Father’s Day; Let’s Talk Beer

Date: June 19, 2017

Author: astottler

Father’s Day weekend seems like a pretty appropriate time to discuss beer, right?

Friday night, we pulled out one of our big cans of passionfruit beer from Hawaii to share.

They were from March but still pretty good!

Saturday morning I had work, so I did a little full day of eating for you all!

Breakfast:

A chocolate banana smoothie with frozen banana, milk, cocoa, and Quest chocolate protein plus sunbutter of GF cinnamon raisin toast.

Lunch:

I have this lunch so frequently. Salad with nectarine, grilled chicken, and goat cheese, and a side of GF cheddar crackers.

Snack:

Dinner:

My parents met me with Chloe for an outdoor dinner downtown by work.

I started off with a Budweiser.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually had Budweiser outside of St. Louis. I actually liked it there!

…but I don’t think the Budweiser you get there is the same as you get here. This was way more watery. Definitely not as good. Upon analysis, this wasn’t even close to the same color. The beer in STL is much more amber:

Yeah. What the heck?

….and back to the food.

We got roasted brussels sprouts and sweet potato fries for the table.

For my meal, I had a beet and goat cheese salad with TRUFFLE honey. OMG <3

We stopped for froyo after. Chocolate+bananas flambé.

A little bit later in the night, I grabbed a dulce de leche cupcake with chocolate frosting from the freezer. The freezer went through some freezing/thawing issues so my cow looked a little bit sadder!

NOW, for Father’s Day!

We started out with a run for me and a walk for pups by the bay before it got hot. Spoiler alert: it got HOT later. It was over 100 at my house, which almost never happens!

For our main Father’s Day event, we all went to Dan Gordon’s, the restaurant associated with Gordon Biersch. Fun fact: my dad actually coached Dan Gordon’s daughter many years ago!

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I had never actually had Gordon Biersch beer before! We decided to get a flight to try a few different things.

I ended up deciding on the Hefeweizen. It was really interesting; it had more complex flavors (fruity?) than most wheat beers.

Naturally, we got the famous Gordon Biersch garlic fries to start (found at AT&T park!).

And roasted brussels sprouts. (SO good.)

For my meal, I went in the brunch direction and got a goat cheese and portabello scramble, although I have to admit, I didn’t make a dent in it after garlic fries!

After lunch, we braved the 100+ temperatures to walk to a nearby diner for ice cream. I had to rally my dessert stomach hard, but the peppermint fudge could not be passed up.

When we got home, we let Chloe out of her crate (inside, in the AC), and apparently the house was so well conditioned that she went out into 100+ degrees and plopped down flat in the sun (she looked up when I took the pic.)

….dogs.

Sunday afternoon’s task was bottling my home brewed beer! That called for a mini toast.

I think the bottling went well! The beer isn’t fizzy yet, but I tasted what we had so far and it was pretty good! Now we wait two weeks, and then it will be time to test out the final product! Again, I’ll do a full recap on the process at that time.

And that was Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to my wonderful father (who will definitely read this <3 ); I wouldn’t be where I am today without you!

Pints for Paws+5K Race

Date: June 4, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

How’s everyone doing today? I had quite the weekend (at least Saturday), and I hope you all had a great one as well!

Friday was a work day. I took the morning off of any workouts in preparation for my 5k on Saturday morning. Fresh fruit (watermelon and blackberries) for breakfast, with a flapjacked.

I had my typical salad lunch. This salad featured blackberries, leftover lemon grilled chicken, and burrata cheese. Crackers and a banana on the side.

Afternoon snack:

Post-work, pre-dinner snack while waiting for my mom:

For dinner, we tried out a local salad place that we just discovered. I got a salad with artichoke hearts, sundried tomato, feta, kalmata olives, chicken, pickled onions, roasted chickpeas, and roasted cauliflower (I added that). This was good, but in the future I would get the dressing on the side, since the champagne vinaigrette flavor was pretty strong!

