The sold-out West Loop Craft Beer Fest was an absolute blast. I went with my friend Nicole, her boyfriend, and their friend Amy. 

I was the first to arrive by a long-shot. I showed security my ticket, and they let me past the barricades that were blocking off Clinton Street. I showed someone else my ID that got me the souvenir cup that you see below. I also got a blue wristband, but nobody checked it! Once I was beyond the gates, all that I needed was my cup.  

I needed to get some food in my stomach before I started drinking, so I wandered into the French Market in Ogilvie Station (the festival was right outside of this building). I wanted something full of carbs and delicious and filling, so I headed over to the first sandwich shop I could find. I ran into Pastoral Artisan Cheese, Bread & Wine. I've heard people rave about their food before, so I decided to give it a try. 

I ordered the Caprese Pastorale, which was slices of fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese, pesto with fennel, and tomato on a baguette. It was absolutely heavenly. It reminded me of my favorite sandwich shop that my friends and I frequented when I studied abroad in Perugia, Italy in 2007 (a semester before Amanda Knox got there). I always got a similar sandwich there, but it had sliced turkey. The ingredients were very simple, but they were so incredibly delicious when put together that we could not stay away from that shop. Sitting on the steps of the duomo in the square in the middle of the city and eating our sandwiches for lunch were some of my favorite memories of Italy. This sandwich from Pastoral, believe it or not, rivaled my Italian panino. I will be back, Pastoral.

I finished my sandwich and was sipping on my first beer sample when I ran across two friends from high school. We caught up on life and drank some beer together until Nicole and company finally arrived. We ran around and had a blast. There were so many vendors there. All you had to do was walk up to their tent with your cup, and they would fill it for you. It was like wine tasting in the sense that they had buckets that you could spill your beer into if you didn't want to drink your whole sample. I had to dump out a lot of beer so that I could try all different kinds and still live to tell the tale. 

If I was a better blogger and Chicago beer advocate, I would have kept track of all of my favorite brews and maybe told you my favorite three. I can't remember the names of the beers, but the three most memorable breweries (that I had never tried or heard of before) of the day were Solemn Oath Brewery, Revolution Brewing, and Deschutes. 

We survived the beer festival. At 5, we wandered off to Randolph Street for dinner. Randolph Street goes through the West Loop and is lined with some fabulous restaurants. I've never been out over there, so I was excited to explore. We still had time to kill before dinner, so we headed over to RM Champagne Salon for- believe it or not -more pre-dinner drinks. The restaurant is located off of the main street and requires snaking through the alleyways a bit, but it is a hidden gem. It's a cozy little place with chandeliers, fancy chairs, and some very pretty desserts (I tried to take a picture of their dessert cart, but it was too dark in there to turn out well). The rest of the party split a bottle of champagne, while I opted to stick with beer. 

Once we finished our drinks, we walked over to Au Cheval for dinner. It sounds like it's a pricey place, but it's a relatively affordable, laid-back, European-style restaurant. Per Amy's suggestion, I got their famous Bloody Mary. It was loaded to the brim with olives, pickles, and different types of savory relishes. I sipped some and snacked on the pickles, but I ended up giving the bulk of my drink to the rest of the table. It was really good, but I'm starting to think that I don't like Bloody Mary's as much as I think I do. I was also starting to feel the effects of my previous drinks. 

I got a basic burger for dinner. It melted in my mouth and seemed at the time to be the most delicious burger I ever tasted. I have to try it again while I'm not under the influence of a beer festival. Al loves burgers, luckily, so I'm sure we'll be able to make a trip there soon. 

We headed to one more bar after dinner to watch the Blackhawks game, but we slowly started to fade. I walked over to my brother's apartment to say hello to Libby and take her for a quick walk, and then I called it a night. 

Libby is currently at her grandparents' house, because the whole family is going to Mexico on Saturday! My cousin is getting married on Sunday. We're going to Cancun for a couple of days, and then we're spending the rest of our vacation in Tulum. Stay tuned for lots of pictures!

Happy 2013 from Napa, California! I haven't made a New Years resolution in a long time, but this year, I want to blog more. I used to do it every day, and now I do it more like one time per month. It will be hard once I start classes again for the new semester, because my schedule is CRAZY! Regardless, it shouldn't be too hard for me to update recipes, exercises, and fun happenings with friends and family. 

