full of meat pies and radical life changes

So! I have had a few exciting weeks. I got a shiny new iPhone, vacationed out of the country (for the first time ever) in England, got laid off, had my home broken into, and had a rockin' job interview.

Those last two things happened in the past 24 hours. I kinda want whiskey right now.*

While I work towards that: Here, have some pictures of some things I saw on my UK vacation:





The supermoon! And a li'l bit of Reading, Berkshire, which is where we were staying. It's maybe 30 minutes west of London via train.



Reading seemed to be composed mostly of malls, but it also had a lot of old churches (this is St James's church), a 12th-century abbey, a large park/walking garden, and a fuckoff statue of a lion. Like y'do in England.



You can see a corner of the aforementioned abbey around the bend of the path here. It was closed to visitors 'cause apparently they're having a hard time convincing its stones to not drop perilously close to people's heads at the moment.



One of my favorite things in the park in Reading was this black mulberry tree that was so old and hunched that the keepers had put large cut branches under some of its limbs to hold it up. From a distance, it looked like it was rearin' to crawl straight into a Tim Burton flick. From up close, it looked like an octopus tree.



One day after a ridiculously huge and inexpensive English pub breakfast, we wandered into the middle of the Reading Half Marathon -- this is the second wave of runners around minute 33 of the race, coming through the old town center. The clock tower in the background is the town hall.

There's a bunch more pictures up on my Flickr -- I'll maybe do another post of things I saw in London and Oxford later on, and I'll definitely do a UK food post if I manage to collect my thoughts before I forget them. (I ate 4 meat pies in 5 days, and it was magical.)

Oh, and all of the square-shaped photos here were edited with Instagram (username: grammarmonkey). If you have an iPhone and have been living under the same social-media-lacking rock as my wonderful boyfriend, you should check the app out.

And hey, if you know of any editorial positions open in the greater Atlanta (or Intarweb) area, holla at grammarmonkey[at]gmail[dot]com! You will win my eternal gratitude and possibly some baked goods.


*I began writing this post on Wednesday, April 6th. I was interrupted by said whiskey, which, fear not, was mightily obtained.

breakfast: the most important meal of the day at any o'clock

Haven't been brunching much lately, but I finally got out to try Rosebud's brunch offerings [which happen on Saturdays (and apparently Fridays, and Monday nights) as well as Sundays, which is delightful because I simply cannot be buggered to go farther than my couch on Sunday mornings]. My ladyfriends & I shared a plate of sweet corn mini-muffins as a starter, which were a bit on the crumbly side but still tender and moist with a nice crisped edge, the perfect vehicle for the whipped butter and rich peach preserves they were served with. The bar was out of one of the housemade components for the brunch cocktail I'd had my eye on, The AT&T (apricot- & thyme-infused gin and tonic), so I ordered a Gingham (gin, lemon juice, and a touch of housemade grenadine, topped off with cava & a strip of lemon peel and served in a champagne flute) instead, which was crisp and sunny, just the thing for brunch.

For my main dish, I had an openface, house-cured salmon sandwich on Holeman & Finch pumpernickel, topped with citrus-fennel slaw, a fried egg, and a drizzle of horseradish aioli. It was a serious, heavy dish in a bright, Springy way, with good herbal punch from the pumpernickel and slaw. The salmon was a bit thick-cut and therefore slightly chewy for my tastes in places, but the rest of the textures were perfect -- airy bread, crunchy cabbage, and melt-in-your-mouth over-medium egg.

I also tasted my friends' mains -- the pastrylike & sticky, sweet-tart "not your momma's french toast", stuffed with Nutella and topped with pineapple compote; a side of creamy baked/herbed/fried potatoes; and the aptly named Nasty Royale breakfast sandwich, which consisted of salty Berkshire ham, melty slices of brie, and savory-sweet truffled egg omelet with truffle honey mustard on a thick, soft baguette, and which gave me the same happy-filthy feeling I get from watching The Tudors. A certain @tracyvwilson snapped a picture of it. (And hey, Internets, @amypage says hi!)

All of the portions were generous-bordering-on-huge, and the staff was unfailingly polite. I'll definitely come back for brunch again -- maybe even early enough to catch the Morningside Farmers Market next time, or at least with a grocery list for Alon's.


In other breakfast food news, I finally tried one of Atlanta Fresh's Greek-style yogurts -- the 2% vanilla & caramel flavor. It was dessertlike, rich and thick and creamy, with just a touch of roasty caramel sweetness to compliment the yogurt's tang. The 6-ounce cup had only 3 grams of fat (0 saturated) and a nice 15 grams of protein, but 26 grams of sugar, which is a lot for me. I can't justify paying $2.50 to $3.00 for a single serving of yogurt on any kind of frequent basis (even in support of fab local producers), but it'll make a terrific sometimes-treat. I found mine at the Whole Foods on Pleasant Hill, but they're available all over Atlanta.

