avablog

When I went to search my blog for mention of this sandwich, I noticed that I’ve deleted my search bar.  Note to self:  Reinstate search bar. Fortunately, the tastiness of this sandwich can bear many mentions.  It’s served by a restaurant here in town called Devotay, and their menu describes the dish thusly: Wildlife Lakes  […]

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Leah and I went to dinner with some friends last night at Cafe Dodici. As always, it was delicious. Aunt Rachel is in town for the weekend, so she offered to babysit for us. In appreciation, I wanted to make her a meal. She likes (among other things) pasta with mushrooms, so I dug up […]

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I’ven’t* yet ceased to be amazed (and often disturbed) by the search habits of the general WWW-using public. One example is the perennial placement of the search term “philly cheesesteak burger” among the top five terms in my httpd log. Look, I love Hardee’s as much as the next person, and I might’ve even searched […]

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I hope I make it through the day.  Our staff is having breakfast with our president today at the Edgewater Grille, which is a restaurant located in a new hotel near our office.  Should be interesting. For lunch, we’re having our staff “holiday” gathering at the Olive Garden.  The lunch was scheduled before the breakfast, […]

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We made the mistake of giving Ava a yogurt-covered pretzel on a spin through our co-op a couple weeks back.  Now she’s all about yogurt-covered pretzels. The first time she asked for one, though, she said, “Can I have a yogurt kind of pretzel?” “A what?” I asked. “A yogurt kind of pretzel.” Now, for […]

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I was at Subway over lunch and noticed the branch I frequent no longer accepts travelers cheques.  Who pays for a sub with travelers cheques?  They’re also not taking any $50 or $100 bills, I expect because they’ve been hit by the recent “flood” of faux fitties and hundos in the area.  According to a […]

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I first saw this book a couple months ago at a bookstore in Decorah. The pictures of the food were what caught my eye initially, but closer inspection revealed some really nice, simple recipes for traditional Italian dishes. I’m eager to get started on a couple of the entries. Between this and the online membership […]

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Here’s a sampling of the beers we had for our New Year’s Eve celebration yesterday. Kevin was kind enough to bring some great New Glarus beers from Wisconsin. The others we picked up at John’s.

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For a while there it was looking like our fledgling New Year’s Eve party was going to be snubbed out this year due to Rachel’s monstrous schedule at school. Luckily for all of us (and especially for her), Rachel’s carved some leeway into the next year, which means she and Kevin are a “go” for this year’s festivities.

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Sometimes it’s just weird to be around Iowa City without anything to do. But it sure is nice. No running around to get the car packed and Ava loaded up for a trip to Madison or Decorah or Chicago. No big social events to buy food and wine for. No parties to dress up and find sitters for. It’s healing.

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Today at work we’re having the last of this season’s staff tailgate events. It’s a biggie. There are plenty of people in the office who have strong Wisconsin ties (including yours truly, who was born in Madtown lo, those many years ago), so emotions are running high on the eve of the Hawkeyes/Badgers clash. But […]

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How does Long John Silver’s stay in business?  One of the Yum! brands, along with Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell, among others, the restaurant had $38M in net income in 2005. Wikipedia tells me that Yum! is in the process of pairing LJS with KFC, just as they’ve been pairing it with A&W (another […]

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We just got done with our tailgate party here at work. Someone came up with the idea of having a tailgate party for every home football game, which entails certain departments banding together to bring lots and lots of food. Then we all get together at 10 somewhere in the building and chow down. I […]

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I love making this dish this time of year.  Accompanied by mashed sweet potato, it’s a really, really nice meal.  No doubt those of you out there with more culinary imagination than I posses can come up with more exciting sides. Turkey Meatloaf 5 slices of firm bread 1 TB oil 1 onion chopped 2 […]

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We had dinner this past Friday at Simone’s, again. If only I had the money to eat there every weekend. It was fantastic. Here’s the menu: As Hors d’oeuvres: Zelook – a dip with Eggplant & Tomatoes- and an assortment of little salads. Served with Moroccan bread Harbel – a Soup with whole wheat grain […]

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Here’s a shot of the lasagna Kevin and I made last Saturday night: We got the recipe from a Cook’s Illustrated issue; it’s one of their “faster” recipes, so it basically required a quick bolognese-type meat sauce and no-boil lasagna noodles. It was a cinch to make, and it tasted great (even though we couldn’t […]

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We had a great weekend in Madison visiting Aunt Rachel and Uncle Kevin. As usual, our time there was full of good food and drink, walks, coffee, and at least one knock-down, drag-out fight between the Klevar sisters. After we got settled in on Friday evening, we dined at a nearby Thai restaurant that Rachel […]

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I came across this little tidbit today while looking at my httpd log: “drink 1 bottle wine/night while breastfeeding” Someone searched for this string and wound up at my site.  I can promise you, dear reader(s), that Leah never drank a bottle of wine while she was breastfeeding.  I, on the other hand…. I’m only […]

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Last evening, Leah, Ava, and I walked downtown to have pizza. It was a gorgeous stroll. The restaurant was pretty crowded when we arrived, but we were able to get a table after only a short wait. Ava loved standing out on the sidewalk and watching all the foot traffic go by. After dinner, we […]

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This is a confounding time of year, weather-wise. I’m starting to get this nervous feeling that I need to take advantage of every minute of mild, sunny weather, before the cold rain and then snow of winter sets in. Take yesterday, for example. A couple friends and I biked over to the Amana Colonies to […]

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