As promised on Nov. 1, I'm going to use #bloglikecrazy to get a bit more personal on the Internet. But there's less than two months left in 2016, and it's time to face the music: This year was pretty shitty. There were some high points and a good bit of travel, but a lot of the milestones were negative. As a result, I've spent a lot of time on the couch with Netflix instead of socializing because I couldn't bring myself to leave my blanket burrito.
Though I've nabbed three bylines in new-to-me national publications (and have one more coming), I've been seriously struggling financially with writing. Most online writing pays less than $500 per article, and the hours involved in researching and writing render the hourly rate less than ideal. Include time spent pitching and emailing, and the stats are downright grim. In addition to articles, I almost write copy for one corporate client, but the gig isn't steady.
Now, to the really tough stuff. In the first few months of the year, three family members passed away and we moved another into an assisted living facility, all in the span of ten weeks. All this happened before our first anniversary. Though none of them were completely unexpected, it was/is completely overwhelming. I worked through the first two deaths, but took almost a month off to try to keep our lives even marginally functioning. For several months, we were splitting our time between Birmingham and Guntersville. Thank goodness the Bears don't get carsick.
On to the positive: at the beginning of the year, Adam was offered a job with a local law firm (YAY!!!). I traveled a lot, and although it threw a lot of parts of my life out of sync, it also provided me a way to temporarily distance myself from the tough stuff. And we bought a house tucked away in a cute little neighborhood in Homewood. It's about twice as big as our shoebox apartment was, but it's a haven. It has a decent-sized back yard, which the Bears love, and lots of sticks and chipmunks for them to chase.
In the middle of all that, I dropped off the face of the Earth. Social media, blogging, social interactions: all of it was too much to face. Several of the articles I wrote during that time haven't made it onto social media. I simply haven't had the energy or motivation to do anything but hide from the world. When a publisher approached me about writing a book back in August, I jumped on it to have Something Important To Do. And to see my name on a book, of course. It was overwhelming, and I lost myself in it for six weeks.
If I'm being honest with the Internet, I haven't processed most of the changes from early 2016. To keep going, I've addressed the issues with a large(r than usual) dose of inappropriate humor, but that's a mask. I want to start back with therapy soon, even though I don't feel like I'm ready to face up to that much loss and anger and vulnerability. But that's life, in some ways. No way forward but through.
This month, I'm attempting to blog my way forward by writing every day as part of Blog Like Crazy.
Somewhere between the day-to-day grind of freelancing writing and the 50,000-word book project that consumed September and most of October, I lost It. For a few months, I lost the magic/motivation/desire/mojo/ love that gets you up in the morning and guides you through being self-employed.
Y'all, I have a confession: I wrote a book! In seven weeks! It still seem surreal that I was able to write and compile the 50,000 words of Craft & Classic Cocktail Recipe Book in that time. To answer your next few questions, it will be published in December by Rockridge Press, they found me through Google, it'll be available for purchase this December, and it was one of the biggest challenges of my life thus far.
With the weather warming up, patio season is fast approaching. This spring, one place I'll be adding to my patio tour will probably be Homewood's 
Next up was the Pâté, Pigs, and Pickle, which combined the same pâté with salami, their house pickled veggies, and herb cream cheese spread. Once again, great texture. This plate contains a lot of food, so we ended up bringing some pickles home.
For our main courses, we stayed simple: I got the French Dip and Adam got the Cuban. Both were a step away from the ordinary: the French Dip sauce was a rich, delicious concoction of soy, worcestershire, butter, garlic, and cayenne. It's also their best-selling sandwich, and it's clear that the secret is in the sauce. Adam went so far as to name it the best au jus he'd had.
Winter Restaurant Week is officially over, but I have one last meal to write up. Being a blogger for these events has been a really fun experience. I've gotten the chance to connect (or reconnect) with dear friends over delicious meals and eat new meals at fancy joints and old favorites. With all that done, I'm also excited to go overboard on fruits and veggies for the next week or so. As y'all know, I'm all about some rich food, but I need to bring a bit more balance back into my life.
But my last meal before reestablishing healthy eating patterns was a great one to end on: brunch at 
In the interest of sampling as many of the brunch menu offerings as possible, I ordered The Shop Floor, while Haley got the Eggs Concord.
It didn't disappoint. Before the prime rib is cooked, it's covered in a house rub, then cooked for several hours. Since it's cooked as a whole, they usually only serve it for catering gigs -- or special events like Restaurant Week. It's labor intensive, but the resulting meat is rich and tender. At lunch, it was served on a warm roll that had been buttered and toasted. A liberal dose of their mild horseradish cream sauce was available to top it, and a salty, dark au jus was served on the side for dipping. Yum.
The fries rounded out the portion -- not too salty, not soggy, and nicely crisp. According to our friendly and knowledgeable server Brandy, the dinner meal was a slight variation on the theme: instead of a prime rib sandwich, the prime rib was served without a bun, with a tossed salad and broccoli on the side.
At 
For the Winter Restaurant Week lunch, you choose between a half bacon flight and an arugula salad for the appetizer. Since there were two of us, we ordered both.
The bacon flight was made up of two or three pieces of three different bacons. All were cooked so that they were nice and crispy (just the way I like it), but the results were different for each.
Next came the sandwiches. To maximize what we could taste, I ordered the burger with potato gratin, and Taylor chose the avocado BLT with chips. The modestly sized burger came with the standard toppings: cheese, lettuce, tomato, and creamy sauce all on a buttered and toasted bun. Because there was one piece of bacon leftover from the flight, I added that onto the burger. It was tasty, but make sure you're hungry: it's rich and a bit on the greasy side. The potato gratin was also rich, but who can resist potatoes and cheese?
