Birthday Road Trip

I had an audition in Boston on my birthday this year. At first, I was a little bummed that I wouldn't be able to celebrate at home. Then I thought, Hey, I get to sing and act on my birthday, two things I love! This will be great! 

How to take full advantage of traveling on your birthday? Make it a cool East Coast road trip with your lovely someone! 11 hours each way, and we only fell more in love. 

We spent the hours googling the history of the great cities we were driving through, reading Ender's Game, and conversing in goofy voices. We actually got lost in Yonkers on the way through New York and we stopped in Connecticut to have sandwiches near a snow drift. When we reached Boston, I used a Wendy's bathroom to change my clothes and put some makeup on. Don't worry, it's cool. 

After a great audition, Nick took me downtown for birthday dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant called Addis Red Sea.

My phone died while we were waiting for our table (er...basket? You sit around a cool basket/table that doubles as a big plate for the whole group) so I don't have pictures of the great decor inside. This place was hopping, so there was a fairly long wait. It was worth every minute!

Ethiopian cuisine has plenty of vegan choices, as well as spicy chicken and pork entrees. Our meal had a lot of tumeric and cumin spices, every dish was delectable. The food is served on a platter of thin, slightly spongy pancake-like flatbread called injera. You also use this flatbread to scoop up each bite, as traditionally Ethiopian food isn't served with utensils. This made this meal incredibly fun. Need a date idea? Check!

Before we were seated, we studied the eclectic groups seated near the front door. The food smelled fantastic, but people weren't eating everything they were served. They only took dainty little bites and never even tore into the injera that lay beneath the food. We were starving by the time we were seated (in the more private and less-bustly basement) and served our order. We demolished that meal! We ate the entire platter, including all the injera; we used the last bit to wipe up every last drop of the yummy sauces left behind. We were stuffed, and super happy.

Best thing: turns out there is an Ethiopian restaurant here in Chapel Hill! Can't wait to try it!

Ladies' Pasta Night

My fabulously talented friend Zhara invited a few fun girls over to make ravioli, from scratch. The resulting meal was, as you can see, wonderful!

We all gathered at Zhara's; her knack for amazingness in the kitchen is well-known in these parts, so she often receives aprons as gifts--we each chose one to sport for the evening.

Zhara's home is cozy and classy. She had every burner working in her little kitchen when we arrived.

Zhara made the noodle dough ahead of time; then we ran it through the press over and over and over again.

Once the dough was thinny thin thin, we laid it out and dropped dollups of yummy fillings (again, made by Zhara earlier that afternoon).

We had four delicious fillings: spinach and cheese, mushroom, herbs and cheese, and butternut squash. 

 We had a pretty good system working for us: some girls rolling out pasta, some of us dolluping filling and cutting out the ravioli pieces, someone boiling the finished gems at the stove:

 







In the meantime, Zhara was whipping up homemade marinara sauce, as well as a browned butter sauce for the pasta:

She pulled a fresh loaf of focassia bread out of the oven and tossed up a simple salad. The table was laden--it was beautiful!

 The ladies:

 I love these classy girls. We had a great time cooking and chatting. I thought, "How lovely, to know such wonderful people and spend such a delightful evening in their company." Plus, the food was DELECTABLE. Happy, happy night indeed.

Fun with friends, poor quality photos to prove it

Two fun friend dates, back-to-back.

First, an evening with my Korean friends, eating delicious Korean food.

With frozen yogurt for dessert.

Next, a group of us went to see Brian Regan at the DPAC. Hilarious man, that Brian Regan.

A State Affair

The biggest party in the South? The North Carolina State Fair. Elizabeth and I pulled on our cowboy boots and spent an entire day eating fried food and watching potbelly pig races. We caught two great country concerts during the evenings, as well: Billy Currington and Jake Owen (um, I love Jake Owen now. He was the most precious. He brought a little girl up on stage--she crowd surfed from her father's shoulders to get there--and danced with her during a song. Then he said, "I can't wait 'til I have a little baby just like that." His whole personality was just friendly and available to the entire crowd. I loved it.) Anyway, back to the fair:

We tried to hit all the must-do, traditional state fair things. We ate candied apples and drank pink lemonade.

E grabbed some delicious corn on the cob.

They fry anything and everything. We not only saw fried cookie dough and fried kool-aid for sale, we also heard rumor of a stand offering fried sticks of butter. Gross.

But you can't go to the NC State Fair without eating something fried! So...

...I went for deep-fried Reeses' Peanut Butter Cups.

They were alright. I didn't keel over from a stuffed artery right away, so as long as I hit the gym every day next week, I'll probably be okay. I would have preferred, though, just a nice, melty reeses. Think: Kristen, campout, s'mores with peanut butter cups instead of Hershey chocolate slabs. Okay, back to the fair:

E bought this turkey leg, but it was huge and super salty, so we each tasted a little, but could finish it. Which surprised us because we saw several small children gnawing away at these babies throughout the day. 

Of course, our favorite indulgence of the day was the classic: fresh icecream. Yum!

We also saw great exhibits, from period-dressed actors whittling tools from wood to an educational garden where you could plant and harvest fruit.

Elizabeth offering a caramel apple to the prize-winning steed.

This mama pig was unbelievably massive, and she couldn't get a respite from her squealing babies. This fascinated us for a full five minutes. 

Giant pumpkins.

Giant watermelons.

We caught two of our friends out on a friendly date, waved from across the room, snapped their picture. Whatevs.

At night they had a fantastic fireworks show. We watched it after riding two crazy roller-coaster rides. 

I love this girl. We have so much fun exploring our new home out here. Can't imagine country concerts and fried food on a stick without her!