Tag Archives: restaurants

quiet end of summer days

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Maybe with the gradual approach of cooler weather and shorter days, I’ll be a more regular correspondent here.

In the meantime, I am keeping busy but not too busy and enjoying a lot of quiet time to mentally recover from a busy year. And establishing a new normal.

The weather is still warm but turning rainy and the evenings are wonderfully cool. Occasionally scented with woodsmoke. Autumn is stalking the fields.

We have several things on the calendar, including a trip to Charleston and a couple of live events (Marc Maron, Gorillaz). This weekend, on a beautiful rainy night in Detroit, we had a fantastic meal at Mad Nice and then walked with our umbrellas to Orchestra Hall for the Miles Davis and John Coltrane at 100 concert.

I’ve been to Ohio to visit Brandon in his new little apartment and we went to an amazing county fair that inspired so much nostalgia for both of us. We both grew up in the rural Midwest, he was in 4H and while I wasn’t, I still have great memories of county fairs.

His living situation is a little unique (this is consistent for him). I won’t go into details but he lives in a very historic neighborhood and has a ground floor apartment in a small house set behind the row of massive Victorian mansions that are now…funeral homes. He shares parking with a hearse. I was a little distressed at how sparse it was when I first arrived.

We had great fun thrifting to decorate his small living quarters and found some treasures. We also got him a small loveseat and ottoman and a rug, and I got him a plant, and once he has his books and art in, it has the potential to be a charming jewel box of a place.

My daughter is adjusting to her first month at college and I am so proud of her. We talk a lot and every time my phone lights up with a call from her, walking between classes, my heart lights up too. I have also loved curating little care packages for her, remembering from my own fraught transition away from home how much it can mean to get mail.

As for me, I am enjoying the few nights a week on my own. I cook if I want and don’t if I don’t want. I read books on the couch with the cats and drink lots of tea and go to bed early or late. And just when I start to feel a little isolated, Brandon is home for the weekend again.

end of march catch-up

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Hello from SE Michigan where winter is hopefully dwindling and allergy season has yet to start cranking. It’s a rare moment of quiet around here, Spring Break for our area schools and the kiddo is off in warmer weather and sunshine with her father. When she gets back, soccer and spring activities will come roaring back, and then – everything that comes with graduation.

My daughter has begun to finalize her plans for next year, and I’m so proud and excited (and sad, but trying not to let that show too often). This is the season where everything starts to become real.

We went to the Whitney Hotel in Detroit to celebrate and if you are ever nearby and want to splash out to celebrate something, this is a place to go. It’s a fine restaurant and bar in the home of a Gilded Age lumber baron, filled with its original woodwork, art, and Tiffany glass. (And possibly a ghost or two? The top floor bar is named Ghost Bar accordingly.)

I’m working on her college dorm room blanket (the Cozy Comfort throw) and her winter scarf (the Bug Collection scarf). These are both longer term projects and although I try to pull them out of my knitting basket multiple evenings a week, this past month they took a little backseat. I ordered a beginner embroidery kit from Clever Poppy and absolutely loved it! I finished it up and ordered another one.

I made some charm kilt pins, and also fell down the sourdough rabbit hole and although I haven’t had much success with my first couple of loaves, my starter is still pretty young. I’m following the Kelly Welk tutorials on YouTube and hoping for a good focaccia here very soon.

March was also a good month for books. I read “Coffin Moon” by Keith Rosson and although it’s definitely not for everyone- it’s horror, and pretty gory horror at that – it was one of the first books of the year that I couldn’t put down. I’m also progressing through Juno Dawson’s “Her Majesty’s Royal Coven” trilogy and although it took me a little while to get into it, by the second book I was hooked. I find a lot of fantasy formulaic and simply not very well written, but Ms. Dawson’s characters are interesting, very diverse and appealing, her stories move quickly, and I like her enlightened, progressive feminist and queer themes.

I hope that you all enjoy the beginning of spring (or autumn, in the Southern Hemisphere) wherever you are. And my personal opinion- even if you don’t celebrate Easter, there’s nothing wrong with crunching the ears off a chocolate bunny.

weekending

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After our short week, we really needed another long weekend, but what we got was a normal sized weekend which felt insufficient. Regardless, it was what we had to work with so we went with it.

