Oh sweet mystery of life. . .

It's a rare and beautiful thing.

Hello, dear blog readers.

I want to take a break from regularly scheduled programming. I had originally planned to post the exciting conclusion of my adventure with Dan, but something's happened. Something. . . fantastic.

I was wandering through my local foodmart this evening and decided to browse the wine section for a little funtime refreshment. I don't drink beer, but I wanted something light and refreshing, so I perused the selection of ciders.

Okay, this isn't my wine aisle, but you get the idea.

Nothing was really jumping out at me, when all of a sudden. . . The clouds parted and there stood - Babycham!

I had never seen or heard of it before, but I am a sucker for attractive packaging. Ask anyone. It's how I choose my clothes, kitchen appliances, sports gear, and friends. So when I saw Babycham's dark green bottle with metallic baby blue label featuring gold and silver accent, my hand was drawn to it. I had to take a closer look.

"Babycham: Sparkling Perry Pear Cider." Hmm. I do like the sounds of that. It's a silly name with a rather silly yet intriguing description. And what's this? There's an adorable fawn frolicking his way over the lettering! How winsome! Upon further inspection, I saw this phrase:

Happiest!

"The happiest drink in the world."

Really. In the world. While the deer looks a bit hesitant, it certainly seems to be effervescing happiness. I mean, look. There's little star glammers in its wake. I think any rational person would be tempted by this.

Oh, did I mention that it was $3.99? Yeah. Not even on sale, that's regular price, baby. So to recap: Pretty colors, shiny label, frolicking woodland creature, catchy catchphrase, and dirt cheap. This product was effing made for me.

So I brought it to the register and made it mine. I even have pretty dark green glasses to drink it out of - how perfect is that??

From my set of three.

I sampled the brew. So I've had pear ciders before. Ace makes my favorite one. Spire is also a fine pear cider. Wyder's is even pretty good (even though it's Canadian). This one? Well. . . it's not awesome. It's got a faintly sweet pear flavor, but a distinctly unpleasant mildly sulphuric essence. What's up with that? Surely this can't be a bad beverage. It was made for me, after all. I just need to give it the right flavors to accompany. Something to enhance it's very. . . babychamquois.

So I decided to conduct a little experiment. My first thought was cheese. It's the classic pairing: wine and cheese. Classy. I thought perhaps a nice emmental or a gruyere. Perhaps even a camembert to bring out the subtler notes of the cider.

However all I had on hand was this.

I'm so damn classy.

So I went with it.

A bite (a string?) of cheese followed with a sip of Babycham and. . . no. Absolute fail. If anything, the cheese actually enhanced the sulfur-y scent in my nose. Yeeg. Cheese is clearly not Babycham's friend.

Moving on to the next:

Ok, a bit classier.

I learned from Pretty Woman that strawberries enhance the flavor of a nice champagne, so it's not a huge stretch that a sparkling cider would also benefit from this pairing.

Erm, apparently it is. The taste of the berry totally overpowered the subtle pear flavor, and the sweetness made the cider seem far less sweet in comparison. Another fail. Try something else.

Classiness gone. Sigh.

Okay, before you judge me, it wasn't my first choice. It wasn't even my third. But my fridge is uncharacteristically bare right now and I didn't have a whole lot else on hand. Plus, my dreams of savoring a nice glass of Babycham after crushing my enemies were quickly fading. I had to try something drastic.

And. . . huh. It works. For some crazy reason, the pickle brings out the pear flavor of the cider, enhances the sweetness, and totally kills that nasty sulfuric element. It's a pairing made in heaven. Specifically for me. The girl you will henceforth find in the corner of the party, sipping Babycham and munching pickles.

You might also recognize me because of my fly Babycham gear.


I am going to collect it all.

So I will soon post my Danstravaganza: Part Deux (spoiler: it involves hamburgers!). In the meantime, go get yourself a jar of pickles and a bottle of Babycham. Life is too short not to.

April 18 - Dan! Puerto Rico, Spain, and Mexico

900 calories each. And it's fine.

This was an awesome weekend. Why? Well. . . my friend Dan came to visit me! It's kind of red-letter when I get visitors, since all of my friends are either too poor or too career-minded to come hang out with me on the left coast. And I'm far too busy and important to visit them. So I was pretty jazzed when Dan said she would spend a long weekend in my rainy city.

My first order of business was to take her for a snack or two on Capitol Hill. After stopping at Top Pot for some delicious hand-forged donuts we decided to counter the caloric onslaught with a nice cup of CrazyCherry.

Not as green as you'd think.

It's maybe the best frozen yogurt ever. Not the TCBY variety, it's much lighter with a refreshing tang. I'm a big fan of the green tea flavor, but the plain goes nicely with some berries. . . and Pocky!

Berried!

The next day I took great relish in playing hooky from work. I love hooky. And do not love work. And it's the perfect situation to take advantage of by heading to Glo's.

Even Batman loves hanging (from the ceiling) at Glo's.

Under normal circumstances, I would never even consider trying to get breakfast at Glo's. It's a tiny 10 table cafe in my neighborhood, and it's absolutely adorable. They always have fresh flowers on the tables and you have a great view of Olive Way, and it's no secret that they have the greatest eggs Benedict in the entire world. This paired with the slowest service ever means about an hour and half between walking in the door and breakfast nirvana.

But if you have nowhere to be on a weekday morning, it's so worth it.

Well, eggs blackstone actually, but pretty much the same.

The next order of business was to start drinking. Don't judge! What better way is there to pass a non-working weekday? That's what I thought. So we headed to Ballard. You would too. It was the perfect place to drink in a coffee shop and take artsy sepia pictures of the decor.

