Hotel Wolf

The hotel we stayed at in Saratoga was the Hotel Wolf.  The hotel has been opened since 1893 and has only had 4 owners in 118 years.

The five of us shared the Apartment Suite room.  The apartment suite was on the third floor.  There is no elevator in the hotel. It is a converted attic, with two queen beds, a pull out couch, and a bathroom that is all the way at the back of the room.  About 5 minutes after someone would flush the toilet, there was a very loud "Clunk Clunk" noise. 

Instead of having phones in each room, the hotel had an old fashioned telephone booth in the hallway on the main floor.

A view of our room, looking towards the front door.

Another view from further back in the room.

The doors in our room had the old, non functioning, hardware above and below the door handles.

In keeping with the rest of the town, there were more animals on the wall in the saloon!

The Traveling Fin's...

I haven't forgotten about the blog, I swear!  Its been a busy few weeks.  Two weekends ago, I was in Chicago and this past weekend, Cory and I went to Denver and Wyoming with our friend Jon.  We flew into Denver on Friday and then drove up to Wyoming that night for the weekend. 

Jon had a job in Saratoga, Wyoming a few years ago and fell in love with the town.  Every year over Presidents Day weekend, the town holds their annual Chariot Races.  He has been trying to get us up there for awhile and I finally caved :)  I was a little nervous, but Jon promised me indoor plumbing...

The Wyoming trip is going to take a few posts so that you can get the full experience.  We drove up with Jon, his sister Alex, and his friend Sarah.  We also met up with two other couples, one of whom is also fellow hawkeyes.

First things first...when we got into Denver, we stopped at Sheplers, a western wear store, so Cory could get some new boots.  They also carried "dress jeans", on sale for $16.99, which he did not get.

Our first stop on the way to Saratoga, was Encampment , WY...population, super small.  There were two bars right next to each other: The Mangy Moose & The Bear Trap.

The view down the street from our hotel.

The general store in Saratoga.

Everyone told us to stop by the grocery store....now I know why.  Taxidermied animals everywhere!



More to come on Wyoming....

Sweet Home Chicago

This past weekend, I had three days off from work and I made a quick trip home to Glen Ellyn.  It was a short trip but I was able to see a fair amount of family and friends.  I feel like I ate my way thru Glen Ellyn.  There were stops at Ellyn's Taphouse, Gratto, Papa Savarios pizza, and of course Portillos!

There is nothing better than their hot dog  and fries....I can almost smell them now.

I got to see the twins, which was great, and we also got to spend an afternoon at big gramma's with Asa.  We taught Asa about the typewriter game (thanks Jessica!) and why wedgies are no fun!

Asa and Uncle Andrew were sending these huge balloons flying all over Gramma's...

And of course, the doggies had a photo shoot.  Murphy was quite the natural and I think he kind of loved the camera.





In Case You are Wondering...

...this whole blog isn't going to be about food.  Eventually, there will be other things in the life of the Finleys.

But right now, its winter, its cold and apparently my new hobby is shoveling snow.

So until we travel again or break above freezing, food is the highlight of the winter! And this morning, I made a delicious butternut squash soup.

Football Food Coma

So while the commercials during the Super Bowl are usually a highlight, this year they were not.  They were not good!  My favorite, and practically the only one I remember, is the Darth Vader-VW commercial.  It was too cute!

Most years, Cory and I head over to a friends house for a Super Bowl watching extravaganza.  This year, it was just us, the couch, and a lot of food we don't normally eat as a meal.  We stuffed ourselves with guacamole, nacho spuds, and strawberry-raspberry ice cream.

I fear that the ice cream is going to be dangerous.  We got a KitchenAid mixer for our wedding, and I recently got the ice cream maker attachment.  This was my first attempt at making ice cream and it was pretty good, if I do say so myself.

And, I just figured out how to make my pictures bigger on here (because I'm special) so now I can make them easier to see!

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

So I've been bad about posting this week, but I finally got some pics uploaded to show off the most time intensive dish I have ever made!

I made it during the blizzard earlier in the week. I got a book in my stocking this Christmas, "Tips Cooks Love" by Rick Rodgers and I have had my eye on this recipe since.

Marinated Provencal Beef Ragout has about a millions ingredients and takes two days to make.

On day one, I had to make the marinade...starting off with onions, celery , carrots and garlic.

Then thyme, bay leafs and peppercorns are added, along with a bottle of wine!

The beef gets cubed, the soaks in the marinade for 12 to 16 hours.

This is some prepping on day two.  The beef gets browned, more veggies are cooked and in the left corner is pancetta!

The marinade, beef broth and all the other ingredients are thrown back in the pot and brought to a boil.  Then it cooks in the oven for two hours.

All done and it gets served over mashed potatoes...

This is my first official bowl of mashed potatoes that I have ever made!  For some reason, I felt that mashed potatoes would be really hard to make. Turns out...not so much.

Ta-dah!!!! This was really good.  It wasn't hard to make, it just took forever.....

Have a great super bowl sunday!  I have a few things to make today...nothing healthy of course.  Just good ol' fashioned football food!

sn-OMG! part two

Well we made it!  What a ridiculous day yesterday. Today's adventure will be: can lauren's car make it thru the snow to get to work???

Round One: Lauren vs. The Snow.  I made a dent, but you couldn't tell after a few hours.

I thought Cory was working....apparently he was just watching me do some shoveling!

This was at 2 in the afternoon. Cory did round 2 about 9 pm...



Round Two Begins...

View from the front door.

Front stoop is under the snow somewhere

Round Two complete.  I hope there's no more snow...the yard is full.

sn-OMG!

I can't take credit for sn-OMG! That is fresh from NBC action news.

Well, its only Tuesday and already its been an eventful week.  I worked this past weekend which means I had yesterday and today off.  Just enough time to prepare for sn-OMG.  Yesterday, I hit up the grocery store for my weekly shopping.  The rest of the city was there preparing to be locked in their houses for weeks.  You have never grocery shopped until you been in  a Kansas City store the day before a blizzard warning goes into effect!

It was like a marathon.  People's carts were piled high and the shelves literally were running low on almost everything.  The two items pricechopper was out of that I needed: fresh thyme and bananas... 

Last nights dinner was homemade cream of tomato soup (pics later) and grilled cheese sandwichs.  And not just any grilled cheese: fresh bakery bread with sharp cheddar, provolone, and fontina :)

We are camped out at home today watching the snowy grossness that is outside.  Cory got to work from home due to sn-OMG.  While he's working, I am debating: to shovel or not to shovel?  Is it worth trying to keep up with the snow???