Saint Louie Love

Greg gave me a pretty good reason to love St. Louis last summer.  So when he bought us tickets to the Packers game in St. Louis for this past weekend, I was stoked!  I was a teeny, tiny bit disappointed to be going back to a city I had so recently visited instead of somewhere brand new, but it was my first NFL game, so my excitement quickly outweighed my disappointment.

Once arriving in St. Louis, my disappointment was non-existent.  Fall had been very kind to this city and it felt brand new.

We did all the necessary “touristy” things on our previous trip, so this time we ventured to new places like Union Station.  We ate.  We drank.  We ate some more.

Union Station

Outside Union Station

The entire city was very welcoming of all the invading Green Bay fans.  We were particularly welcomed at one of our favorite bars from last summer, Tigin.

The gang’s all here!

Pregaming at Tigin

My first NFL game was sa-weet!  The Packers were even nice enough to win just for me!

Chad dubbed this Ram-beau field!

We had a fantastic trip and I will never again complain about visiting the same place twice.  St. Louis pleasantly surprised me.  Maybe now we need to see St. Louis at Christmas. 🙂

 

Belated Birthday Bliss

Greg does not give crappy gifts.  He doesn’t wait until the last minute, and he always puts a lot of thought into each gift.  And yes, he is male.

This year on my birthday in August, he told me he booked a “date night” themed class at the Viking Cooking School in Memphis, TN.

The course wasn’t until this past weekend, but I was still beyond excited. I’ve been interested in taking a class since Greg’s sister and her husband took a class in Mississippi and had a great time.  And this class didn’t disappoint.

We learned some valuable techniques…and some dangerous ones:

Flambe!

We made a bisque using lobster (which I’ve never prepared before), candied pine nuts (which I’ve never eaten before), truffle frites (which I love), and filets (which are our fav).

Lobster tails for the bisque

Baby greens with candied pine nuts and lobster bisque with brandy cream

Oven-roasted truffle frites and pancetta wrapped filets stuffed with spinach and boursin cheese with a red wine demi-glace

Because of the time constraints, we didn’t make our own dessert, but the chefs made white chocolate cherry cheesecakes and gave us the recipe.

Bonus cheesecake

This was cooking at it finest.  No grocery shopping, no measuring, minimal prep work, and best of all, NO DISHES!

Another perk was sitting down with the other 5 couples to enjoy our hard-earned meal.

Our teammates (and it’s her birthday!)