Sunday Brunch: The Red Cow

Ready for me to blow your brunch-loving mind? Two words, my friends. 

Pancake. Flights. 

That's right. 

Kelsie and I ventured to The Red Cow in Edina a few weeks ago before our bi-weekly A La Mode manicure, and I have to say, the concept of a pancake flight pretty much made brunch all on its own. The execution of a pancake flight? Beyond perfection. Without further ado, let's get to the good stuff. 

Location/Ambiance: 

Meh, you don't go to The Red Cow for the location or the ambiance, although I have to say I'm a sucker for 50th and France. The ambiance was sort of an odd yuppie cowboy sports bar...there was cow print on the walls and a lot of TVs around. Their patio looked cute despite its microscopic size...I'd be interested in trying that if we make a return trip! 

Score: 6/10

Beverage:

We went with the standard mimosa, and I have to say, it made me fairly sad. In my opinion, nothing ruins a perfectly good mimosa quicker than using pulpy orange juice, even if it is fresh-squeezed or whatever. This mimosa was super-pulpy. That said, we still managed to choke down two...and as you can see above, they were generously poured. So maybe it wasn't thaaaat bad...

Score: 5/10

Food:

PANCAKE FLIGHTS. Feast your eyes. 

Three different pancakes: red velvet with peanut butter cream cheese spread and bacon syrup, sweet potato with bacon-maple butter, Guinness caramel and candied pecans, and blueberry sweet cream with almond cookie crumbles. 

I was in HEAVEN. My personal favorite was the sweet potato...perfect combo of savory and sweet. You really couldn't go wrong with any of the three, however, which is what made the "flight" option SO enticing. Other Twin Cities restaurants, take note: I WILL fall in love with you if you offer me a breakfast flight. (I ate less than half and was full, too...so this could be a cute girly split-brunch option for those less ambitious than Kels and I!)

Score: 10/10

To visit The Red Cow for yourself, head here. Otherwise, pick any of the 100+ other locations on my brunch list...and don't hesitate to leave a recommendation! 

My favorite post-game ritual

I know it's been a little "all-Irish, all-the-time" around here lately, but after Saturday's decisive 38-3 steamrolling of the Longhorns, I'm feeling a little extra Notre Dame pride. What better way to start off a lazy Labor Day than indulging in my favorite Sunday (okay, Monday) tradition? 

Ever since freshman year, I've done the same thing on Sunday mornings: wake up, obtain caffeine, obtain breakfast, watch the band's halftime show, go to Mass. The finer nuances have changed...freshman through junior year, I'd walk across the quad to the campus Starbucks, conveniently located less than 100 yards from my dorm. Senior year, fresh off a semester in London, my beloved roomie and I would make tea. These days, I'm loving iced coffee, courtesy of the good old Keurig. My Mass venue is different too...I may long for the days of strolling over to the 11:45 am Folk Choir Mass at the Basilica in college, but now I take a stroll across Loring Park (just as pretty) to another basilica (can't complain on that count). 

What hasn't changed? Usually breakfast is sugary cereal...Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Apple Jacks, or Reese's Puffs were the poison of choice in college, and these days I'm on a pretty intense Fruity Pebbles kick. It's a once-a-week treat I'm kind of in love with. And of course, there's these guys... 

Pretty proud to say I was part of that once. It never stops feeling like the nerdiest and coolest thing ever. 

With another post-game (Monday) in the books, time to start looking toward next week...go Irish, beat Cavaliers! 

Onward to victory...

It’s that time of year when everything becomes pumpkin-flavored, little ones load up backpacks, and I start obsessively looping the “Rudy” soundtrack on repeat. It’s football season!

While I won’t be making a football-specific pilgrimage to South Bend this fall due to other major travel commitments (including a trip home under the Dome for a very special wedding, yay!), I’ve made plans to take in as many games as humanly possible, starting with this weekend’s matchup against the Longhorns. We’ll be at Greg’s cabin, where it sounds like football rules the day on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. With alums of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan in attendance as well, it’s sure to be a long day of cheers and beers.

