Begin the begin.

The past few nights, before bed, Brad and I have been flipping through a random photo album (for those that don't know, I have an entire closet of photo albums, and yes, I STILL print photos. nearly all the photos I take [and I take a lot]). Last night I blindly chose an album from 2002, and there were a handful of gems, including pictures of me drinking Zima, Rachel drinking beer from a straw, many many party pictures from my post-college house with Lisa, and then moving out of that house and in with Brad.

I didn't cook growing up. Honestly, I don't think I ever even made macaroni and cheese as a kid (I did, however, microwave Michalina's frozen mac and cheese like a champ). My repertoire throughout college and immediately after consisted of poached eggs on toast and noodles with sauce. Maybe a microwaved hot dog here and there. Luckily, I had roommates that did like to cook, so I didn't starve. When I moved in with Brad (at just shy of 23, which looking back seems crazy to me!), I decided, hey, maybe I should, you know, make dinner or something. I picked up a few cookbooks from the Border's sale aisle and started planning my FIRST meal. Even without the picture (see where I'm going here?) to remind me, I remember that meal - Greek chicken. My first meal involved pounding chicken and stuffing and rolling it... not too bad for a novice, right? So bringing the story back 'round, I was amused to be reminded of when my food photography started AND to discover that the "Brad food face" started very very early on. Some things never change.

Moving forward more years that I'm comfortable with... After a visit from my dad Friday to Saturday, we stopped in Sawyer (he went home via train from New Buffalo) to finally check out Greenbush brewery. We've had a few of their beers around town, and I was very much looking forward to trying more - and checking out the menu. We arrived around 4 pm and it was crazy packed! For those of you that don't know, Sawyer is kind of in the middle of nowhere. Good for them, of course, but we were a little "whaaaa is this nonsense?" We waited 20 minutes or so for a table, when I promptly ordered myself a giant beer flight - probably meant for two (or three) people, it was my only option if I wanted to taste a bunch of stuff. So I went for it.

Let's do this.

(to be clear, there are six of those)

While I worked on my beer (their Christmas ale and a date-flavored stout were my favorites), we got some beer cheese (yum) with pretzels (just from a bag) and sandwiches. Some roast beef pile for Brad, brie and cheddar grilled cheese with apple chutney for me.

Both sandwiches were well-received, but mine did leave me wanting more - tasty, but not super substantial. I'd go back again, but with the beer as the main driver rather than for a meal. Back to that beer....

Killed it.

(okay, with a little help)

Cheers to fun memories, new beers, and lots more of both in the future!