Birch, Bloom and Stapleton

Here’s a slice of life lately!

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Chris Stapleton Show

Earlier this month Thomas surprised me with tickets to see Chris Stapleton! We donned our plaids and boots and headed out on a date night.

Date Night at Birch and Bloom

YES, Birch & Bloom is the name of the new restaurant in the new Kimpton Hotel near the UVA business school! Obviously I loved the name from the start, so I was excited to try out the food!

The decor is very chic – lots of natural elements (of course) along with marble and velvet. I loved the super thin water glasses.

The cocktail menu was great, and I ordered a Hazel Fashioned. It’s not on the online menu, but I remember it had frangelico and a “coconut dusting” and it was 100%.

Thomas and I shared the bread service with salted butter to start, and I had the Crispy Skin Salmon for my entree. It was great! Crispy as advertised. That red drizzle is raspberry coulis – a nice contrast to the savory fish.

The hotel was gorg on the inside too – we took a peek while we left for the show.

Chris Stapleton was outstanding. He had Thomas in tears with his opening song! He played hit after hit with his magical vocals. We definitely recommend his show!

Other Birch Things

Look at this sweet note that Birch wrote to Mazen! He’s just starting to be able to write sentences, and you can see it was far from perfect. But I had to document this first brother letter. He was missing Mazen while M was at his dad’s house 🙁

When he’s not practicing his letters and numbers at school, he’s been working on geography! How cool are these paintings he brought home. He is doing so well in his Montessori kindergarten year <3

I am the mom who thinks ice cream is a great after school snack : ) It has protein after all! We LOVE Kohr brothers and split a snowstorm with oreos!

Blanc Creative

Last week I went to Waynesboro, VA to tour the Blanc Creative HQ. I met with the founder, Cody, and learned a ton about cooking with carbon steel! I connected with them through Instagram after the Happy Cook recommended carbon steel for our induction stove. Each piece is handcrafted and they are beloved by home chefs from around the world. How gorgeous are these skillets!? Cody gave me the 101 version of carbon steel, which is similar to cooking on cast iron. We are excited to test it out this week!

They also make utensils, knives, cocktail materials, wooden spoons, and more. If you have a foodie friend to gift to this holiday season, Blanc Creatives would be the perfect place to buy a unique gift.

Kath Eats Real Food

Thomas and I came home from the beach and decided we’d like to do puzzles at home too! We borrowed this Everyday Heroes puzzle from our friend Anna, and it’s been a really solid puzzle with lots of great colors and patters (I don’t love puzzles that are too much of the same color!). We’ve been doing a little bit after dinner each night. It’s so addicting! I’m trying to get Birch to love puzzles too. He’s not bad at the 1,000 piece size already!

I got some cinnamon chip bread from Great Harvest lately – the best!!

We’ve been having green smoothies with AG1 on most weekdays!

Lunch Salads

Check out this reel I made with my favorite salad dressing featuring orange marmalade! I’ve been making it since mid-summer and it’s THE BEST!

Here’s how I’ve been eating it in my favorite giant mixing bowl!

I love Daily Harvest flatbreads for lunch when I am out of salad greens. I added pepperoni and cheese to this healthy vegan pizza – LOL!

Salmon + couscous + NA red wine

Here’s the NA wine I tried – it’s the new Red Blend by Surely. My review is that it’s VERY smoky, medium-level fruity (sweet, but just a little), and it was awesome to have the bottle open to sip on all week with dinners! I actually preferred it chilled, which is odd, but it tasted the best that way to me! Recommend.

Sunday grill out

Thomas smoked some wings and ribs with cornbread and grilled zucchini for football Sunday. ‘Twas very fall appropriate!

Also very fall appropriate:

Short Story

Last but not least, I got a Short Story box for some fall clothes, but didn’t end up keeping much. Loved one pair of black jeans they sent, but I returned this dress (which was an XSP!) for being too short and the pants for being too flared. Am I just too old!? Haha.