I was supposed to post this below in November when I had dinner with a small group of friends from school at Demera in Chicago, but I failed miserably. As I said before, being a student makes me a much less reliable blogger. Don't let my low-blogging frequency put a damper post, though, because this place was awesome!

I have heard stories about Ethiopian food, and it never sounded that great to me. I thought it consisted of eating paste with your hands. It seemed more or less fun (if you can handle meals sans silverware), but not delicious. Once I immersed myself into the world of food, culture, and nutrition though, I learned that people I know actually like Ethiopian cuisine. Perhaps I could like it too. 

With some research, I learned that Ethiopian food is not necessarily eating paste with your hands. It usually consists (most popularly) of a flavorful thick stew called wat and bread called injera that you use to mop up the wat. The injera is a thin, iron-rich bread with a spongy consistency that is made from fermented teff flour (source). Don't let the spongy consistency fool you; injera is very filling. 

The top picture shows assorted types of wat on top of one large piece of injera. I was in charge of ordering, so I made sure to get one large platter that included beef, lamb, chicken, seafood, and plenty of veggie wat options. This met all of our dietary requirements. For a group of five of us, this was plenty. We could not even finish everything.

The next picture shows the injera that they gave us on the side. They are large, rolled up pieces that somehow resemble building insulation to me (but they tasted much better than I think building insulation would taste).

To eat everything together, we ripped off pieces of the injera and used them to pick up pieces of wat on the shared platter. We also used our hands to rip apart the injera underneath the wat. After a while, the bread soaked up all of the flavor and it was delicious. Overall, our group had a lot of fun. We preferred this over ordering individual plates, because the food became the central part of our conversation. It was a great way to bring us together and discuss the food that we were eating. 

If you have any interest in trying Ethiopian food in Chicago, give Demera a try or look at other Ethiopian restaurants around the Edgewater area (near Broadway and Montrose). Along with African food, Edgewater is an outstanding hub for authentic international cuisine. 

I hope that everybody had a wonderful holiday. I'm escaping the crazy cold and wind in Chicago for Napa to spend time with Al before I have to get back to the grind of my 21-hour semester schedule. Happy Friday, everyone!

Yesterday was my 26th birthday, and it was pretty much perfect except for my aggravating trip to the DMV. My driver's license expired yesterday, so I was thinking that I could just waltz in there, take a picture, and then waltz back out with a shiny new license. 

While I did leave with a new license, there were some extra unexpected steps that I needed to do before that was possible. Since I still have a speeding ticket on my record from 2008 (I got it in rural Indiana while visiting Andi at IU, and the county gave me a choice: never step foot in that county for a year OR go to driving school. I chose the first option, but I forgot that it was still on my record. Ugh.). 

As a result, I needed to sit down and take a written test in order to renew my license. 

I was a little terrified at first. Living in the suburbs without a driver's license means that you are like a needy poopy toddler needing Mommy and Daddy to do everything for you, so I really didn't want to lose Illinois' permission to drive my car. I asked the two ladies in the testing area if they thought that I needed to study to do well on it, and one of them made a joke about the fact that she already knew all of the answers and so it wouldn't be hard for her. They then told me that I could take a book and study for as long as I wanted, which was more helpful than the first remark, so I did that. I reviewed chapter 9, which went over all of the street signs. Then, I decided that I was ready.

The first page had a bunch of street signs without labels, and I had to write down what they meant. It seems like it would be easy, but we're used to seeing signs with writing on them. We had to know the sign based on the shape and color. The stop sign was a no-brainer, but I know that I wouldn't have done nearly as well on that page without first looking through the book. 

The rest of the exam was all multiple choice. Some of the questions were like this (and I'm paraphrasing):
- Will you lose your license if you hit a pedestrian, kill them, and then drive away?
-Can you talk on your phone without a hands-free device?
-If you are driving and you see a pedestrian in your lane, do you: a) report them; b) hit them; c) carefully drive around them

That was pretty much how it went. There were questions about driving according to the road conditions, if the solid yellow lines mean that you can't pass another vehicle, etc. As you see, it was a piece of cake. I passed. 

