Cat Ears & Coffee: guest post

Guest Post: Fisher Building Beer Garden

Hi everybody! This is Kyle (a.k.a. Sara’s frustratingly lazy husband), I am doing a little write up for the blog today on an event we went to back in December in the midst of the holiday season.

We were as we usually are, blissfully unaware of awesome local happenings while spending the afternoon casually celebrating the combinations of hops and barley,… so yes we were just sitting at the bar drinking beer with our good friend Dan! It was a Saturday and we love beer, don’t judge us.

While relaxing I happened to call my younger brother Chris Gerard who happens to constantly know about interesting things going on around town and he mentioned that Pure Detroit was doing a Holiday pop-up BierGarten in the lobby of the historic Fisher Building and invited us to tag along.

The Fisher Building in itself is simply amazing and having an excuse to relax with a good local brew while soaking in the building was reason enough to go, it also happened to be an event benefiting the Parade Company to restore classic Paper Mache parade heads from the 1930’s- 1960’s and they had many on display in the lobby.

Sara and I are giant dorks and usually can’t resist going down to see the Thanksgiving Day parade the Parade Company puts on, so seeing seldom out of storage parade heads was very exciting and we went along to check them out.

The Pure Detroit tour included a trip up to the 19^th floor of the building for some great views of the city, which despite a heavy haze/fog/sight blocking feature provided by the weather gods, it was still very cool to casually have a chance to look down from such a famous local landmark.

I admit that while we simply took my brother up on an invite for this event and otherwise had no intention of going to the Fisher building in the near future, just being inside of it made me want to check out a play there sometime soon and possibly spend some more time exploring the incredible building that both functions now with an increasing slew of local businesses but also arguably the best theater in the city aside from the often overshadowing Fox Theater further downtown.

I’ll have to remember to call family more often, because while drinking beer with good friends is always fun, doing so while supporting a great local organization is practically charitable,… or at least makes me feel better about enjoying my beer.

10:12 PM
11 Comments

Smoochal Designs!

Art

9:43 AM
13 Comments

Guest Post Eats: Iced Pumpkin Cookies

Eats

Hello, I am Nicole! There was recently a gathering for the fall friend birthdays and when Sara said she was bringing cupcakes, I offered to bring pumpkin cookies. Any excuse! And Sara asked me to write a guest post without even tasting them first, which is confidence if I've ever heard of it!

So!

This right here is the method that I use to make my pumpkin puree. I don't really deviate from that.

Preheat the oven to 350F, and then break the stem off of your pumpkin. (I did it by hand! For the first time! I've always used a hammer, before! I won't judge you if you use a hammer!) I put a little plastic cutting board on top of a dish towel (to keep it from moving on me) and then I cut the pumpkin in half, through the stem and the flower butt mark on the bottom. (I find a big sharp knife and a rocking motion are the way to go for this. I also kind of went down one side and then down the other so that the cuts met at the bottom.) Then I scooped out the guuuts with a sturdy spoon and discarded them. I put the two pumpkin halves on a greased baking sheet (open side down) put it in the oven, and then walked and played Harvest Moon for 35 minutes. And wondered why Sheng the blacksmith is such a furry. Anyway, I know, the recipe says 45 minutes to an hour. In my experience and my oven, it comes out a little dark at 45 minutes, so I checked earlier than that. And it was done at 35! Check for that by fork testing. When it easily penetrates, blah blah blah. Let it cool and then scoop the flesh out of the skin and into a bowl. Grab a stick blender. Pureeeeee. I imagine you could use something else, but this is the only way that I personally have done it. After that I lined a colander with cheesecloth, and put the pumpkin in there. I set this over a larger bowl and let it sit overnight. I probably should've used a wire strainer, instead, since the stuff at the bottom was still a little watery and I only drained off about 3 tbsp of liquid. But anyway! From there I set aside the cup of pumpkin that I needed for cookies and froze the rest in 1/2 cup portions. And gave the little leftover bit to the dog.

If anyone is wondering about cost effectiveness, I dropped $2 on the pumpkin at a produce stand. Several boring equations later I can state that it works out to almost exactly the same price as the 29 oz can, if you're judging cup by cup. So, no money saved, at least not in my particular circumstances, but I think it's fun and tasty and I'll keep right on doing it this way.

Onto the cookies!

I've made them before. They have about a bajillion great reviews because they are kinda awesome.

