1.  Our annual MLK weekend trip to the mountains.  This year, we crammed nine people & two dogs into Tom’s parents’ two room cabin in Western North Carolina for three days.  I caught up on my magazine reading, we drank special occasion sparkling while playing the most politically incorrect & hilarious card game ever, sat in the hot tub until we pruned, racked up an embarrassing amount of recycling, ate too much junk food & had a good time all around.

2.  Aviator’s bourbon barrel aged Frost Nipper.  Perfect for taking the edge off these freezing temperatures.

3.  Triangle Restaurant Week.  $30 prix fixe menus give us the nudge to go out & try some new places.  Last night, we finally made the trek out to Apex to visit Little Hen, after hearing so many good things about it in the Twitterverse.  It’s a lovely, little, rustically furnished farm to table kind of place that reminds me a lot of the restaurants that we love in Northern California.  Everything was fresh, delicious, expertly executed & very well portioned…I especially loved my entreé of grilled beer marinated shrimp skewer with olive oil fried egg, grilled scallions, local Andouille sausage & fried yellow rice balls.  Runny egg yolk + crispy fried rice = perfection.  It’s safe to say that we’ll be back.

Happy weekend!  Cheers!