Sweet Little Rain | Dinner Plus Drinks #66

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hello, everybody. Welcome to new edition, Dinner Plus Drinks Podcast. Dinner Plus Drinks. Super excited. We are excited to be here. Bridget, are you tired today?

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I'm so tired. I've been whining to Nick pretty much for the last three hours about I just can't kick this headache I have. Like one of these right here in my nostrils. Have you tried a nasal rinse? No. That like where you shove it up one side and it comes out the other. Yeah, the water. No, that's disgusting.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Um, when I have headaches like that, that's what I do. That or I stand in the hot shower with the steam to get it.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

I just did that. My hair's kind of still wet from it. Doesn't it look nice? It looks uh highlighted. It's not. Um, that's just some parts of it are wetter than others. Some parts are wetter than others, so they're darker. Um, I've done the hot shower situation. I don't know. I don't know what it is, you guys. I said to Nick, maybe it's because I had two beers yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Like this whole week is just tiring. Yes, it really has been, right? So it's been a tiring week. I've been tired.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Okay. And I love this weather. It is gloomy as usual, as it has been. And I love it, but I'm starting to think in my old age, maybe it's bothering me and making me tired.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

You would consider moving to Scottsdale and retiring soon. Yeah, soon. I'm getting there. Any day now. Scottsdale, if you're listening, uh reach out to Bridget if you have a house for sale. She's very interested in your climate.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

That or Orlando. I hate Orlando. Sorry, anybody that's listening from Orlando, we appreciate you, but it's just not my favorite city. Wow. So, anyway, I'm exhausted. The two beers I drank last night were Sipes. Still the best beer ever.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

We uh, if you're watching, you can see we have two Sip Pilsner glasses. We're gonna use them later today for not Sipes, but we thought they'd be fun to have out as the you know reminder of the good times we had.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

How much we love SIPE. It is delicious. The good times we had. Uh, have we talked? We had them last week, right? Yep, we had them last week at Columbia. Yep. So we got to chat with Lauren Mack and Dave De Simon. I like to say like De Simon. I feel like he deserves that kind of name. Uh, if you don't know Dave, uh he's from Black Point here locally in Lake Geneva. Uh, we had a really great little like virtual launch party for the new site beer that was out, and it was so fun.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, we're gonna uh really good group. We have we recorded it. Yeah, we're gonna do a little slicing dicing and uh get the audio up as released as a podcast episode next week, I think. Probably maybe before you listen to this episode, maybe after you listen to this episode. We'll see. We'll see. It depends on how fast I get it done. But um, it's very interesting. She said some really cool things. I don't want to spoil it.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

I know. What you need to know is it's not only for beard nerds. I was like, oh, beer history, this is gonna be great.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

When she talks about her motivations and her thought process, it's very cool because it's not just for beard nerds, it's a human thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

And it was, yeah, the great connection to like, yeah, I don't want to ruin it either, but it's all connected. And she talked through the branding, which I love. So it was really great. So listen to that when we get it up. We love Sype, and you should too. You should too. We won't call it a product wreck, but we will.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Man, we have some bonus ones again. I know. So, anyway, that was fun. So, I have a fun little start to this podcast. I know you love sour beer. Oh, oh. But also good branding. This, I love good branding. So, what we have here is unique branding, a Freedom Variety Pack. Freedom Variety Pack from Revolution Brewing, featuring four different session shops. I like Revolution. I can say that. So these are all low alcohol. Great for my headache. They're gonna help with it. You know, because you had two beers. Water. So we have, they name their sours like the four freedoms, you know? Franklin Roosevelt. So they got freedom of speech, which is session sour ale with peaches, freedom of expression, which is session sour ale with strawberries and rhubarb, freedom of press, which is session sour ale with currants, and freedom of assembly, which is session sour ale with blueberry and ginger. Okay, these sound good if they weren't sour. Well, they're like, think of them as lightly spritzy and tart. Think of them like um uh what the sweet tarts. Think of them as sweet tarts.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Okay. I here's my issue with um sour things, people, is mostly I think sour things taste like the bile. Let me repeat that. The bile when you vomit. That's what I think sour like that.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Is a distinct flavor that I also think sour beer can have sometimes, and that's flawed sour beer.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Generally has the disgusting. I had a sour gumball once, and that's what it tasted like. So I've been scarred about sour things for like a really long time.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Let's see. What do we think we should do first? Probably current last. That's gonna be a really strong one. I don't think I'll be rhubarb. Currant. Rubber ginger. I feel like peach can't be that strong. Yeah, let's do peach first. Actually, peach gets really sour really fast because of some of the uh chemical makeup of it. So if you have like a peach sour beer, that can go really downhill really fast.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

So I like peach, like peach bubbly water, delicious. Peaches, delicious, but peach wine, not good so far. And peach beer, I'm worried about.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Tyler's all into that just peachy. So for for our dump bucket, we have a Star Wars one because I figured that'd be appropriate. You can dump stuff you don't like into the Star Wars cup.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

All right, man. Should I like let this chill for a minute or no?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yeah, probably. I I kind of hard poured it. It's a little heady. Little heady there. Have you poured a beer before? That was maybe the best part of last night was your complete and utter inability to open a bottle of beer.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Maybe I was just I was on video. It was I was stressed up.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

I like it took me a really long time. It's like Joe Biden falling up the stairs on Air Force One, like not once but twice. Every president has fallen on those stairs, every single one. Because you do it a lot. Was it twice or three times?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Oh, was it three times? Have you seen the Mario Kart like rendition of it? No. Oh, someone counted down like you're in the Mario Kart race. Three, two, one, and he's up, and then he falls. And it was and they I think they put like banana peels in it. Or sleepy jiggle. It was really funny.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

