Mission Accomplished

• Offer letter signed
• Apartment found and paperwork in progress
• Did fun stuff in and around Denver (coming soon in another post)
• Thoroughly exhausted and completely happy
• Back home now and attempting to appease kitty.

Dinner at Rioja

ETA: I blogged from iPad and I'm too lazy to fix the over-sized photos and wonky breaks in the formatting. Just try to let the menu carry you away...

On our first night in Denver, we decided to enjoy a nice dinner out and Rioja was our choice. It was incredible.

We started with a cheese plate. Caña de Cabra: strawberry rhubarb jam; Oriol de Montbrú; fennel-tarragon salad; Quadrello di Bufala: Castelvetrano olive; Schnebelhorn: morel-shallot-mustard

Next, we had appetizer pastas. Austin got sweet corn gnocchi with roasted porcini mushrooms, nasturtium, and crescenza nage. It was very tasty but we agreed my pasta was out of this world.

My artichoke tortelloni with artichoke mousse, white truffle brodo, queso de mano, and chervil. Simply amazing.

Then the entrees. Austin had Alaskan halibut with hearts of palm, purple Peruvian potatoes, kale salsa verse, and red pepper jam. Delicious.

I got the special, seared scallops on goat cheese risotto over beurre rouge topped with a carrot salad. Incredible.

We couldn't turn down dessert. White and black cheesecake: blackberry filled cheesecake, toasted black sesame ice cream, blackberry coulis, sesame nougatine, and black sesame paint. A sweet end to the meal.

Denver-bound

Off to find new digs and do a little exploring.

Resurfacing

I started this blog when Austin and I were moving from WI to TX so I could attend grad school there. We have had several moves since then and have spent the past two years in Kentucky. I quickly realized my new position would keep me too busy to update regularly and so this blog sort of faded away. That has changed, however, as Austin and I pursue the next adventure and move to Denver, CO.

There will be much more to update about that, especially since we are headed there on Tuesday to look for housing, but for now, I'm glad to be able to return to writing semi-regularly updates about what we are doing, things big and small, and I appreciate that a few of you requested I restart the blog. My simple pleasure here is the amazing garden our neighbors have; it always makes me happy and I keep telling Austin I'm going to leave them a little thank you note to let them know how very much it brightens my day. I know I have often posted photos of flowers, food, cats, and cups of tea on here and there will be more of that to come. But maybe mountains now, too!