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This morning I ate a cup of Wallaby Organic Yogurt which Danielle purchased on clearance at VG’s. While tasty, I was a bit confused by the printing on the lid claiming that it’s inspired by “Australian yogurts”. Prior to this I’d never heard of such a thing, and apparently I’m not the only one confused by this designation.

I figure that this wording is simply a way of making a food sound more interesting by implying that it’s foreign. After all, foreign foods are better; especially those from exotic lands like Australia.

The avocado that I purchased yesterday from Whole Foods to eat today for breakfast is bad. It’s weirdly stringy, tastes salty, and is of an overall not-avocado color. Oh well. I guess that’s why they were 10 for $10.

No breakfast avocado for me, I guess. At least the peach that was purchased at the same time is good.

Last night Danielle and I went out to Aurelio’s Italian Grill, located in an old car wash at 19 Mile and Garfield in Clinton Township, stuck between a Wendy’s and National Coney Island. While the location seemed a bit strange at first, the narrow building and large number of windows made it feel bright and comfortable inside, all without much artificial light being needed.

Between the four of us we ordered the following minestrone soup, tortellini soup, Italian salad, fettuccine alfredo, spaghetti w/ meatballs, spinach & ricotta rigatoni, and chicken cremosi. All of the food was excellent, and very clearly well made. Portions were immense, with each of us bringing home more food than we ate during our meals. The photo above (and here) shows three dishes after we ate our fill of them, and here is the remains of Danielle’s chicken cremosi. Most of this should reheat well making for outstanding lunches. Prices are also quite reasonable, as for the four of us our total ended up being just under $60, including $10 in tip.

The only bad thing I could say is that the website for Aurelio’s Italian Grill seems to require both IE and the Windows Media Player ActiveX plugin to view the menu. Still, even if you can’t check out the menu before you go, give this place a try. If you’re wanting some nice Italian and live in the area, you’d do well to give this place a try.

Sometimes I put the pizza on the plate backwards, making it harder for my right-handed self to eat as cutting with the edge of the fork gets my hand very close to the other piece.

(This pizza is from Sherwood Brewing Company, purchased on Wednesday evening and eaten as leftovers at work both yesterday and today.)

On Saturday after picking up the VooDoo Dambala Danielle and I swung by Zingerman’s Roadhouse for lunch. Underestimating its size we had the Chili and Cheddar Fries (described as Our ancho beef chuck chili over hand-cut, twice cooked fries with our grated 2-year-raw-milk Vermont cheddar, as seen above) for an appetizer. It was very good, but unexpectedly large. I think we both expected to receive half as much food.

Danielle then ordered the BBQ Pork Entree with the Eastern North Carolina Vinegar BBQ Sauce (described as Now using Chef Alex’s Cornman Farms hogs, direct from Dexter. Traditional whole hog barbeque made with local hogs delivered direct from the farm. It’s pit smoked for 14 hours, hand pulled, chopped and blended with your choice of barbeque sauce. Served with mashed local potatoes and Southern-style braised greens) which can be seen here: photo. I had the grilled cheese made with a 7-year old aged cheddar and a cup of cream of mushroom soup (photo) along with an Asylum (photo), a mixed drink made from gin, Pernod, and grenadine.

Despite being extremely good neither of us could finish our meals, so we went home with a quite substantial portion of leftovers. I hadn’t been to the Roadhouse prior to this trip, and I was quite impressed. Service was great, food was better (and cheaper) than I’d expected, and it’s quite nice inside. I definitely want to go back there.

(Please excuse the crap photo, as it was taken under the fluorescent lights at my desk.)

For lunch today I ended up going by Burgrz, a new hamburger place on Walton in Rochester Hills, roughly in the same plaza / parking lot as Trader Joe’s. I was initially hesitant to go there thinking that it’d just be just like Five Guys (which I find a bit greasy and salty but otherwise dull), but after reading the menu and seeing a much more expansive selection (including veggie burgers) I decided to go on.

After looking over the menu I ordered a veggie burger (not sure how this is different from the BOCA Burger, which is also on the menu) topped with sautéed mushrooms and blue cheese with a regular size order of fries. After being told that the zip sauce is a home-made sauce with soy sauce, honey, and cayanne I asked for a bit of it on the side. What I received is as you see above, a nice looking not-squished burger (detail of the patty here), fries, and a small container of sauce.

