Virginia moon, I'll wait for you tonight

As previously mentioned I recently moved away from Virginia Beach, VA.  I had left a few things behind, mostly clothes and shoes or kitchen items.  I happened into enough money to get there and back recently and decided to go out and retrieve these things as well as see some friends.  This happened to include my ex Will since it was his birthday on the day I was arriving.

I always drive through the night when I make long road trips.  I enjoy the lack of traffic and quietness of it all.  It seems rather peaceful.  All was going well until I made a wrong turn somewhere along the OH/WV border.  I wound up on a narrow winding road for 20 miles.  As I rounded a turn I saw what appeared to be an adorable Golden Retriever on the side of the road.  I slowed down in case it darted into the street.  As I got closer I could see that what I thought to be a sweet puppy dog was actually a dog gnawing on a deer with its muzzle soaked with blood.  I knew I must be close to West Virginia, because who else would have Zombie dogs? Sure enough 5 minutes later I found the Interstate again and was in West Virginia.

The rest of the drive was fairly easy and I pulled up to my Ex's house, where I would be staying, at about 7 am on the 28th.  I tried to be quiet coming in, but he was on the couch and woke up.  He had work that day, so I just gave him his gift and then he had to be on his way.  I got to pass out for a few hours thankfully. I did nothing other than watch Netflix until Will got off work that night. 

I took him out for dinner to celebrate his birthday.  He chose Gordon Biersch for dinner.  Since I had never been there and I'm a beer fan this was perfect for me.  I decided not to worry about calories or money on this trip and just to bathe myself in decadence.  So for an appetizer we ordered their homemade chips which were  topped with bleu cheese crumbles, scallions and smoked bacon.  They were crunchy and covered in bacon and bleu cheese and we cleared the plate.  For dinner he ordered fish tacos and I ordered a pulled pork sandwich with ginger rice.    The sandwich is made with their Marzen BBQ sauce and topped with coleslaw, served on a challah roll.  I found the concept of pork served on challah to be terribly ironic and had to order it.  The pork just melted in my mouth it was so tender. As for the ginger rice (which is not what it comes with, I had to substitute it) It was delicious as well, just enough ginger bite to satisfy the ginger craving I had been having.  

As far as the beer goes I had the Schwarzbier. This is how the site for Gordon Biersch describes it:

Literally meaning “black beer” in German, this delectably 

dark lager has a surprisingly light body with a delicious, 

dry, roasted coffee finish.

That sounds about right to me.  I love black beers.  Although I much prefer Xingu to this.  I had wanted to try a seasonal beer but apparently January 28th falls in between when they have seasonal beers.  Unfortunately that meant I only had 5 beers to choose from.  I enjoyed it though. 

For dessert we split an apple bread pudding that had a whiskey sauce on it. It was so rich and thick we couldn't even bring ourselves to finish it between the two of us.

Most of this trip revolved around food for me.  Other stops included Red Lobster and Buffalo Wild Wings.  They were both as good as they usually are.  How can you go wrong with bacon wrapped scallops or spicy chicken?  My next post will be a review of the two new sauces that Buffalo Wild Wings has which are Thai Curry and Jammin' Jalapeño.

Now I love to cook, but when it comes to steak I just have not mastered that yet.  So I always accept when someone offers to cook me a steak.  My favorite grocery store is The Fresh Market.  They have such an amazing meat counter.  First of all anywhere that displays there sausage like this is awesome:

See what I mean?  It's sausage pig! Who knew raw meat could be so adorable?  So Will had recently acquired a cast iron pan and offered to cook me a steak in it.  Obviously my answer was yes.  We went to The Fresh Market to buy the steaks and returned home with these two beautiful rib-eye steaks.

They were delicious.  I can never eat a lot in one sitting so I shared mine with Will's son Bray.  It was definitely an amazing steak.  I am so glad I opened up to eating more meat and eating it medium instead of well-done.

Although I had many good meals while I was in VA by far the best was brunch at Lunasea.  I feel this also deserves it's own entry so look for that later this week.

The trip was to get the rest of my things, not to eat or anything else but I decided to turn it into a vacation.  I stayed for a week.  I was most excited about the time I got to spend with Will's son Bray.  He's 4 years old and I love him like he's my own son.  The hardest part of that break-up was losing Bray and the hardest part of moving away from VA has been not being able to see him every week.  Bray likes to give falling down hugs, which is basically a tackle filled with love.  I made sure to get as many of those in before I left.  I almost cried when I was packing my clothes and he came in to ask if I was leaving.  I said yes and he told me I couldn't leave and that he wanted me to stay forever.  The hardest part of leaving VA will always be saying goodbye to the Bray monster.  This is my favorite photo of us from the visit:

But this is the one that makes me miss Bray the most because of his goofiness.  Although sometimes the goofiness is paired up with grossness, as seen below.

Sometimes I think about going back to Virginia, because I miss it oh so very much.  I have to see where this new life in Bloomington takes me though.

Anyways to close this, since it started with food I think it should end the same way so here is my dinner from last night:

It's potato gnocchi with butternut squash sauce.  I made it for myself and a friend.  It was simple and quick but the richness of butternut squash made it seem amazingly decadent despite each serving only having 290 calories and 4 grams of fat.

Until next time (which will probably be tomorrow with the Buffalo Wild Wings post!) remember to Live Life Decadently!

xoxo

Megz