But when you're on camera, knowing you tried, it's it's like you tried going downstairs in heels. Yeah, I think about women also. Yes, that's probably where why Kamala wears the timbas because she's like, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna fall down these stairs and look like an idiot.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

On inauguration day, I was like, These women never wear heels, and you can tell, and that's fine. Um, you don't have to wear heels, ladies. And she's like, I don't know, specifically, Dr. Biden had a hard time walking in the heels. But walking down lots of stairs without a handrailing.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

So those marble floors, they um they're they're like rutted where people walk. So they're all there's lots of dips in them. So it's not an even surface and it's slippery.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Just wear your timbas, okay? You don't need to wear heels, ladies. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

All right, we're doing our revolution sour beer taste-off. This is the peach beer, freedom of speech.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Why do I smell sour beer? Like I thought it would smell good. Um, it's fine. It's fine. Um, it doesn't taste like bile, so I guess that's good. It kind of tastes like I think I want it colder. Yeah. I think in general I'm gonna want all these colder, right? Probably Yeah, I I don't mean to say it's fine. I think if you like sour beer, it's delicious. Um, I don't like sour beer.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

This is freedom of expression. This is strawberry and rhubarb. They say juicy strawberry and rhubarb, refreshing tart finish.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

My darling friend Abby made my husband a Tyler's birthday is in early June. And so rhubarb is always around. And Abby made him this wonderful little tart one year for his birthday. And it always, anytime strawberry rhubarb, I always think of this tart Abby made my my lovely husband for a little birthday picnic.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

New Galaris does a they make their strawberry rhubarb beer. Yeah. And they do a you can trade in rhubarb for some beer thing. Oh, that's awesome. Which is like the biggest ripoff. It's like one bottle of spotted cow, but everybody has too much rhubarb. Oh, I was like, what do you mean that's a ripoff?

SPEAKER_01 8:10

You start growing rhubarb and you're like, I I just ordered ordered a garden raised bed for us to grow things. Probably not gonna grow rhubarb, but maybe carrots.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Freedom of expression.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

I like this one. Doesn't taste like rhubarb much to me, which is good because I don't actually love rhubarb.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

That's the thing. I think no one likes rhubarb. Everybody tries to get rid of it. You like it as like a little bit of ingredient because you're like, oh, I like the little spicy note, but too much rhubarb. Like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

This doesn't like taste like much to me. I got I mean it has a hint of strawberry.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Rhubarb is also like poisonous, so oh, cool.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Enjoy. So the peach one tasted very peachy to me. This one is like a hint of strawberry.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

I think this tastes more strawberry than the peach tastes peach. The peach, all I taste is uh something called teates pea. That um is like kind of a cereal fruit loopy type of flavor. Ooh, I like fruit loops that I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

And I think uh like the fruit loopy thing is kind of like a I gotta be honest, I don't know if you guys should ever trust anything I say because I just don't think my taste buds are fully back ever since COVID. Like, I just things don't taste as wonderful as they should.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Alright, now this is our freedom of assembly, fresh blueberry and ginger flavor. This one looks good. Also, why is it red? This is blueberries and it's red. I mean it's a it's a deep red.

unknown 9:27

Maroon.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Maroon, let's say.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

This is yummy.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yeah. Oh, this one is yummy. I do love blueberry beer. So there was one that MKE Brewing used, I think it was MKE, used to make like a million years ago, maybe with rishi tea or something. It was so good. So anyway. Oh, OG? Maybe it was OG. I don't remember. I don't know if it was it always called OG. Okay, well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

They have some variants in that they added fruit too.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

I love blueberry beer. So I'm on board with this, even though it's sour. Hey, great job, Revolution.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Good job, Revo. Doing good work there.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Don't I love Revolution Oktoberfest? You do. I'm asking Nick because he keeps track of my drinking preferences. I do. It's important to me. I'm gonna finish this one.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Okay. You take your time. We're gonna move on while Bridge is doing that to freedom of press, which is currents. Darkberry complexity refreshing current.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Does anyone eat currants?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

I have a currant jam. I just got done writing a bunch of wine notes up, and I'm thinking about it's hard to do a bunch in a batch because then you can get in a rut. But like a lot of the stuff, I was like, current. Currant is like such a distinct flavor though.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Yeah, I don't think I'm nervous about this one. Should have ended on the blueberry. Oh, I really like that blueberry. Yeah, so you're right.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

All of these are relatively the same color for being very different fruits. Oh, I like this. It's actually got some nice, kind of sweet berry stuff.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

This one, excuse me, this one tasted actually the most sour out of the group to me.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Yeah, I would agree with that. Maybe that's why I like it more.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah. When I'm like, I'm just gonna dump this out right here. Um, yeah, I mean, I I I can't tell you anything about like sour beer and if it's flawed or not, besides that, none of these tasted like bile. So I would say, great job. Good job, Revolution. Like overall, really, really pretty good sour beers for again, Nick can give you the proper notes on if they're good sour beers. I'm saying they're tasty sour beers for if you want to venture into the world of sour beer, but you're not quite sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

These are what are called cattled sourced, which is they do it by um making clean beer and then inoculating it, and it keeps your brewery from being infected by weird stuff instead of like a traditional sour beer where you purposefully sour it and your entire brewery has sour stuff all over it. So some people think this is cheating, some people like it, some people don't. But if you like kind of a little tart, spritzy type of thing, these are great beers we got them at the store.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

So I like it. Yeah. Um, I just want to point out this is slightly more purple looking than yours.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

So yeah, look at that. Look at that. There's blueberries in here. All right, so my least favorite is definitely the peach. My favorite's the current, then the blueberry one, and then the strawberry one.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Blueberry is definitely my number one. The blueberry, I love I I like it a lot. Um, my least favorite is the currant because it is the most sour. I think actually, I'm completely opposite from you. Shocking. Shocking. So, but but this is a great note for people listening. Like, if you are a sour beer drinker and you like sour beer, listen to Nick. If you think you don't like sour beer, but you might want to try it, listen to me. So, blueberry number one. Peach, actually, I like, but I like peach things. Then I would do strawberry after that, and then current. Strawberry and peach were pretty close to me, though. So, anyway, good job.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

So, I see you uh have the vegan vegetarian notes. Did you make some peaches? Do you like this?