I also tried a couple Kalona SuperNatural yogurts this past week -- the 2% strawberry and vanilla flavors, both with cream tops (which are my favorite things for yogurt to have). The texture of the strawberry yogurt was off to me, sort of broken/lumpy/gooey, but the tart & tangy flavor was nice. I liked the vanilla much more overall -- the cream top was intact, the vanilla flavor was strong, and the texture was smooth. With 2.5 grams of fat (1.5 saturated), a minuscule 6 grams of sugar, and 6 grams of protein per each 6 oz. cup, I felt good about eating these (and adding granola). I found them at the Fresh Market on Roswell.

review: siggi's pomegranate & passion fruit skyr yogurt

A quick sequel to my review of siggi's orange & ginger skyr yogurt:

I tried a cup of siggi's pomegranate & passion fruit flavor, which has a gram more sugar than the orange & ginger flavor (bringing it to a still-teensy 11 grams total) but just as much protein (a Juggernauty 16 grams). For that one gram of additional sugar and a lack of woody ginger bits, the pomegranate & passion fruit skyr is much less aggressive and more to my tastes than the orange & ginger was. The sour of the fruits in this one blend just perfectly with the (still quite strong!) sour of the yogurt.

The passion fruit is the more forward of the two fruit flavors, and it's very bright on the tongue. (The taste reminds me -- and forgive me this analogue, I blame the '80s -- of the scent of Hawaiian Punch.) That brightness compliments the thickness of the yogurt, making it feel a bit lighter than the orange & ginger did. Not having any bits or pieces of fruit mixed in with the yogurt helps as well, allowing a creamy mouthfeel. (Pro-tip: If you find this yogurt grainy when you first open it, let it sit out for ten minutes or so. As it warms up, the milk solids relax and it becomes more smooth.)

Overall, the orange & ginger flavor reminded me of something sturdy. Like drywall. The pomegranate & passion fruit is much more friendly -- more luxurious [and for $2.50 or more per cup, I want to be pampered, not spanked (personal preference)] and dangerously seductive, budgetarily speaking -- I'm going to be craving these bright flavors again soon. If you're going to plunk down the cash to try siggi's, I'd highly recommend this flavor.

review: siggi's orange & ginger skyr yogurt

A yogurt I've been coveting for years went on sale last week -- siggi's Icelandic-style skyr (strained nonfat yogurt). It usually costs ~3 bucks for a 6-ounce cup, which is why I'd never tried it before, but comes in flavors like pomegranate & passion fruit and orange & ginger, which is why I've been wanting to. I picked up a cup each of the above, and had the latter for breakfast today.

Flavorwise, it's got just a tiny twinge of orange, right there in the front, that gets absolutely eaten by the flavors of the sharp minced ginger and sour yogurt. The ginger bits feel raw (with a crisp texture like tiny pieces of water chestnuts, if you've never chewed raw ginger). I think they'd do better on my palate if they'd been candied just a tad, for that texture as much as for the sweetness.

Re: The sweetness: I'm a huge proponent of low-sugar yogurt -- I think the stuff has a lovely flavor with very little doctoring, and get angry when something that's pitched as a healthy breakfast food has as much sugar as a serving of Coke (or a load of nasty-tasting artificial sweeteners). But the sourness to this yogurt was just on the wrong side of mouth-puckering for me. If I were going to eat this regularly, I might add a teaspoon of honey to it to take the edge off.

This yogurt is very, very thick -- the sort of thick that's heavy, the sort that you usually only get in something like ice cream. (This picture was not the oh-holy-quick-snap-the-photo sort of thing, but rather the take-several-shots-leisurely-and-consider-the-framing sort. The only reason that the spoonful stopped standing like that was that I ate it.) It's so thick that it's not very smooth -- the best way I can think to describe the texture is powerful. This is a yogurt that has some things to do. It will not suffer nonsense. It will nourish you. It's the Juggernaut of yogurts. And, I mean, it's got 10 grams of sugar (most of that'll be lactose -- unsweetened yogurt has ~9+ grams of sugar per serving) and 16 grams of protein per 6-ounce serving, and is fat free. It can walk the walk.

I'm glad I tried it, but honestly I'd never pay full price for this stuff. It's very interesting, but not quite pleasant, and I'm not looking for so much challenge from my yogurt. But personal taste is personal -- if you love the sharp flavor of plain yogurt and have the dollars to spend, you should try Siggi's. (I'll let you know if the pomegranate & passion fruit flavor changes my mind about the brand.)


