On my Soapbox

I was telling my coworker about wanting to buy a french bulldog and she pointed me in the direction of petfinder.com a site that is dedicated to placing homeless dogs, cats and all other types of animals I suppose. My coworker rescued her Mini Italian Greyhound Ziggy using this site. Love that! This is what I found-

Kendra

Kendra is from a puppy mill and the breeder only sells to puppy brokers and the broker refused to take delivery of her because she was under weight and her ears had not popped up yet. This rescue group took her before she was sent to the auction.

Mercedes

Mercedes was from the same litter and was also refused by the broker because she was under weight and she had a slight mark on her forehead.

What the?????? What is a pet broker and why are they so evil?
Puppy mills make me so mad! I am having second thoughts about ever watching the AKC show again!
Ok I will get down off of the soapbox now.

Spanish Fork Kite Festival

One Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago I discretely  left work and met Brit, Angie and Riley for the Spanish Fork Kite Festival. No trip to Spanish Fork would be complete without a stop at The Little Acorn for a sandwich and the most delicious french fries ever...and the fry sauce I think I could drink it yumm.  So we had lunch then we drove up to the kite festival. Did you know there is reservoir in Spanish Fork with a sandy beach?  I had no idea.  These guys flying kites in the reservoir were from Florida I guess they travel around the country flying kites.  Who knew there was such a job as a professional kite flyer? 

Love this....

We saw this license plate at the State Fair and I thought it was so cute.

Kaycie the Photographer

When we went to the fair last weekend Kaycie brought her camera and had so much fun taking photos. I had lots of fun taking photos of her taking photos

Mans (girls) best friend a dog or a handbag?

The latest Anthropologie catalog was just delivered to my desk and it is filled with fantastic fall handbags, boots and dogs. It has made me want to buy a black french bulldog and a fabulous new handbag.

Utah State Fair

I have not been to the state fair in years, really it has been years and years.  Last Saturday Angie, Kaycie, Riley and I drove to SLC and spent the afternoon at the fair.

I think most of our fair outing involved eating and I must say how surprised I was by the number of items you could eat off of a stick porkchops, corndogs, sausage on a stick, corn on the cob, chocolate dipped strawberries and the list goes on and on.  

The list of deep fried items was just as long and these were the booths where we spent most of our money.  We started our eating extravaganza at the much talked about deep fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich booth.  

This booth won the award for the Most Original Food Item......I guess the prize was this fancy clock .
Can you imagine working in this booth all day long it would be such a nightmare.  Look at all of those deep friers you would be so hot and covered in grease all day.   
Kaycie tried the deep fried Oreos which I thought were really good.
Angie and I split the Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich which I thought was great on the first bite but by the second or third bite I was a little ill.
My advice on the peanut butter sandwich find someone to split it with and save room for this

fresh cut curly fries!

It was a full on BRICK of french fries with tons of ketchup...oh heaven.  
While we were eating our french fries a family sat down next to us with this delightful funnel cake covered in vanilla cream and chocolate. We were on our way to find a funnel cake and must have been distracted by something because we never got a funnel cake...so sad.
We also tried grilled corn on the cob that was covered and I am talking dripping down my arm covered in butter, lemon and black pepper. It was so delicious.
We did not get around to trying this grilled chicken but I thought it looked and smelled so good. I will be making it my first stop next year.

We, of course, spent time checking out the animals 

Pigs

Cows

And Funky Chickens

 The fruits, vegetables, flowers and preserves are always my favorite exhibits.



I love Kaycie in those glasses and I also love these huge Dahlias.  I am so inspired to plant tons of vegetables and flowers next year I can't wait.

I love the great big best in show ribbons for the preserves were made out of blue gingham ribbon.

No trip to the fair is complete without cotton candy.

On the way home from the fair we stopped by Joy's house for Game Night.  We stayed until the early morning hours playing card games I have never even heard of....31 and Hand and Foot.  What a fun filled Saturday. 

Places to Go.....

I must remember to visit this cute store, Fiona's Sweetshoppe, when I am in San Francisco next.

Which Color?

I am going to buy a "supercool" fridge for my office.....yes they really call it the "supercool" fridge I just can't decide on which color. I am leaning towards the blue what do you think? They also have it in silver and dark blue.