SPEAKER_01 12:52

So this week um is always a struggle for me to be like, what's the best thing I ate this week? Because like literally, you guys know sometimes I just like eat noodles and broccoli for dinner. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm like, how many weeks can I tell them I ate this?

SPEAKER_00 13:04

I mean, I know you used the organic whole wheat quinoa infused noodles and the Exactly quinoa infused noodles.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

That sounds delicious if that exists. Um, okay, so we had some uh we were invited over to my in-laws for dinner, and um, there was a brother-in-law and girlfriend, one of my brother-in-laws and his girlfriend. There is, they are still here in town.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

No, no, there is quinoa-infused spaghetti.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Oh, there is? I was like, there's shut up. So is it protein rich? Nick's gonna figure this out for me. I have a I have an iron deficiency. I'm always on the search for protein. Um, anyway, so we, this brother-in-law and his girlfriend have some um dietary restrictions. So my mother-in-law was trying to be super respectful and like, what can I feed everyone? There's lots of different dietary restrictions in my in-law's side of the family. Um, not so much at my household. So that she was like, ah, do you like mushrooms? And like, I don't love mushrooms. Tyler does, whatever. We're brainstorming, brainstorming. I text her and was like, hey, uh Tyler and I made this thing one night, like by accident. It was delicious. Here's the recipe. And she's like, uh, do you think you can put it together? Sure. So I threw it together. And it is like, I guess you can call it a it's vegan. Didn't do that on purpose. Had to Google vegan things to make sure. And it was, it's a vegan like enchilada kind of, and it's a whole bunch of veggies and some quinoa and some salsa in a crock pot, basically. So it was delicious. Literally, like we put in veggie stock, you could use water, veggie stock, quinoa, I don't know, peppers, tomatoes, who knows what else. It sounds great, right? And then a jar of salsa and like something else, whatever. And you can add hot sauce, and then on the side, you do all kinds of toppings, like you would just for like a taco. So we ate it like with chips, or some people put it in a tortilla and added sour cream on the side. It is the recipe is from a website called Eating Bird Food, which I love. Um, it sounds it sounds like it's a little self-deprecating. Like, yeah, it sounds like that would be insulting, but she has a lot of really great recipes. So anyway, it was really delicious. Um, took a beautiful photo of it in the crack pot.

unknown 15:06

So beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

It looks pretty, it's colorful, delicious for vegetarian or non-vegetarian or vegan or non-vegan people.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Fluxitarian.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

It was great.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

That's what I made. I made so speaking of fluxitarians, people are generally needing less meat, less red meat for a number of different reasons. And when they do, they want it to be good. More people are using things like steak as an ingredient. And at Lake's New Country Meats, we are here to help you. We're gonna give you a great steak that you can split up, use it in as an ingredient. So we have people always asking, like, hey, I don't really love the steak, potato, veg thing that my parents did. I don't I want to find other ways to use steak. I like the flavor, I like it. But if I can make a $10 steak go for two people instead of one person, that's great for my budget. It's great for my diet, all things. So we made these delicious, you can maybe see it on the camera. They look so good. Uh, little crustinis with steak, and they were like a Mediterranean themed one. Um I'm not sure what we call them yet because it's like a three-way thing. So three-way steak. We took and got some nice big thick New York strip steaks, grilled them. We pepper crusted them first. Let me be very clear on that, and that's important to this recipe. Uh, and then we had our little crustini, and then we did a base of three. This is where the three-way comes in. Mmm, fresh mozzarella. Uh struggle city. Or what's the top of nod? So three kind of like, you know, Mediterranean things, then your pepper crusted steak, and that pepper goes really nice with the pesto or the mozzarella or the black pepper?

unknown 16:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

So what you do, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. So what you do is you get your peppercorns, put it in a plastic bag. Ooh, that's obnoxious. To, you know, break them up and so they're a little big still. And then you take and you press your crust, you like you're breading it. You just press the steak in it. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

You don't just grind it on. That's too fine.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

That's too fine for this. Yeah. So then you get the beautiful crust. Let me show you a picture of it on the code.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

I feel like you need a mortar and pestle.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Um, it you can do that, but it no, you can do that, but it doesn't work as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Oh, yeah. Okay. Did Simona eat this? Yeah, she did. Okay. I feel like my kids would spaz about the pepper.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

I mean, this doesn't look great because we gotta do some editing on it, but you can see then the crust it gets in like the beautiful color. That is a crust, bro. So anyway, and then we put some uh balsamic on top and some uh uh blistered cherry tomatoes and a little schmear drizzle of balsamic, and it was so yum yummed. And uh so you get the crunch, you get the like chew, you get texturally a lot of different textures, flavor, a lot of bright things that compliment each other, a little fresh basil on top.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Basil.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

So good.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Okay, so good. Well, I can't get over the basil comment because I wanted to make an Austin Power stroke, right? Oh yeah, okay. Okay, everybody. So we ate some good things this week, along with my like traditional noodles and broccoli. But what's going on in the world is what I want to hear about.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Well, first of all, can I ask you, are you getting more spam emails? I'm getting so many spam emails. I'm getting spam phone calls. Quick time this afternoon, late Geneva Country Meets. Thought you'd be open to brief chat today or tomorrow. My company, Snellcom India, has plans in Wisconsin. What type of anyway? What do you got going on in the world?

