A reason to celebrate

Good morning from Boulder, Colorado. With all due respect, Wisconsin, it was time to get out of Dodge. After a fairly uneventful* car ride across Iowa and Nebraska, Dan and I arrived in sunny Boulder Saturday afternoon and let the Spring Break revelry begin. And since then we’ve been eating and drinking like it’s 1999. Yesterday there were crepes and mojitos, Avery pale ales and grilled kale salads. And there was pizza. Oh, was there pizza. I’m now convinced that you if haven’t had pizza at Pizzeria Locale, then you haven’t had pizza. I spotted this place the second we landed on Pearl Street. As we drove past in our Interstate 80-induced haze, I took note of the happy-looking locals sitting at the open-air bar. We would go back. And we did. Yesterday. For lunch. Oh. My.

There was fizzy water.

There was a bloody mary made with 14 ingredients, 12 of which were made from scratch in their kitchen.  “I’m a vegetarian,” announced our waiter. “So I order the drink without the prosciutto-infused salt on the rim.” Damn it. “I’m a vegetarian too,” I replied. If there was ever a reason to un-quit the meat, this might be it. But the cocktail, made with San Marzano tomatoes, was delicious all the same.

And there was this salad. This salad. Snap peas, rainbow carrots and greens dressed in a combination of shallots, whole grain mustard and citrus. Whoa. Hoo ha.

A margherita pizza followed. Unsliced. Hot out of the 1000-degree oven. Magical.

We were full-on splurging at this point, so why not have dessert? And dessert we had- Saltimbocca con Nutella. Basically a calzone filled with Canadian Nutella (it’s made without corn syrup, our waiter informed us) and topped with powdered sugar. Served with a cup of drip coffee. Now that’s lunch.

And, it turns out, we had a reason to retroactively celebrate. When we returned to our friends’ home and I checked my email, I found out that I had been accepted for the this. So a new writing adventure begins.

*There was the incident with the state trooper in Nebraska who pulled us over and placed Dan in his vehicle and then questioned me about a suspicious-looking item he had spotted in my car. “What is this?” He questioned me. “It’s a pen?” I responded quizzically. “It’s an environmentally-friendly pen,” I sputtered. “I got it a film festival for rivers.” Apparently he thought I was going to smoke something with the pen made from recycled brown paper. After questioning Dan about his shiny belt buckle and chuckling when I responded that Dan was my domestic partner after being asked about how we were related, he joyfully sent us on our way with a warning, wishing us happy travels.