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SF Pup Adventures

The “OMG I’m leaving in a week” adventures continue.

For lunch on Friday, I drove up to San Francisco for lunch to catch up with two of my high school friends.

I had an Asian chicken salad.

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A Giant GF cookie (It was staring at me the whole meal, so how could I not?)

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And some great conversation with fantastic people.

That evening, I had just enough time for Crossfit before picking up a college friend from the train station. She recently moved to Boston, but was here for work and stayed with me for the weekend.

For dinner, we had homemade lasagna with zucchini noodles, salad, and bread with dipping sauce.

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Because the occasion warranted it, I broke out some of the home brew chocolate milk stout (yes, I still owe you all a post on the process!)

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One of my other friends brought a MASSIVE amount of peaches to us, so while sipping our beer, we made a delicious peach crisp using our favorite blueberry crisp recipe.

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We ended the night with peach crisp and a movie.

Saturday, we had a big day of dog-friendly adventure planned. First, we drove to the city and visited my FAVORITE coffeeshop/donutery, Dynamo Donuts. They have an outdoor patio, so Chloe was able to sit with us.

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Of course, I’m a sucker for marketing and had to get her a doggy donut.

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I got a GF lemon buttermilk donut.

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With a cappuccino of course.

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My friend requested some outdoorsy activities, and we were originally going to hike around Mt Tam, but traffic wasn’t looking good in the area, and it was unclear how to get to the dog friendly areas, so we decided to head over to Crissy Field instead.

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We did the fairly steep climb up to the bridge, and of course Chloe had a blast.

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I didn’t really think about how touristy this area was. Chloe is a pretty noticeable dog, and it was interesting to see people, especially kids, exclaim about her in a multitude of languages!

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Bridge views:

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After our walk/hike, we drove across the city to All Good Pizza for a “Paws for a Cause” event benefiting an organization that helps adopt out animals. There were tons of dogs there, and Chloe was moderately well behaved to start.

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The pizza place was basically a permanent food truck with a beer garden-esque outdoor area. I tried a few bites of my friend’s pizza and it was super good! I got a kale salad with turkey.

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We didn’t stay too long because as the event got busier, there were more and more dogs and Chloe got a bit overstimulated and barky. My friend suggested we go somewhere with a beer flight, and through some googling, we found Southern Pacific Brewing Company.

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This was the perfect place because they had a big flight with all of their house beers, and dog-friendly outdoor seating. I really, really enjoyed the Hefeweizen. It had a really interesting depth of flavor. My second favorite was the farmhouse ale.

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Chloe was good until some barmy dogs came, but she was manageable with the presence of her new favorite treats.

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Then, it was time to head home. We cleaned up and relaxed for a bit before heading out for Thai food with a college friend we hadn’t seen in over a year who just moved back to the area!

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^Garlic chicken with brown rice.

We had so much to catch up on that we couldn’t stop at dinner, and headed to a pub next door for beers.

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Eventually it was time to part ways. A couple of people from Crossfit were out, so on the way home we stopped by and hung out with them for a while. Seeing so many people these last couple of weeks is making leaving so hard!

Sunday morning, I sadly had to take my friend to the airport. On the way back, I stopped at the gym for a spin class and got my movement in early for the day.

Lunch was leftover lasagna and some of the amazing fruit we currently have in our fridge.

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After lunch, I made my dad’s Father’s Day gift: our family recipe for trifle.

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This recipe is actually pretty simple. Line the dish with lady fingers or pound cake, spread with jam, top with 3 tablespoons of cherry and let it sit 5 minutes, then top with custard. The custard is just pudding from a mix with an extra 1/2c of milk added. Then topped with whipped cream and a cherry!

I made my only baby GF version with a leftover blueberry lemon muffin from the freezer as the cake, raspberry jam, a minuscule amount of sherry, and the custard.

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We basically spent all afternoon watching baseball.

For dinner, I went out to a pan-Asian place with a high school friend who I have no seen in a while. We both ordered soup to start; sweet corn and chicken for me!

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Then we split a paneer based Asian dish that was really different, but good!

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We walked around downtown a little bit afterwards, and I got some ice cream from Baskin Robbins. I haven’t been there in forever, and ordered my childhood favorite, Gold Medal Ribbon.

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It was such a fun weekend full of amazing people. I cannot wait for more adventures this week!

SF Coffee Crawl

For Mother’s Day this year, I gave my mom a “coffee crawl” through San Francisco. Kind of like a bar crawl, but with more caffeine! Finally, we were able to rally the troops and do that today!

I started my morning with Cheerios and Crossfit. I actually think I want to do another weekly workouts post this week because we did a couple of benchmark Crossfit workouts this week that I want to talk about!

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Post-Crossfit, I was hungry but I wanted a light breakfast because I knew I had a lot of deliciousness in my future (read: donuts). I had a nectarine and some egg whites.

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Then, it was time to hit the streets! We (my sister, my mom and I) left home a little after 8:30 and arrived at our first location a little after 9.

