My mom just hit the road after hanging out in Minneapolis for a few days, and although it’s always sad to see her go, we had a lot of fun and she left me with a fully stocked refrigerator (Thanks, Mom!). When my mom visits, our priorities are usually shopping and eating good food since opportunities for those things are lacking in small town Iowa and small town South Dakota (unless you consider Olive Garden and Ruby Tuesdays to be good food). We tend to eat out for almost every meal so we can take advantage of all of the great dining options around, so I made a couple of dinner reservations, but I kept Friday night free, unsure of when my mom would be getting to town.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last week or so staring at the pictures in Ad Hoc At Home, and when I saw that Friday was supposed to be cool enough to make frying food in hot oil tolerable, I decided that we should stay in and make buttermilk fried chicken. I spent the better part of the day getting everything ready – brining the chicken, baking cornbread, shredding cabbage, and throwing together a baked bean concoction – so that we’d be ready to fry when my mom arrived. The frying part took a little longer than I had expected, but the end result was worth every second of waiting. The brining made the chicken super moist and flavorful, and the coating was crispy and delicious. Very, very delicious. I thought that the last batch of fried chicken we made was perfect, but this was even more perfect. The best part about dining out all weekend is the privilege of enjoying so much great food, but the second best part is that I still have leftover fried chicken.
Restaurants visited this weekend:
- Rustica (twice)
- Barrio
- Heartland
- Grand Ole Creamery
- Potbelly
- Bar La Grassa
- Yum!
- 5-8 Club
- Sebastian Joe’s
- Pastries from Rustica make the world go ’round.
- Marshmallow Man ice cream from Grand Ole Creamery is worth moving to St. Paul for.
- Sebastian Joe’s ice cream, Rustica chocolate cake, and a Cubs win help heal severe tendonitis.
- Bar La Grassa is my favorite restaurant in Minneapolis.
- Calling an 88-year-old woman and posing as her granddaughter who is stuck in jail in Mexico City will not earn you $7800 from my grandma.
- My cousin was not attending a wedding in Mexico City this weekend, nor was she driving drunk after the reception.
- My mom will do anything for good chocolate chips.
- The Matt’s Bar Jucy Lucy is better than the 5-8 Club Juicy Lucy.
Yet-to-be-baked beans
Brining chicken
Six pounds of bird
Fry fry chicky chick
My plate
My dining companions
Morning walk around Lake Calhoun
Beautiful day
Breakfast pastries at Rustica
Guac at Barrio
Chocolate chip stash that was cleared out by my mom. Twice.
Hauling eight pounds of chocolate chips around Mall of America is a workout like no other.
I saw these shoes at Nordstrom. I’m still not over it.
Moon over downtown from outside Bar La Grassa. That was a lot of prepositions.
Egret at Lake Harriet
Pretty green
My first 5-8 Juicy Lucy
The cheesy inside. It was good, but it was lacking the grilled onions that Matt’s Bar has.
