Crawfish Shack

 If I had to pick one meal to eat before I die it would always be seafood. Lobster, shrimp, oysters, clams, crab. Gimme. So I knew I had to check out Crawfish Shack after it appeared on Creative Loafing's List of 100 Dishes in Atlanta and best spots for BYOB in Atlanta. A BYOB seafood place? Yes, please. 

Crawfish Shack is a hole in the wall off of Buford Highway right after Aloha plaza in a small shopping center. It is equal parts ridiculously cheap and insanely delicious.We decided to make date night out of it and turned up on a Friday night to a packed house. When you dub yourself a Louisiana Cajun Vietnamese seafood shack you are bound to have many suitors. 

You can purchase soups, dips, or your seafood raw by the pound to cook yourself or stay to drink and wait for your food. The restaurant is decorated like a beach shack with ships and hanging fishing nets. The tables are long benches that would be great for a birthday party to squeeze all your friends in (and probably some strangers)  Guess which we picked?

Cheers! 

Crawfish Shack made the list off 100 Dishes to try because of their Boudin Balls. It is a Cajun dish that I had never tried and it was a bit like a hushpup but less breading, more seafood-y goodness.They also come in a pork variety but were doing seafood here!

They are deep fried and come with a spicy dipping sauce. Obviously naughty for your diet, get them anyways and pop em' with no regrets.

For our meal, we split the Seafood Boil for ONE. It was stuffed with blue crabs, lobster, mussels, shrimp, sausage, and potatoes.

 Yes, this is food that they deem acceptable for one person to consume in a sitting.

I think this place and I are going to have an amazing friendship.

Rain, Shine, or Pyro Cumulus Clouds.

 Savannah is a perfect southern city with sweet tea, gorgeous people, warm weather. I had not been in town for close to a year, so when J called to announce birthday plans I jumped at the chance to visit her in her new home. It is hard to stay away from a city like this in close proximity to the beach, delicious restaurants, and great night life.



Savannah holds a big piece of my heart. When I lived on a boat, we would port in Savannah once or twice a week and spend our evenings on River Street and City Market. We would take runs each evening and watch dolphins swim by and cargo ships fill the river expanse.

Savannah is a town that wants to have a good time and convinces you to do the same. There is an open container law and you can bring drinks into any new establishments you go in. That makes bar hopping a bit more exciting! Just remember anything you walk around with needs to be in a cup - or a paper bag like these $5 40's we survived on. My bag disintegrated by the time I tried to drink all of this! P.S. it didn't happened.

We arrived Friday after deciding last minute not to fly and checked in at the hotel, watched the opening ceremonies, and waited for the last of the crew to roll into town - they took too long so SP and I ventured out without them, but as usual, they caught up with us!

And finally it was time to celebrate this birthday girl! Remember gents, on Fridays we wear plaid.

We made all the favorite stops and finally ended the night at Savannah Smiles a dueling piano bar where I have spent nights before running back to the boat to make it back before departure. If you are in Savannah add this to your list of places to check out. Though I will always recommend a dueling piano bar to anyone and everyone I meet, this is the place that began my love and I guarantee a fantastic time! 

Really, I will buy you a shot if you don't enjoy it.

As always, it is great to be back together again with these friends!

The next morning we woke up to Indecisive Saturday, a traditional long boozy brunch with spicy bloody marys and carafes of bottomless mimosas at B. Matthews. It is a requirement to enjoy both on indecisive Saturday.

What a lucky girl I am to room with these fools for the weekend! 

We had hoped to enjoy the beach for the day but after venturing out realized there were bigger events brewing in Savannah. Smoked filled the blue skies and clouded our views of the Savannah river as we crossed the bridge into South Carolina.  

Determined to find out what was causing the flames, we headed to the port where we found the tire factory collapsed upon itself and engulfed in flames.

 There was no way to stop the blaze and the smoke took over the sky.

As we watched, we made best friends with Brandon the newscaster - most likely due to our boozy brunch and he asked to interview our reactions for the WJCL news. Our moment of fame was upon us! Plus, would you say "No" to him?!

 And we of course, gave the birthday girl the spotlight..

 

Honestly, we chose her because being a doctor she had the least likely chance of embarrassing us. And she did a fantastic job! This girl was made for TV. Once we heard that no one was in danger we stopped for one last family photo.

