So, Bill and I had a wedding to attend in Salt Lake City on Saturday. It was, as weddings always are, lovely. It made me cry. Weddings always do. They’re really (at least in my experience) a huge expression of love and joy and hope. Everyone’s a little in love at a wedding. And it was really emotional and wonderful to cuddle Bill and find ourselves touching our own rings at various times in the ceremony. Life. It could be way worse.
Anyway, the trick to traveling for a wedding is that you’ve got to do things before (and after, if you stay) the wedding. So, being who I am, I had pretty much nosed out a place to eat before I’d even found our vacation rental. I found myself being that person who takes food photos with my phone, and I wanted to share.
I saw this bakery as I was driving to our rental. The outside looked interesting, so I decided I was going to have lunch there. I ended up having two desserts. And, frankly, I was amused that this is the description of a place I picked out 100% because it said “bakery” and was walking distance to our house.
My first dessert was this peach and raspberry pie, along with this “citron” green tea. Very tasty, but I’d have liked a bit better crust. Darker, maybe. It was super flaky, though, and the peaches were amazing. Amazing enough to make up for the damn raspberries that were in there.
Later, my friend Jen quite unintentionally tapped into my desire for a croissant and urged me, via twitter, to purchase one. I’d been resisting, a lot, for reasons I can’t totally explain (I was still hungry) buying one. But once she encouraged it, I gave up all resistance (it was futile) and ate this one.
It was tasty, but not exactly as light and airy as I want. Please note, though, that I don’t know what an “authentic” croissant is actually like. I’ve never visited France or a place with a large French population, so I have no experience. Still, so far, I know what I like. This was solid, but not amazing.
I saw this garden as I was walking back to our rental location. It was at least the seventh front yard food garden I’d seen in Salt Lake City. It was so nifty to see them all. The Midwest has had a lot of noise made recently about front yard gardens being hassled, so seeing some elsewhere that were clearly accepted was so fun. I had to get a picture of at least one of them. This person’s growing eggplants, tomatoes, lettuce and all sorts of other things.
The next day, Bill and I went to a couple of coffee places. It’s usually our habit to take a tour of coffee and beer haunts in new places we visit. I didn’t think we’d have time to do much checking out of coffee or any time to go to beer places while in Salt Lake City, as we were there (together) for less than 48 hours. I honestly didn’t even look to see about beer places there. However, Bill is a swell husband and found one near our rental. So we ended up hitting a total of three coffee shops (for him) and one brewery (for me).
Epic Brewing sells everything they make in bombers. They have a tiny sandwich counter in a room behind the showroom, where you can get a few tasters (two at a time) and a sandwich. It’s clearly a place they installed mostly to give them the ability to sell tasters, but they do a solid sandwich as well. And, frankly? The beer was awesome. Between the two of us we had one ounce pours of their Rio’s Rompin’ Rye, Fest Devious (a märzen), Glutenator (gluten-free), Fermentation Without Representation (a pumpkin imperial porter), Sour Apple Saison, Brainless on Cherries (a Belgian-style golden ale), and Smoked and Oaked (also a Belgian, but no other info).
The Fermentation without Representation, the Brainless on Cherries and the Smoked and Oaked were killer. If you see any of these in your local beer shop, snap ’em up. For the gluten-free in our lives, the Glutenator tastes like beer. It’s surprisingly good.
However, the best beer was at the wedding. I’m not just saying that because the groom, who is a good buddy of mine, brewed it all himself. There actually was a phenomenal red on tap. Solid hop characteristics, distinct hop aroma, not at all bitter or overly aggressive. Gorgeous color. Truly wonderful. It’s the second from the left, if you’re curious.
He also brewed a nice hefeweizen, a brown ale and a very sweet vanilla porter. He brewed the last two for Bill & I’s wedding, so it was interesting to taste between the two weddings (about a year apart). I think the porter for his wedding knocked the porter for our wedding out of the water; he said he used about ten times the vanilla in this one than for our wedding. However, I felt the brown he made for our wedding was stellar, and this brown was only so-so.
Still. That red? Absolutely amazing. I want to have another wedding, just to have him brew that for it. Doesn’t even have to be my wedding or his. Just someone needs to get married and he needs to brew exactly that red for it.
Dear Steve,
Congratulations! I hope you and Amy have many, many happy years ahead of you, and I’m so glad you found that person you want to explore with, that you want to hang out with forever.
May your married life be a thousand times better than your red ale.
–Tasha