Fettuccine with Agretti, Lemon and Olive Oil, vaguely based on this

The agretti has a nice grassy taste to it.  maybe needed to have a bit less lemon compared to the agretti that I had, but good none the less.

Garlic Scape Pesto Spaghetti

I was going to make this on that Friday, but after getting home from work, then mowing the lawn, I didn't feel like cooking, so Shannon brought home dinner.

Whole Wheat Pancakes

Good things.  Finally broken into the quart of Great River Maple grade B maple syrup.  Pretty good pancakes.  The recipe talked a lot about having fresh whole wheat (mine wasn't) but this still worked, and rose pretty well.

New Potatoes with Italian Sausage (Hobo Packs, sort of)

should've sliced, instead of quartered, took a while (started late too).  Good stuff though.

So the end of week 25 and Most of week 26 was a bit messy.  So we attempted to go to Man of La Mancha on the Brucemore lawn with the Mattas, however the weather did not cooperate in the slightest, so we ended up going to Cobble Hill in Cedar Rapids.  So restaurants in Cedar Rapids have ben generally disappointing, it seems tough to find that nice mix of both reasonable price and having those magical moments of flavors.  Did I have some critiques?  Sure (sometimes you eat everything together and it's magical, but the presentation and/or plating made it near impossible to do so), but it's not often that I walk away from a place thinking I need to replicate that and am willing to work at it to do so.

The take away here is that the French Oak Old Fashioned at Cobble Hill is fantastic and better then any Old Fashioned that I had at The Old Fashioned in Madison or even ones I've made myself.

After trying the desserts, I was upset at my decision of having another French Oak Old Fashioned instead of dessert.

My Madison trip was a bit odd.  Good dinners, ok lunches and...well, generic hotel breakfast.  I graced Graze (very good), The Old Fashioned (good).  Lunches were provided(ish) or a place I could have gone to in Des Moines.  My boss and I did make runs to a liquor store and Underground Meats (squuueeee!) and I may have spent a bit more then I should.  Des Moines needs a butcher shop like Underground Meats.

After getting back I made some butter roasted new potatoes and served them with some Oxfordshire style bangers (Lucky George Farm, Congrats on the heritage pig win at Cochon555).  While mashed potatoes makes sense here, why do that to new potatoes?  The potatoes ended up being a bit crispy on the outside and nice and soft on the inside and paired well with the large black pig meat.

We made our second (?) trip to Krunkwich Ramen house and were very pleased with the results.  Shannon had the ramen version of Mac & Cheese (she liked it) and I had the spicy #99, which I liked and it had a building spice, and we shared the #99 based tots.  All good things.  I cannot express how much I love those eggs that you can add to your ramen.

Tonight we headed up a bit north to go to the Slow Food Dinner  which features many people I know cooking (Including my little brother Joseph) and many farms that I buy food from.  I'm looking forward to it.

We bought a couple of new pieces from the Des Moines Art Festival from Marty Hulsebos.