After our 15 minutes of fame and the pyro cumulus clouds plaguing us, our day turned quickly into evening activities and it was finally time to Slow Ride! Why do the days go so fast on holiday?

Slow ride is a 15 person bike that meanders through the streets and squares of Savannah for a tour of the pubs in historic downtown, otherwise known as a pub crawl on wheels. The bike helmet is only a requirement for some.  

Each seat on the "slow ride" has its own set of pedals so we grabbed our drinks, put Slow Ride by Foghat on repeat, and set to pedaling.

 
Important factors I learned during our slow ride:

1. It is harder than it looks - seriously. With the hard bike seats, your knees hitting the bar top, and the feeling you are going to lose your balance at any moment this is not a effort free activity.

2. Bring your own music - they don't play any music but will let you plug in an iPod. Definitely make a playlist for this excursion when (and you should) go!

3. At some point everyone in your group will stop pedaling. This will happen when you're in the middle of an intersection and you will freak out that you are going to get hit by oncoming traffic. Or you will be on a hill and struggle to get the bike started again. Invite your most active and ambitious friends to participate.

This is a shot of no one pedaling. 

 4. The driver has too many rules. I get it, he's chaperoning drunk patrons through the streets of Savannah but he threaten to kick multiple people off our bike, only gave us 15 minutes in each bar, hollered at us to always face forward (I am here to see the sights!), and turn the music down.

In the end he left us on the street when he got a $100 fine for how loud we were. Sorry Ed, even if you were a stick in the mud. 

5. It may not be the safest mode of transportation because only moments on the bike my pedals fell off! I must have been far too eager for the Slow Ride. At first I was very sad to miss out on all of the fun - until I realized I could supervise. Supervising had job duties such as monitoring the feet for slackers and "motivating" everyone to go faster. All while sitting back to enjoy the ride. So, if you can manage to knock off your pedals - do it.

We made four stops along the route with my favorite being "Abe's on Lincoln" Located off the stretch of tourist stops, it  is a small, hole in the wall bar off Lincoln. The walls are plastered with Abe cocktail napkins, there's live music, and its dark and dingy - which always make the best places.

We ended the evening at "The Rail" with many more celebrations for the birthday girl!

Peace out Savannah - see you for St. Patrick's Day!  

Atlanta Snowpocalypse 2014

It has been an interesting days in Atlanta filled with snow, day long traffic jams, and the beauty of Southern hospitality. I luckily did not spend 20 hours in my car or sleep at Kroger (or the hospital) like most of my other co-workers and friends and cannot entertain you with horror stories that I hope we can all laugh at now.

Instead I managed my way out of the hospital during the "Code White" and slowly trekked home in the ice. SNOW DAY was needed in our household so once all the roomies ventured back into the safety of our abode, we set to work playing, eating, and day drinking. It is important to never forget the true meaning of snow day.

But the snow kept falling into the night causing people to be stuck on highways, in accidents, and in bad situations. However, it turned our yard into a winter wonderland.

On Wednesday it was very obvious we would not be making our way into work that day so we started the morning with a big breakfast and Bloody Mary Snow Slushies while we waited for B to make his way back on the ice rinks we were calling our roads. He had made it to a friend's house the night before thankfully!

We did everything in our power to get rid of the snow plaguing our city. Filling our glasses to the top with fresh snow, adding a splash (or two) of Tit-o's and drinking those snow drifts away.

Goodbye snow, hello day drinks!

Then we took to the streets like kids out of school - sledding on our garbage lids (fail) and frolicking through the snow.

The boys ventured out for essentials since I obviously did not purchase enough Modelo the evening before. Cabin fever was already starting in for me, so I tagged along just to get out of the house.

By mid-afternoon the streets were thawing out but it was still treacherous in others!

Wanting to be (somewhat) productive, B took the time to teach me how to make pasta. He is the best pasta chef in the city so I tried hard to get it right and listen to every instruction. There is no recipe and no list of measurements. He decides everything by texture and experience. Sure, B sounds simple...

Did you know pasta can be made with only flour and egg yolks? When I admitted that I think he knew this was going to be a long lesson but we were snowed in and he was stuck with me!

B grabbed our 00 flour and farm fresh eggs to create our dough. A reference is using 1 egg to 3/4 C flour. 00 flour is the most highly refined flour and is ground into a talc-powder softness. As you can probably tell I learned alot of information on Snow Day!