SPEAKER_01 18:36

You guys, I hope you've seen it by now. I don't think I've talked about um the major girl crush that I have on Jacinda. So have you seen the news? Love her, right? I um I forget I sent this to Brittany like in an Instagram story, and Shannon separately, like, great news, New Zealand. And Britney just sends back like Jacinda in all caps with all the hearts. And I was like, yes. So um New Zealand approves paid leave for women who have had miscarriages or stillborns, et cetera. And we've all known someone very close to us that have done that. Like this is the miscarriages are so much more, um, they happen so much more often than people talk about. And I'm grateful to see that I think in the last year or two, people, and maybe it's just like the time of life I'm in, but I feel like it's starting to become a more accepted conversation that like, yes, people have miscarriages. And so anyway, I, you know, have had the fortune to not have to think about that. Um, but when you're going through a miscarriage, like you, I know people that you can't work, are just like just went to work and they're like, well, I'm just like gonna wear a pad to work and you know, hope I don't bleat. Like it's horrible. So um, so anyway, this is amazing. Um, this law gives employees three days' leave when a pregnancy ends with a stillbirth without having to tap into sick leave. And like, let's be clear, that there's still work to be done. Um, but the passing of this bill is like it's the 900th thing New Zealand has done to be at the front end of like progressive lawmaking and um legislation that the whole world should take note of.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I was talking about this with my friend Doug, and one of the things that he pointed out, he's an econ major type of guy, and um New Zealand has all these super socialist laws like this and social benefits, but their economy is like the third most free economy in the world. Because capitalism only works when people can freely compete. And what we're in in America where it's unregulated, is no such thing as free competition. What Amazon, what Microsoft, what Facebook can do to you, that's not free competition. So sometimes more laws and the government doing things like hey, if you have this horrific thing happen to you that means your choices are burn vacation time, that means a woman gets further behind a man, go to work and not be productive.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

It also means when you hopefully get pregnant again, you don't you have less time with your baby.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

All of these things. Yeah. So I think it's a great model of how America can be great still. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Um, FYI, in case you're curious, yes, this also includes their partners. So whichever partner in their life they're having a baby with, it also includes parents planning to have a child through adoption or surrogacy. So as if it's not progressive enough that they did this, they then are like, oh, not every man is married to a woman, and not every woman's married to a man, and not everyone is having a baby in what you would call traditional way. So these are all things that are emotionally taxing on people, and they should deserve some time off. So great job, New Zealand. I just needed to spread that new idea.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

It's so good. Miscarriage is an incredibly hard thing. Yeah. That is just heartbreaking and horrible and the worst. And supporting people that have that when's traditionally been like a shameful thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

You do anything wrong. Yeah. You've literally done nothing wrong, but you just like go to work and good luck. Soldier on stiff upper lip. Yeah. So great news. I was happy. I know. We're moving to New Zealand. They won't take us. I know.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

We're not allowed, but that's fine. Um, they also have great wine. I don't blame them. Best thing I drank was a New Zealand Central Otago Pinot Noir. Noted. Um, all right. My good news story today, and it's a good news story, is a shout out to a friend of the pod, John Elke, who is the let me get your job title right here, John. I've seen it here. I'm like he's looking pretty good. Production manager at the city of West Bend. So the City of West Bend does this really cool thing where they pay John, who is an incredibly talented photojournalist, to make content for them. Photo, video, all sorts of things. He does a lot of really neat things highlighting what's good in the community. Some of it's for internal pride, some of it's for external things. And he won one best of show honor, four excellent awards, and one achievement award at the Midwest Media Fest. So they won Best of Show for this Business of the Month series, uh specifically one featuring a cousins franchisee and the cool things they do. And they won a lot of excellence awards about how they did pandemic-related things, how they handled um showcasing the city, building up their businesses in a very difficult time. Um, and then also something they did with uh Nature Preserve. And I just think it's really cool that West Bend understands the value of having someone like John to make great things, highlighting how wonderful the city is, the businesses. And John does great work. He's done some work for Lake Geneva Country Meets. You may have seen some of his pictures on our feed. And I'm just really happy for John, and I think it's great that cities should do this. I wish Lake Geneva had something like this. And if you watch John's work, um, no offense to West Bend, a lot of nice things. Lake Geneva's a little sexier than West Bend. But West Bend's doing better.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah. Like, John, I used to work for the bid for Lake Geneva, and you'll know what that is. So I knew about this in my previous life, and Nick finally brought it full circle and, like, oh, I made all these connections. But we looked at West Bend as like, what the heck is West Bend doing? Like, oh, they're doing cool things. And man, City of Lake Geneva put some money into this. Like, and that doesn't mean the bid is funding itself to do cool things, it means the city is focused on this.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

