Cornflake Chicken

I wasn’t initially intending to blog this meal but I received  requests from my sis for the recipe and besides being on the healthier side, it was pretty darn tasty so I figured why not. This was actually my first attempt in making cornflake chicken which is surprising because in college it was one of my favorite meals served at my sorority house (besides breakfast-for-dinner night there and who can argue with that).

My sophomore year of college I lived in my sorority house. It was a great experience, the perfect transition between the overcrowded personalities in the dorm and the lonely independence of apartment living. My favorite memories were a mix of wonderful and bittersweet. Heading out to class on jersey days. Friends crowding in my room during rush breaks to catch an episode of Sex and the City. Groups getting ready to go out, the electric excitement running through the house before a mixer or party. Girls packed like sardines into the downstairs hallways during tornado warnings. Everyone sitting in the living room, locked in shock, watching as 9/11 unfolded before our eyes. And through all that we had an amazing group of women who day in and out would prepare all our meals, would laugh and cry along with us, and solidified that it wasn’t just a house, but a home.

Garrison Brothers Bourbon

A very belated post but better late than never, right? Well one of my favorite things I did on my extended Texas Christmas vacation was take a day trip up to the Hill Country to visit Texas' first and oldest legal Bourbon distilleries, Garrison Brothers. I took pretty careful notes, and since this blog is half bourbon I thought I'd give you a proper bourbon distillery tour in pictures but just to caveat- my notes may be a little off. If you're familiar please feel free to correct. It was fast typing the way the tour was moving and with all the information given.

A few twists and turn off a minor Texas highway, and then up a mostly dirt road to the starting point of the tour, you then park your car and are then loaded onto a tractor bed of sorts, to be taken the rest of the way to the distillery. For those not from Texas this may be the start of something that sounds terribly cliche and stereotypical, but I assure you there was nothing kitschy in this. It's just Texas. Plain and simple.

Early Birthday... New York Fashion

So I do have about 5 posts that are thiiissss close to being ready and yes, they are actually about food. But first I want to share what I did tonight. Because it's neat and I'm a nerd about all things food and most things Texas. And this was one of those things that's so New York and so me in the go and do sense. And it fits so well here because tonight I went to the book launch and signing of my home chef food blog idol Lisa Fain aka the Homesick Texan!

Lisa's blog was one of the first that I discovered when I moved to New York City... and I've made references to her about a million times here. Because she hasn't just been a blogging idol, she was a life preserver. An anonymous person in a sea of so many but one that made me feel a little less alone, less misunderstood here. And I was so homesick and trying desperately to find a middle ground of chasing my dream and missing a place that's so much more than just a big state. And when I started the blog it was with her stories from the heart and unsatiated quest for the taste of home that I had in the back of my mind.