We  He created a well in the flour and cracked each of the egg yolks into, discarding the whites. The dough is made by slowly mixing to incorporate the flour from the sides into the center of yolks. After it forms the dough must be kneaded to activate the gluten. (So much for cutting my gluten this year...) but at least I was good at this part of the project!

After your sough forms, let the pasta sit for about 30 minutes or the rest of the afternoon as we did. The dough should be tacky but not sticky and not stick to the plastic wrap when you are ready to use.

And then the fun began. We rolled the dough, fortified, folded, ran it through the machine and REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT.

We used KitchenAid mixers for this process which are wonderful! Start with the #1 setting as this will be the widest and slowly work down to your thickness. Make sure to fortify the dough each time by lightly coating it with flour and then wiping it off. It doesn't need to be rubbed in because the rollers will do this but wipe it off because you don't want any excess flour when running it through again. Otherwise it will be cracked and you want a soft velvety texture instead. This also helps if you are an amateur like me to not get the dough stuck on the rollers. 

I watched the master at work and finally pushed him aside when I thought I knew what I was doing. FYI - I didn't. He just made it look so easy!

One of the hardest parts was holding the dough so your fingertips were not touching the sides or creasing the pasta. Plus you have to feed the dough in straight and even so it doesn't crack the edges. If you do that you fold over the opposite direction and create new edges. So, no this is not a fast process.

B cuts each of his noodles. Yes, really. So next time you are at the restuarant think of all the hard work and time goes into EACH. NOODLE. It really is more than putting a pot of water on.

I, on the other hand used the KitchenAid mixer attachment that cuts for pasta of all types. Run it through one time and create perfect little noodles. At this step they are very soft and dough-y so we placed them on a cooking sheet using chop sticks and covered with a towel to keep the moisture in the air from drying it out. 

Next were a few steps I could handle. 1. Pouring wine. 2. Boiling water (B did yell at me for not adding salt - is that a thing you are always supposed to do?) The pasta noodles we made from scratch cooked within minutes so if you make your own make sure to time it right with the rest of your meal.

What a great family dinner and I have to admit I make a DELICIOUS pasta (ok, it was B) but I helped. Don't you think this pasta looks like a heart? Just in time for Valentines!

Happy Snow Day everyone! Pray that it will be our LAST.

Date a girl that travels.

"Date a Boy who Travels" is a post that has been going around on social media the past week. It is entertaining and honest however, being written by a girl that travels herself I couldn't help feeling that she wanted this man to open her eyes to the world and teach their children about rocks and life. But doesn't she already travel? Isn't she already doing these things for herself? So, she instead wants to sit home and hear about his travels? I am getting mixed messages here..

Another post popped up "DON'T Date a Girl that Travels" in response. Seriously? I understand the entry is meant to be a humorous response about how a girl that travels will be filled with so much life that she will be hard to please. I suppose listing reasons why a girl is hard to please as a companion piece to how a man's traveling will change your life is funny. Is it just me or is that overplayed yet? Girls, excuse me, woman that travel are not hard to please. We sleep in train stations, we throw everything on our back, and we survive off protein bars and beers. We get along with everyone because we have all packed into a 16 person co-ed dorm in the middle of the jungle. We love experiences - all of them - because when you travel the most miniscule detail ends up changing your life and if you don't know that, you haven't traveled. So sure she is going to want to strap on her backpack and climb mountains instead of sitting on your couch watching movies but she still appreciates the movie days. Because that's what traveling does, makes you appreciate the sum of all those little things. 

So here is my take on your choice to date a girl that travels. Agree or not, I just needed a less maddening version of this to be out in the world.

Date a girl who travels. Date a girl who treasures experiences over handbags, stamps in her passport over name brand clothing. Date the girl who scoffs when she hears the words “all-inclusive” because then you can be sure she is a girl that knows how to have fun. Date a girl who travels because she’s enlivened by many goals and no - that does not make her undecided, flaky, or dependent on you. Her mind is filled with dreams and plans for the future and if you are smart you will get in on them because she will accomplish more in her life than many will dream about. 
 

Date a girl that travels because she makes dreams into reality. When you peek at her computer screen, the background will be snapshots taken of oceans she has kayaked, mountains that have been skied, and any countless memories from places she has trekked and views she has thanked her God for. Date a girl that travels because she will be the hardest working girl you know. These views began as a dream that she accomplished - herself. She knows how many work days will measure a rail pass from Brussels to London, a glass of wine in Tuscany, the ferry ride between Mykonos and Athens, or a night clubbing in Ibiza. 