I just think it's really cool because it shows when you have someone in city government that cares it yeah, and wants to promote things. Um, John's always said the city administrator is super great. That's um so awesome. We're gonna put the link to these if you can go watch them. Watch it. There's a lot of cool stuff in West Bend. Um, go support them and yeah, congratulations, John. Uh proud of you, buddy. It's really awesome. You deserve it.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Wow, man. I we could have a whole episode about this because I am on fire. All right, let's go to break though. Let's take a break. Okay, guys, we're back. We're back. We had to end our break because we're getting heated up talking about local politics as usual, because we are awesome like that. So we're back with product recommendations and mine. We have two good ones. I mean, you do. I got mine. I was like, you have two. Mine's good. Okay, so mine is free, actually. And but I think it's awesome and it's worth mentioning. So rewind a year, and I feel like the whole world got into gardening. So I'll take myself as an example. I generally was not a big fan, but you're like suddenly stuck at home looking at your ugly garden and like maybe I should figure this out. So I'm still doing that a year later. And um, Lowe's obviously understands that. So Lowe's is doing a spring fest and they're doing an event. Um, so along with Curbside Pickup, they're doing garden to go projects for families. And they have these little garden kits that you can sign up to get, and they're free. And it's just like a little starter kit to get you and your kids started in gardening. And like, yes, I think it's lovely. And like, what kid doesn't like to dig in dirt while you are pretending to weed and garden, which is like mostly what I pretend to do. And yeah, so anyway, it's a free thing. Go on um Lowe's website and you can look at your local Lowe's and figure out how you can sign up for a garden kit. I imagine they're going to go pretty quickly. Um, people love free things. So anyway, I think it's awesome that Lowe's is doing this. Um, I hope it helps bring them some business and go sign up for your local garden kit at your local Lowe's.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Okay, so mine, Bridget, you can open the outline and see what this is now. It's a combination news story product recommendation idea. What? So this is comes from John's better half, Melissa Jordan. Another podcast. I thought you had Yes! Okay, so another friend of the pod, Melissa Jordan. Maybe you know her from B933. Um she shared this on the radio page and uh links to a My Modern Matt. Yeah, another favorite. My favorite, yeah. What do they call this? Cloud. Uh it's a uh Chinese. Sweet little rain. It is a coffee that has a cotton candy cloud above it that when the coffee steam hits the cotton candy cloud, the sugar rains down and you get some sugar in your coffee. How did I think of this? Bridget, I know you uh like your coffee black and piping hot. Well, that's true. But you also like clouds and rain and cotton candy. So this is all my favorite things. So I thought you might make an exception to your rule of straight black coffee.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

I will make an exception because I think probably not much sugar actually makes it into the cup. But more of the outside edge.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

So literally, if you put Yeah, this is awesome. We'll share the link so you need to look at it. Um, some coffee shop in like Geneva should do it. Yes. 100%. I would buy it. Instagram, people go get it. It's a really easy, like 90-degree turn. It's very cheap. Yeah, very cheap too. And like, I so this is you should make this at home. Yes. It looks really cool. You'll have fun, it'll make you feel better about your life. There's some pictures here where people do it on like a lampshade or like a bonsai tree or all sorts of different things.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Here's a fun thing. If any of you are listening and you want to challenge us to do this, I will make this at home if you write us an email requesting it, okay? I will do it and I will post it on our Facebook page. You see this? This is like my TikTok that I never followed through on. But she will do this one because it involves coffee. And cotton candy.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

It's an excuse to eat cotton candy, okay? So I thought this was so cool. So cool. I thought, you know, I was like, Bridget's hat to have seen this.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

I've seen it, and yeah, I meant to talk about it, but I'm glad you did.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

In case you hadn't, I was like, we have to make sure she sees it because you never know. We do this sometimes. We're like, how did you not see this? I didn't see anything because obviously you saw this.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

I know I think we should make it our goal to find things that neither of us have ever seen. I I always am picking, like, obviously, people have seen this news story about New Zealand, I hope. But maybe not. I don't know. I get targeted with all this stuff because I'm a mom. So anyway, great product rex this week.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

So check that out. Sweet little rain.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Oh, it looks so good.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

So delicious. We'll be back in just a minute.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

And cotton candy. See you in a tad. All right, welcome back, guys.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

We're back, we're back, we're back. It's time for each other.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

No, Nick, stop. You forgot. Oh, that's right. This week, guys. I'm stop, I'm stopping Nick, okay? Have a time. We're taking a break from interesting questions this week because we're gonna try a couple new things and we're thinking about rotating in some segments here. So we've got some ideas. Yeah, we've got a couple things, and we won't totally do away with interesting questions. We told you we had new things coming. Yeah, get excited. So um, we don't want to completely get rid of interesting questions, but we're gonna do it a little differently. So this week, no interesting questions. Next week, we want you to give us your interesting questions, right? So we have this really cool feature on our website where you can leave us a voicemail right through the website.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

It's not like a call-in, it's literally go on your phone, hit a button, and just record it. It takes you 10 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

It's awesome. We tested it. I sent a really important voicemail to Nick. So you can just go on dinnerplusdrinks.com and there's a little blue microphone in the bottom right corner. So you just press the microphone and you can record a voicemail. If you don't like it, you can re-record it, and you just put in your name and email and you send it to us.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

So we get notified that we have it.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

So um, then we'll have an awesome question. So, what we want you to do is leave us a voicemail through our website. You can also email us always at hello at dinnerplusdrinks.com. But we want to hear what you want us to answer. So ask your most challenging, interesting, like would you rather question to Nick and I. So make us uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Do it. So we like being uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

We like to sweat it out a little bit during these episodes. So we would love if you would send in some questions and we'll answer them live. Um, we'll play the voicemails we get and we will read the emails we get, and we'll we will answer them on next week's show. So send us your interesting questions, but in the meantime, no interesting questions this week, and then we will be rotating this segment um in future weeks.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

So for this week, I am going on vacation theoretically soon. I'm gonna take a little time off. Uh, I haven't booked anything yet because with COVID, um, there you can book super late. It's not like stuff is selling out. Um, I'm hoping some things are gonna open in a particular destination I want to go to. We'll see. Fingers crossed. So I'm holding off on booking.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Are you gonna tell us where or is it a surprise?