Pumpkin Cookies

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 egg1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350F. Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt in a medium bowl and set them aside. In a larger bowl, cream the 1/2 cup of butter and the 1 1/2 cups of white sugar together. I used a pastry cutter because I thought it would be easier than using a fork. I feel like this was a good call. Add the pumpkin, egg and the one tsp vanilla to this and beat it together. Add the dry ingredients and beat it again! Taste it and swoon.

Drop by spoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheets (I have baking sheets that I only ever use for cookies and associated loveliness. I baby the crap out of them. We get organic facials together. I used those, rather than the old battle axe that I baked the pumpkin on). The recipe says to bake for 15 to 20 min. I checked them at 15 and a few of them were a little dark. So. I did not learn from my previous experience with the pumpkin, I guess.

44 cookies that are baked but TOTALLY not burnt

Let them cool and mix together powdered sugar, milk, melted butter and vanilla (or use half and half instead of milk if you're a coffee drinker, like me, and that's all you have on hand) then spoon it over the cookies. I have done this right on the baking sheet before, but I did it over waxed paper, this time.

I did get the 3 dozen that the recipe states, and I think that they're pretty tasty! I would definitely describe them as cakey, they're very soft and they have that pumpkin pie spice thing going for them. Also, the glaze really takes it over the top. This is not the first time that I have made them, and totally will not be the last. The only deviations that I actually used were the fresh pumpkin in place of canned, and half and half in place of milk for the glaze. I do wish that I had taken a more glamorous finished product shot, but I didn't remember until I was already at the bar. Alas!

Buuuut yup. Thanks for having me!

11:08 AM
8 Comments

DIY: Kyle's Pack-Rat Productivity Project!

DIY

11:01 AM
11 Comments

Day Three: Odd Friends, Odd Couple, Furry Friends, Nature, & PBR

Friends

Hi Everybody!

In case you couldn't tell by the over abundance of oddly chosen mediocre photos, this is Kyle ( the sideburns portion of Sara's blog) and I just wanted to tell you about the third day of our vacation.

We got up that morning as the first rays of sunlight warmed the cool waters of Lake Superior behind our campground,... and used the bathroom before going back to bed. Finally we actually woke around 11:30 and after bumbling around we set off for our 2nd hike of the trip down the Escarpment Trail from Lake of The Clouds in Porcupine Mountains State Park.

The hike was along the rocky ridge that lines the main lake inside the park and follows the river that feeds it (which I of course am too lazy to find the name for right now), between truly beautiful views from almost 2000 feet up and the random wild blueberry or two we ate ( recent studies by paranoid friends have told us that we were indeed crazy for eating them), it was a challenging but well worth it experience.

We met up with our friend Dan after the hike and drove what seemed like two hours ( about 25 miles each way) to the far edge of the park which has a rustic campground along the Presque Isle River that feeds into lake Superior. It featured a series a small rapids and at least 3 waterfalls including one that went under the drawbridge in the pictures (I personally think both waterfalls and drawbridges are freaking sweet, but the combination of both was almost too cool to handle).

After encountering a few fuzzy mammals other than ourselves on the drive back, we settled down on the rocky beach of the best lake in the World (other name for Superior) and relaxed with some Sara approved beer and pizza and watched the sunset. (Oh and while Dan and I took pictures I also decided dropping my cell phone into the water would be a great idea, THANK YOU GENIUS THAT REALIZED RICE CAN SAVE ANYTHING!!!)

As you may see in the smiles and other fantastic facial expressions of our group throughout the day you can tell it was both tiring and fun and despite the distance from home, I already am thinking about when I'll get the chance to go back.

If Sara doesn't go crazy loading idiot (me) approved photos, I might stop in with another boring post sometime!

Till then,

Kyle G.

p.s. does one of the cloud photos look like the head of a brontosaurus (forget science!, I grew up reading about them so they existed as far as I'm concerned!) to anybody else or am I crazy!? help settle the debate between my Dino opinion and Sara's more human anatomy themed opinion.

10:30 AM
11 Comments

Outfits

Guest Post: Fisher Building Beer Garden

Smoochal Designs!

Guest Post Eats: Iced Pumpkin Cookies

DIY: Kyle's Pack-Rat Productivity Project!

Day Three: Odd Friends, Odd Couple, Furry Friends, Nature, & PBR

Get Social

Archives

Latest Posts

Search This Blog

@CatEarsAndCoffee