such a tease

on a chilly, dreary saturday morning - made all the more painful after the unfair teaser of utopian spring weather in the past few weeks - i just want to hide under a big blanket and tuck into an f. scott fitzgerald novel. yes, there are little chores to do around the house (figure out where i put my microphone, throw away an old batch of cupcakes, maybebutprobablynot clean the bathroom), but sometimes you have to ignore all that sensible stuff and temporarily lose yourself in a fictional world.

this is the prime occasion for a cup of tea, no? we'll save the coffee for later, when the am flips to pm and it's really time to jump start the day. coffee is for get-up-and-go, and tea is for get-up-walk-the-dog-and-go-back-to-bed. i am by no means a tea fanatic, or even really an enthusiast. i have a few boxes of herbals, a 100 count box of tetley (that i've been chipping away at for literally 3 years), and some other odds and tea-ends haphazardly crammed onto a shelf in a kitchen cabinet. what i'm usually after is not nuance or delicacy, but a bitter, hearty elixir to sand down the rough edges of my mood. my current go-to is a loose lavender earl grey tea from clairmont farms, a lavender centric farm in santa barbara county, california. oh man, i bet that place smells AMAZING.

i'm almost certain that my mom gave me this tea after a trip to the west coast with her husband. but how many years ago was that? how many moves has this sturdy jar survived? can tea go bad? this stuff, both floral and bold, seems to be holding up just fine, despite the fact that i didn't have a loose tea filter for a long time and the tea just sat neglected on the shelf, patiently collecting dust. i don't even know where the tea infuser pictured above came from - it just sort of entered my life in that mysterious, subtle way that small objects have a habit of doing. i say a little thank you to it every time i pour steaming water over the fragrant leaves, and the lavender essence wafts into the air.

did you guys know that there is a whole, mind bending-ly huge tea culture out there? when i was in my early 20's, i went to my first proper tea house in nyc, right near washington square park. clear as a bell, i remember the feeling of something akin to humiliation as the barista handed me their tea menu in a freaking binder, packed to the gills with a hundred odd pages. i suffer from acute over-choice overwhelmedness, and in a flushed daze chose some sort of berry-kiwi tea that i actually really disliked. so i don't go into high end tea shops looking for new sensations; in fact, i really try to spend as little money as possible on tea. i'm more than content to keep scooping out one spoonful at a time of tea leaves from and old jar with a faded label. for me, tea's true beauty isn't in the top note or bouquet, but in the soothing properties that start to kick in somewhere between the mug and the body.

love,
emily

beer wk: sunday boozy sunday

what better way to delay the consequences of a fun saturday night of beers and excessive high fiving, than a boozy brunch with a beautiful broad? that's how i started my sunday - met up with my friend D for the beer week special allagash brunch at the pope. over pancakes, tofu scramble and 2PM beers, we kicked off what would be the first of a multi-hour hang out sesh.

wish every brunch was an allagash brunch

D is a seasoned bartending veteran and a true beverage connoisseur , so i followed her lead when she ordered the allagash vrienden, which turned out to be a stunning ale in the flemish sour tradition. it was, we learned, an allagash collabo with new belgium brewery, brewed with dandelion greens and elderberries (the two breweries even blended their special yeast strains! isn't that cute?). the quiet amber liquid in this glass is the stuff beer week dreams are made of: tart, fruity, strong, and just the right amount of weird. i loved every little sip. i had hoped to catch a bit of the live set by our pals the glotones, but alas, they were breaking their gear down when we arrived.

after our plates were cleaned and cleared, D and i hightailed it over to her place of employ - and the only place in old city i'll regularly patronize - the khyber pass pub. they were in the midst of a supreme beer week jam: saison sunday! ten rare and immensely intriguing saisons on tap. oh dear.


the first of quite a few tulip glasses to grace the bar before us was la moneuse by the belgian brewery blaugies. malty, barn-y, aged to a nice warmth, but still wonderfully effervescent on the tongue, this was a classic saison. literally the perfect beer for a sunday afternoon, though perhaps a brasserie in belgium would have been a slightly more perfect place to be drinking it. no matter: a dim bar in philadelphia with D was a really good place to be, too.

i must confess that i forget which saison was second on my list. the sun was still shining a bit too brightly for the level of tips i was feeling, but our spirits were high, and we were deep in one of those great, rambling conversations. amongst a hundred other things, we talked about men and relationships, food and dietary choices, and going fishing as little kids. the third (and last?) saison i ordered was voodoo brewery's bitchin' camaro. this farmhouse ale is apparently a very new release from the brewery. so new, in fact, that there wasn't really a description for it on the draft list, and in the column listing abv there a mysterious "?." i distinctly remember that the last line of the description read something like, "any beer named after a dead kennedy's song can't be bad." though D wasn't crazy about it, i liked the hefty, malty, boozy kick in the teeth it gave me. if you're already getting loaded on super high quality beers on a sunday afternoon, why not go big?

