“… I think it’s repellant in every way. In fact, I think most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare.” – Mike Myers, So I Married An Axe Murderer
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I didn’t find haggis repellant: just for the record. It tastes like all other offal, like liver or kidneys, which I rather enjoy, even though my aunt describes them as “tasting of urine.” (Note: never tell her you love something she hates, because she will try to destroy it in your heart. She doesn’t mean to be evil … she just is.) Trube told, the hubby and I rather liked haggis. I wouldn’t eat it everyday, nor do I think it would make good hangover food. But as a bite here and there? Pretty fantastic.

All in all, Scottish food has a fairly bad reputation (especially stateside. Tell me the last time you visited a Scottish restaurant), but there are definitely some culinary bright spots during our trip to Glasgow. (more…)

Originally an east-coaster, my husband maintains that Seattle is a pretty easy town in which to make a good impression. We tell each other snobbish little jokes on the topic all the time …

Me: If you want to be the best-dressed person in a Seattle bar, what should you wear?

Rand: What?

Me: Your clean jeans!

or …

Rand: How do you get a standing ovation from a Seattle audience?

Me: How?

Rand: Finish the show.

Ba-da-dum!

The fact is, for how snobbish and elitist us Northwesterners supposedly are, we can be very, very easily impressed. Plays, music shows, and, most importantly, restaurants, are often over-hyped. That’s not to say that we have a shortage of awesome places to eat in Seattle – quite the contrary. We have plenty of great spots to grab a bite. But often, they’re not the places that get the most attention. In an effort to balance out the playing field, I’ve compiled a list of some of the most over-hyped restaurants/eateries in all of Seattle, along with a few alternatives that will hopefully spare you some time, money, and grief. (more…)

When I told a few friends we were going to Chicago, the suggestion that kept popping up was The Signature Room on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Center. The top of the Hancock Center has amazing views, and you can either go up to the observation deck (at a minimum admission price of $15) or you can get sloshed on the floor below at the Signature Room (high altitudes make you drunker quicker, I think) and just pay for drinks.

Go ahead. Guess which one we chose?

The pros: it's a hot chocolate. AND it's alcoholic. The cons: It's $13.

(more…)

There are times when I miss having a nine-to-five job. Those moments are fleeting – like those rare occassions during summer vacation when you begin to long for school. They vanish almost as soon as they appear, as you tell yourself to enjoy the now, because this seemingly endless vacation of staying up late and eating microwave popcorn for dinner can’t last forever.

Probably.

More than anything, though, I miss the people I worked with. I still see a lot of them semi-regularly, but it will never be the way it was when were crammed into our offices at Cranium: deliriously trying to think up taglines, hacking chocolate Santas to bits with kitchen knives and eating the carnage, rearranging the magnetic letters on the fridge to prophesize our own company’s doom. (more…)