On Friday night, BR and I tried Againn (pronounced “Ah-gwen”), right across from Brasserie Beck.

AGAINN is Gaelic that loosely translates as: “with us” or “at us?”‘Til we meet, AGAINN. Drink Slowly. Eat well. Speak kindly.

We had been meaning to try it for a while, but totally last minute on Friday night we decided that we wanted to eat someplace new.  Also, even though we had a glimpse of spring (and the cherry blossoms have come out downtown!), it was cold this weekend and we needed something warm and hearty.  And most importantly, Againn had reservations on Opentable, so it was decided.

Againn is a “contemporary gastropub” with typical gastropub fare.  BR and I shared a few sides to start: big chips with aioli because we couldn’t leave without trying the chips, and brussels sprouts with house made bacon, for the healthy choice, obvi.  For our mains, BR had the braised shoulder of Shenandoah lamb with flageolet bean and kale stew and red wine lamb jus, and I had the house made bangers and mash with whole grain mustard mash and onion gravy.  Both dishes were hearty and warming on a cold night, but also very flavorful and interesting.  Although I wouldn’t recommend Againn for a light dinner, I would definitely go back for a stick-to-your-ribs dinner.

Lastly, I’m not a beer expert, but they did have a good beer menu.  They were out of the first beer that I ordered but they had a lot of variety.  I bet this would be a great place for happy hour with a good beer selection and the following menu:

FARE

HOUSE SMOKED SCOTTISH SALMON 8
brown bread and butter.

GUINNESS SOAKED PRETZELS 6
dijon mustard.

GRASS-FED BEEF BURGER 15
caramelized onions, farmstead cheddar, housemade bun.

Look at the delicious frittata we made last night!  We sauteed tomatoes and spinach and topped the finished product with sliced avocado.  Very easy and super tasty (the Alexia onion rings were good too!).

Just saw an awesome site on Lucy Actually where they revamp Ikea furniture.  What a great idea!

We have a lot of furniture from Ikea.  I think it generally looks nice because we tried to pick furniture that doesn’t look too cheap and, especially downstairs, we’ve complemented it with a few nicer pieces of furniture from Crate & Barrel and a table from Room & Board.  Although putting Ikea furniture together can be a huge pain, I absolutely love going there and it has treated me well in the past.

I would love to use some of these innovative ideas to update our Ikea furniture, but unfortunately, I don’t trust myself to actually do this well. Additionally, it took me months to pick out two pillows for our couch and we still don’t have anything on the walls (after moving in about 9 months ago), so maybe this will have to wait…

I particularly like the post below.  I have a fondness for the Poang chair because it seemed like everyone bought one in college or right after.  I like what they did with it!

Pimp my Poang

Materials: Poang, fabric, walnut finish

Description:
I had an IKEA Poang chair that I hated.  Normally the Poang doesn’t bother me, but this one originally had a red glossy wood finish with a dark green seat.  yuck!  I wish I had taken photos of it before changing it because it was absolutely hideous and I can’t find this combination in google images.  I  sanded the entire thing, gave it a walnut finish and changed the entire mid section so that the fabric supports your weight.  The cost of redoing the chair was surprisingly low since I used wood from the chair.  I just bought the thick fabric and screws that hold it on, which only cost about 15 dollars. The orange scented wax I used cost more than that!

OMG carry-out fried chicken at Central?  That sounds amazing.

Like most chefs, Richard at first tried to bind day-old bread crumbs (he prefers the term “bread lumps”) to his chicken by using egg. It didn’t work. That’s when he developed his “chicken mayonnaise,” an integral part of the fried chicken recipe found in the chef’s “Happy in the Kitchen” cookbook (Artisan, 2006).

“Chicken mayonnaise is [processed] raw chicken with a little bit of chicken stock and a little bit of milk,” he said.

First poached, then cooled and coated in the “mayonnaise,” the skinless free-range bird is next dipped into day-old bread crumbs and briefly fried in vegetable oil.

As you know, I’m a sucker for the Central burger, but I have tried the fried chicken and it’s fab.  Maybe I could get a burger and have this to go?  Or maybe that’s overkill?

Oops – I said I’d keep blogging and then I totally failed.  Here I am!  Happy New Year…?

This is a great blog. A couple of my favorite posts:

• #58 – Buffy would have slayed Edward Cullen.

Now vampires weren’t a massively popular thing in the 90s like they’ve become as of late but that’s probably because Buffy was slaying all of ‘em.

• #43 Easy-Bake ovens are chauvinistic.

Yes ma’am! I got one as a present when I was little and I returned it for a stuffed animal.  I mean what would I have done with an easy-bake oven?  I would be happy to return my regular oven for a stuffed animal, but that’s beside the point.

• #18 – Blowing into cartridges was the easiest fix ever.