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Oh, I want to go to DC and just like chill out at the Smithsonians, but they're all closed. It's cherry blossom, though, pretty soon. You're gonna be paying up the money for that. Not right now, because no? I'm curious. Is it Yeah, because it's actually pretty depressed market. But you're right. So I'm gonna do cherry blossom, hang out some old stomping grounds, see some people, and just do my favorite thing, which is sit in the National Gallery for hours on end looking at art. Um but because of COVID, it's all closed. Thanks, Obama. So um Whoa. I don't know, it's Obama's fault. It really is all still closed? Yeah, it's all still closed. Oh, that's strange. Like they literally just opened up the outside sculpture gardens. Like, we finally decided the COVID's safe. I'm like, dude, if you can't figure out how to do I didn't realize it was all so closed. COVID stuff a year later. You've had some time to figure it out. You've had some time. Um so I you know, so I'm open to suggestions. I am soliciting ideas. I want to go to someplace walkable, which is what I love about TC. It's super walkable. Um there's I like museums. Yeah. I like being able to go see stuff, learn stuff. I like um breweries and like cool restaurants. And um I like Chinatown in DC. I like Chinatown in T T. Like restaurants there. Yeah. So I just like uh, you know, places like that. So I uh you're a world traveler. I've traveled a bit. It's easy to say. Go to London.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Yeah, I'm not gonna say that.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

London's great. London is great. I want to hear, I'm gonna give you a little time to think about this. Okay. I want to hear your like under the radar, cool place to visit. Mine is Grand Rapids, Michigan. I remember you told me about this a while ago. I went uh a couple years ago for a little getaway, just a couple days. They have an awesome public market that is right downtown that has a lot of cool vendors, so you can like kind of I don't love eating out every night. I like to have a little food nine in, which is what I think a lot of people do, which is why Airbnb does so well. Uh they have a ton of breweries, just a ton of breweries that are all very walkable, which is very responsible to do. Um, it's cheap because it's in the middle of nowhere in Michigan. True. And uh they're like really some cool public art on the um they have a river there, and there's a lot of cool public art. Um and uh a lot of it's unfortunately funded by Betsy DeVos, but um you know, it's okay. Sorry. So uh cool place, John and Melissa, Grand Rapids people. So this is a very alky heavy episode. Oh man, I feel like so. That's my that's my picture.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Grand Rapids, yeah, drivable.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Also easy little road trip um if you're in the Midwest. They have some uh they have an airport. So you make it an airport? I was talking to a lady that like literally flew from Houston to there because she's like, Yeah, I want to come get some beer. Okay. God bless me.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

I mean, it's like spot a cow, man. People drive here for that. God bless. I uh I don't know if this is like a place I would say you all should visit, but it's definitely like the weirdest place I've been, but turned in to be a really awesome trip. And that was Kiev in Ukraine. Um, I know, weird. So I do think you should visit it. If you, you know, maybe it shouldn't be number one on your list because like I'm one, I don't know if we can even travel there. I actually I think we probably go to the house.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

I mean, you're right, probably actually, probably. But it is Igor uh from our hard seltzer episodes from Kiev. Are you serious? Yeah, how did I not know that?

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Igor, okay, so to be fair, I was in a little town like 30 minutes outside of Kiev.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Maybe that's his hometown. Which I cannot think of the name of the one Ukrainian friend we have.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Igor, I didn't know. Okay, we're having a beer, man. Um okay, so let me focus again. I went there in I was in college, it was college spring break one year. And I flew to sunny Kiev. You're at the beach and I'm going to Kiev. But anyway, I was dating someone that um grew up in Ukraine. I forgot about that station. I dated someone that was a few years ago, uh, a million years ago. I he grew up in Ukraine and moved here when he was 11, I think. And so um, it was cool. His, you know, he sold family back there. So I don't know that I would recommend going unless you maybe know someone there because it could be a little scary. Uh for me. I, you know, I was young. I didn't, I, I didn't know, but going with someone that was from there and can speak the language was obviously a benefit, but it I it was really great. Like it was, you know, it's because it's a place that's unassuming and you would never put on your bucket list to travel to, it makes me now want to travel to Russia. Like I know, I know it's insane because everyone wants to travel to Germany and England and Switzerland and whatever. So I've been lucky enough to go to many of those places because I lived abroad for a semester and it's easy to travel. And so this was never a place on my list, and I absolutely loved it. Um, I learned a lot. I had to wear different clothing in places. I uh got over a language barrier with his grandmother we were staying with, who just tried to feed me all the time because that was like a thing she could say was like, eat, eat lots of eggs, very oily eggs and ice cream. We ate a lot of weird things. Sardines, we ate sardines. We like one night, because we we weren't of legal drinking age here, but we were there. You can like drink when you're 12. So it was like we got beers and like packaged sardines and like went down by the river. But it was so fun. We were like with his cousins, so it was a really lovely experience. Uh, I always love like appreciating a different culture when you're with someone, like when you have the insider's view. So, you know, add it to your list somewhere. I would go somewhere like the Ukraine or Russia sometime in your life. Okay, well, I can't go there now in three weeks.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Do you have a destination?

