Another late night.. No wonder I'm tired all the time.. Ah, well.. Wouldn't trade it for anything.. :D

Wednesday night me and Jessie went to Armsy Abbey in Worcester MA, they did a special vegetarian beer diner with Pretty Things Brewery. The trick to the meal was that everything served had to be harvested from no further than 50 miles away from the restaurant. You may or may not know but the New England area has had a very odd summer and therefore a very odd crop growing season. This made the menu very challenging but they did a great job presenting a raw bar appetizer and 5 courses, each course came with a beer that Pretty Things paired. At dinner we met a very cool couple who had just moved to Auburn from CA to teach at Holy Cross, the restaurant only holds around 60 people and all tables hold 6 people so we ended up sitting with them, her mom and her brother.

Menu:

Raw Bar was lots of raw cut up veggies, with a goat cheese dip and home made bread. Even the butter was made fresh the night before. They paired the raw bar with their American Darling which is a light summer beer.

1st Course

Arugula & Black Seeded Simpson with Fresh Nectarines dressed with a Basil-Honey Vinaigrette and topped with Blue Goat Cheese and a Spent-Grain Crisp. This was also paired with the American Darling.

2nd Course

Creamy Baked Corn & Chevre Pudding. This was paired with Mr. Sysiphus which tasted like a Don De Dieu with a hint of cherry flavor. I think this was my favorite of the courses and also my favorite of the beers.

3rd Course

Roasted Corn Bisque served with Squash Fritters. This was served with their signature beer Jack D'Or. This beer was not well received at our table. I don't think any of the six of us finished it.

4th Course

Whole Wheat Popover filled with sauteed Black Trumped & Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms served with a Carrot-Parsnip-Mint Puree and Blanched Green Beans. This was served with St Boltoph's Town which is a dark beer, this was Jessie's favorite beer.

5th Course

Housemade Ricotta sweetened with Honey and set in a crust of Spent Grain & Whole Wheat Flour topped with Caramelized Peaches and a Lavender infused Whipped Cream. This was served with Baby Tree which reminded me of Slippery Slope and not just because of the 9.x% alcohol content.

In between each course the owner would speak as would the owners of Pretty Things. They would talk about the course you were about to have and the beer that went with it. It was a great experience although I didn't realize that it would last from 6pm till after 11pm.

I really hope they do more of these in the future.

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Hmm, I know I say this all the time but I really need to be better about writing blogs in a more timely fashion. Last blog was on the 15th.. So, what's happened since then? Lots of long nights for one. The problem is that I don't have the energy to write everything because I'm too busy doing it.. I know.. Excuses, excuses, excuses.. Well screw you... :P

Me and Jessie went over my mom's house on the 16th to hang out in the pool since we have not been able to do that so far this year. A tree fell in her backyard and hit part of the pool but it's still intact! The ladder broke in half and there is a small dent, but otherwise it's still usable. Had a really good time but ended up leaving my sunglasses there which is why I'm stuck in Farmville! Why? Because we went back there on Saturday the 22nd to get my sunglasses and she sucked me into that game because she needed more neighbors! Ok, so the real reason I have not written a blog is probably that I've been playing that stupid game. You have to go into this game every so many hours to harvest the plants you are growing. If you know you're going to be away for awhile you can plant long term things, but if you want to make money you need to plant the 4 hour crops.

The 17th (I know, I hate going day by day too I've been busy)... The 17th Jessie helped get together a raw foods meetup in Thompson, we ate lots of really good raw food and watched Fresh. Fresh is very similar to Food, Inc and Omnivores Dilemma. This movie was a little more in your face about the cattle farms and such, they even showed one scene where they were removing waste from the cows stomachs. They apparently cut a hole in the cow and permanently insert a tube so they can reach into the stomach area and remove the shit the cows can't digest! You know, at some point doesn't it just make sense to stop feeding them this shit to begin with?! I gotta think, when you have to install a tube in a cow so you can manually remove indigestible waste it should be a sign you're doing something wrong!

On the 18th we had dinner at our house.. How can I talk about dinner in the next paragraph after talking about watching a cow's insides be cleaned! Funny thing is, I made burgers! NOT beef burgers, they were made of buffalo and oh so good.