BROOKLYN FOOD TOUR

While in New York (in June) at the Fancy Food Show Kelli and I went on a food tour of Brooklyn. I was so excited about doing this while I was in New York. On the morning of the tour we gathered at the Javits center and took a bus over to Brooklyn passing the World Trade Center site and the cutest little dog park where there was this cute little pug chasing all of these huge dogs around the park. Anyway I digress....Our tour guide was from Brooklyn and as we were driving out of Manhattan she told us fun little facts about Brooklyn, the mix of cultures that make up all of the little neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Did you know that if Brooklyn were its own city it would be the 4th largest city in the country? I had no idea.

Our first stop was was The Chocolate Room in the Park Slope neighborhood.
This was a fun chocolate shop and dessert cafe. They feature chocolates made by chocolatier Fritz Knipschildt. Each Knipschildt chocolate featured in the shop has the name of a woman. I loved that. We all got a sample of the chocolates. Kelli picked the "kelly" which was a strawberry, lemon and thyme ganache. I tried the "valentina" a tasty lavender caramel covered in chocolate.

They were voted in the 2008 Zagat as the 1# Dessert Cafe in NYC. Their chocolate cake was featured in the February 2007 of Oprah magazine. They gave us a little sample of cupcakes made from the same recipe as the chocolate cake and covered with fantastic dark chocolate frosting.
The next stop was at Sahadi

This is a Middle Eastern market. It is filled with and amazing assortment of dried fruits, cheeses, olives and spices.

I loved all of the amazing colors and smells. It really felt like I was in a spice market in the middle east.

I wish I knew more about middle eastern cooking because I am sure I could have stocked up on hard to find spices, chickpea flour, hummus and I can not even believe I did not buy any green olives.....I love green olives.

At Sahadis we sampled Spanakopita.

Right next door to Sahadi's we went to Damascus Bakery.

They are famous for the Pita bread they make. I bought a little sampling of Baklava while I was in this store. They also gave us a sample of a traditional lebanese kibbi pita sandwich. When I found out this sandwich was made from ground lamb I wanted to pass it up but I was inspired by Kelli, who had never been to NYC and was determined to try every new food she could find, so I tried it and really liked it. The next stops was Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches.

Here we had a sample of a traditional vietnamese sandwich. I was surprised to learn that vietnamese food is influenced by France and these sandwiches are made with traditional french ingredients a baguette, pate and mayonaise. I had the portobello mushroom sandwich and I really liked it.

All three of these places were on Atlantic Avenue. Article with additional places to visit on Atlantic Ave can be found here.

The next stop was my favorite. I was so hoping our tour would include a stop here so when I looked down and saw One Girl Cookies on the list I was so excited. This shop was everything I hoped it would be.

I loved the blue and brown color pallet and the great light fixtures and mirrors.
They recently added a little dessert room where the garage used to be. They still have the garage door which I hope they open when they do the dessert tasting bar which they have every Friday night.

The thing I love most about this company is their fantastic packaging, the owner used to be a buyer at Barneys which explains a lot about the great packaging. I love that the cookies are so tiny so you can eat 3 or 4 and not feel at all guilty about it. I also love that each cookie is named after the owner's grandmothers, aunts, great grandmothers etc. I love that. There is a geneology chart painted on the wall in the dessert room.
We got a fun little sampling of cookies here and I also tried the ice cream sandwich that was voted #1 Ice Cream Sandwich in NYC.

One Girl Cookies is in the Boerum Hill neighborhood which looked like it was filled with fun shops and restaurants.

The next stop was Joyce Bakeshop where we got another bag filled with cookies and pastries.

The last stop was Bierkraft in the Park Slope neighborhood.

Here they had a beer, cheese and chocolate tasting. Kelli and I passed on the beer but the cheese and chocolate tasting was really fun. It was also very interesting to hear about the way local breweries are producing beer using a lot of the methods that are used in wine making. The first tasting was a summer sampling. The beer had hints of passion fruit, the cheese had slight fruity notes and the chocolate was filled with a passion fruit syrup. It was really neat to see how all of the samplings were paired and the flavorings that tied them together. All of the items we sampled were from New York state most were from Brooklyn.
They sold 1000's of different types of beers for all around the world.

The Brooklyn food tour was really one of the best things I have ever done in NYC. I loved it. I really, really liked Brooklyn. It was great to walk around and actually see the blue sky. I really think in the future if I have an extra day in NYC I will take the subway out to Brooklyn and spend the day. It was great.