SPEAKER_01 37:17

A local one.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

That wasn't part of the rules. Oh, it could just be an America.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

I was trying to think of an American one, and I've uh uh I don't know. Yeah, I've been to a lot of places in America. Um, this is easy, but you're stressing me out. So um you should go to Whidby Island. So this is in the Puget Sound, and obviously I've been there because my sister used to live there.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

How mad would you be if I went and visited Britney? So mad.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

So mad. Hi, Brittany. I'll bring you cheese curds, don't worry. You should. It's her birthday at the end of the month. So um, so Whidby Island is again a place that uh maybe other people might not have on the list. Because to be honest, the first time I went, I was like, this place is boring. Like, because it's a I was too young to appreciate it, but now I appreciate it very much. And and Whidby Island has the great little small town charm, like um where we were, uh specifically in Woodby Island. So great place to explore. Uh the island is split into you know a north and a south half. Strong beer seen out that way. Um, some great beer, an adorable, some great little coffee shops. You know, it's a nice, slow-paced place. There's a great little glass-blowing shop. So I would go see Whidby Island, you know, stop in Seattle on the way, but uh because I love the city. So you can get yourself out there because actually, right now's a great time to fly west when usually it's pretty expensive to get up there. It's very affordable right now. So there's a there's a continental United States tip. I mean, barely. I mean, yeah, you're right, it's on the edge. United States, baby.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Those are our travel tips for this week. Um, next time we're gonna have interesting questions submitted by you. So remember dinnerplusdrinks.com and click the blue microphone in the bottom right, it'll let you send us a little voice memo. Super easy, we promise, or send us an email hello at dinnerplusdrinks.com.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Text us, smoke signal, whatever you'd like.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Whatever. We'll get it.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

So now that we're done traveling, let's talk about what we want to eat this week. Yeah, yeah. Um, all right, so I'm Easter's coming up. Yeah, I d I picked a very not Easter. I think a lot of people aren't into Easter. So I love Easter. I just like it's really early this year, right? It feels easy. It feels early, whatever. Um, Easter was a real downer last year, so I think I'm right now in that like horrible mode of ignoring planning anything because I'm scared it'll all get canceled. So um anyway, I picked a very not Easter recipe from our meal plan this week, but it's been really gloomy and I've just been wanting like warm, comforting meals. So I have a fajita chicken mac and cheese on the recipe for our taco Tuesday this week. So you can either choose chicken fajitas or chicken fajita mac and cheese. And I obviously chose the mac and cheese.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Good lord, who's not gonna choose the mac and cheese?

SPEAKER_01 40:04

I was like looking up recipes and I'm like, I want mac and cheese. What mac and cheese can I do? And we have some great macaroni and cheese recipes on the website, but this one's great because you use your fajita seasoning in your mac and cheese, throw in some chicken. You can get creative with your toppings and your veggies if you want. I like to add a little, you know, I like the crunch with the tortilla chips. Oh, um, like a baked mac and cheese on top. That's a really good tip, Bridget. Look, I am a chef now.

unknown 40:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Hey, look, it's because I like weird texture. So crunch up tortilla chips and like put it on top of your mac and cheese. So that's what I'll be doing for Taco Tuesday this week.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Mine is a little bit more Easter themed. Uh, this is a Nick personal recipe. It is a bourbon ham glaze. If you are doing a ham and you want to glaze it, this is my recipe. It's really simple to do, it's really easy. It gives a little sweetness, a little stickiness, a little tackiness, and a little bit of like smokiness, and it's just delicious. So, bourbon ham glaze, it's super easy. Good for Easter. I think it's like three ingredients. I hope you can find that. Literally bourbon honey and put them on your grocery order.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Not grocery order now.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

I have to photograph it.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

How do you handle alcohol in grocery orders? Like, do you ID people when you bring them out to the car?

SPEAKER_00 41:10

I've never done that.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Yeah, it's literally bourbon honey and molasses.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Oh, that sounds delicious.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Anyway, maybe I'll have that on Easter. A lot of sugar. A lot of sugar.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

We usually do like a brown sugar glaze, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:22

I like this a little bit more than the brown sugar. Because it's smoky. Yeah, and you get a little more tang out of it. It gets a little tackier. Tang. Is that drink still around? It is. Tang. It was invented by NASA.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Oh, it was like military. Okay, NASA. Close enough.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Theoretically. Okay. Well, that's it for that. Oh, I was like, that's not it. Don't worry. This episode this segment's not going to work.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

I was literally just gonna say that. We both pointed at the camera to say, don't worry. We're still gonna tell you about our kids, even though you might not care.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

Oh, you do care.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

I um I feel like I'm back to telling nice stories about my kids because I talked about their like bodily functions for a really long time. Eating. Yeah. Uh we haven't had that, which is great. So um Brittany got my sister, got Elliot for his birthday one of those awesome like disc swings. I don't know what else to call them. I think that's what it is. Um, you know, the big swings you hang under a tree that like are theoretic theoretically very safe for children. I have no idea. They seem really unsafe for children. They seem extraordinarily unsafe. Everyone I know that has kids like my kid's age have one of these. So I was like, yeah, cool, okay. So um I was like, this would be a great gift. She said, wonderful. She sent it to us. So excited. We put it up the other day. It was really nice out. And um, our neighbor kid came over and he's a little older than Elliot. And we run into this where Elliot looks much older than his age, and so, like, you know, I don't know, it's hard. Let's just say it's hard developmentally. So um, Elliot is very cautious, and so Elliot is he's he's safe and cautious and thoughtful and thinks through things where Lucy doesn't give a damn. Like, she will jump off a bridge one day and be like, Well, I can swim, it's cool. Um, that is they're very opposite.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

She wanted to strap myself onto someone else for the first jump.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

This is dumb. She's um not cautious. So putting the two of so they both wanted to be on the swing and it was great. And so I like told our neighbor Kitty, like, okay, let's just like let Elliot have a try real quick. It was his birthday gift, you know. Elliot was terrified. Oh, like, yeah, literally have a video of her like holding on, going, Woo!

