I’m quite a content Hobbit these days, enjoying cooking meals for home but sometimes I miss my “cute” shoes over leopard slippers.

The art of a calibrated oven or pan. The right oils and sauces.
Very satisfying.

Home-roasted coffee
Boiled eggs
Lemon chicken
Brined, thick maple pork chops
Onion cream sauce
Salads with baby greens
Taco salads
Chappel Hill Sausages
Shishito peppers with sea salt
Poquillo peppers with Alabama white BBQ sauce

There are a few dishes at restaurants where I can’t compete, YET:

*B&Bs fried oysters on cured pork
w blue cheese
*Ibiza’s burrata salad and any fish
*Fuego’s Baja Shrimp tacos
*Pappasito’s fajitas and salsa
*Brasserie 19’s bone marrow
*Schoolhouse’s artichokes
*Tapastrie’s anything
*Cal Pep chiparrones
*Anything in France

Now that we have all things paid off, as foodies, we love to try new places and creative infusions a couple of times a month.

It’s really about the Parisian and Spanish style of sitting alfresco, sharing small plates, flavour bombs, solving world problems, a cute outfit and cute 1-3-hour shoes.

I have a pair of 1-hour caged stilletos that are drive-to restaurant only, sitting shoes.

It goes like this.

“Let’s go out tonight!” Mr. W

Me:”Yay? Are we driving, taking a taxi or walking?”

Mr. W. now knows it’s a shoe thing.

“Driving”

Yayass.

1 hour shoes

I better put Rick Ross on Pandora..

And do my hair.

What if we were in debt to our eyeballs?

Home Foodies.
No cute shoes.

No seeing the inside of a restaurant unless we worked there until debt was gone.

Potlucks with friends.

I have noticed that since I have been able to recreate some of our fav dishes, when we go out to places we used to think were great, they’re not so great anymore.

*The texture and taste is not so appealing
*They stick us at a bad table I call the “closet” (bad atmosphere), so cute shoes wasted!
*The portions are for a 12 year old boy

Lessons learned:
*no restaurants until debt (aside from house) is paid
*I should make a shoe, Pandora, restaurant pairing guide
*Don’t get “too good” at recreating restaurant dishes, else cute shoes stay in closet 😉

Image modified from lyst.com