Uptown Girls....

I know, I know, I'm such a tease.....I told you all about the wonderful time I had in Charlotte NC, and shared some great meals with you and then just like that hussy in high school I left you hanging, with just a glimpse of cleavage suggestion about sharing my Uptown Adventures with you all. Well, let's put the blue blog balls away and get on with it, shall we?

So, on the last full day of my trip to visit Abigail and George, "us girls" rode in to work with George, since he works in the heart of Uptown. While he plugged away, doing amazing computer things I won't even pretend to comprehend Ab and I created our very own walking tour of Uptown....well, we were going to go on a guided tour, but the tour guide was on vacation. Not to be discouraged we grabbed maps and set off on foot. 7 hours later and a couple "wrong turns" we had trekked the whole area, South to North and back again.....oh and we got some good photos too. I'll get on with those and keep the jibba-jabba to a minimum for this post.

Most of these are Abigail's....I noticed we were taking very similar photos, but hers are always better than mine, so you can assume if it's "good" it's hers! (Thanks for letting me share, love!)

The next two are actually mine....I'm really pleased with how they came out, so I have to brag a little.

The Future-one of the Four Titans 

So, I obviously liked "The Garden" a lot! PS. Do you spy Abigail in this collection? :)

"Cascade" is actually moving art...think a giant grown-up's mobile. Loved it, could have sat for hours and watched!

The "Crayola Room" in Wachovia II. While a great spot for jumping photos (and getting strange looks in the process! LML) it actually documents the building of the Wachovia Buildings. I have a thing for industrial photos (and color-duh!), so I LOVED this room! Makes me, ahem, jump for joy!

The rest of these are all from what became my favorite place in Uptown: The Green. The entire area (probably 2 blocks by one 1 block) is between the beautiful St. Peter's Catholic Church and the end of the Wachovia Buildings/Shops. A great literary theme is continued throughout in the details of brick work, brass art and landscaping, all of which are just so beautiful and relaxing. Ab and I spend about 3 hours here total during our day of adventures...some how we just kept wandering back. See why for yourself:

By the end of the day, post art admiring, post street foodie fair crashing (just got freebies: iced coffee, a tiny taste of omgamazing gelatto, and Fage (my fave yogurt!) with peaches) what are girls to do but go back to the best Green Space in the Queen City and photowhore build up Abigail's photography portfolio? Here are my three favorites from a series at the Fish Fountain in St. Peter's courtyard. (for more of the photoshoot that day check out my About Me page)

Love to all,

~the tease city explorer, Jess

Dinner turned Breakfast

Hi all and Happy Friday!

I woke up with one thing on my mind today: broccoli!

Last night I had a simple dinner of grilled chicken and broccoli and this morning the little bit of leftover broccoli was was just calling my name from the dark recesses of my refrigerator.

Plate o' Yum: One scrambled egg, plus egg whites loaded with broccoli and a side of toast with butter? Now that is what I call putting that leftover broccoli out of it's misery breakfast!

Ironically the guest post I have up on Your Nutritionista features scrambled eggs, too-what can I say, I love eggs!- as an example of how to deal with condiment addition. Go check it out!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go play carpenter's assistant!

Love to all,
~the "so maybe I like eggs as much as condiments", gal, Jess

180's Degrees of Ethnic Dining...

Or rather a 180 degree change in Christine and I's choices in ethnic food choices on Saturday night. We had simple plans....scarf down Media Noche's at Flaco's (and divine cream cheese pastries!) before wandering over to Stubbies-because honestly what else would a self respecting beer snob like myself being doing on such a lovely weekend? Right? Right.

Except that Flaco's was closed! Tragic really, since I could already taste the wonderful smokey pork, melty cheese and crusty bread....so we immediately started considering our other downtown options now that Cuban was out of the picture: The Top?-just went; Stubbies-sausage again? sigh; Dragonfly?-meh; La Boca-mixed reviews; Liquid Ginger?-did you say Asian Fusion? Yes, please!

This is another one of Gainesville's gems, in my opinion. It's more than dining out, it is a dining experience. All of the meals are served as a "bento box" including soup, salad, seasonal sides and dessert.

I got the Vegetable Saute

And thus began my meal:

Miso soup to start, just the way I like it- loaded with mushrooms!

Classic Asian salad, with a creamy ginger dressing. Strong and delicious.

The box hath arrived......yum!

The seasonal sides: cold ginger noodles, pickled zucchini, cold garlic green beans, curried potatoes and of course, rice. All the sides were great, but I especially loved the noddles (message to the chef: plate more noodles for me next time, ok? thanks!) and the pickled zucchini- the pickling sauce was loaded with chilies and garlic! I ended up rolling the green beans in it too! Yum!

Speaking of yum.....zomg! This somewhat dully named dish, "Vegetable Saute" doesn't give this meal credit at all was truly incredible.  I'm actually finding it hard to describe this plate of tender yet crisp bok choy, mushrooms, onions, red and green peppers, snap peas and broccoli tossed with tofu in what seemed like a decadent coconut cream sauce and yet the whole meal was incredibly light and satisfying. I loved how rich this dish was but didn't leave me feeling weighed down at all. My mouth is literally watering as I type this....I need to go back ASAP!

