Roadhouse Wings & Grill - 08.09.2009

This picture speaks for itself. Connor is clearly a wing-eating champion and a total badass.

Food from last week

Homemade pizza from last week...



Cheese pizza






Pepperoni pizza







Fresh mozzarella with campari tomatoes and homemade pesto with basil from my Nonnie's garden (my personal favorite)







Here's my Friday afternoon cocktail invention. This drink has slices of lemon, lime, and clementines as well as a splash of cranberry juice, a splash of OJ, one shot of vodka, a maraschino cherry, topped off with Diet 7 Up. Okay, as I typed that out, I realized how disgustingly sweet that sounds but it was actually pretty good.



I had Chipotle for lunch one day last week. This buritto contains chicken, black beans, cheese, corn salsa, tomato salsa, hot salsa, and tomatillo salsa. I've never tried the tomatillo salsa before and I didn't care for it. It was too watery and it threw off the composition of the rest of the burrito.




This is a vegan falafel with white bean hummus from Dragonfly Street Food in the Short North. Holy shit, was this good. It didn't taste like traditional falafel, but it was really good nonetheless.

Happy Birthday to my Nonnie! 08.10.2009

My grandmother, Nonnie, is turning 75 years old this week. Last night the kids and I took over a pizza and a bottle of wine a celebrated with her. This pizza is from Iacono's and it was outstanding.

I lead an exciting life

When I am not jetting off to Ibiza, vacationing in the south of France, or buying art from Christy's Fine Art Auction House, I do other glamorous things such as cleaning out my refrigerator. Here's my *very* clean fridge. I didn't just go through the shelves and drawers and throw stuff away, I actually removed every single item from the fridge and took all of the shelves and drawers out and scrubbed everything clean. You can also see in this picture that I keep an abnormal amount of citrus fruit on hand.

Tony is Funny

I love it when Tony thinks that he has discovered something new, but it's really something that's been around forever. One example of this is his recent discovery of the band Blue October. He saw a video of theirs a couple of weeks ago and decided that it was his favorite "new" band. I tried to explain that they've had many hit songs and are popular enough to have videos shown pretty much 24/7 on VH1, but he wouldn't believe me... Example 2 is Tony's discovery of the homemade egg, cheese, and bacon on wheat toast sandwich. The other night he asked me to make him this sandwich and I said "fine, no big deal." He then felt it necessary to go in to great detail, describing how to cook the egg (this coming from the guy who hasn't cooked anything in the 9 years that we've been married). I told him to shut up, that I had it covered, and he still proceeded to describe how the guy in the cafe at work makes this sandwich. Finally he left the kitchen and I cooked the sandwich. Tony loved it but couldn't believe that I knew how to cook a hard-fried egg (with the yolk broken), as if was a secret recipe or something. I tried to tell him that my homemade egg sandwiches are featured pretty frequently on my blog...

Tony milks his birthday for everything that he can - 08.02.2009

Tony received an Applebee's gift card for his birthday. He's like a kid with a couple bucks in his pocket when he gets a gift card. He wants to use it right away. As a result, we had a late lunch at Applebee's. I make fun of Applebee's constantly, but truth be told, I used to frequent it for happy hour. We haven't been to one in probably 6 years though.








The food was better than I remember, but it still wasn't great. I had french onion soup and a chicken ceasar salad. Both were okay. Tony had an A1 burger.






Connor had mini sliders which he took one bite of and declared to be "not very good". Ian had chicken fingers. He enjoyed them right up until the moment that he started to gag on one and spat it up in to my salad. At that point, I decided that I was finished with my salad.







After lunch, we went home to veg out. We watched about 4 hours of Man Versus Food. Tony begged and begged for hot wings and reminded me several times that it was his "birthday WEEKEND". So I relented and we tried a new place, Roadhouse Wings & Grill.







The wings at this place were really flippin good! I had the second hottest sauce available and it was... very hot... and very good!









Tony had hot wings, Connor had medium, and I had extra hot boneless wings.










I asked Ian how his food was and he threw some gang signs at me. I'll leave that response open to interpretation but he looks pretty happy in this picture

The afterparty and the aftermath - 08.01 & 08.02.2009

What's the best way to soak up a lot of alcohol after a big birthday party? Papa John's pizza, of course.

Several people came back to our house after Tony's party. After scarfing down some pizza, each of us immediately found a couch, bed, or spot on the floor (mom!) to crash on. Don't drink and drive! Carpool and have a sleepover at a friend's house if you need to! It's fun!



Breakfast the next morning - McDonald's!

Tony's 40th Birthday - 08.01.2009

Happy 40th birthday to Tony Stewart! In celebration, we threw him a party at the recording studio that he and his childhood bff, Bill, own. The studio is conveniently located behind Bill's home, on 2 acres of property. There was plenty of room for people, food, badminton, and fun. (thanks to Olivia Wilson for this most excellent photograph)




Here's the spread. Many thanks to everyone who helped me throw all of this together and a very s pecial thanks to our friend Bill for manning the grill! (thanks to Olivia Wilson for this most excellent photograph)









Beer! This is Tony's favorite beer when his beloved Barley's draft beer is not available, Miller High Life. It's the champagne of beers. How do I know that? Duh... It's written right on the can.






Here's my sister, carefully inspecting a brownie. Right behind her is her husband, happily eating an un-inspected brownie.










I ate this bratwurst. It was yummy.










My brother and his friend totally planned to dress alike for the party. They spent hours texting each other before deciding on the simplicity of a pressed white shirt, khaki shorts, and brown mandals. (mandals is not a typo... get hip! sandals + a dude = mandals)

Party People - 7.31.2009

The kids and I made a Sam's Club run last Friday to get stuff for Tony's birthday party. 7 pounds of cookies, 10 pounds of fruit, 5 pounds of veggies for pasta salad, bushels of potato chips, 5 dozen hot dogs, 3 dozen brats, 8 dozen hot dog buns, buckets of margarita mixer and 7 cases of beer.

BW3 - 7.30.2009

I needed a hot wings fix last Thursday and Rooster's was too far out of the way so the kids and I went to BW3.

Connor was being a punk, as usual.

Ian loves BW3... He calls it "that place with chicken and drawing!"








Everything was all well and fine... Ian was having fun taking pictures.









Our food arrived... Ian had chicken fingers, Connor had medium wings, and I had grilled chicken tenders with Blazin' sauce on the side. Blazin' sauce is the hottest wing sauce available at BW3.










Connor was kind enough to snap a picture of me immediately after I took my first bit of chicken with Blazin' sauce. That is the look of my entire face being engulfed in heat. That stuff is spiiiiiiiccccccccccy!