After dinner, we hustled down to San Jose to pick up my race packet for Saturday before it closed. My dad actually ended up signing up for the race at the last minute. He’s never run a race before, and since he ended up not having a soccer game that morning, he decided, why not?

The packet pick up was at a massive sports store, and I bought a ton of new and interesting bars. (See below.) Afterwards, I suggested we stop at Menchies on the way home.

I got vanilla with fudge, and a little chocolate and mint with Nestle Crunch.

At home, I couldn’t resist trying a new find, the Blueberry Quest Hero bar. I’m not a fan of Quest bars, and now I can’t eat any other ones because they all have nuts, but this was astonishingly good. I thought it tasted like a cake doughnut, and my mom thought it tasted like a Danish. Either way, I (surprisingly) recommend!

Saturday morning I was up super early: 3:45am thanks to a certain orange kitty scratching at my door. I gave up on sleep around 4:30 and got ready for the race!

We arrived in San Jose at 6:45 for the San Jose Giants race! The SF Giants race is my favorite race ever. Sadly, I’ll already be in vet school when it happens this year, and since I’m not in the middle of finals like I have been the last few years, I jumped at the chance! (I might have to do the Sacramento race in the series next year! The Sacramento Rivercats are the Giant’s AAA team.) The San Jose Giants are our Class A team.

We might be related.

^Sponsor

^Mascot El Gigante.

My dad and I didn’t really have plans to run together. He wanted to go around 7:55/mile, and for me that’s a solid NOPE.

And we were off!

I wasn’t sure how this race was going to feel, but I knew I’d been getting faster this season. I didn’t go out crazy hard. My dad took off in front of me, and when we passed at a turnaround about a mile in, I saw he was breathing a lot harder than me, so I should probably pick it up!

We ran by the stadium (photos my my mom.) Some of the former SJ Giants, and current Giants’ greats!

About halfway through the race, I realized that a PR was possible if I pushed it a little more. Slowly but sure, I locked in to a faster pace.

We also ran through Happy Hollow zoo! The zoo smell was very familiar to me, haha!

With a mile to go, I thought I had a good chance if I could get a sub-8:00 mile.

Before I knew it, I was entering the stadium. I saw the clock as I entered the field at 24:xx and SPRINTED to the finish.

(I think this picture is hilarious because it shows off my massive blue bruise. I got pretty beat up at the vet this week and my legs were covered in bruises. The worst thing is that big one is from when Chloe came to the vet for her vaccine and was crazy excited to see me.)

I made it!

Guys. I FINALLY PRed! I fastest 5k was my first 5k….4.5 years ago. I’ve been trying (on and off) to beat it since then! Since that first 5k, I’ve gone through numerous injuries, 4 years of college, vet school applications and acceptances, tons of major life events…and I FINALLY beat it! By 10 seconds, but I will sure as heck take it! Official time 24:49. The icing on the cake was I placed first in my age group! My dad placed second! Now I think he has the racing bug at least a little, and we’re trying to find a small race to do later this summer where we might both be able to place again 🙂

We explored the stadium a bit afterwards. It was super cool to see where a lot of Giants greats played!

I wasn’t planning on getting 8am beer, but….

They had Kona Longboard Lager, a great summer beer, so I got convinced to split it 3 ways.

On the way home, we made a necessary stop:

Zest, the local gluten free bakery. They only make doughnuts 2x/week, and after seeing literally half of my instagram feed on Friday as doughnuts (national donut day), I had to jump on the Saturday morning doughnuts (plus, the chocolate ones sell out super early so I wanted to try them!)

^That is perfection. Maple, chocolate, and cinnamon sugar. And a warm and gooey cinnamon roll.

Back home, since Charlie woke me up so early, I forced him to help me nap. Cats are pretty good at that, as it turns out.

For lunch, I was craving a Subway salad, but I made it work quickly with what we had on hand! Deli turkey, tomato, lettuce, grated fancy cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette.

Then, it was time for Pints for Paws! This was literally my ideal event. The Berkeley Humane society hosted a craft beer tasting festival where 100% of the proceeds went towards animals. Even better, the event was dog friendly! Of course Chloe came.