And as if such a wonderful meal couldn't get any better this appeared (ok, fine the waitress asked what flavor I wanted....but it magically appearing sounded better, no?)

Green tea for me and cinnamon for Christine. Very refreshing and creamy!

If you live near Gainesville or are even just driving through I would seriously recommend visiting Liquid Ginger. Our service was a little slow, but that seemed to be due to our waitress, not the kitchen.  Oh, and any guesses on how much this four course meal set me back? A mere 14 dollars plus tip! I think that is incredibly reasonable!

Love to all,

~the bento box convert, Jess

Operation Dry Wall

It's that time again.....you guessed it folks: An Abarnment Update! (Please read all the above in the announcer voice from the Price is Right....umkthanks!)

I'll keep this post simple and to the point. We are thisclose to being done with all the dry wall, and I couldn't resist doing a photo update any longer, so here we go!

La Cucina (eventually!) 

The dining room/living room as taken from the "front" (and only!) door

Glorious closet! 

El Bano (one day a toilet will occupy that blank space....)

View from the "living room" Yay for semi-vaulted ceilings!

Chillin' with Freddy, the super wonderful AC unit! My main man! Whoot. 

So, in spite of how nice and neat all the finished dry wall mud looks on the walls....well, this was a perfect opportunity to show you all why I'm known as Messi Jessi 'round the block:

This picture doesn't even begin to show how much dry wall mud I am covered in everyday when we close up shop....I keep finding mud in random places, my hair, my hip bone, behind my ears, go figure! (oh and that shop I just mentioned? Check it: The second floor of the barn you see in the background will be my abode very soon!)  Also, installing dry wall mud is a full body workout my friends (please excuse the I'm so tired poochy belly in the above photo! I promise I'm getting a daily workout)....who needs Body Pump when you have Dry Wall Mudding Pump? bahaha, I crack myself up!

Love to all,

~the little mudder herself, Jess

PS. Want to see all the progress? Just search for "abarnment" in my super fabulous search bar! yay technology!

Tantalizing Tempura

"I feel like fried veggies tonight, fried veggies tonight" was what my taste-buds were singing....

"Ahhh, another satisfying night at Chopstix" is what my brain and belly said at the end of this lovely meal:

Started the night off with a "drink-drink"-Pineapple Sake- So amazing! Must find this in a store...what a perfect summer night "toddy"

And then I satiated my craving for tempura vegetables. Chopstix surely has the best around....I even ate a carrot or two! (I'm not a huge carrot eater, fyi) The mushrooms are still the best, followed by broccoli and zucchini! (that ranking may or may not be identical to the order of my favorite vegetables....but really, who is keeping track here?)

But a girl cannot make a meal of flash fried veggies alone (or can she? I heard rumor of a tempura bento box.....maybe next time? hehe.) so I had the Panang Tofu Curry. As you can see it was loaded with tofu, but only had green peppers for the vegetable content.....I was a little sad, as I prefer my curry loaded with veggies....maybe the chef figured since I had consumed so many tempura style I didn't need any in my curry? Sadness.

No worries, I "vegged" up my leftovers the next day with Steph's leftover side of steamed vegetables that came with her chicken teriyaki! Now that's more like my kind of curry!

Love to all,
~the does anyone know a damn synonym for vegetable? gal, Jess

Grill those Veggies, Miss America

Happy July 5th Everyone!

I celebrated my Independence this year, by being a separate entity from Harvey (that is my side-kick MacBook Pro! Love him! Yes, I name and give personalities to the inadament objects in my life...deal with it.) and lounging by the pool with yet another summer thriller (lawyer style this time, thank you, J. Grisham)

Anyways, according to the stats I just made up in my head, the 4th of July has the highest grill rate out of all the lovely 365 days in our calender year. All across the country yesterday the coals were red hot and the hot dogs...well, they were just hot. Now I love a good ol' hot dog as much as the next girl, but some times you need some veggies with your meat (or some meat with your veggies-which is how I rock 'n roll) so why not grill them, too?

Why not indeed:

Chop, Chop, Chop your veggies of choice...as you can see I had zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms and onion. Anything works.....cherry tomatoes are awesome too!

Once everything is chopped up toss your veggie mess with your olive oil of choice, plus sea salt and pepper (guys-if you aren't cooking with sea salt already, just do it. You can use less than table salt and get WAY more flavor)

All shook up and ready to go!

Toss your mother load of summer goodness in your handy-dandy grilling basket....or if your gadget obsessed aunt has not yet purchased you said grilling basket, skewers are always a great option too! 

Put the basket on grill. The rest is up to the flames....I left the "crew" to do it's thing for about 45 minutes over med-low heat, stirring things up every 10-15 minutes. 

The finished product! Smokey, tender veggies....what more does a girl need in her life, really? 

Oh, you are right of course....I needed a chicken with a beer can up it's ass!

Love to all,

~the grilling queen, Jess

'ay DJ, play that remix

Oh, I must confess I don't typically enjoy remixes for recreational listening (vs the use of a remix, say in a spin class...that totally works for me).

The new 3OH!3 album: Streets of Gold (Deluxe Version) is quite the exception in my book.

Both the remix for My First Kiss (featuring Ke$ha) and House Party totally rock harder than the original cuts.

Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself!



Love to all,
~the so what if I like to rock out to loud remixes gal, Jess