Date a girl who travels for her intelligence, she will navigate unknown cities and new languages with ease. She engages with worldly company to learn their cultures, history, and behaviors. Date a girl that travels because after many bumped flights, wrong turns, crowded bus rides, and bad street food she is easy going and adaptable. She is prepared for bumps in the road and enjoys the spontaneity of the journey they cause. She knows that the story is in the journey and it is often more memorable than the destination. She will be the first one laughing in these situations that will become amazing moments that will be your life together and put a smile on your face. Life will never stop throwing curve balls and she catches them and throws them right back.  

Date a girl that travels because she will win over your best friends and charm your boss. You can leave her in a room alone because she will be a girl that has never met a stranger. So don't fret when her Facebook wall is plastered with the broken English "miss you's" of friends she met along her travels. Because to be a girl that travels she will thrive on conversation, make lifelong friends in an hour, and believe strongly enough in these bonds to meet for drinks after years of sporadic 'What's App' conversations between time zones. Date a girl that travels because of her heart that cares for each of these relationships. 

Date the girl that has lived out of a backpack because she lives happily with less and values simplicity. She realizes the true needs for a happy life are found in relationships and family. She packs light and doesn't need much. She will treasure you and your experiences together over possessions. Give her those instead of expensive gifts. She has traveled and seen poverty, dined in small shanties with no running water, bathed in bus depots, and budgeted every cent - of her own money, to make it happen.

Date a girl who travels because she has had time to reflect on herself and her relationships. She won't waste time playing games because she looks at the world with curiosity and is more eager to plan holidays and be lost in bliss than fight with you.  Date the girl who talks of distant places and whose hands have explored relics of ancient civilizations because there is no limit to the happiness she envisions or the joy she will know. Date a girl that travels because she will make you feel like you can do anything and calm your nerves when you’re about to miss a flight or when your rental blows a flat, because she knows the journey is the adventure. She will live in every moment with you because this is how she lives her life - because being with a girl that travels means she will put her heart and soul into making it work.

Buy her a glass of wine and listen to her stories. Watch her lose herself in the memories because these are the moments that created her world; from the sunsets in Spain, to lost in translation Budapest, to sleeping on the beaches in Croatia when she had no other home. These moments to her, make up everything. She only wants you to listen so that you will want it too.

 

Buy her subscriptions to AFAR and Conde Nast so she can get lost in the pages. Sit with her when she becomes engrossed in her Tumblr dashboard in those inevitable moments when her wanderlust creeps up and you can almost hear her heart racing. Then she will plan your adventures and ask you to run away with her. Tell her yes and mean it. She will see you both riding dunes in Morocco, surfing in New Zealand, and hiking in Fjords in Norway. She will grill you about your dreams and competitively ask about the craziest things you’ve ever done. Tell her. She wants to know your heart can handle all that she needs to see and accomplish and experience in this world. Tell her because she will make it happen. She will fight to make your wildest dreams come true and there are no better hands for your dreams to be left in. She will plan those days for you both and you know your life will become filled with adventures and laughter, even on the days you are not bungee jumping from Bloukrans Bridge or throwing yourself down waterfalls in La Fortuna. Date a girl that travels because the quiet days will become as special as the action packed. 

Date a girl that travels because she appreciates home and the comfort of your arms. She has known the ache of goodbye and the joy of returning home to her favorite pillow, home cooked meal, and driving her beat up car after months away. She has had a chance to miss and be missed and although she is fiercely independent you want to date her because she appreciates your time together as much as she understands the need for you both to have time apart, to have separate passions, and to have a bucket list of your own. So follow your heart and let her follow hers because when they end up together, you know they are in the right place.

And most importantly, explore the world for yourself, and if it is meant to be that your bucket list converges with hers she will treat every step of your life together as a new adventure. She will laugh with you and cry with you as you both stumble through the uncertainty of it all but she is not afraid of new experiences - instead she will thrive in them.

And don't be discouraged when she forgets to check in with you because she will be a daydreamer, a dancer, a doer, and she won't need you. She can jump and catch herself. So don’t hold onto this girl. Let this girl go - but go with her because it will be the only way to really keep up her. Together you will make the whole world your home.