Weekending!

This weekend, I traveled into the Big City for a belated birthday hootenany.  It started with meeting my bestest sister-friend at our favorite joint for a plate of Swedish meatballs:

Oh, how I love those meatballs.  They come with potatoes and lingonberry sauce...drool.

This feast was followed by checking into our room at the Hyatt, and then getting all glammed up for a night on the town.  Dinner at the Loring Pasta Bar, and then off to the Drag Queen show at a little spot known as...

It was a hoot.  Well, a little loud (which I realize does make me seem like an old fart saying that a night club was "too loud", but seriously, the bass vibrations from the amp system set off my asthma by making my lungs vibrate), and I am so not able to stop yawning after 11 PM (again, yes, I know, I am skating close to edge of old fart-ism).  There is something to be said for a night out, and heck, if it includes a good show at a lively nightclub with exotic performers, heck, sign me up!  (But not for a little while, because I am freakin' exhausted from staying out so late.)

After a restorative night's rest in a comfortable bed, marred only by the whistling wind shrieking through the vent system (the weather changed overnight, and boy it was breezy), I was off for a couple more adventures around town.

I stopped at a little shop in St. Paul, called Eggplant, an Urban Farm supply store.

Super cute little shop, filled with all kind of implements and buckets and seeds and canning supplies and worm bins.  I loved it!  Of course, I had to pick up some tomato seeds and a seed sprouting kit that works on a regular mason jar.  I can hardly wait to try sprouting!  I've had such a hankering for green fresh food lately, it'll be nice to pile them on salads and such.  This was just up the street from a Whole Foods market, so I had to pop in there too.  After drooling over the cake and tart options in the bakery case, I opted to buy a loaf of Finn Bread, a very dark rye bread slathered with wheat berries, and some little rounds of mozzarella.

And of course, I had to stop at my perennial "last stop" before coming home:

I am addicted to their Indian food options, and then I saw that they had fresh basil and vine-ripened tomatoes...and I was lost.  Anyway, I did resist the Peppermint Sipping Cocoa and Chocolate Covered Whatsits, so perhaps my out-of-season splurge wasn't quite so bad?  Locavore contrary or not, it did make my winter chilled soul happy, so there you go.  Another case of cabin fever, averted.

Now I am back at home, watching old episodes of the Vicar of Dibley and feeding my little fire so the animales and I can stay warm.  It's been a fine weekend of fun, but my little Farmlette is truly the place I want to be. 

I have tomatoes and basil to eat, after all.