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Did you do the Miley Silas wrecking ball thing? Oh my god, I should.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

It'd be a real. Should I make it a real? We should make it a real. My very first reel. So it was just a really adorable, like, uh, you know, we then we put both of them on together, and you can still see in the video, like, Elliot's in the back, Lucy's kind of in his lap, and Elliot's like, you know, like laughing, but a little nervous. And Lucy is just like gonna let go and put her hands up on the roller coaster. So it was a fun little, like, very, it's very fun to see their different personalities now. And this was like, If I could capture it in a photo, it's the photo of them on this swing.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

So my story is about dear darling Simona. And she's she's like, this is like a rapid development age. She went up in classes at daycare, which always is like a big yeah, big jump. She learns a lot really fast for good and for bad. And so she's That's from Lucy. You're welcome. We've done uh we like we try very hard in the routine. Everyone says routine's good for kids. We only got one, so it's very easy to do routine. And um, she's maybe a little too into routine. So she's doing some really cute things where like in the morning, if she boops, she knows to get off of her learning chair where or learning tower thing where she's eating her breakfast. She gets off, she walks over to where we keep the extra plastic bags, grabs one, walks over to me, hands it to me, walks into the uh into her bedroom, gets ready to get changed, gets changed, takes the bag, walks to the outside door where we throw them out, throws it out, and proceeds to go back about her day. Good work. She now she's learning more things. So when she wakes up, she follows her routine. She goes, yells for us to get her, is getting better about getting changed right away with her clothes and everything, gets dressed, goes to get her breakfast. She uh she opens the refrigerator to get her milk first, waits for us to make her breakfast, gets done, wipes off her hands, goes shoes, walks to the mud room area, lets us get her shoes on, get her jacket on, and she opens the door. Whoa. The best one is I didn't know this because I don't go to uh I haven't been to my mother-in-law's house for a couple months. Simona goes a couple times a week to say hello after school because it's very close to daycare. And I'm told she has a routine there. I'm like, I don't know, I don't know about this. She uh we had some unexpected free time that we needed to kill a little energy, occupy her. So we said, well, let's get Sandy uh some flowers from Home Depot. We always get her a number of hangy baskets and things throughout the season because she likes to have them. It's a nice little thing we can do for you know Sarah's mom. So Simona loves Home Depot. She likes to run around, big white aisles, lots of things she can touch and not break anything. She loves it. So I'm like, okay, let's go do that. So we do that. Simona has a great time there. We pull up to Grandma Sandy's house, we leave the flowers on the doorstep, ring the doorbell, and go hide. Of course. Yep. She's super confused. And then Simona goes, Ah. She runs up the driveway, walks herself into Grandma Sandy's house, sits down, looks at me to take her shoes and jacket off. She then takes her jacket, hangs it where it should go, puts her shoes where it should go, runs over to the dog, hugs the dog, waits for the gate to be opened so she can go to the rest of the house, because the gate keeps a dog from the rest of the house. Runs in the kitchen, points at the pretzel stick she wants, gets it from her grandma, eats the pretzel stick, goes to her Uncle Mitchell's room. He still lives at home. He's just a recent college grad.

unknown 47:01

Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

I remember that time. Bangs on the door until he opens it. He's playing video games. He's like streaming now. She starts yelling, hi until he comes out and acknowledges her, makes him pick her up, take her to get another pretzel, gets her second pretzel, runs to the door, sits down, holds up her shoes, has me put them on, waves bye-bye to everybody, and walks out, and we go home. Whoa. Whoa. This girl has her routines down. Yep. I think she might be a planner. Ooh. Wonder where she's gonna be. Yeah, I wonder where that is. And uh it's really cute and really actually very helpful because it's like we don't have to herd her for anything, but also like, oh my god, did we create a monster? I hope for you that that lasts.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

I mean, to an extent, in that you don't have to fight her to get dressed every day.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

So it's really cute. I'm very proud of her. She's obviously very smart, very intelligent. Obviously. I mean, genius. I'm so glad Sarah works so hard to get these routines instilled in her because it is paying off. Good work, honey. I love you. You're the best. Whoa. And uh wow, we're here with parenting tips, everybody. Guys, flatter your wife and put your kid on a routine. Go hard on that routine. I don't know. Sarah can tell you about it. She knows how. I will tell you, we were pretty lax with our routine.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

We're, I don't know how to say it. Like, we're kind of in the middle. Lucy is on a great routine because we did nothing for a year. So it was easy to be like, oh, we're home at seven o'clock. We're Elliot, we're like, we're gonna take you to a brewery. Like, you're our first kidding. You could always hang. Yeah, man, because we were determined, like, we know this is gonna change our life, but like, we're still cool. With Lucy, we're like, we're not cool. No one does anything. Like, who cares? She sleeps great.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Anyway, that's our kid corner today, guys. Thanks for listening. Um, we have some ideas for new podcast series that are probably gonna come out pretty soon. Couple months. We're gonna announce them soon. We have some production work to do, I would say. We have some extra tidbits, and uh we have a few little bonuses, all sorts of stuff that we're thinking is gonna come out soon. So keep an eye open or an ear open for that. It's gonna be exciting. Remember, send us your would you rathers. It's dangerous when Nick and I have two full days to plan.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Very dangerous. Yes, send us your questions. Remember, smoke signals, voicemails, emails, whatever you want. And find us on Instagram and Facebook. You can also send us a message there or comment if you'd prefer about your would you rathers. It's Dinner Plus Drinks Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

We're not desperate. We just want you to send us feedback. We monitor a lot of channels.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

We have so many places. We just want to all we really we love this feature on our website, so we want to be able to play your voice on our podcast.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Oh, yeah. If you leave us a voicemail, we're gonna play your voice on the podcast. That's asterisk.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

So thanks for listening as always. Have a great week. Cheers, guys, bye bye, so I'm gonna go to the back.