Miss L was with her dad, so Brandon and I took our long run out to Kensington and did the 8.5 mile loop around the lake. The weather was ideal – bright and clear, but cool, and we had the added bonus of seeing a cross-country meet in action. The antelope-like high school runners gave me a bit of motivation as I slogged my weary way up and down the rolling hills. I felt good for the first 3 miles, bad for the next 3, and good for the last 2.5. Sadly, in the middle 3 we ran past a horrific biking accident on the paved trail. We’re not sure what happened, as by the time we ran past there was a small knot of onlookers calling for emergency services and administering aid to a fallen biker. She was unconscious and there was blood, but she was wearing a helmet, so my prayers are with her that she received medical attention quickly and won’t suffer any lasting repercussions. WEAR YOUR HELMETS,  BIKERS!!

I took a blissful nap and then Brandon & I drove down to Detroit for dinner at Flowers of Vietnam. This is a lauded restaurant in an old refurbished Coney Island in the middle of Mexican Village – you can tell it was a Coney, but the former pop-up has given it some more polished touches. They’re known for their caramel chicken wings and dear Lord they were to die for. Sweet, sticky, crunchy, chili-hot. Brandon ordered the enormous broken rice dish (with a full pork chop, prawns, and a full sausage) and I had a cold noodle dish with rosewood grilled tofu and Vietnamese-style egg roll. My mouth is watering just writing this. I enjoyed a cold glass of rose and afterwards, we wandered down to Motor City Wine, a cool little shop / sipping bar in Corktown. The patio is supposedly fun, but we just sat at the bar – I had glass of dry Austrian red and Brandon had a delicious cold, sweet Italian red. It was so good that we’ll be back to buy bottles for Thanksgiving or Christmas celebrations.

The weekend ended with more worrying about Pot Roast, whose tummy is still afflicted, and grocery shopping / dinner planning / food prep (maybe those two things shouldn’t be joined in the same sentence?) I did a vegan Pad Thai recipe that will be 2 lunches, I have some leftover quinoa / white bean skillet for 1 lunch, and a Buddha bowl of sweet potato, sauteed kale & black bean, corn and edamame with cilantro and some Bolthouse Farms avocado / yogurt dressing. Brandon’s movers are bringing over all of his belongings from storage at his parent’s house this week, so our full integration will be complete; and the week ended quietly with herbal tea, WRCJ jazz on the radio, Emmett on the chair next to me, incense and a brand new 1,000 piece seasonal puzzle from my mom. We may still be working on it at Christmas…

Be well and have a lovely week, friends.

apparatus room + spring break

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Last weekend, B & I had an official date night. We drove downtown and hit Warby Parker for some spectacle shopping (we both found pairs that we like) and then got a drink at the Buhl Bar. Buhl Bar is NOT a dive bar – it is a small, intimate corner bar that apparently was private for awhile and has only been open to the public for a few years.

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It was a blustery evening, but we shared an umbrella and walked down to the Apparatus Room for our reservation. Apparatus Room is on the ground floor of the Detroit Foundation Hotel, which used to be the Detroit Fire Department headquarters and still retains emblems of its past. Big red doors swing open in airy arched doorways; there is a chic post-industrial feel, brick and even fire poles, and art by local artists. There’s also a podcast loft, which we heard about from Karen and Georgia during their My Favorite Murder visit to the Fox Theater a few weeks ago.

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The chef has a 2 Michelin star rating and the food was wonderful. I had the miso eggplant and two glasses of buttery, beautiful pinot noir; B had scallops and we split the Brussels sprouts. It was a delicious evening and we can’t wait to go back. We capped off our date night at home under blankets watching the Motley Crue tell-all on Netflix, which we also thoroughly enjoyed in an entirely different way than our classy Detroit evening.

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In other news, it’s Spring Break week for Miss L so I am trying to wrap some things up at work and then take off up north for a few days with my folks. It’s not exactly the warm tropical destination that most people seek out for their Spring Break, but we never considered doing anything else. Miss L loves her grandparents, it’s the height of relaxation, and having a few days to sleep, knit, read, and maybe do some running, hiking, and shopping is perfect. And I do love a cold winter beach.

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the “killing commendatore” socks matched the cover of the book i was reading

So far this year, I finished one pair of socks, and they went so fast that I immediately cast on for another pair for my mom, thinking that I could get them done in a few weeks and then start the sweater that I’m planning. (My first sweater!)  The second pair, however, have taken forever, and then I ran out of yarn (!!! – the problem with using stash yarn that looks like enough but is just a bit short). So I went to my fave yarn store for a similar colorway and decided to just do the toes in the new colorway (which meant I had to rip back the toe in the sock I’d finished already).
Hopefully I can wrap these up this week and cast on for my new project – yes, the sweater. MTC and happy Spring Breaking.