The event boasted 20 different craft breweries, with a couple of cider and wine places as well.

We got classes upon entering. My favorite beer was actually the first one I tried: Apricot wheat from Pyramid.

Chloe met plenty of friends.

Dogs. Beer. What could be better?

^Berry beer.

After the initial samplings, we quickly realized we would have to pace ourselves, especially because our first couple pours were extremely generous! Chloe took some breaks in the shade.

After some initial craziness when we first arrived, Chloe was actually amazingly good. She was (pretty) calm, and was good with pretty much all the dogs and people she met. I think meeting tons of people and dogs at once was a really great experience for her socialization, and with so many new people, no one person was too exciting!

^I tried Guiness lager, and it was really good and crisp! I actually don’t really like regular Guiness; it needs more fizz!

Chloe is a pretty unique looking dog, and I think nearly everyone at the festival (we were all dog people!) wanted to say hi to her! This picture basically sums it up:

I really enjoyed tasting so many different styles and types of beer. At some point, my dad and I were splitting the sample, or pouring out the extra of the ones that weren’t our favorites.

We also talked to a few people for a while and had interesting conversations; one was a parent of a recent UC Davis Vet School and another was a couple who had Aussies. Apparently Aussie and Cocker-spaniels get along well. These two just sat like that for quite a while!

I enjoyed trying different ciders as well; everything from traditional apple to sour cherry, pear, and pineapple.

On the way out, of course I had to stop in the kitten adoption trailer and say hi. Look at these beauties!

And on the drive back:

I was actually pretty hungry when we got back despite all the beer, and I requested dinner from our local Mexican place. I got my favorite chicken teriyaki tacos, and ate the insides.

Dessert was a bowl of Halo Top with a couple of Trader Joe’s snicker doodles crumbled in.

Thanks to an early morning and a big day, I found myself struggling to stay away before 8pm, so I was in bed around 8:15 and it was fabulous. I woke up Sunday morning feeling quite refreshed!

Also, I can’t explain it but somehow the beer seemed to helped my tendonitis! My Achilles was surprisingly good during the race, but started to tighten up afterwards. It was pretty sore walking to Pints for Paws, but the beer helped the pain go away. The funny thing though is even the next day, my Achilles was FAR better than it should have been; hey, I’ll take it! Beer for injury recovery? Why not!

Sunday was low key and productive. I started with a gym spin class; it’s different from the other classes I go to in that it works based on percentages of your threshold, which you find during the first 3 minutes of the ride. It’s cool because it’s all computerized; it determines a number for you, and then the screen displays percentages, and you go off those percentages.

After class, I headed over to Peet’s for a decaf iced latte and some forced time finishing up a write up for my advisor on what the vet school interview process was like for me.

I spent the rest of the day partially relaxing, and partially tackling the confusing and extensive medical requirements for vet school. I tried to stay off my feet because oddly, my stress fracture foot was a little bit sore today. I’m not worried at all, but it’s been a while since it’s done this so I was a little surprised!

Finally, for dinner, we made my Sweetgreen copycat watermelon and feta salad.

With a side of roasted rosemary purple potatoes.

Saturday was literally the best day: 5k PR in the morning, beer and pup festival in the afternoon. BRING ON SUMMER!

What’s your ideal day?

Puppy Hour

Date: April 3, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Aaaand we’re back with a “weekend” recap. I use quotes here because I was working 8-5 on Saturday. I knew I would want to celebrate my first week of work, so I suggested “puppy hour.” A lot of downtown in the town I work in is super dog friendly, so at 5 my parents brought Chloe and we met at a casual bar for happy hour. We’re trying to get Chloe better at going places, and this was a successful outing!

We got a couple of half pours to try, and a milk stout to share. One was a really interesting blueberry cheesecake stout, and the other was called “Free Kittens,” so we had to get it. The Free Kittens beer was a delicious rice based lager (I didn’t know that was a think), and appropriately, it was from a brewery really close to where I’m going for vet school!

