Turkey Time

We were lucky enough to host Thanksgiving in Alexandria this year. With Carolyn’s crew back on the East Coast, Northern Virginia is once again a “good, sort of in-between and convenient to travel to” location for the holiday weekend. The Clays road tripped from Rhode Island, the Wiktors flew from St. Paul and one Mumsie…

Moments from May

After a year of a somewhat normal schedule for Phil, May brought a full month of travel. While Dad was away, we were fortunate to have grandma with us for a few weeks – what a treat! The weekdays were filled with work and school, but grandma got to see lots of Will’s baseball games…

All of the Gluten

I’m not sure what prompted it, maybe a post-holiday / post-vacation rut, but I spent an unusual amount of time working with dough and trying to figure out sourdough levain in February. The intent was for the two activities to be linked. Step one: perfect a levain. Step two: use it once a week to…

Ho Ho Ho

What’s better than Christmas with family? Not. A. Thing. Well, maybe Christmas with a little bit of snow on the ground but that is kind of splitting hairs. The lead up to the end of the month was spent listening to Christmas music, taking evening spins through the neighborhood to see the lights, and prodding…

August in the DMV

Crab cakes and football are a Maryland thing so I guess crabs and baseball can be a Virginia thing. Summer in the DC area is sure to be one thing: humid. If you want something besides the humidity you need to venture out into the humidity and grab it! We did our best to not…

Oregon Coast

The Grand August Adventure continues. Goodbye to Shasta (and California for a moment). Rest and refit in Eugene then it was time to set off on one heck of a winding road en route to the Oregon Coast. We popped out near the Oregon Dunes and found ourselves all alone on the beach which was…

Crawfish as big as your head!

Perhaps the spark was the discovery of some local California Mudbugs on an area hike last month. Perhaps it was just long overdue. Whatever the reason, plans finally solidified this month and we managed to have an epic crawfish boil right here in sunny San Diego. I’m not one to promote things so count this…

It’s a New Year!

2020 is off to a happy start. Making new traditions (we’ll see if homemade ramen on the 1st can stick), new beers (Hoppy New APA- thanks Soph), new batches of clear ice for new cocktails, and those other small new things on the truck. Can’t wait to see what else this year has in store.

Home for the Holidays

We didn’t think it would make in on the calendar this year with all the other travel and change but at the last minute, we agreed to head back to Minnesota for Christmas. Travel back home always goes by too quickly but it is always puts a smile on everyone’s face. Once we landed in…

Home Again

What a trip! We always head to Minnesota saying “it has been too long” regardless of the time passed since last visit home. Minnesota in July is about as good as it gets. Beautiful weather, tons of outdoor things to do, and plenty of family to spend time with. We started our adventure in Rochester…