Bills, Budgeting and Breakfast food.

Lucky you; you get 3 posts in quick succession!

Breakfast is the best food in the world, doesn't matter what time you eat it. Which logically makes brunch one of the most brilliant ideas because is the best combination of best food and sleeping in. (Sound enough like a millennial, yet?)

Cooking requires balance: coordinating ingredients and timing, savory and sweet flavors; but it's not nearly as tricky as navigating this thing we call life . Bills, budgeting, baking, balancing work and social life is often missed in the education of today's youngsters and leaves many entering the adult world feeling unprepared.

Trying to navigate responsibility leads us to experiences like the ones which spark blogs such as this one: Using hard-earned wages to purchasing 2 coffees at 12 in the afternoon (because we've only been up for an hour or two) and spending the conversational lulls playing with the children's toys available on the nearby bookshelf, enjoying the fact that half the conversation was about about animals: the chickens behind the cafe, my dog, A's cats, M's chameleon, and those chameleons who have recently died (RIP Icarus).

In my "professional" opinion, everyone needs a bit of childlike wonder to keep sanity in this crazy world we live in. Here's to more children's puzzles over discussions of life and cups of coffee!

Sincerely,
the J from JAM
(Anyone out there singing "Tea with jam and bread" from the Sound of Music? Just me, then.)

Episode 2: Kitchen House Coffee and the Struggle Bus

A here!

It's MLK day!  And technically the 3rd week of the month.  But scheduling is hard and I just got back from being out of town for a month, and work schedules do not obey the commands of the brunch club.  But we did make it out, in spite of it being a holiday and Missouri's version of snowy.  We employed the random online thing-picker as our electronic hat, so that we might choose the place for brunch.  It was almost lunch - M was hungry and was eating breakfast no matter what if J and I didn't make a decision.  So we were decisive, and picked breakfast, and the electronic hat chose Kitchen House Coffee.  After a slightly rocky start, in which I did not obey the essence of the E-hat, we picked the spot and off we went into the...quarter inch of snow.

Food: The menu here isn't huge, but it's hearty and delicious, and most of the eggs come from the chickens out back, so it's pretty freakin cool.  J and M got the Easter-egger with meat,which is an egg sandwich with greens and bacon on a bagel.  I used to study at KC a lot while prepping for exams, so along with getting recognized by the staff (I love feeling like a regular!), I returned to an old favorite of an everything bagel with their amazing home-made hummus.  I was starving but that was all I wanted--I would eat a tub of their hummus plain. J and M both really liked their sandwiches, and M has expressed interest in trying the Old-English, a bagel with creamcheese and greens.  One of these times, I will actually remember to ask J what she intends to get next time. For now, it's a mystery.  J got...some kind of latte that started with a P that was supposed to be close to vanilla, I got the seasonal toasted marshmallow latte, which was just okay and did not taste enough like coffee, and M got a chai latte, which was, for her, much spicier than she prefers but still drinkable and she didn't die.  J and I also went back for round 2 later, and got honey harvest lattes.  We both agreed: not amazing but pretty decent. And it was a 2 cups of coffee kind of day.  J accompanied hers with a cranberry cookie, and I had a bread pudding muffin, because it was also a bad decision kind of morning. I have no regrets my hands are only shaking a little it's *fine*.

Conversation topics included: A recap on the holidays, what we did, what we suffered, what pets we visited, what family nonsense we endured, the merits of different kinds of lip balm (wax is evil oil is good Minnesota is a lip-drying desert), and which chickens would be the best to own for temperament and weather tolerance.  For posterity: the orpington is fluffy and chill and likes to lay good eggs.  And the...bramah (sp?), was similarly chill and has fluffs on its feet, which makes them good for Minnesota.  It also apparently made a good show when the unsuspecting chicken in the back of the shop stepped into the snow, and was then displeased that there was snow on her feets.  So extra point for entertainment value. The morning finished with us reading kid books while J grabbed a box of wooden blocks and started making wooden cupcakes out of puzzle shapes.  Her cupcake was beautiful....we kind of failed at the actual puzzle part.

J dropped us off after, and gave me my present, which included some awesome sci-fi and fantasy jewelry, and a gingerbread scratch-house for the cats.  M is in the process of constructing this now, with "help" from the cats, because it's not proper Christmas morning if there aren't 3 people doing a 1 person job.  The construction process might be the next post, if I can talk M into it.

So that is January brunch club.  We'll see you again in February, by which time the ginger-house will probably have been destroyed. (M just found the directions after finishing the house lol, thus the title of this month's episode I guess.)

Love,
JAM

Episode 1: Rooster on Grand, and Life Necessitates a Brunch Club

So it seems appropriate that the record of the first brunch of the brunch club is being posted...after the second brunch.  Being on time is for suckers.  Also we just decided today that we actually wanted to do this and write it down, because clearly I don't have enough to do in my life, and maintaining a blog sounded more fun than fixing schedule spreadsheets.

So, December 2017 Brunch:

We went to Rooster on Grand.  Our original plan was to try out Egg, a new place none of us had gone to.  All 3 of us settled decisively on this new thing, until J discovered that because this is St. Louis and people are smart and like to make bank on the weekends, that it was in fact closed on Mondays.  So Rooster became the new plan.  It was close and we were hungry, and...crepes.

Food: J got the brunch burger, a gigantic pile of egg and biscuit-y goodness, because it's December and there's nothing wrong with doing what you know.  I got an egg scramble, with arugula pesto and tomato jam and potatoes, because I am metropolitan and classy (and really I just like anything that has pesto on it and I knew there would be potatoes no matter how things went), and M, because she is good at breakfast, got a savory crepe, which because we're writing this a month late shall be known as "the one with mushrooms and no bacon," and granola.  That's strategy, right there. J got chai, and I got a latte, and M got water because she is good at breakfast but scorns breakfast drinks, or something.  We all probably expressed interest in other things to order next time, but the only one we remember now is that M wants the GLT, which we think involved goat cheese.

Conversation topics included: dismay over the driving habits of our elderly relatives, namely that they were driving at all, Christmas plans, and the creation of the as-of-then not-named brunch club.  Which went down like "brunch is good" "we should see each other more often," "we would like to eat brunch more often", and there you go.  And here we are. We probably talked about other stuff but I've lost my phone 3 times since I've been home today, and it was a 2 hour brunch. The chances of me remembering anything are pretty much zero.  So assume there was something fascinating and worldly in there somewhere.

So there is the first thing.  A post detailing the brunch that actually took place today will be incoming...soon.  And maybe some more official reviews of food, to make this blog look like it has a little more of a point.

Love,

JAM