What will you be doing during March Madness?

Afterwards, we all went to Pi for lunch and didn’t even realize that it was Pi Day. How apropos. If you haven’t been there yet, you have to go! The pizzas there are amazing. My favorites are the deep dish pizzas. I know, I know, Chicago has the best deep dish pizzas, but these rank right up there. Four of us were adventurous and had the Bucktown and the Delmar deep dish pizzas while a thin crust pepperoni pizza was ordered for the three less adventurous ones.

The girls decided that they wanted to do a little shopping in the Loop and so we wandered up and down the street, checking out the shops. And of course, we had to stop at FroYo for some healthy snacking. It’s a frozen yogurt shop where you dish how much you want and choose from a plethora of toppings. You pay for it by the ounce. It is now my new favorite ice cream place and I will be frequenting it often when it opens in my neck of the woods. We all made a pact that if ever one of us has the craving, we will be texting one another for a froyo run.

Craft fair, pizza, frozen yogurt, shopping, friends…that definitely is a great way to spend a icky Sunday afternoon.

Because we’ve had some experience with dogs and I can put the fear of God in them, I knew we could handle 24 hours with him. Usually, when a dog is described as wild, it really means that he’s super-hyper. The perfect prescription to cure the wild: wear him the eff out. And that’s where Kuma earns her keep around this house.

With any first meeting of a new dog, Kuma has to assert her dominance, which she did, quite loudly. Once Chen realized that he wasn’t going to win this fight, everyone got along just fine and playtime ensued.

Now, Kuma will typically pin her opponent down and try to roll over them but Chen wasn’t going to just lie and take it. So there was quite a few chest bumps:

When Chen figured out that Kuma wasn’t going to back down easily, he thought he could throw Kuma off her game with this look:

Nope, it didn’t faze her. Kuma just retaliated with a chest kick:

In the end, after hours of on-and-off playtime, Kuma said enough:

When the owners came home, they called to thank us for watching him and exclaimed that he was so well-behaved and calmer. I would like to take credit for that, that I worked my magic on him. But in reality, he was probably too tired to misbehave. I’m sure he’ll be back to his old self soon.

Somewhere along the way I lost the sheet with all of the categories, but I remember we did really well in Sports. The TV and Movie categories were heavily loaded with 70’s and 80’s answers and we got killed on Presidents yet again (always presidents. You’d think we’d learn — it’s not like there’s a dearth of presedential information out there. We should just read a friggin’ book). St. Louis History was a good category, but we didn’t do very well in that either. Makes me want to take a trip to the History Museum in Forest Park.

Perhaps the biggest shocker of the night was the Celebrity Couples category. We had Jen’s sister Chris (and her US Weekly addiction) as our secret weapon for that one, but it turns out that old celebrities can be couples too! Also, I think the concept of celebrity was stretched a wee bit when there were not one, but two questions about famous composers. Really?!?

Small gripes aside, when everything was said and done, we weren’t anywhere near the top. In fact, I’m not sure that anyone knows what our final score was because it got to the point where we were more focused on the food and drink than the competition at hand. In the end, everyone had a good time, but let this beatdown definitely proved the age old adage: if the oldest person on your team is 31, you better hope for lightning in a bottle if you want to compete in trivia against people who map their family tree for fun.

When Bob got home, we drove around for 45 minutes, looking for people who looked like they were looking for this tiny, tiny animal. No luck, though. Katie was our savior and loaned us her cat carrier for the night so we could keep him from peeing around the house and from Kuma thinking that he was a moving squeaky toy.

I took him to Animal Control the next day to see if he was microchipped and sadly, he wasn’t so I had to leave him behind. Hopefully, his owners will be smart enough to call looking for this little cutie-pie.

You can’t win them all. Running total: 7 families reunited, 1 still lost.

Entree: Grilled Pork Chops with Carolina Rub. I would say that this is a very solid dish, the rub was very simple to make (you have all the spices already) and the pork chops were easy to grill. Perfect for a weeknight dinner.

Side Dish: Waldorf Salad and Broccoli. I’ve actually never had a Waldorf Salad so this was my first experience with it. It’s pretty much fruit mixed with mayo.

Dessert: Olive Oil, Citrus and Rosemary Cake. Top Chef Masters had mentioned olive oil cake and Kim had been intrigued ever since. The cake turned out pretty good, the texture was more bread-like and the rosemary and citrus flavors were lightly infused. Based on the name, I thought the cake would be oily but thankfully, it was not.

Arcelia’s is located in Lafayette Square in a converted house and adjacent building. Because of it’s location, you would think that it would be a bit upscale with it’s decor, but that is not the case. It’s decor is eclectic and unpretentious, giving this restaurant the “local neighborhood” vibe.

Once we were seated, we were served hot chips and salsa. I thought the salsa was delicious. It wasn’t chunky and it had some heat on it. You don’t realize the spiciness of it until after you’ve eaten it, it sneaks up on you. But it’s so good, I think I ate about three baskets of chips and salsa. The menu is what you would traditionally see at Mexican restaurants but there were some intriguing items that I’ve never seen before which really made me happy. I mean, there were cactus strips, pasole, and mole, just to name a few. I had the sour cream enchiladas, which is exactly what it sounds like: sour cream filled enchiladas (okay, it had some other cheeses in it as well). I was a little disappointed that there was no protein in the dish but that was no one’s fault but my own, I had assumed that it was enchiladas smothered in sour cream. Bob followed his rule of new restaurants: the first time you go a place, get the dish named after the restaurant. He ordered Arcelia’s Tamale Plate and really enjoyed it. We all ended up with different different dishes and overall, everyone seemed to be happy with their dishes. I would definitely go back (but will order something else). So, good recommendation.

Afterwards, we popped down to Square One for some beers and ice cream. I had the root beer float — that’s kind of like beer, right? Good times!

My name is Jen and I’m lazy.

Entree: Baked Salmon with Lemon Caper Butter. This was a simple, yet flavorful dish that is quick and easy to make. I really enjoyed the salmon, especially since it incorporated capers, yum. You can definitely whip up this recipe on a weeknight, easy-peasy.

Side Dish: Pan-Roasted Asparagus with Lemon Rind. A solid asparagus dish.

Dessert: Linzer Bars. A fun little dessert but I thought it was a bit too sweet for my tastebuds. If you are in the mood for a sugar injection right into the veins, then this is the dessert for you.