Mr Spot's Chai House - so artsy.

We stopped at Ocho for some tasty tapas eatin, but Ocho was closed. So we said, go back the other way we'll stop and drink at. . . La Isla. Which is actually a pretty sweet place for Puerto Rican fooding, but since Spanish was the thought, we kept it to beer and daiquiris. Shaken, not blended. With sugared rims. And sticky hands.

Like if Bond were Puerto Rican.

As soon as it turned four o'clock, we made tracks across the street to Ocho. That means "eight" in Spanish. As we waited for drink and snack action, we got to meet the bar dog. That means "perro" in English.

"Yes, I'm cute. I know."

I think every business should have a dog. It would make the world a happier place. A puppy in every pawnshop and a hound in every hardware store. Delightful!

Erm, anyway. I'm a little sad that I wasn't hungry at this point (so much breakfast eaten!) but Ian ordered a lovely little tapa called Hongos de Jerez, which featured sherried mushrooms on crostini with some. . . green. . . stuff. . .

Fungus. But sassy.

After our Ballard adventure we made our way Hillward once more to have some drinks at The Elite, which I guess is a gay sports bar. Which is a lot like a straight sports bar, but there's a difference. I'm not sure what it is, but there must be one. If anyone could tell me what it is, that would be cool.

Another cool thing is that The Elite is pretty much right next to Taco Gringos. And I love tacos. Who doesn't!

Taco Gringos has several obviously awesome traits. One, they're located nearer to my house than the taco trucks that generally offer these tasty little soft tortilla tacos. Two, they're open super late and are drinking establishment adjacent. Three, they have a constantly rotating menu of intriguing taco fillings.

What'll it be tonight?

Obviously we had to go with the rabbit tacos. I don't usually associate rabbit with Mexican cuisine, but they were surprisingly delicious. The meat was tender with a really nice flavor, as I recall. Just don't tell my rabbit.

Crappy picture, tasty taco.

And as everyone knows, tacos are the perfect late-night fuel for a night rife with inside jokes and pop culture references.












And to think, my super Danstravaganza was only half over!

April 6 - The Arboretum, Pub Lunch

Hey, Jon, thanks for showing me how my manual focus works!

This rainy city I live in has been enjoying some unseasonably gorgeous weather of late. I pretty much love it. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the soul-crushing gray rainy winter as much as the next Seattlite, but when the sun comes out, it really becomes a beautiful place to live.

I took advantage of a sunny summer Sunday afternoon with a friend by going to the arboretum. It's this lovely inner-city forest set on 230 acres in the middle of Seattle. Well, kind of the middle. Sort of on the right, I guess. It's managed by the University of Washington, probably their botany department. It's for education. Because knowledge is power!

Tagged for your convenience. Also for ur lols.

Being an urban-dweller, it's nice to have something like this within bussing distance. Seattle has no shortage of public parks, but this one is serious. I could get lost here for days among the creeks and shrubberies. But I guess that's not saying a whole lot, considering I almost starved to death trying to navigate my way through an Ikea.

At least the arboretum is very pretty. Prettier than that stupid Ikea.

Like beautiful, pink lop bunny ears.

It also provides a pondful haven for one of my favorite critters: ducks! The good kind of ducks, not the evil kind.

Man, I love ducks.

In one of the ponds, I saw this rock that kind of looks like a little island. I mean, technically I guess it is, but visually I think it's kind of neat. This is probably what I would film if I were making a low-budget Bond movie and we were working on the shot where the helicopter was closing in on the villian's private island.

Dr. Geoduck's Island of Razor-Toothed Squirrels. The horror!

I'm not sure where this shot would work into my Bond film, but I thought it looked kinda spooky. What made these trees fall away from each other like that? Mystery.

I bet it was the Sasquatch. That bastard.

Erm, anyway. After wandering for days through the woods, we'd worked up quite an appetite. We decided to remedy this at Latona Pub in Greenlake. It wad my first time there, but considering they decided to decorate their pub with a suit of armor, I was pretty excited.

Lancelot? How did you get up there?

Living in the land of the micro brew, I sometimes feel a little left out since I'm not really a beer drinker. As much as I try, I can't enjoy it. And I have tried. I'm a sucker for peer pressure.

Luckily, I generally have the option of ordering a hard cider in place of beer. My favorite kind is Ace Perry Pear Cider, but I think you can only get those at Linda's bars. Still, I'm always up for something new, and my interest was piqued by the presence of a black currant cider on the list.

I would maybe drink it in a box.

As exciting as the idea of black currant cider is, it ended up being something of a disappointment. It was refreshing enough, but I didn't get a black currant experience. Someday I will, but not this day.

Latona's menu was more enticing than your average pub fare. The lunch menu offered a selection of tasty sounding sandwiches on Columbia City Bakery rolls, which are lovely with a floury chewy crust and tender flavorful innards.

I ordered the turkey n fixings sandwich, which was filled with roast turkey, stuffing, sprouts, and some kind of cranberry something. It was delicious. I like the idea of taking an entire meal and condensing it into a single-serving form. As long as we don't take that idea too far.

What did you say, jive turkey?

My lunch date, Jon, went with the grilled chicken sandwich. It seemed comparable to mine, except his came with a spike through the middle to keep the innards in check. I guess chicken is the more unruly poultry. Or they thought Jon couldn't handle a freestyle sandwich.

Action shot!

This teaser of a not-quite-summer day has me pretty excited for the real thing. I can't wait to take my cat for a walk in the park, have a Paseo picnic in the sun, and maybe a little kickball.

In closing, here is my favorite picture that I took in the arboretum. It's a fuzzy flower. How cool is that!

It makes me want to say something poetic.