missing my staples

I have been on a quest to find my go-to restaurants here in the RVA, I must admit, I find myself usually disappointed. It seems that cheap food and good food are mutually exclusive here in Richmond. Maybe hindsight is actually 20/20, but I had so many places to get nourished in my last two town of residence that were not only cheap (or cheap-ish) but DELICIOUS! So here's to missing Lubbock TX (yes I am actually admitting to missing Lubbock) and Athens GA... by way of my tummy. If you live in or will be going to either of these places, take advantage your taste buds and wallets will think you.

DISCLAIMER:for those of you who don't know me, or don't know me well, I can be incredibly frugal and often associate cheap with good.

LUBBOCK TX
Orlando's | home-cookin for an Italian wanna be
Burrito Tower | my mouth is waterin' there pico will burn ya... in a good way
Thai Thai | yum
Freebirds | LOVE. just discussed my love for their burritos last night to my brother who thinks Chipotle is better, I disagree
Rosa's | ahhh, no one does fast mexican food like Rosa's
Montelongo's! | AH MONTELONGO'S this is mexican food (Whitney and Kelli came to visit us in Lubbock in Jan of last year, and this was the first place we took them. ps-they loved it, pics show it all... pre-eating fret vs. after consumption smiles!)

CHOO-CHI | so close, so tasty, and they can make it HOT
Picante's | best huevos rancheros in town. where I learned to love drinking coffee and eating chips & salsa
Wataburger | only in Tejas, better at 2AM if you have the patience to wait in line
Josie's | oh Josie... you and your burritos
Schlozsky's | they don't have them in VA
ps. I miss mexican food, Texas style (probably obvious by my list)

ATHENS GA
The Grit | Athens staple for all
Jot-em-Down | (remembering being a meat eater) THIS is my favorite BBQ of ALL TIME... ANYWHERE!
Thai Spoon | thinkin' about their basil roll currently
Lucky Wings | GI-NORMOUS tenders, great for 2AM visits too!
Taco Stand | remember I said cheap and tasty
Little Italy | their subs can NOT be beat.
Transmetropolitan | yummy, and are open and servin' beer on Sunday
Cali & Titos | (the former Caliente Cab, in a new location...I think) my adolescent introduction into now what is a mature addiction to cuban food and plantains in general
Schlozsky's | yup, had em in GA too, but not in VA

THE FOLKS & jana, came to see me!!!!

The first weekend in December my parents and my sister came to visit us here in Richmond! It was really great to see them, and super fun to take them to all of our favorite places. On the Friday night they arrived we (the Diamond Center) actually had a show, Soooo.... our original, and most awesome drummer, my sister, Jana rejoined us for the show! Our second drummer, Tim, had just moved to the city, and our drummer, Willis, who joins us when not on tour with his band, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, was in town as well... so you know what that means... 3 DRUMMERS!!! ...not only that but we have enlisted a local bass player, meet Will Godwin, graphic designer/illustrator/photographer/bass player extraordinaire. Fun stuff!

SO... back to the fam. We had lots of fun exploring the city, despite the snowy/rainy/cold, and kept warm with lots of good food in our bellies. On Sunday, the sun came out and we took a trip to Millie's for brunch. If ever in Richmond, eat a Millie's! Here are a couple of shots from our morning extravaganza.


I love this one of Kyle and my Dad.

Me and my most awesome sister, Jana. (Jana on the left)
Mom & Dad, a-waiting a table.
Jukebox at each table! (check it out: Thao and the Get Down Stay Down on the JUKE)... and yummy.

reading days

There were no classes Thurs. or Friday this week at VCU for a little mid-semester break called "reading days"... I love reading days. We went up to Baltimore on Thurs. evening to see some of our friends The Flying Eyes, open up for the Black Angels, and The Raveonettes, it was such a GREAT show, and fun to get out of Richmond for day. I must say that the Raveonettes show possibly was the loudest thing I have ever EVER heard. Even though we might have had some slight hearing damage, Im so glad I got to see them live.

