28 June 2008 @ 03:27 pm
We went to the Mini-apple!
This past week we drove up to Minneapolis for Roya's orientation at U of M. Yes, she is officially a Gopher. (A hard thing to be in Wisconsin!)
As a part of our parent orientation, we took a "trolley ride" (i.e. little trolley-shaped bus thingy) around the city. It turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip! Here's what we saw...
These are the Saint Anthony's Falls on the Mississippi. We actually got to get out for a better look...
On one side of the bridge, you can see the falls and the locks. On the other side is where the bridge collapsed last summer, and they're rebuilding it 24/7.
On the East Bank are some historic flour mills.
Historic Pillsbury mill
More mills
And on the other side, more mills - including the old Gold Medal Flour mill, which is now part of the Mill Museum - and the Guthrie Theater, which has an amazing cantilevered deck.
Then we went to the Walker Sculpture Gardens.
Wish we had this much public art in Madison!
Oh yeah, and I was really excited to see an old friend on a downtown corner...
You know.... 
I wish I could say the food we had over the course of our two days lived up to expectations. On our first night there, we ate at a Chinese restaurant that was, literally, around the corner from our Eagan motel. It was OK. Lunch and dinner the next day were on the U of M (I mean, we paid and they provided). However, I had expected "vegan" because I had checked "vegan" when registering, but at lunch there was dairy lasagna, salad (with Parmesan cheese in it), roasted vegetables and bread sticks... nothing else. Then at dinner, the main course was chicken; there was also asparagus, potato salad, watermelon and brownies. At lunch, I had just grumbled and eaten my roasted vegetables; I wasn't starving, and we only had 15 minutes, which wasn't long enough to go scout out an alternative. But at dinner, after speaking to the chef, who made me a grilled vegetable-and-pasta dish, we approached the orientation coordinator, who apologized and said that she had no idea why the chef hadn't been warned ahead of time, and also said that at morning registration someone was supposed to have given me a ticket to go and get lunch in the Union cafe (and had I asked, they probably would have...). So, no tragedy but kind of disappointing.
Roya-wise, things are pretty good. She got many classes that interest her, met new people, and is looking forward to the fall in Minneapolis!
30 May 2008 @ 07:58 pm
Our awesome dinner is courtesy of Claudia
Check out this awesome meal:
That's vegan mushroom bisque, salad, and bread!!!
And for dessert, rhubarb crisp!!!
Thank you sooooo much... hope SITC was a lot of fun....
20 May 2008 @ 08:42 pm
Spring Foods in Wisconsin
29 April 2008 @ 08:47 pm
On the table in 30 minutes
Fast food is expensive and almost never anything I can eat. This all took a half hour with stuff we had around.
Sure, brown rice would be healthier, but we settled.
The dal has peas because I like putting peas in things.
The spinach curry is adapted from Lorna Sass' Shortcut Vegetarian Cooking. I say "adapted" because the cookbooks are packed in the garage and I had to do this from memory.
30 March 2008 @ 11:32 pm
Finally something that tastes good
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A house is nothing on its own...