The burger was good, and I ended up topping it with the zip sauce which went nicely with the mushrooms and blue cheese. At room temperature it was a little runny and didn’t stick well on the burger so I ended up mopping most of it up off the foil wrapper as I went, but it tasted good so I didn’t mind. The waffle-cut fries were crispy and properly salted, and I received a few more of them than I could eat. It would been nice to have fresh-cut fries instead, but properly cooked frozen ones (like these) aren’t anything to complain about.

All in all, I think that Burgrz was much nicer than Five Guys, and is a place that I actually want to go back to. Ordering was fast, food took about 5 minutes to receive, and the place looks nice inside.

Here’s a bottle of Cock ‘n Bull Ginger Beer, purchased at the gas station at the corner of Grange Hall and Mackey Roads after Erik, Kristi, and I rode the East Loop (Gruber’s Grinder) at the Holly-Holdridge Mountain Bike Trails, which are more commonly known just as Holdridge. This was a quite challenging (but fun) trail, which took us 2:20 to complete the 15.5 mile route riding at a quite relaxed pace. It has everything from flowing sections of hard pack through the woods to 6′ high piles of field stones and reasonably high log piles. (Photo of Erik going over the biggest of the log piles.)

After the ride (and purchase of snacks) we headed over to Wildwood Lake in Holly Recreation Area and swam for a while to cool off (photo). Unfortunately while out swimming (and taking underwater photos) my supposedly waterproof to 10′ Olympus Stylus 850 SW sprung a leak. The camera started complaining that the memory card’s contacts needing cleaning, and after I opened the memory card / battery card compartment I found it to have water in it. It’s now sitting in a container of desiccant, so hopefully it’ll start working again soon and I can just put it to use as my standard travel point and shoot / bike jersey pocket camera.

Despite our snack of good soda and potato chips, having just biked for 2:20 and swam for 45 minutes we were getting a bit hungry, so the next stop was Union Woodshop in Clarkston, MI. This offshoot of Clarkston Union, one of my favorite America food restaurants, has a menu of great looking BBQ dishes and is some place I’d been wanting to try for a while.

With $0.87 glasses (mason jars, really) of Badass Beer (yes, the Kid Rock stuff, a passable lager) on special during the final game of the World Cup (which Spain won) we each ordered pulled pork with a variety of side items. I chose mac and cheese (ala Clarkston Union) and sweet potatoes (with roasted jalapeno and a hint of maple), which can be seen here along with some corn bread and sweet butter. Typcial of most midwestern restaurants portions were large enough to ensure leftovers. I’ll definitely want to go back there, but the typical 1.5 hour wait on most weeknights may make this difficult. I guess we’ll just have to plan for mid-afternoon on a Sunday again.

Today while at Lakeview Bar & Grill after the Team Tree Farm group ride I was convinced to eat this, the Tree Farm Sandwich. It is two cheese sticks, bacon, and mayo on toast, with a pickle spear on the side. I also ordered a basket of deep fried mushrooms, then munched on someone’s leftover fries after eating all of it.

Having today off and feeling like rejecting a few more British conventions I decided to make some sun tea. Four tea bags, water, and sitting in the sun for a couple hours mostly did the trick, but I probably should have left it for longer. Oh well, I’ll just have to make another batch tomorrow or Wednesday.

Riding to work along the Clinton River Trail this morning I happened upon a squirrel, which is not unusual at all, until I ran over it. Typically animals see you coming and do their best to dash off to hide in the woods, but this squirrel, laying in the middle of the 12′ wide gravel path, ducked down, waited until I got within 15 of it, dashed off into the brush, then immediately back out in front of me, running in a small circle twice directly in front of my tire before I hit it. Thankfully only my front tire hit it^†, and when I looked back I caught only a brief glimpse of it ducking back into the brush.

While squishing the squirrel (and throughout the ride) I was apparently also squishing my post-ride banana. While the skin didn’t rupture, a fair part of it was mashed into a nice banana gel which tasted surprisingly sweet and good. It was a bit of a hassle to eat, but the taste made it worthwhile. I think that a bowl of well-mashed banana, topped with (real) whipped cream, and some nice oaty biscuits (HobNobs?) could make for quite a treat.

UPDATE: Now that I think about it, hitting the squirrel felt not unlike the time I hit a discarded banana in the road. A little slick, a slight sliding/rolling feeling, and an ever so slight bump.

^† Front wheels generally have less weight on them, and while I definitely hit a squishy part of the squirrel, there wasn’t a noticeable thump or bump as I went over it, so hopefully I hit a less-essential part and its still alive.