A few more days in Michigan

I'm still in Michigan -- Rochester, to be exact -- and the area is experiencing the best fall weather. It's warm during the day, with some sun, and with the crispness and small of fall in the evenings. Unfortuately, I've yet to talk Kevin into lighting the fire pit and spending an evening sitting around the fire.

Not sure where I left off. Thursday was a non-online grocery shopping and cooking day. There's a great "gourmet" market (www.papajoesmarket.com) in the area. Possibly great because of the angel share wine tasting machine it has, but I digress.

I'd been to Papa Joes before, but didn't expect it to have throngs of cut-throat older people shopping on a Thursday morning. I had to fight my way through the produce and prepared foods areas.

Shopping in a grocery store you don't know isn't fun. I circled around the olive bar three times, once to pass by, twice to go back and get cheese and the third time to get hamburger rolls. I'm not sure why they were both next to the olive bar. Unless some people like cheesy olive rolls?

Of course, like all gourmet stores, this one didn't have everything I needed. Most notably beans for homemade baked beans. That required a trip in the other direction to Kroger. Which then required a phone call to my mom because I couldn't find Kroger. Turns out I drove WAY past it.

Once home, I made cucumer salad, baked beans, and my new favorite recipe, "salmonella" crab salad. I found the recipe about the same time that we had rampant salmonella warnings, about tomatoes, jalapenos and cilantro. All of which are in the salad (along with some lime juice, honey, garlic, s&p and avocado. and crab).

Dinner was burgers on the grill, which is the one thing I miss about living in an apartment. OK, not the one thing, but given I don't do fire, I don't own a grill.

Friday was more writing grind, and then down to Kevin's home away from home. AKA, Rochester Mills Brewery. The brewery was having Oktoberfest on Friday and Saturday (outside), but even inside was packed. Our waitress wore a drindl, but in no way was up to the standards of the Munich frauleins!

Saturday was some putzing around... can't really remember if we did anything interesting. And dinner at Five Lakes Grill (www.fivelakesgrill). Here's the backstory: a few years ago the Boston Globe reviewed a book on charcuterie (the art of smoking and curing meat). After reading the review, I decided to give Kevin the book for Christmas. It turns out one of the authors opened Five Lakes Grill about 45 minutes away from Kevin. Charcuterie is its specialty.

We had been there once before, a few years ago. Possibly the year we celebrated Easter in Michigan. For our first course, we shared a charcuterie plate and a smoked fish plate. The charcuterie plate had a pate of something, served with fig jam and a really nice, tart potato salad; smoked chicken on a berry (maybe cranberry?) compote; a sausage that seemed similiar to a soppressata, drizzled with very fruity olive oil; and prosciutto de Parma.

The smoked fish plate had a terrine of something (very mild), smoked whitefish, trout mousse, and smoked salmon carpaccio. All were fab (as were the meats).

Kevin opted for a BBQ hog chop and I opted for the opulant plate on the menu (and one that appeared was designed for me). Filet mignon served with roasted potatoes, asparagus and bernaise sauce. And I chose to go with the "top with crab" option for a few extra bucks. OMG, best filet ever! I choose not to think about the calories or cholesterol ramifications.

As such, neither stopped me from ordering a brandy creme brulee for dessert. But Kevin and I did split it, so it wasn't too bad for me! ;-)

Today, after reading the Sunday NY Times (is there anything MORE pretentious than the Sunday Times Style Magazine?) was another adventure. Someone dropped off many, many pounds of salmon for Kevin to smoke.

Hands full of salmon, Kevin realized he had no sugar to cure the salmon with. Earlier in the day, he had done some work on the Mustang, leaving it -- for the moment -- inoperable. So, I hopped --ok, climbed -- into his F150 in search of the Kroger.

For not the first time in my life, I'm glad I learned to drive on a full sized van. I don't know anything about pickup trucks, but this one seems larger than most. For example, it's tires appear to be four feet high. I know this because I am four feet, eleven. Let's just say I'm glad a mini skirt and heels were not my Sunday attire.

I took off in the monster truck and yet again, missed the Kroger. After turning around and finding it, I parked perfectly between two yellow lines in one space. I note this because it is something Kevin's not too good at with the truck.

That says, if he reads this, I'm probably in trouble!

Day two, Detroit!

For the first time in years, I've visited Kevin and didn't have to sleep on an air mattress. He used to have an old Coleman blow up mattress, which had a wonderful overnight feature. As you slept, you slowly sunk to the floor. You usually woke up with no air left.

He eventually upgraded to a good air mattress. But now, he moved his old full sized bed into the guest room. Woo hoo! A mattress and a frame!

Kevin heads to work around 5 (I think), so being the good house guest I am, I slept through his AM departure. Once I got up, it was time to venture into downtown Rochester for some much needed coffee and preferably a nice croissant.

A few things Kevin forgot to mention:
1) Starbucks in Rochester closed;
2) University Ave (one of the main roads) is under construction
3) whether or not I could walk on his newly paved driveway (the one with the stakes and police tape still on it).

After getting into his Mustang, rearranging the seat, mirrors, etc., I roared off. Rather unintentionally. If you live in Rochester and are wondering who the moron is who can't drive the Mustang. Um, that would be me.

One crappy cup of coffee and not-so-filled blueberry cream cheese croissant later, I sat down to work on my book. This of course, required, far too much time invested in Twirl on Facebook.

Once I did finally get to writing (one more chapter down), I caught something on legs out of the corner of my eye. Hmmmm.... who knew Kevin had a pet deer! I wonder if he has decent editing skills.

DE-troit

Well, yes, I've managed a second posting within a month. Going boffo! Here's hoping I can be more prolific.

Flew to Detroit via Philadelphia yesterday. My pre-flight rush resulted in:
a) not being able to overnight some paper work I desperately needed to get to someone;
b) not printing out a coupon for long term parking; and
c) not being able to drop my new betta fish (named Persia, but I call him Fishie) off at a friends. Here's hoping the vacation feeder does it's job and I come home to a live fish. If not, I'll have to wrestle another $3.97 out of my budget for a new fish.

This is the first time I've used Long Term parking. I opted for a place in Revere, right off of 1A. I had to leave my keys with the car, which has me sincerely wondering if the car will be there when I return.

US Air -- hence the layover -- was the carrier and my flight to Philly was not full. Not in the least. Not only were there empty seats, but there were empty rows. I had an exit row to myself, and I didn't even have to pay extra for it.

I did, however, have to pay $15 to check in my bag, and $2 if I wanted a bottle of water.

Philly -- like many newly renovated airports, offers lots of shopping. Including a UPS store! Getting those papers off means I may have health insurance for the month of October. Or I may be looking for someone to adopt me.

US Air is located in the new terminal at Detroit airport. New as in, opened a week ago. The balloons were still up. My brother Kevin, despite not recalling what airline I was on, managed to find me.

Dinner was a disappointing overly salted meal at Bahama Breeze. My recommendation: stick with the coconut shrimp.