I am shamefully, gluttonly stuffed and wantonly pampered. Thanks for the comments on my non-post. :)

Saturday the aunts & mother & I wandered down to Worlds Window (hippie clothes… I like those artsy fartsy styles) and then to the Tea Market. They were having a little open house and tea & scone tasting. Yummy. Then a quick stop by Chris Elbow for chocolate to start the weekend. Dark chocolate fleur de sel turtles, a dark chocolate bar with blueberries, cherries and chocolate nibs, and a raspberry dark chocolate ganache candy. Om nom nom. On we go to a way cool artsy interiors store. The owner is an exceptionally friendly lady who seems to genuinely enjoy her job. She has a real passion for the art she brings to her store. I wish I could afford some of it. She has a footstool that looks like rocks, but when you touch it, they are all soft and squishy. Want.

For more irrelevant personal crap, a description of the chocolate bar offerings and a cute Gypsy boy dancing, click the More. :)

Then we came back home, got all gussied up and went to the Peppercorn Duck Club at the downtown Hyatt Regency. Fantastic restaurant. In the category of expensive enough to only go once a year. Well worth the money. Phenomenal service (every time you leave  your chair they refold your napkin) and wonderful, wonderful food. As the name indicates, duck is their signature dish. But they also have steak, fresh fish and chicken dishes. And the chocolate bar. Included with any entree. They had more candies this time than they have previously had which was mildly disappointing. But the candies I tried were good. A chocolate bread pudding, a marbled chocolate cheesecake, chocolate petite fours, some other chocolate cake with ganache topping, Boston cream cake, chocolate mousse to die for, fresh fruit with chocolate syrup for drenching… I know I am forgetting things… there were probably 3 or 4 more items on the bar. Rolled home and passed out in a chocolate induced stupor.

Sunday we went to the KC Renaissance Festival to the Queen’s Tea. The poor Gypsy boys who were serving… oh, it was soooo cold on Sunday. And they had bare feet and not much on. It was somewhat disappointing as the really hot Gypsy boy (Quicktime video of a dance – that is my mother woo-ing in the background), wasn’t there this year and so many of them looked too young and skinny – but when it came time for them to dance on the tables we ended up with a good one. :) Went to the new-ish Power and Light district (Jeebus expensive parking on weekends), ate at Ted’s (Ted is an idiot, but they make a damn good burger) and went to the new AMC theater (totally worth the admission price for the theater itself) and saw Invention of Lying. It was okay. Not as funny as I had expected, but all the hoopla about how atheist it was… eh. I could see how you could take it that way and it would certainly be blasphemous to true believers. I see why people are offended. But it almost seemed at times to be making the argument that God is needed to give meaning to life and to keep people from being hopelessly shallow and self serving. I don’t agree but that’s another post for someday later.

Got the Arizona & Indiana guests on planes out of town on Monday morning. Lazed around and caught up on some sleep till spa time in the afternoon. Spa Tuscano. O.M.G. Had a 90 minute hot stone massage. Last time I did that, I had Heather for my masseuse. This time I had Michael. If the two of them ever offer a 4 hand massage like I had in Vegas, I’m hocking anything necessary to get that done once a month. They both have that magical touch. Amazingly relaxing. On a neat note, the spa is trying to work out pricing and time allowances for letting people nap for 20 minutes after their treatments. Sounds nice to me. I know after a good massage I just want to ooze home and sleep for a few. Anyway, we oozed out and got the Kansas City required BBQ dinner out of the way at Smoke House BBQ. They aren’t Jack Stack, but they are essentially the same menu and food. Used to be Smokestack BBQ till there was a split between owners and then there were 2 competing restaurants with basically the same recipes. Had a very friendly, funny and cute waiter. He sure made his tips, that’s for sure. Aunt V wanted to pack him in her suitcase and take him home with her.  Waddled home and watched Coraline at my house.

Today I fixed a small breakfast tea for the ladies at my place – lavendar tea bread with lemon curd and clotted cream, sausage quiche squares, breakfast brulee and fresh chunks of pomello grapefruit. Then we headed to Lawrence, KS to browse the shops on the main drag. Lawrence is almost like a somewhat saner Berkley. Artsy fartsy, social consciencey, green is keen type of kids but you don’t hear much about protests and folks being nasty toward the military there. They are a hot bed of liberalism and hippies, to be sure, but tolerable. Lots of art galleries with local artists, way cool clothing stores, a British food store and a Euro food store right next to each other – I picked up a blend of darjeeling, assam and earl grey from Ahmad Teas. Very good. And I grabbed a kids’ book about sheep having tea. Incredibly cute artwork and funny little poem story. Goes well with my collection – which if I have a kid, the kid will never get his filthy paws on. Mum will read to him instead. :) We ate at Joe Schmo’s, a college bar type of place. Expected typical bar food. What we got was damn near cheffy food. The presentation on the plates was every bit as posh as I’d expect at a 3 star restaurant. And the food was excellent. We ran by Wheatfield’s bakery on the way out of town and picked up some farewell om nom noms. Then we came back, got the aunts on their plane and here I am. Pooped and utterly full. :)

But I think I hear a raspberry ganache calling my name…

Tags: irrelevant personal crap

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