We used to blow into the Nintendo cartridges and POOF they would work.  BTW – did you know how good I am at Dr. Mario on regular Nintendo?  I’m amazing.  I used to beat everyone on the super duper high levels of Dr. Mario.  Seriously, challenge me, I dare you.

• #11 – Oregon Trail was the best part of elementary school.

I was just remembering Oregon Trail fondly the other day.  I loved giving out meager rations, but it was always such a bummer when my people would get sick.  Also, I still get confused when talking about the state of Oregon – is it “Ore-GONE” like the Oregon Trail?  Or “Ore-gun” like other people say it?

Our wedding was great for a lot of reasons.  One of which, was all of the presents!  I know that makes me sounds horrible, but it’s true.  Registering for presents was so much fun, and there’s really nothing better than coming home everyday to a package all wrapped up.  And it was almost always something we had chosen, so we knew it was something we wanted.

Anyway, our friends and family were so generous and we truly appreciated the gifts that everyone gave us, but there were some standouts.  For example, our new sheets.  Yup, I know it doesn’t sound that crazy, but they are really amazing.  BR and I are worried that the extreme comfort of our new sheets is causing us to be unable to wake up early and is going to begin to hurt our careers.

We have brand new dishes, glasses, silverware, tabletop accessories, linens, it’s fantastic!  Other than all of the stuff from our registries, we got some great presents that were not on our registries.

1.We got some beautiful hand painted champagne flutes from my dad’s friends from Texas.

2.  A painting from Nava…breakfast!!  We’re going to hang this in our kitchen.

3.  BR’s bros gave us some amazing bottles of wine, including Cristal, and a bottle of wine from the year BR was born and one from the year I was born.

4.  MSL gave us a gift certificate for a meal and lodging at the Inn at Little Washington!

Aren’t presents fun??

After two days of wine tasting in Mendoza, we decided to take a horseback riding excursion.  We went with the Trout & Wine tour group.  The tour company arranged for travel to a ranch in the Maipu region of Mendoza and they set us up with a tour guide that spoke English.  Just like the wine tours, our tour guide was super adorable and we wanted to take her home with us.

We spent 2+ hours riding through the vineyards nearby.  It was so beautiful (see pics below) and so much fun.  We finished the tour with an amazing gaucho lunch cooked by our gaucho guide.  We had homemade empanadas, two different kinds of sausages, and a few different cuts of meats.  We also polished off yet another bottle of wine and some homemade flan!  We thought it was going to be a lighter day of eating, but we were wrong.  Oh well!

We had planned to go wine tasting our fist day in Mendoza, but were informed that it was the national census day.  Apparently in Argentina they don’t conduct the census by mail like we do here in America.  Instead, the entire country shuts down, stays home and is counted.  So our wine tour was canceled.  Thankfully we stayed in a big hotel with restaurants and a wine bar, because they only allowed guests of the hotel to eat in the restaurants.  I’m not quite sure what we would have done if we had stayed in a boutique hotel!?

Anyway…so the next two days in Mendoza we went wine tasting.  I’ve been wine tasting in California, but this is a very different experience.  In Mendoza, the wineries are very spread out, you have to make appointments, and most of the tours take about an hour or so.  We did both days through Ampora Wine Tours.  The tour company takes care of transportation from your hotel to the wineries, sets you up with an English-speaking Argentine tour guide and makes all of the reservations.  It was so easy, and so much fun!

The first day we went to the Uco Valley, which is one of the three wine regions (the other two are Lujan de Cuyo and Maipu).  The Uco Valley is a pretty lengthy drive from Mendoza, so we could only fit in three wineries that day.  We had a six course meal at the last winery (around 5:00 p.m.).  The second day we went to Lujan de Cuyo and visited four wineries and had a five course meal at one of them.

When we got back both nights we were tired, drunk, full and felt kind of horrible, but it was so much fun!  The food at both restaurants was delicious and the wine was so good!  We bought a bottle of wine at each winery and it was all so cheap.  The wine tours were fantastic and I would highly recommend this to anyone that likes wine!  The vineyards were beautiful and so interesting – views of the Andes behind the grapes.

See pics below:

What’s been going on recently?  Oh no big deal, just got married and went on our honeymoon. I have so much to share about both events…and pictures!  Now that I’m not planning a wedding, I should have some more time to blog.

We spent our honeymoon traveling for two weeks in Argentina.  We started off in Mendoza and then went to Buenos Aires.

We picked Argentina for a number of reasons:

1. We wanted to go somewhere far and foreign, but we also didn’t want to travel through seventeen time zones.  Argentina is only one hour ahead!

2. We wanted good food and Argentina has delicious steak!

3. We wanted good wine and obviously Argentina has that!  We went wine tasting and had awesome, cheap wine.

4. Good shopping wasn’t a requirement, but nice, cheap, soft leather isn’t a bad thing!

I’ll write more in subsequent blog posts covering the deets of our trip.