Speaking of cake, the rest of my birthday involved just that. I came home to four giant cupcakes. Say hello to Carrot Cake I, Carrot Cake II, Mrs. S'More, and Mr. Peanut Butter. 

Then, my friend Betty picked me up and treated me to a manicure and a pedicure at my favorite nail place called Shalom Nails in Arlington Heights. They are extremely reasonably priced, and they do a better job than anywhere else (at least in my experience). A mani/pedi combo costs $35, and they do such a great job that all of my manicures last at least a week. Plus, they give you massages when they're finished. 

After the pampering, we met Meredith and Kate at Yard House in Glenview. This is legit one of my favorite restaurants in the world for a multitude of reasons (two of them being that their BBQ chicken salad is the size of a small child and is just incredibly amazing and they have a ginormous beer list). 

I order the salad 9 out of 10 times, but I was craving something Mexican last night. I opted for two street tacos with rice and beans. You can pick any two tacos from the list, so I got the baja fish (grilled; not fried) and chicken tinga tacos. They usually come on flour tortillas, but I asked for corn tortillas. In my opinion, corn tastes a million times better and is more nutritionally beneficial for you. Why NOT choose corn?

I also ordered two beers throughout the night: a Sea Dog Bluepaw Wild Blueberry (my favorite!) and a Hacker-Pschorr. 

At the end of the night, I got a little cake with ice cream for us to share. My friends sang to me, too. 

Meredith surprised me with a necklace that I'm wearing in the picture below. I love it! 

My friends spoiled me rotten, and it gets even better since I have more celebrating planned for the weekend. 
I hope that everybody is having a great (and not too hot!) Thursday!

In addition to my wine and cheese party, there are other happenings that require catching up. One of them is a brunch I attended a few weeks ago at Orange in the River West neighborhood. It has a few locations throughout the city, but this one was the closest to where I was staying. I've heard about Orange a gazillion times, and I quickly learned why everybody was raving about it: it is fantastic. 

Although Andi, Shelly (Andi's sister) and I had a to wait about 30 minutes for our table, we were still able to order juice from the bar and chatted the whole time with the very friendly staff. I expected the orange juice to be orange-tastic and amazing at a place called "Orange" (it was fresh-squeezed- the only way I will ever drink it), but I wanted to try something more creative. I ordered an orange-ginger-carrot juice. The ginger was very strong (never try this if you don't like ginger), but I felt better knowing that I was pumping my cells full of anti-oxidants. I still found Andi's juice to be a lot more appetizing: just orange and grapefruit. 

One of my favorite things about the restaurant is that all of the water has a slice of cucumber in it. It's so simple and very refreshing. I prefer cucumbers in my water over lemons or limes. 

Orange has a stellar breakfast menu, but my body was craving something hearty and savory. I ordered a chicken caesar wrap and requested the dressing on the side. It came with fries, and they were perfect for dipping into the dressing. The fries were very flavorful, and you could also tell that they were not bathed in grease. Andi and Shelly loved them, too. 

Andi ordered the Caprese benedict. The English muffins were topped with poached eggs, buffalo mozzarella, tomato, and their homemade pesto-hollandaise  sauce (that does NOT contain pine nuts!). It came with some sort of a potato cake that was very tasty. 

Shelly ordered the Chai Tea French toast. She apparently gets it every time that she goes there. 

I tried everybody's food, and it was all great. The place was bright and cheerful, the service was friendly and efficient, and I didn't feel like a fat lard ass when I left there. Thanks to all of those factors and the fact that they put cucumber in their water, I can confidently say that this is one of my favorite brunch places. Thank you, Orange!

Here are some other fun photos from the past few weeks:

Below: Nicole, me, Julie, and Andi at Moe's Catina in River North. ( I am wearing a jacket that I bought from Abercrombie and Fitch when I was in high school, and I still wear it all the frickin' time. I am not ashamed of it.)

Below: Andi and Nicole at Durkin's in Chicago. I won a happy hour there and cashed it in. 

To understand the final picture, you have to know that my fingers are very double-jointed and can do things that nobody should be able to do. For one thing, I can bend the distal phalanges on my fingers (the part furthest away from my hand) without bending the rest of my finger. On that same night, I met a girl at the bar who could do the exact same thing with her fingers. Observe: 

Aren't we cool? We learn new things about people every day, don't we?