After puppy hour, we walked a few blocks over to pizza! Chloe managed to eat her entire rawhide bone while we munched on a brussels sprouts salad and a gluten free pizza margarita.

After dinner, I suggested a short walk to froyo. The froyo is a block from work, and it was a frequent favorite when I worked there a couple of years ago! I had chocolate, birthday cake, and guava froyo with chocolate covered raisins, chocolate chips, and various sauces.

Sunday morning I went to a spin class with one of my original favorite instructors. Hers was the first spin class I ever went to! I haven’t been in well over a year, and the technology has upgraded the format of the class. It was called “threshold ride,” and used computers on a screen. We started at the beginning of class with taking 3 minutes to find a “threshold” power, which was a max power. Then, the screen would display what percentage of your max power you were at, so we went through intervals with goal percentages. It was a good one! I love knowing EXACTLY what I’m doing in a spin class.

The best part? My achilles is feeling better! It was totally fine for class. I found my plantar fasciitis sock that helps stretch out that area, so I wore it last night. Plus, I rolled out my calves before class and everything felt so much better.

For post-workout lunch, I made an old go-to Quick and Easy meal.

An egg scramble with sweet potato (this is Japanese), spinach, egg, and a high quality cheese. I used to make this after long runs in college. While I made it on the stovetop, the eggs can easily be cooked in the microwave. I microwaved my sweet potato. Which was a little bit of a disaster. The first attempt apparently cooked faster than usual and I pulled a smoking potato out of the microwave. My hands smelled like smoke all day, despite my best efforts.

After lunch, it was time for opening day!

We had beer flights for the occasion.

The Xingu was my favorite by far! It was a black lager, and was dark yet refreshing with subtle sweetness (described as raisin). I’m actually considering ordering more than just our couple of sample bottles.

Unfortunately, the game didn’t end as I would have hoped, but there was definitely some epic-ness, as our starting pitcher hit 2 HRs, which has never happened before on Opening Day!

For dinner post-baseball, I made my California Nicoise Salad.

My dad grilled the chicken, and everything came out deliciously!

For dessert, I tried the Flapjacked Double Chocolate cookies, again subbing egg whites and applesauce for the butter and egg. I didn’t overcook them this time, so that helped too! Seriously, these are just as tasty without butter.

As I said the other day, you can’t really go wrong with warm cookies, right?

That was my weekend! i have tomorrow and Tuesday off though, and I’m hoping that the time off my feet will really give me an opportunity to nip this tendonitis.

Did you watch Opening Day?

17.4 on St. Patrick’s Day

Date: March 18, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone had a fantastic St. Patrick’s Day, wore plenty of green, and ate plenty of Irish food!

I began my day with a greenish smoothie. I added spinach to my typical smoothie with banana, salted caramel protein, milk, and just a touch of cocoa powder (so as not to ruin the green too much).

On the side, I had half a packet of maple brown sugar oatmeal with some extra plain oats thrown in to cut the sugar.

For lunch, I made a wrap that I’ve been loving lately. I’m planning on doing a full post on it for my quick and easy series, but basically it’s a tortilla stuffed with white cheddar laughing cow cheese, turkey, spinach, and red pepper.

PicMonkey Collage

I actually rarely like red pepper, but I do in this context! I had that with a very simple salad: just high quality blueberry balsamic vinegar!

For a little lunch dessert, I had the remaining bite of a leftover Rule Breaker brownie. I think the brownies taste better than the blondies, but they would be improved with chocolate chips.

Friday was all about preparing for the death that was 17.4. I made sure to carefully fuel myself. In the afternoon, I had some tea (the house was cold!) with a Luna bar and a ginger chew.

Cat nap:

And then about an hour before leaving, I had a few crackers and another ginger chew.

Then, it was time to get pumped up to go!

17.4 was 16.4.

