Sushi & Beer

What we thought would be an uneventful weekend turned out to be quite busy for Todd and I. This past Friday night we went to my work holiday party at Columbus Brewing Company. It was pretty low key but fun to hang out with my coworkers, along with a few former coworkers who were also invited.

Saturday we spent the better part of the day visiting Chihuly exhibits (see post from 01/10/10). We also made a stop at the North Market to walk around and see if there was anything good to try/buy. We bought a waffle from Taste of Belgium, which was delicious and not what I expected it to taste like, as well as a loaf of bread from Omega Artisan Baking to have with our gnocchi for dinner that night. We also drove by the new Ohio Union on OSU's campus to see if it was finished (almost but not open yet, at least it didn't look like it) and made one last stop at the Beer & Winemaker's Shop where Todd couldn't resist buying a brew kit to make Holiday Ale.

So what do you think we did on Sunday? Yep, you got it, we made beer. I met Todd at his house early Sunday afternoon for omelets (egg whites, veggies, and fat free cheese for me though because of my low fat diet per my doctor....boo!!) and hash brown potatoes. Afterwards, the real adventure began!

Todd & I brewed our 3rd batch of beer. We had previously made an Amber and a Dunkelweizen so this time we made the Holiday Ale. It took almost 6 hours from the start to when we transferred the wort (it's not technically beer yet) to the fermenter. It'll still be a few more weeks until it's ready to be bottled.

After we added the malt extract & bittering hops

The longest step while brewing the beer is cooling it down to room temperature after it's been boiling for over an hour. Needless to say, my patience begins to wear a little thin during this step, but luckily on Sunday, we made sushi for dinner while we were waiting.

Our sushi in front with veggie tempura in the back

I plan on posting more in the next couple weeks about the whole beer making process from start to finish (with pics of course!) so stay tuned....


Also, for those ladies out there who need a good book to read, I just finished reading The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks. I've read quite a few of his books (he wrote The Notebook and A Walk to Remember among others) and really enjoyed this one. I definitely recommend it!

And I came home from work today and had a package from Amazon! It's the new book I just ordered called Racing Weight: How to Get Lean for Peak Performance. I'm pretty excited to start reading it because it got good reviews and it's perfect timing for my Boston training. I really am focused on trying to PR in April and I want to know that when the race is over, I gave it everything I could whether that's in my running, cross training, lifting, sleeping, and/or eating.