Odds and Ends for the Weekend

A local bar in our town is converting in to a restaurant, it's being called That Place..on Augusta. Crappy name in my opinion, but whatever. Anyways, I stopped in to see what was good. I ordered a breaded tenderloin. It was pretty good, not too thin, not too thick, very light breading, and the best part, to me anyway, is it's served on toasted Texas toast instead of a bun. Perfectly grilled toast-really a good thing. Also the fries are crinkle fries., always a better choice I think!.

DD and I popped over to the Kiwanis Antique Show & Sale at the fairgrounds on Friday afternoon. I've never seen a flour sifter collection before. 

One of my favorite rulers....

And I bought a picnic basket, I don't have one like this. Then on Saturday morning I went to the Shelter House Booksale. This annual event is a big deal. It benefits the local Shelter House and attracts a huge crowd. 

I had to laugh at this one.......

I got a few good quilter/craft books

and a small pile of books for various kids. I love to have books around for any occasion. 

I also finished a festive little project for Easter.  I picked up this pattern at the I-80 quilters shopping spree a few weeks ago. 

This little bunny table runner is just right on top of the desk. 

Easter will be here before we know it! And I'm on my last week at work! Retirement, here I come!

 

Christmas Eve

 So, we traveled to my Aunt's home for Christmas again this year. We had a great time with the traditional Christmas story from the Bible....

 and singing Christmas carols. DD tried her best to get us some music-like karaoke-but we sure don't follow along very well! We exchanged gifts and had lots of good conversation.....if you hang with older folks very much you know the topic often falls into the health issues of the year.....deep sigh.

 Of course the food was delicious! My cousin Jason kept things under control in the kitchen...here's Jesus' birthday cake too!

 And the rest of the spread. Don't you wish you had been there?

Merry Christmas followers!

And We Ate...

So the one place on my list of places to eat that I thought we should not miss was called Bailey's Range. It is located in downtown St. Louis, which made my Hubs cranky...Downtown is not his kind of town. Anyways I made him come in. 

 

Range is in a classic old downtown building and has the greatest eclectic/shabby chic/modern/cool decor!

 Look those milk cans with the bottoms cut out are the lighting fixtures, and behind that you can see the random old window panes hanging. The windows for a kind of non-divider-divider between the dining area and the kitchen. The center of the room is a long dining table where you can be seated. We chose to sit at the counter/bar.

Range serves dozens of kind of Beer, on tap, in bottles all kinds and most of it is of the trendy micro brewery type. But they also have all kinds of favorites in bottles too. 

 Here's Grumpy Cat...Oh I mean Hubs, see those bottle behind him? Those are all the kinds of soda pop they have in bottles to choose from. WOW! Plus they have their own brewed root beer and other beverages on tap.

 I loved the look of this restaurant the minute I walked through the door.

There's also an upper balcony you can sit at too. We didn't go up there though.

 I had the Range Root Beer, they serve beverages in jars and bottles, the water came to us in a tall clear glass bottle and the drinking glasses are all jars. Some of the jars advertise Range seasonal beers. Pretty clever marketing because I bet folks steal the glasses all the time!

 SO We ordered a side of onion rings....just look at them.... they were delicious. They came with a little jar of chipotle mayo to dip them in, but of course I had to have ketchup, and they MAKE THEIR OWN KETCHUP.  I ordered the American burger, Hubs ordered a cup of chili and a side of fries. He said his chili was the BEST HE'S EVER HAD! WHAT????? Well, I'm glad grumpy cat didn't want to come here right?

 Here's my American burger. I have to say this was very likely the BEST burger I've ever had, the meat was delicious, it is advertised as 100% grass fed Missouri raised beef and I  loved it. The American burger comes with a glob of fried macaroni and cheese on top and it was such a delicious little bite! OH My!

 Anyways we slurped up all this Delicious food and headed for the hotel. 
Now the only other restaurant we went to in St Louis  was a diner.  On Friday we took the time to go to the White Knight Diner. 

 It's an old fashioned, old school, back in the day, kind of diner. That outside decor isn't retro-it's original. It probably seats 15 people, and sits on a corner in old downtown St. Louis.

 Inside is a lot of stainless steel and just what you'd expect in a diner. A flattop grill and a deep fryer. I had a burger and fries and Hubs had a turkey melt sandwich, The food was fine, plain old diner food. Nothing special-It's like eating at McDonald's except on plates.The down side was the place was so dirty! I mean the floor was dirty, the window sills were dirty, the whole place just felt gritty.  Anyways, the plates were clean so we ate and left...none too soon for me, but it was Hub's choice. So that's all the actual restaurants we ate at the rest of the tie we snacked....at the zoo, at Trader Joe's, at the hotel.