The avocado BLT was an interesting combination. It was served cold, so the rich and creamy avocado played off the more intensely smoky notes of the chilled (but crunchy) bacon. The mild tomato rounded it out, while the lettuce provided a little crunch to finish it off.
When I was a kid, my across-the-street neighbor and I would ride our bikes down to Lag's Eatery for chocolate milkshakes. Although Lag's has since closed, what took its place is 
The Restaurant Week meal offers a LOT of options. For the soup and salad course, I ordered the New England clam chowder and my friend got the grilled romaine heart. The chowder was creamy, with chunks of clam and tiny bits of veggies that don't get in the way of the creamy soup. The romaine heart was grilled to a crisp and topped with their dad's blue cheese dressing.
Next up was the entrée. Both of us opted for the shrimp pesto pasta, which was more creamy than basil-y, but was deliciously rich. By the time the main course came out, we were having a blast: the music was all '90s and early '00s, and the company (and service!) was excellent.
Though the pie doesn't come with the Winter Restaurant Week meal, it's definitely worth checking out. The chocolate pie was like chocolate pudding on pie crust in the best way possible. I'm not huge on coconut pie, but my friend really liked it, and the texture was nice. Our mutual favorite was the key lime: tangy, not too sweet, and lacking the mouth-coating fattiness of most key lime pies. To quote Arnold, I'll be back.
Winter Restaurant Week has been a seriously nostalgic time for me. Yesterday, I visited 
As for the meal itself, the Faroe Island salmon was the first up. Accompanied by a lightly dressed butter lettuce salad topped with a brown butter vinaigrette on the side and roasted veg, it looked just about as good as it tasted. There were a couple brussels sprouts in the mixture, but I could've eaten a whole bowl -- they were slightly charred on the outside, but sweet and soft on the inside. The fish was cooked to a perfect medium (by my inexpert estimate), seared to a lovely crisp on the outside and warm and tender when you cut into it.
Then came the dessert. As most Southerners can attest, every bread pudding is a little different. Galley & Garden's was deliciously divided -- the pudding portion was soft, with crispy apples, a Granny Smith apple compote and a touch of rich chantilly cream on the side. I was almost full before dessert, but it was worth it. Man, my job can be awesome.
Jim 'N Nick's has been a constant in my dining life since my family moved to Birmingham. Over the last 18 (!!!) years, their cheese biscuits have been a constant through job changes, breakups, and moves. On one particularly memorable night, I ordered a twelve pack and ate them all in between tutoring sessions.
The biscuits were quickly followed by the bar-b-q chips -- the app for the lunch special. These kettle-style chips were lightly dusted with a tangy, lightly spicy flavoring and accompanied by a blue cheese dipping sauce. The creamy sauce offset the spice of the chips, and balancing each bite. There weren't any left when we got up from the table.
Then came the entree. On a cold day like yesterday, the mountain of mac and cheese topped with pork (or the meat of your choice) was filling. The side salad added a nice lightness, and with the vinaigrette, it also provided a lovely, slightly acidic counterpoint to the heavy loaded macaroni and cheese.
Like the 
The meal started off with a light side salad. The simple mixture of greens, tomatoes, and teeny bits of carrots was accompanied by a generous dollop of apple cider vinaigrette for me and one of spicy ginger peanut dressing for Adam. The vinaigrette was a bit sweet, and I ended up stealing some of his spicy ginger dressing for my own salad. The peanut added some richness, while the ginger gave it a subtle spice.
For the main course, I ordered the gulf shrimp and grits, while Adam ordered the famous meatloaf. The McEwen & Sons grits were creamy, and had corn kernels mixed in, giving it a great, slightly varied texture. The whole dish was topped with sausage gravy. While it might not be the most photogenic dish, it was goood.
I've had the famous meatloaf before, and it's delicious. Sourced from Creekstone Farms, the beef is light and fluffy without having a whipped texture. It was served over creamy smashed potatoes, sauced with a rich beef and mushroom gravy, and finished with a pile of lightly battered onion rings and a spear of spicy pickled okra.
After the main dish was finished off, dessert was served. In a great meal, the Belgian chocolate bread pudding was the highlight. Made with dark chocolate chips, the rich, well-textured pudding drizzled with Belgian chocolate ganache and accompanied with rich homemade whipped cream and an Bordeaux cherry. The hot, chocolate pudding melted the whipped cream into a tasty bittersweet slurry, and the cherry was effervescent. Yes, lawd.
During
If you were missing my (amateur) food blogging posts, fear not! This week, 
Most people make New Year's resolutions. Since my birthday is only nine days later, I usually try to take the day to reflect on the year and look forward to what I want to do. So, cheers to my 26th year. In no particular order, you brought me:
One of the best -- and sometimes, most frightening -- parts of being a writer is getting to Google yourself. Earlier this week, after spending a few hours researching absolutely nothing of consequence, I Googled myself. What I found was at once awesome and weird. Here are a few things I learned:
Since I was a kid, the Peanuts holiday movies have been part of my memories of the season. Though Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown is my favorite (my parents have my copy of the soundtrack, I think), A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving also warms my heart. But I can honestly say that I’d never considered eating/serving/recreating the, um, unconventional Thanksgiving dinner Snoopy fixes for the gang.
As of last Tuesday, I can now say that I’ve encountered one of the meals on my nonexistent “Ridiculous (And Slightly Off-Putting) Holiday Movie Meals” list. That night, Adam and I attended our second 