13 minute AMRAP:

55 deadlifts (155# women’s RX)

55 wallballs (14#)

55 calorie row

55 handstand push ups

First of all, I remember last year being awful well enough, but I also have blog documentation. I was super happy and proud of how I did last year. I finished the row in 12:59, which was perfect since I don’t have handstand push ups. The problem with that is that I felt like I needed to improve upon last year, and I was happy with last year, so anything less than last year’s performance would be disappointing. On the other hand, I knew this workout played to my strengths a lot more than some of the other ones.

I actually looked to last year’s post for how to do my deadlifts. I started with 2 sets of 10, then moved to sets of 5, and smaller at the end. (In retrospect, one method I heard was good was going 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1). I was actually in theory far better trained in deadlifts this year, because we did weekly 20 rep sets at a fairly heavy weight. I definitely regretted 1. not going as heavy as I probably could have during those workouts and 2. missing so many due to travel!

I think the deadlifts crushed me roughly equally this year vs. last year, but maybe I was a little stronger. It’s really amazing how much you just lose all core strength! After the deadlifts, I did the all too familiar 16.4 waddle from the bar to the wall. Last year, the wall balls absolutely destroyed me. This year, interestingly, not so much. I feel like with the workouts that have been repeated, it always surprises me what has been improved. Last year in 16.5 which was a redo of 14.5, I was shocked by how much “easier” (it’s all relative) the burpees felt. This year, the wall balls were shockingly fine. I did my first set as 15, and then did sets of 10 the rest of the way. Last year, I was getting no repped (or coming very close to it) and couldn’t do more than sets of 5 or less. I only got no repped once this time. Maybe all the long, heavy sets of squats and presses helped this? I got off the wall maybe 45 seconds earlier than last time?

The row was not fun. I don’t think I had as much grit in me here as I did last time, because I was pretty sure at that point I could make the time cap. It was not fun. I wanted to die. I didn’t actually die though, so that’s good. I finished my 55 calories on the row at 12:43, sliding in 16 seconds faster than last year. Hey, I’ll take it!

Last year, I was immobile for probably a week after, so I immediately refueled with chocolate milk to try and ward off some of the impending soreness.

I repped South City Crossfit (St. Louis) green for the workout!

After watching a few other heats (I went first. Always.), I returned home to an Irish feast and my dad’s green pants.

I of course had to have a taster glass of Guiness. I actually didn’t really like it. The flavor is good but it needs some fizz!

And the meal: cabbage, roasted carrots and potatoes, rotisserie chicken, ketchup (necessary for chicken and potatoes), and Irish Soda Bread. For the soda bread, we basically just added dried cranberries and raisins to biscuit mix.

For a little something green for dessert, I made a single serve sugar cookie with green sprinkles.

That evening, I went out with a high school friend. We went to a British-style brewery, which was definitely a first for me! The beer I got wasn’t very fizzy, but it was full of (non-bitter) flavor. Interesting!

How was your St. Paddy’s Day? Anyone do 17.4?

CA Girl Survives Snow in Upstate NY

Date: February 12, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

We left off on the plane to up-state NY. Let’s jump in.

This is what I arrived to.

And I was a touch nervous when Friday morning I woke up to this:

BRRRRRR.

For this leg of my trip, I stayed with my cousin who lives here. And probably thought my qualms about the weather were ridiculous. Things learned from this extended trip: the CA blood runs strong in my veins. Every night here I’ve been sleeping in my Northface and warm socks, and I’m currently huddled in front of the fire. That being said, I’ve definitely been surviving!

Breakfast the first morning:

Morning sights:

It’s so beautiful here. I had a great day, and when the activities were done, I was greeted with snow!

My cousin took me to the grad student bar (he’s a PhD student), and I loved the vibe.

On the walk to the car afterwards, I was greeted to even heavier snow! As a CA girl, this is incredibly exciting. I haven’t seen it snow in 4 years (when I went to the mountains 3 years ago, we were in a drought so it didn’t snow). It’s really incredible!

We went to a good place for dinner. We started with beers (milk stout for me) and cheese fries.

I actually really like cheese fries, but I’ve had them maybe twice in my life. I guess it’s better for my health to not have them all the time…?

For my meal, I ordered a cup of bean soup and a salad.