For the record, my go-to yogurt of choice right now is Stonyfield Farm's Oikos Greek-style yogurt, vanilla flavor. It's creamy-thick and just a bit sour, with only 11 grams of sugar and a nice 15 grams of protein per serving, and is fat free. Sometimes I sugar-splurge on flavored yogurts, too -- my favorites for texture (thick), flavor (sweet-tart), sugar/protein ratio (low), and price (~$1 per serving) are Cascade Fresh's key lime flavor (16/7 g sugar/protein, nonfat) and, for soy yogurt, WholeSoy's apricot-mango flavor (19/6 g sugar/protein, with 3.5 g fat [0 saturated]). If I'm going for yogurt-as-dessert, nothing I've had compares to Brown Cow's cream top line, and specifically their maple flavor. It tastes and feels like maple custard pie filling (I engage in evasive spoon tactics to save the tongue-coatingly rich cream top for last), and has about as much nutritional value (21/5 g sugar/protein, with 7 g fat [4 saturated]).

What's your favorite yogurt -- food-shaped, dessert-shaped, frozen, or otherwise?


[p.s. -- I've written up a review of siggi's pomegranate & passion fruit yogurt, available for consumption here.]

Woodfire, brunch, meat pies, and Hunger

I've got a reservation at Woodfire Grill this evening. It was a Christmas present to my roommate (and yes, today was the first date available for a resonable dinnertime reservation when I hit up Opentable.com back in December), 'cause both of us are huge fandorks for Top Chef and adored Kevin Gillespie's attitude and cooking style during this past season. I promise I'll make every effort to a) do a writeup about our dinner and b) not hump Gillespie's leg.


Brunch this week was at good ol' Manny's, mostly because none of us thought to check whether Flat Iron opens before noon (it doesn't). It's not a brunch I'd go out of my way to have, and like everything at Manny's it's simple and greasy, but it's so comfy and casual there that I never mind. And their biscuits are some of my favorites in town, so tender & buttery that they're perfect plain.

Before we ditched East Atlanta, I stopped and grabbed a couple of meat pies to go from the Australian Bakery Cafe, which I've been craving ever since we saw Titus Andronicus at Georgia Shakes last summer. (An' what?) Their steak & mushroom pie is still my ultimate travel breakfast food -- warming, savory, and filling, with that elusive balance of gravy-to-crust that allows for both tastiness and handheld snacking.


In literary news, I zipped through the first two books of The Hunger Games YA series by Suzanne Collins in less than 36 hours. So, um, I recommend those. I'll do a more in-depth review soon, but basically: This series was written specifically for 12-year-old me. If you were also once an unsqueamish girl who loved (mostly the food parts of) survival action stories, wasn't sure what she thought about romance, and was obsessed with dystopian-future fight-The-Man oh-the-injustice stories, then you should probably start finding a way to read these books now.

back into the brunch

Went to Emerald Coast Coffee & Grille with my friend Buffi for brunch on Sunday. They offer a three-course affair with (nonalcoholic) drink pairings for $10, which ends up being a completely ludicrous amount of food and caffeine.

First up was a pastry involving white chocolate, cranberries, and wonderfully soft, creamy, cakey dough -- paired with a plain cup of lovely rich coffee. Second was a fluffy omelet with grated onions and potatoes and a side of mildly spicy salsa -- paired, somewhat confusingly, with a sweet, Irish cream-flavored mocha. Third was a half of a Cuban-inspired sandwich consisting of thin-sliced roast pork with a good, tangy balance of pickles and mustard and excellently melty cheese served on a pillowy bread -- paired, again somewhat confusingly, with a milky iced chai. They were happy to make the drinks with soymilk or skim milk, to our liking. (Though really, they were happy to do everything to our liking. Very pleasant, noninstrusive, helpful staff.)

It's a terrific deal for huge appetites or people with a good three hours on their hands. It was a bit much for me, food- and caffeine-wise -- next time I'll order decaf on any mixed drinks, and will consider compiling a tableful of half-eaten dishes for taking home. I might've been conflictingly heavy and bouncy for the rest of the day.

I'm not sure what else there is by way of reasonably-priced brunch in the areas around Brookahven. I've been to the Terminus Flying Biscuit (which, like all the offshoot FB locations, seems incapable of cooking eggs to order or hiring waitstaff as endearingly unhelpful as the hipster kids who work the original location) and to the Corner Cafe on Piedmont (which serves generous portions of delicious food for its high prices, has perhaps overly polite waiters, and is reasonable to get into on Saturday mornings).

Anyone have any places to recommend?

For the record, my favorite places to brunch in town are Steinbeck's in Oakhurst (for savory, hearty dishes -- their brisket hash with creamy potatoes and perfect poached eggs is approximately the best thing I've ever eaten), Canoe in Vinings (for special occasions, as they're pricey and expect one to act like a decent human being before having coffee), and Gato Bizco in Candler Park (which is that place across from Flying Biscuit with its own line of waiting customers -- for honest diner dishes in huge portions, including lots of southwest-themed items and sweet potato pancakes). So uh. Possibly I'm a hipster and think that breakfast should either be schmancy or served by people with tattoos who are likely to be hungover, too.

Are there any places like that north of Decatur? Tell me about your favorite brunch spot even if it's not north of Decatur. Or even if it's not anywhere near Atlanta.