From the category archives:

Beer

News Report…

by agirlandhermutt on October 6, 2011

Ok, so I have some good news and some not so good news. Lets start with the good news. Everyone always wants to hear positive things first, right?

Good news: I saw The League LIVE last night at The Wilbur Theatre.

Not familiar with The League? It’s a tv show about a group of friends who are in a fantasy football league together. Its on FX and has the whole Its Always Sunny in Philly vibe. I love this show and it literally makes my sides hurt from laughing on each episode.

One of my favorites, Nick Kroll, is part of the show and he was part of the live show last night too. Nick=Hilarious and oh so cute.

The show last night started with four of the stars coming out to chat and just get the show going. Clips from the new season were next (premiers tonight!) and then each of the guys came out to do his own comedy set. They were all great, but Nick was a standout for me.

Before the show The Scientist and I met up to grab some dinnah and drinks. We met up at Rock Bottom Brewery, a place we tried when we first met.

I did a little investigation of the nutritional value of the menu before I went and eek…there were few things I was craving after that. Wowzas. I decided the best bet was to drink most of my meal. Rock Bottom makes their own beers and I was happy to judge them.

Chicken & Artichoke Soup w/ a nice side salad and a crap load of beer tasters.

The beers I tried included a Kolsch, Belgian White Ale, Red Ale, IPA, Special Dark, Rocktoberfest, and a Saison.

The winners for the night were the IPA and Saison. Both were refreshing with a slight floral taste. Two thumbs up.

The whole night was a blast and a great evening out in the middle of the week. Definitely give the show a try tonight and be prepared to laugh!

In other good news: I am down 5.2 lbs more this week. I know, right?! The past few weeks I have been really diligent about tracking what I’m eating and drinking TONS of water. The exercise hasn’t been as frequent as I would like, but it will come. I’ve also managed to really balance my diligent tracking with some fun. I’ve enjoyed a few beer tastings (tastings instead of gulpings?!) and indulged in some great food. No guilty conscience here.

Ok, now for the not so good news…

There is no bad news! I’m down 5.2 lbs, I saw The League last night and its Thursday! How could I complain about any of that?! I just always wanted to say I have Good News and Bad News.

Have a great day kids!

What is your favorite tv show of all time?

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Local Lovin’…

by agirlandhermutt on October 3, 2011

This weekend marked the 2nd Annual Boston Local Food Festival and I was on-hand to enjoy all the goodies out to offer. Last year it was a beautiful day and I was totally overwhelmed with all the great food. This year the festival was obviously much more popular so it was packed to capacity. Many restaurants came out to participate so the amount of food in one little area was crazy. Add in the farmers, exhibits and performance space and it became insane. You know, in a good way of course. ; )

The Scientist and I had tickets to the 1:30 session of the Local Craft Beer tasting so we decided to grab a quick bite to eat to help soak up all the beer.

Grilled cheese to the rescue. Is there anything as cool as lunch from a food truck?! Nope. I didn’t think so.

We decided to snack on half of a Blue Man Goo, which is a nice mixture of blue cheese and fig spread on raisin pecan bread. It was a great mixture of sweet and salty. I’m glad we only got a half though because a whole of this mix might have been a little too much.

We arrived at starting time at the beer tasting and got to work. They had a showing of about 11 places that were serving beer, wine and mead.

Some of my favorites for the day were:

Cambridge Brewing Company- Their Great Pumpkin Ale is one of the best. It has tons of pumpkin spice and a richness that is just perfect for fall. Loved every sip.

Farnum Hill Ciders- I’m a huge cider fan and this NH cider totally hit the spot. This was a totally new to me place and I was totally wowed. Not only is this cider crisp and super fresh, there are hints of sparkling in several of their offerings that made it feel special.

Blue Hills Brewery- I’ve heard this name over and over and their beer as alluded me. I was so glad we were finally introduced! They had several great offerings but my fave of theirs was the Dunkelweissen, a dark German heffeweizen beer, that was chock full of roasted goodness. I was totally blown away by how smooth and rich this beer was.