I find myself eating a lot of salads when I’m traveling. It’s partly because I know how my body will react to them (I’m hyperaware of flaring my stomach when traveling), but partly because salads that I don’t make are always so delicious and usually more exciting!

After dinner, we headed into the winter wonderland of a downtown.

Saturday, the temperatures improved quite a bit, and I committed to running a few miles with my cousin’s girlfriend.

I was actually shocked by how warm 30 degrees felt! I definitely overdressed!

After a late breakfast, the next item was visiting a local brewery, Ithaca Brewery.

We were encouraged to buy a beer to drink while on the tour. I’m not going to object to that! I had a chocolate stout.

The tour was really interesting. We got to learn all about the brewing process, and even smell some of the raw ingredients like barley/malt and hops!

They also had quite the impressive bottling system (according to my mechanical engineer cousin).

And of course, at the end, we got to try a couple of things. I wasn’t a huge fan of either, they were hoppier than my taste.

I feel like this blog has been less “health and fitness” and more beer lately. Perhaps I need a name change: Barbells and Beer?

One of my favorites I tried was an Apricot wheat beer!

Next on the agenda was a trip to the gorges to see a waterfall. I can’t say my boots were ideal for slippery snow conditions, but I persevered!

Check out the falls!

After our mini-hike, we went cider tasting, where I was promised fluffy dogs and a cat.

Sadly, we only briefly saw the cat (he was adorable, and escaped, he wasn’t supposed to be out!)

My favorite was the sweeter one.

We hung out in the cozy cider place for a few hours and chatted before it was time for dinner.

By dinnertime, we were all quite hungry. We went to a Southern style restaurant, and I got to get the grits I was missing in Alabama! (Minus the hotel instant grits…)

It amazes me how few people have tried grits. My cousin hadn’t! I was raised on grits because my dad is a Floridian and therefore claims to be from the South.

I had a salad with bleu cheese, apple, and raspberry vinaigrette with chicken, and a side of grits. This was devoured.

Afterwards, my cousin took me to the Cornell-Yale hockey game. I’ve never been to a hockey game before, but my cousin is big into hockey.

The game ended in a 2-2 tie, even after overtime, but I enjoyed the game! I always thought I would like hockey live; I find it moves so fast and the puck is so small that it’s harder to follow on TV. I think hockey can be elevated to my 3rd favorite sport to watch (after baseball and football, obviously).

Sunday (the day I’m typing this up) was the day I was to head home. As I packed up, I got increasingly nervous as the rain turned to snow, creating pretty awful road conditions. I was flying out of the tiny Ithaca airport, and given the weather report, I didn’t think I would be getting home Sunday. The snow was even worse on Monday, so I was really worried I wouldn’t get back for a WHILE. With fingers crossed and no delays yet, we headed to a nice brunch that included eggs, GF bread, and more grits.

Sure enough, right before we were going to leave for the airport, my flight from Ithaca to Newark was cancelled. My airline only flew to Newark, and although other airlines were still making it out of Ithaca, the flights were 100% booked. SOMEHOW, after much frantic searching, I was able to hop on a flight to Charlotte, which would connect me to SFO. My cousin and I made the hour and a half trek to Syracuse through less than idea conditions (snow and sludge), extremely conceded that 1. I would miss the flight, but mostly 2. all fights out of Syracuse would be cancelled (some had already been). Somehow, despite the totally white scenery outside the airport, the flight was on time. I didn’t really believe I would get out until we were in the air!

So here I am, in Charlotte. I have never been so grateful to return to warm temperatures (it was 78 degrees when I landed), because I knew once I made it out of New York where most of the weather was, I would likely be able to get home tonight! At the airport I grabbed a BBQ chicken salad and some tortilla chips.

To celebrate the fact that this (fun but exhausting) trip was coming to a close, I shelled out a boatload of money for some local beer. I had a really great North Carolina beer (Lonerider) when I was in TN, which I sadly couldn’t find.

This wasn’t my favorite, but it is what it is. Time to sign off and cross my fingers that my final flight goes smoothly!