We stayed in this great old Victorian Hotel downtown called the Biltmore. A perfect escape from your typical hotel experience. These was looking out our window at a Cathedral next door.

It was rainy, and freakin' cold so we didn't get to do much exploring BUT...
we did get to check out this awesome place. The very John Waters-esque Paper moon diner.

reverie

–noun
1. a state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing.
2. a daydream.
3. a fantastic, visionary, or impractical idea: reveries that will never come to fruition.
4. Music. an instrumental composition of a vague and dreamy character.

That is my word for the day, and now I will use it in a sentence:

Yesterday I was lost in reverie while walking, with the thoughts of how different clouds must have appeared 100... 500... 1,000 years ago. They had to be different, with a changing environment and ozone and earth temperatures... 

When I left the building after my workday, I was greeted by these guys. These have to be year 2009 clouds... they seem somehow, digitized.

Thank you iphone for helping me again document the sky.

  

confession/obsession
its that time of year when the fruit & veggies at the grocery store start looking and tasting awesome! My personal favorites so far, white peaches and red grapes.

I have a method for eating most things.  

With the grapes I really like to peel the skin off with my teeth, just half of the skin though, then I obsess over the beautiful paring of the contrasting colors; the red of the skin and the pale green of the fruit. when it has been sufficiently admired, I pop it in my mouth, and enjoy the texture of the peeled grape on my tongue.

Stay tuned, and maybe tomorrow i'll describe how I eat a peach, or better yet... ice cream. btw, written sarcasm is not my forte, I am much better at the tone-of-voice sarcasm which is not as clearly detected thru this medium.

Y-U-mmmmmmy!!!

For a while now me and mr. K baby Harris have been making a conscious effort to eat good & healthy food. Making good choices is a daily battle BUT it gets easier and easier day by day. This is what fueled our decision to be, or attempt to be, vegetarians AND helps us eat lots & lots of veggies, which is just plain good for ya anyway! This is not to say that every once in a while we wont splurge on some McDonald's french fries (which is something that I did this past weekend) BUT, we are usually pretty good.
SO... I thought I would share our FAVORITE recent meal. It's TOTALLY yummy, easy to prepare... and vegan to boot!

VEGAN TACO SALAD

Steamed Cabbage (packs more nutrition than lettuce)
Corn (one of my favorite veggies, we use the sweet white frozen kernels)
Fantastic Foods Veggie Taco Filling (this stuff, and everything from FF is the BOMB!)
Shredded Soy Cheese (which is actually tasty, and SO SO much better for you than it's traditional component)
Salsa
Cilantro 
& a twist of LIME!

Just try it! Tell me what you think! AND the bonus: this whole meal AND a glass of Light Soy Milk (another obsession of mine) is less than 500 calories!!!!

no animals were harmed or scary growth hormone chemicals consumed for the enjoyment of this meal.

whirl-wind

These last two week have flown by, and between trying to finish up the album, and preparing the goods for my grad school apps, we have had time for little else. Although I did get all my christmas shopping taken care of in an extended lunch hour last week, I was a little nervous about that not getting done, but I'm in the clear. 

So this is awesome... K picked me up from work for lunch on Friday and after a delicious meal at Orlando's (one of my personal favorites, we at there 3 times last week... no kidding) he took me to best buy and got me an iphone for christmas.... I was SO surprised.... and overwhelmed... and super super excited... and I must admit that I am now in love with a phone. It might be a bit extravagant, but I am already convinced of it's wonderfull-ness in my life. I, brandi p, am a closet tech junkie, there... i said it.

Here are a couple of images from our weekend dedicated to not much more than working and eating, although the working part is not as fun to take pics of as the eating part. So starting with my first iphone self-portrait (of many I am sure), to our awesome sat morning breakfast at Montelongo's (love love LOVE coffee with chips & salsa don't knock it till ya try it). Our sunday morn Josie's breakfast with some, hotter than anything that I have ever tasted, homemade tomatillo salsa that K got at the flea market. And finally a pic by K of me playing my grandmothers pump organ on our record.

righteous.