north dakota. multiple! is that normal? are you not technically a county unless you throw a fair every summer with fried food and creeptastic rides and 4-h ponies?

i'm really tempted to spend an entire summer only going to county fairs on my weekends for a statewide county fair tour. i think i would learn a lot. even just from going to this one, i witnessed my first cow competition, met the biggest bunnies i've ever seen in my life, and learned all about cat diabetes from a presentation by a kid who is sure to be a future veterinarian of america. there was also an actual hay growing competition! 

this whole time i thought that fairs were just about the fried food, but i've been proven wrong. 

i can't wait until i get to go to the state fair, where there is all of this fried madness and, rumor has it, an entire barn where you can watch animals giving birth. i meannnnnnn....whoa.

how was your weekend??

-yeh!

p.s. read all about what i ate at the county fair in last week's grub street diet!

pictured: bag // dress

new orleans

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i am back from the most pleasant weekend in new orleans, and with me i have brought: a newfound love of pralines ("prah-lines"), a southern accent for my inner dialogue (kind of like a fierce millennial britney spears, but i blame the fierce millennialness on all of my time spent with graham), and two very old used jewish cookbooks, one of which is littered with shrimp recipes.

new orleans just oozes with magic. i felt like i was owen wilson in midnight in paris, like i had just stepped into another time and place and there were so many new things to observe as an outsider, yet i was still made to feel so welcome. there were some very great quirks, like being called "baby" by everyone in the most non-creepy way, and turning down the colorful little streets to find six-person marching bands who could have marched right out of a dream. what a place! i've got to go back. just maybe at another time of year when it's not so darn sticky :)

here are some places i went and loved:

kitchen witch // a used cookbook store in the french quarter that makes you feel like you're in your grandma's living room, raiding her church cookbook collection. it's amazing. it's also owned by the sweetest lady ever. 

shaya // an incredible israeli restaurant where graham, beau, matt, and i stuffed ourselves silly. their labne = best i ever had. their hummus with curried fried cauliflower = good enough to make me feel like i could handle being a vegetarian. what!

meaux bar // lol, we might have all gone out for desserts here before shaya because that's how we do. they were v good.

pizza delicious // great ny-style pizza, amaaaazing garlic knots that graham and i could not stop eating, and a fun local vibe that was kind of like one part bushwick, one part park slope. i was down with it.

piety street sno-balls // sno-balls are like snow cones but the ice is much smoother... it really is more like snow. the one i had was nectar and wedding cake flavored and it could not have come at a better time, holy balls it is so hot in new orleans. 

sylvain // i went here twice! once for a fancy lady vichyssoise (there was caviar in it!) with a mind-blowing smokey buttermilk avocado kale salad, and once for all of the meaty fried brunch things with beau and matt and graham. everyone who works there is very wonderful and stylish, i want to be bffs with all of them. 

the old coffeepot // super cute, super old, diner-y, and with fun options like sweet rice donuts that were a new and interesting thing for me. not like rice flour, but actual kernels of rice... like a sweet cinnamon arancini. i dug it. this place also furthered my new appreciation for grits.

district donuts // ok so like i kind of feel bad for not totally taking advantage of all of the seafood in new orleans, but i had no choice, this place serves a mother fucking donut croque monsieur and a mother fucking donut caprese sandwich. wtf! slay me. and their regular sweet donuts are fantastic because they're actually not *too* sweet. so many hearts. 

cafe du monde // i honestly went here out of fear that someone would bite my head off if i told them that i went to new orleans but did not go to cafe du monde. waiting in line was a little bit reminiscent of standing in line at disneyland, because it was hot and crowded and smelled like fried dough, but in the internet age, it's fine, you just tweet. the beignets were great! glad i did it.

last but not least: thank you sooo much to the sustainable seafood blog project for having me down! graham and i made our food photography class debut and it was so much fun. we celebrated by shucking oysters and sipping satsuma rum with all of our cool new seafood blogger friends!! miss you all already!! <3

-yeh!

los angeles

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my los angeles routine was this:

wake up at 8ish, force myself down into the dark dungeon-y gym in my hotel, run, put my face on, and then park it in the big grand fountain lobby to work on my computer for however many hours i had. coffee happened in an untimely manner because there were no coffee pots in the rooms, but i made do with minimal complaining to twitter, and eventually started buying coffee the day before and leaving it on my nightstand so that i'd have it first thing in the morning. is that gross/are you embarrassed for me?

at some point in the afternoon i'd eat, usually from the little french cafe down the block, or if i was extra lucky, i'd go in a car with a friend and eat at the grand central market or bread lounge or a surprise yogurt event.

then i'd change into my black clothes and walk up a large steep hill to disney hall where i'd play an opera.

sometimes there was a cast party afterwards, sometimes i'd make my own party, sometimes i'd go the f to bed. 

that's it!

it was crazy, it was a lot packed into one small week, but it was so great to play the opera and really great to see my people, old/new/related.

here were places i went and loved:

eggslut // i've known about this place for a long time but i was always too afraid to tell eggboy about it because what would he think? would he want to move to l.a. and be with eggslut for the rest of his life?? whatever, it was fine. no, it was more than fine! the fairfax. the fairfax with bacon. oh snap it was good. 

madcapra // i shared a delicious falafel (square falafels!) with whitney and her adorable fam. that's them up there in front of the eggslut sign, aren't they cute??? 

bread lounge // mmmmmm jerusalem bagels + labneh + catching up with my willy wonka friend evan. i would go here every day if i lived nearby. 

lemonade // i would also go to lemonade every day if i lived nearby. it makes me want to eat vegetables.

bottega louie // my pops came to town towards the end of my stay! we brunched at bottega louie with eggboy, had a great grand macaron, and we did not stand out at all when my dad took a million pictures. that place is so instagrammable.

hedley + bennett // there was a sample sale at their headquarters (which has an indoor swing!!!) it was so much fun, i updated my apron fashions and met ellen, the owner, who is the sweetest.

poketo and alchemy works // two really cute stores on the same block!

pie hole // there was a pie filled with macaroni and cheese and i took three minutes off of my life with it and it was worth it. 

faith and flower // it was the *perfect* environment to hang out with a bunch of bloggers and eat whatever the kitchen wanted to bring us. it's also where i began to overcome my fear of hollandaise sauce because they have an eggs benedict pizza! 

break room 86 // it's an 80s themed bar with karaoke rooms, a michael jackson impersonator, and ring pops in the bathrooms. go there, don't drink "the purple rain," but do get up and dance. 

sqirl // we ordered everything. it was a break-the-diet meal for one of the singers, who had to spend a few months playing a starving 13-year-old girl in the opera, so it was a nice crazy way to break back into the world of carbs and cheese and i am very happy that i got to be a part of it. honestly, that ricotta toast is so extreme. or maybe you prefer the word iconic. it's both. 

-yeh!

new york

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bloop! greetings from los angeles, not new york. i know that's weird since all of these photos are from new york, but that's what i'm working with these days: a lot less internet, a vomiting to-do list, and operas every day. so all good things! (save for the to-do list.) all tasty things, all fun things, all things that include really awesome humans.

most of these shots are from a breakfast sandwich crawl that was strategically placed after the saveur awards so that a lot of the bloggers who were in town for that could come. it's true that we didn't stick to breakfast sandwiches and that we also made room for pie and poutine, but how do you not do that when a crawl takes you past 4 & 20 and mile end? 

meh!

eggboy has just arrived in los angeles, so i am going to take him to meet eggslut on this fine foggy morning. 

happy monday, everyone!

-yeh!

for a list of all of the places where we went on the breakfast sandwich crawl, check out donny's post!