after dutifully chugging some water, we called it a day, and headed home. woozily walking down walnut at sunset, we hugged on the corner of 6th street. D said she was going home to take a nap, but i was headed off to band practice in east falls. being tipsy on small quantity of good, strong beer is a distinctly light, energizing feeling, with 0% hangover. alright, alright...maybe just a 5% one.

love,
emily

a luscious lush

i'm not sure when it happened, but i've gotten really into drinks lately. now, hold off on assumptions, judgements or looking down your noses for just a minute. "drink" doesn't always imply alcohol, although those kinds are certainly included in the ones i've been enjoying recently.

iced coffee, cucumber/grapefruit cocktail, jack d

working in a wine/beer/liquor store, i mean, drinking is kind of like research, right? but other recent sippables include homemade kombucha, cucumbers&seltzer, homebrewed iced coffee, watermelon/cucumber juice, half&half (although i recently saw it has high fructose corn syrup, boo) and of course, peppermint tea.

i've always been one to check out food&wine or gourmet (RIP) but i received a free copy of a magazine i had never heard of at this spring's brewer's plate. after reading the entire magazine, cover to cover, and thoroughly enjoying every article, i paid a paltry $20 for a year's worth.

while this is NOT a paid advertisement for imbibe, i do have to go ahead and gush about how great this magazine is. a wide range of articles on all things imbibable. this month's issue contained features on: bitters, bike tours in wine country, the blossoming d.c. cocktail scene, diy tea blending, the 50 best seasonal beers and more!

talking to a beer rep at work who just got back from the great american beer festival has gotten me really in the mood for brew tours. a fun, educational and boozy experience (just like college!). plans to check out yards, PBC, victory, brooklyn, flying fish, riverhorse, yuengling and more are abuzz in my head. also already planning on checking out the beer festival in denver, co, next year!

i'll be updating more often with tall tales of sips, swigs, chugs, brews, blends, nips, snifters, tipples, cocktails and more!!

cheers,

Lauren

the other summer beverage

hello hello. greetings. ahoy-hoy. hola. a million ways to say hi for the million weeks it seems like i've been missing. blame it on a new job. blame it on being busy looking for an apartment (found one!). blame it on a certain co-blogger's wedding. blame it on cain?

but blame it on booze? -gasp- NEVER! i recently started working in a wine/spirits/beer store, and although lacking the perk of a discount, the relatively low prices and insane convenience of grabbing a bottle after work is usually too good to pass up. i've been expanding my beer knowledge (sorry, PBR) and testing some new juice (that's what we call wine sometimes) all before my new early bedtime.

a recent favorite and perfect for summer: Casal Garcia Vinho Verde - a white from portugal, it is just slightly effervescent, the name literally translates to "green wine", referring to it's "youthful freshness" not it's color, although it does have a slightly greenish hue. super light, crisp, refreshing, low alcohol content and pretty damn refreshing at that. and at 5.69, i'm fairly positive you can't really beat it.

let me know, i'll pick you up a bottle!

xo,

Lauren

pumpkin party

last night i had the privilege of attending a pumpkin party with my dear friend anabell. her whole foods pals were throwing an autumnal themed party and she invited me along knowing my love of food, parties and themes! fancy cheese platter aside, the drinks, soups and dessert were vegan friendly and certainly delicious. cobwebs adorned the walls, the birds played on the television and the fog machine...fogged all night long.

the root veggie soup was hearty and filling made with turnips, potatoes, tomatoes, leeks, carrots, celery and beets. optional garnishes included toasted walnuts, scallions and goat cheese!



spiced wine with cardamom and a clove studded orange warmed the belly and loosened the tongue, making everyone flush in the face and merry (literally, people were acting merry!). homemade apple cider boiled in a le creuset pan on the stove with orange slices bobbing about, which everyone happily combined with a nip of brandy in mugs.




a bowl of pomegranate seeds on the table made for a light sweet snack and a bowl of pumpkin chocolate chip bars made for a not so light but decadent sweet dessert. candy corn flavored soda was passed around the in the tiniest, cutest little 8 oz cans!

(jones "candy corn" flavored soda!)

then, we carved pumpkins! and it was REALLY FUN!



throw a scarf around my neck and call me cozy, because i sure do love autumn.

love,
lauren