The 19th I went down to the Mets game with Bradley J and met up with Rick Lopez, Amber, Kris and Josh Goldberg. The game was interesting to say the least. They are seriously bad right now. Bobby Parnell gave up 8 runs in the 2nd inning and we lost by a BIG margin, I want to say it was something like 18-2. I know, I could go look it up but honestly I don't care. Murphy went 2-3 and that's really all that matters. I had an awesome time and we really pretty much stopped watching the game after a while and just hung out.

Thursday I went and hung out with Holly and had Mexican and stayed out way too late again.. I posted my facebook status last night.. "Another late night.. No wonder I'm tired all the time.. Ah, well.. Wouldn't trade it for anything.. :D" That's really the only thing I can say about not only Thursday the 20th but also for last night too, which by the way was a super cool night. Last night (I know I'm jumping ahead) I went to Holly's house.  I made a buffalo rice dish and brought it down. The downstairs of her house is kinda odd, they have a family room off the bathroom? When you're in the main section of the house and you want to go to the family room you have to go through the bathroom, I don't think I've ever seen a bathroom/hallway before. The only other way to get to that room is to go outside. The upstairs of the house has two bedrooms and a bathroom and all the doors are like wood slat doors. They are vertical beams of wood with a cross beam near the bottom and top to hold it together. Plus, one of the bedrooms has a big overhead window and a wood canopey.

Nurit came over on Sunday morning and we went to the game with Matt. Randy met us at the stadium and we once again watched the hapless Mets lose. This time they actually made it an interesting game in the 9th before... Oh wait... Rewind to the beginning of this masterful game.. Oliver Perez started and failed to make it out of the first inning! Pedro Martinez started for the Phillies and Perez was taken out with 3-0 count while Pedro was batting. Yes, that's right, they took Perez out in the middle of an at bat and not only in the middle of any at bat, but in the middle of facing the opposing pitcher! I was trying to find out how often that has happened in baseball, but I can only find questions asking if that's legal so I guess that shows how infrequently it happens. I've certainly never seen it unless the pitcher was hurt which he was not. Speaking of things I've never seen. Pagan led off the Mets 1st with an Inside the Park Homerun! I mean, I've seen Inside the Park Homeruns but never live.. Oh and in the 9th with the Phillies batting and two outs Francour made an amazing catch and the ump said he trapped it, after a bit of an argument the umps actually reversed the call to the correct one! I mean how often does that happen.. Now all of this is great but lets get back to the Mets batting in the 9th. Down by two runs Castillo on 2nd and Murphy on 1st with Francour up at bat. No outs by the way, that's key here.. So.. The pitch, the hit and run is on, the 2nd baseman moves over to cover for the throw from the catcher.. Francour connects, he rips a line drive up the middle right into the waiting arms of the fucking 2nd baseman who takes one step and tags 2nd retiring Castillo and waves his arm slightly to the left to tag Murphy who had no chance to return to 1st to complete the UNASSISTED TRIPLE PLAY! There have only been 16 Unassisted Triple Plays in the history of MLB and this was only the 2nd ever that ended a game! You know, if you're going to lose a game at least this one was lost in style!

Now onto Monday.. Almost done.. I already did Wed and Thurs up in one of those tangents.. Monday me and Jessie ran to Manchester with hopes meeting Lynz and Anja for a 7:20 show of Ponyo. Well, we failed.. I hate Manchester, we made it to Red Robin around 7:05 and then preceded to get lost trying to get to the movie theater. Why didn't I just type it into my GPS? Because the movie theater is NOT in my GPS! Oh well, I stuffed my burger down as I walked from the car to the theater and we only missed the first few minutes of the movie. The movie was very cute and the voice acting was exceptional, it might be the best voice acting in a dubbed movie that I can remember. Not going to say much about other than go see it!

Tuesday dinner was at Ryan's this week. Before dinner we met at the pond by the house and went swimming. It was fun, but it made everything later than normal. We didn't eat dinner till at least 8:00. I didn't make anything this week but Jessie made a raw Strawberry Rhubarb pie.

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Tonight I'm going to see Jon Oliver with Jessie, tomorrow is Animefest XVII at Brad's house. Maybe I can sleep on Sunday?