We also had our office fantasy football draft yesterday, and I had the 9th pick in a 10-person league. Needless to say, with my very minimal expertise and even more limited experience, I panicked a bit. Last year I had the second pick and it was easy-breezy. This year? Yikes. Thankfully, I have guy friends with way more football knowledge than me, and with the excellent (and extensive!) coaching advice of my dear Davids (high school and college friends, respectively!), I ended up with this fine team:

We’ll see how the season shapes up. There are a few colleagues that, being totally honest, I wouldn’t hate slaughtering on the fantasy field. Gotta defend that third-place finish from last year, after all!

Now I’m feeling all nostalgic for campus—cereal in the Band building followed by early march-outs, traipsing around the quads in my uniform so excited for the game, that long, humid first march to the stadium on a day that was inevitably 90 degrees. The claustrophobia and camaraderie of cramming shoulder-to-shoulder into the Tunnel, ready to burst into the sunlight and sound of screaming, rabid Irish fans ready for a victory. The heartache of a defeat or exhilaration of a win, and the raw, scratchy throat that, without fail, took over after eight hours of shouting and cheering. I may not be there in person, but in spirit I think I’ll always be there this time of year.

Onward to victory…unless you’re a Longhorns fan, in which case…go away!

Ba-de-ya!!

SON, DO YOU REMEMBER? 

It's September! I love September. There's something so refreshing about the feeling of crispness that starts to return to the air in the mornings...even if I'm drowning in humidity by 9am, like today! 

In celebration of a pretty great month, here's a fun little Liz anecdote. 

As we all know, I'm a big-time band nerd. I go to DCI, I get all excited about the orchestra, and I was a proud member of the Band of the Fighting Irish in my college days. I also place a lot of significance in signs and serendipity. When my favorite song came on the radio as I visited my current apartment building for a tour, I knew it was meant to be. A few short weeks later, I was signing a lease. Imagine my delight when serendipity collided with my band obsession! 

The last song I performed as a high school band member, and the first song I performed as a college band member, was "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire. In fact, EIGHT years ago today I made my college marching band debut at the Notre Dame - Georgia Tech game (a horrific 33-3 rout that set the tone for our 3-9 season...ouch!). 

In high school, I played piano in our jazz band my senior spring, with so many great friends. Our director was a young former member of the University of Minnesota's drumline with a passion for jazz and a gift for teaching. We closed our spring concert with a version of "September" that still makes me smile. We were on fire...the synergy, improvisation and sheer joy of that performance makes my toes curl up. I think we all felt that way, which just added to the sense of magic on that stage.

Three months and some change later, I was far away from home and terribly homesick, overwhelmed with class loads and trying to make friends, and still getting my campus buildings mixed up more often than not. Band, for me, was an oasis of the calm and familiar in the midst of a disorienting transition to college life. Even though it was intense and demanding on a level I couldn't possibly have anticipated, I thrived on the order, the consistency, and the community. Even more exciting for me was getting to pull out "September" every day to practice the halftime drill...a song that I associated with one of the happiest, most positive experiences of my life in high school jazz. 

The first football game...more importantly, my first pre-game and halftime performances...brought an entirely different feeling of magic. Eighty thousand people staring down and cheering you on in a wall of sound so all-encompassing it feels tangible? That can't be replicated. I spent most of my first performances grinning so hard, and trying so hard to stay in step and in line, that I think I played maybe one in five notes on my brand-new piccolo. Despite my lack of musicality, I felt the same sense of belonging, of total synergy, as I had back on that stage in May. I was simultaneously more aware of myself and more lost in the bigger entity than I think I'd ever been. As if I hadn't already fallen hook, line, and sinker madly-in-love with the Notre Dame Band, that feeling did me in. 

So here's to September. To the "ba, doo-do, BA, doo-do," to pounding out that triple punch on a piano keyboard, to the sound of nearly 100 trumpets blasting to the pressbox. To eighty thousand people, seven years ago, whose roars of excitement on September 1, 2007 made one of the most special memories I've got in my arsenal. Here's to the band nerds, and to September...never was a cloudy day, indeed.