Stop 1: Dynamo Donuts

This place is amazing. I’ve been there a few times before, but it had been quite a while! Their specialty? Donuts! And they always have GF donuts! They brew Four Barrel coffee, which is definitely a good one. Plus, their milk foam is top notch.

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My donut: GF lemon poppyseed. My family’s: chocolate passionfruit and blueberry lavender cornmeal.

Drink of choice: decaf cappuccino.

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Then, we were ready to move on.

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Stop 2: CoffeeShop

This had a different name on google maps vs. on their door, but if you search CoffeeShop on google maps, you’ll find it! This was located less than a mile from stop #1, but we drove (and struggled to park) because my sister has a pulled hamstring.

CoffeeShop is small, with no indoor seating (brrr….yay for summers in San Francisco). They specialize in iced coffee; they slow brew their cold brew and serve it wilt COFFEE ice cubes. Also, I believe all their baked goods were GF (and I can attest that they were quality).

This wasn’t my favorite simply because I had to get decaf (yay for zero caffeine tolerance) which meant the closest to iced coffee was an Americano, which isn’t my favorite. My mom enjoyed hers though!

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We also shared a blueberry muffin (GF).

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After shivering outside with our drinks, we were ready for the warmth of the car!

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Stop 3: Blue Bottle at the Ferry Building

Blue Bottle is Blue Bottle. It’s top notch, and I honestly can’t say more than that. We all had cappuccinos (decaf for my mom and I), and we all took our first sips and said, “WOW.” The quality is another level.

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That being said, I might still like Blueprint in STL more. I would say this was slightly better than the Four Barrels from stop #1.

Conveniently, we landed at the Ferry Building right around lunchtime.

For my meal, I went to the gluten free bakery and had a delicious turkey, cheddar, and cranberry sandwich on the best warm gluten free baguette you’ll ever find.

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I’m not one to turn down gourmet dessert, so I had to try a scoop of the dark chocolate smoked sea salt ice cream from Humphrey Slocombe (and it was as amazing as it sounds).

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And with that, our tour came to an end!

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I also thing we need to celebrate the fact that I’m not wearing scrubs or workout pants. What?? When was the last time that happened? Jeans? What are those? (Sidenote: I’m in the middle of building a new wardrobe for vet school and I officially love black jeans.)

Later the night, we had a delicious grilled dinner that made use of our fresh corn and fresh lettuce from this week’s CSA. We had grilled romaine and corn salad with avocado, and added grilled chicken to the recipe. This si seriously one of the best things we make.

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For dessert, I nibbled on leftover blueberry muffin and whipped up some double chocolate flapjacked cookies. Served with a side of dog booty.

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It was a super fun day, and I think I definitely need to spend more time in the city before the summer ends!

Giant’s Race 2015

Hello! Guess who did a race this past weekend?

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The Giant’s Race finishes in the Giant’s ballpark. It’s awesome. It was my first ever race! This year I did the 10k, not the half like I did the past 2 years. I had a hard time with my training for my April half because I was so sick, that I was just not up for it. That, and I had no time or energy to train with work. This summer I was on my feet 8 hrs a day, and half marathon training plus that would have torn up my feet!

So, I settled on the 10k.

It’s so crazy to me. 4 years ago, I ran this race for the first time.

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I was about to start my freshman year of college. Where the heck did the time go?? When I ran it 4 years ago, I actually won my age group. I was in my best shape of my life at the time, and followed a strict training schedule to work up to that distance (at the time a PDR). This year, I ran the race about 7 minutes slower. Instead of moaning about how much slower I’ve gotten, I’m appreciating how my body has changed to allow me to run this distance without issue, essentially without training.

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I didn’t have any expectations for the race. I didn’t want to die, but I wanted to run a decent pace. I was actually a second away from my last minute goal time. I mostly just wanted to enjoy this race. It’s an amazing course-along the Embarcadero, under the Bay Bridge, and out past Fisherman’s Wharf. Bonus-the 10k is flat. The half marathon course actually goes to Chrissy field, with a fantastic view of the Golden Gate.

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The energy of the runners is amazing as well-lots of like-minded people (aka Giant’s fans). Plus, finishing on the field never gets old. I definitely enjoyed this race!

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After the race, I met up with my mom and grabbed a complimentary post-race beer, just because I could. Yayy for 21. I only had a few sips though because we had other plans for beverages that morning!

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There was also a little sandbag toss, for prizes. Of course, I had to take part. I nailed my first 2 bags right in the whole. I still have some softball player left in me, and walked away with some new sunglasses!

After my coffee exploration in New York, I figured I should use a trip to the city as an excuse to try some of the best San Francisco has to offer! I picked out a place, and it turned out they had gourmet and gluten free doughnuts! Dynamo Donuts. We arrived minutes before they opened.

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I had a chocolate raspberry and a lemon buttermilk gluten free donut. Both were delicious, and you definitely could not tell they were gluten free.

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Plus, OF COURSE a cappuccino. Excellent as well. Good coffee is just so much smoother, and without the bitterness.

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Overall, it was a great morning!

Tell me-where’s the best coffee?