 If you've never been to Trader Joe's it's an all natural, clean eating kind of grocery store. The thing is EVERTHING is Trader Joe's brand.

 Yes everything, I bought lip balm, and milk and cookies and a bag of clementines and they are all Trader Joe brand.

Eating in the city is always such a fun adventure, I think I'll stick to making the restaurant choices form now on though.

Dining on The Company's Dime

So every year my employer (#pgemp) P&G pays for our work team to get together for a meal. Lots of times in the past it's been dinner. But it's hard to get a group to all agree on a place and date and such. But now that I am part of a smaller team we decided to go to brunch on Sunday morning instead!

Brilliant IDEA!! SO we decided to go to the Iowa River Power Company for Sunday brunch. IRP is an Iowa City/Coralville icon, it really was a power company back in the day but in the mid 70's it was bought and converted into a restaurant. It has wonderful river views and is a cool place to eat because it has that old industrial feel to it.

Some of the decor is authentic from the old power company and some of it has been added. But it's all very cool! 

Really delicious food. Brunch included prime rib, smoked salmon, all kind of regular breakfast fare and lots of cakes and sweets and salads and fruit. There was a pretty good crowd there when we arrived at 10:30 so if you go go early and have a reservation! Here' s the Iowa River Power Company Restaurant
link.

Birthdays

It's Valentines day today but I'm covering the birthdays instead.

We're pretty multi purpose at birthday time at Mom's house. One cake to cover all the birthdays. See Daughter is 24 on March 6, Dad is 77 on Feb 18, and my much older sister is 54 on Feb 5.  Got all that covered!

 

mmmm so much good food. My Mom makes the best cabbage slaw and she also made a delicious Apple salad.

 

I made cheesy potatoes and brought bread from the bakery at New Pioneer Co-op

And look how pretty these strawberries are that Darling Daughter made! I think it's a sin to ruin a strawberry with chocolate, but they are sure pretty.

 

I made a good card for my much older sister.

And gifts, I got my much older sister some delicious Alba skin cream,it's awesome stuff. And for Dad, I got a book about Mousehole Forge Anvils.

You can get the book here Amazon
 and Alba skin care is available on line here
Amazon but I find it locally at the Organic food store.
I'm just being mean about my much older sister, she's really only a year older than me, she's 46!LOL!!

Iguana Grill with DD

So after stopping off at Petco for cat food and Micheals for necklace clasps, DD and I needed some sustnace. So we had never been to Iguana's Grill in North Liberty so I whipped in there.

I will likely NOT do that again. DD had some kind of Burrito business, it wasn't flavorful at all. BTW-it was served that way-with a knife sticking out of it!!YIKES!!

I had the chimichanga, which is usually a safe choice. Not here though. It was not crunchy and had almost no lavor at all. The beef filling was less flavorful than a burger at McDonalds. Portions were large, and the waiter was very quick. The bar has a lot of attractive decor, but I guess you need a drink or two to stomach the food.

Arts Festival......LOVE IT!!!

So today I went to the Arts Festival in Iowa City.  It was rainy all morning, and since I didn't get around until nearly 11 it was all clear! Lots of people, music, food, and of course ART! I always like that there's such an eclectic mix-almost crafty to serious art, and it's all really fabulous!Look at this cool wood stuff-just gorgeous!

Yes I forgot to take my..I mean Uber Son's camera so these are from my phone...not too bad.

See purses...mmmmmmm purses....yum! Lookie at this cool batik fabric-it was a wall hanging.

This was beautiful pottery-I think this was the same artisit that DD bought a couple of pieces from last year.

There was lots of music-these folks were very good, they had a kind of Irish, feel and a beautiful young lady played the violin. They kept the crowd entertained! There was also a main stage with more music and the Peruvian group, selling CD's were really good!

Tons of food of all kinds was offered for sale-look CorNroc!! They grill corn on the cob and serve it up with seasonings in the butter & mayo.Or you could get falafle, or BBQ, or brats, or Greek grilled or Asian food, it's like a smorgasboard!!!

Here's some more serious art, there were a lot of paintings, most of them a bit too rich for my budget, but probably very reasonable for original artworks.

This artist had sculptures using rocks with holes drilled in them and assembled in different artsy ways with old rusty iron. They had quite a crowd looking at all the different things.

 There was quite a bit of pottery-which I really liked a lot. This bunch belongs to a person I went to Jr. High school with-Kirk Niehouse, I didn't see him around, but I thought his work looked great!

So I didn't buy a single thing, but it's still going on tomorrow!.......