The Scientist was a fan too.

My fave brewery of the whole day was no surprise…Pretty Things!

Pretty Things- They had two brews on tap, their Jack D’ Or, which is a “simple table beer”, and Baby Tree. Both are excellent. Both are delicious. Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project, Inc. knows beer and knows how to make it right. On tap=THE BEST.

Free things! I love beer brewery coasters. We collected a few on Saturday!

Then the most magical thing happened. I ran into a fellow blogger…Suki! Beers in hand we chatted about our random sighting of each other in San Francisco and our first meeting at the Healthy Living Summit 2010. Two Suki sightings in one year!

The session started to wind down around 3:30 and we were STARVIN MARVIN. Our last stop for the festival was a local favorite, RedBones BBQ. This Davis Sq favorite is always busy and their food truck was no different. We snuck in for a pulled chicken sandwich and some of their out-of-this-world potato salad to split.

The 2nd year of the Local Food Fest was a success. I’m so happy to say that I live in a city where there is so much local love and so much wonderful local eats/drinks.

CHEERS!

I hope you guys are having a great start to the week! I’m ready for a week of fun starting with book club tonight. Let the reading (and chatting with friends!) begin!

Are there a lot of festivals where you live? Any great fests that you want to brag about that you have attended?!

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A Week of Eats…

by agirlandhermutt on September 30, 2011

Hey party people! Its Friday and I could not be more excited. The Scientist and I have some fun events coming up this weekend and I’m ready to get to them already!

BUT FIRST!

In addition to a mid-week sleepover at The Bates Hotel, I also had some pretty stellar meals throughout the week. I would have shared them with you in my Daily Eats posts, but apparently I get so excited about my meals that I leave my camera wherever it should not be. Eh.

Blue Cheese Stuffed Turkey Burgers
These burgers were perfect to make on Sunday night for dinner and leftovers made for a great lunches for a few days during the week. My burgers are a simple mix of extra lean ground turkey, panko bread crumbs, egg, and a sprinkle of blue cheese. For this meal I paired my burger with “mashed potatoes” which is really just cauliflower with some Laughing Cow cheese. Mmmm…..

Back in June I let you all know about my decision to start eating meat again, which I don’t regret at all. However, I still eat TONS of veggie friendly meals. I would actually say that the majority of my meals are veggie. One of my favorites from this week was on Taco Tuesday.

Tempeh Tacos
This was my first time using tempeh and I was so pleasantly surprised! Tempeh is a fermented soybean product that has a firm texture with a kind of nutty flavor. It easily can be a meat substitute!

I paired my tempeh tacos with my homemade refried beans and a mixture of onions (from the CSA), corn (CSA), grape tomatoes and red wine vinegar.

Isn’t Taco Night just fun to begin with?! What makes these suckers so much fun for dinnah?

Pull it together with some crumbled up tempeh and you have a par-tay!

Last night was an ode to Weight Watchers with a combo of a few of their favorite recipes that they give newcomers to the program. Tried and true.

Baked Herb Chicken
This free-range organic chicken isn’t cooked in a fancy method, but it does come out juicy and delish thanks to some fresh herbs and a little veggie broth. Paired with spicy brown mustard roasted potatoes and fresh veggie soup and you have a complete delish and HEALTHY meal.

This meal was easy to put together, tasty to eat and had plenty of leftovers for lunch. Yee haw!

Oh, and can we talk about that brown bottle?! Oh yea. That is our home brewed beer. *Brush shoulders off*

This ale wasn’t as carbonated as I would like, but it was pretty tasty for our first try. It was unfiltered, but light and tasted similar to a hefeweizen. Kind of citrusy with a touch of bitter. Yay for some beer success!

Don’t worry…in between those kind of standard (but yummy!) meals there was some fun. How can you not have fun when POCKY is involved?!