Supper Club Goes to El Salvador

Have you been to Downtown OP lately?  The place is bumpin'. 

Okay, maybe "bumpin" is a bit of an exaggeration.  But there's seriously some good stuff going on. 

The farmers' market is obviously my favorite, along with Penzey's, Harper's, and Maloney's.  I love spices and sewing and booze. 

But lately a bunch of new restaurants have been opening up in the area; The Peanut, a new Ethiopian restaurant, and a lovely little pie store called The Upper Crust.

I was totally intrigued when I saw that there was a new restaurant in the area serving El Salvadorian food.  What the heck do the eat in El Salvaldor? 

Supper Club decided to find out.

El Salvadoreno.

The restaurant was much more casual than I was expecting.  It was small and very family oriented and comfy.  We started out with a drink order.  Drew had Dos Equis and I had a Horchata.

Bebidas.

Horchata is a drink made with milk, cinnamon, and oats.  Weird, right?  I only know this because Alton Brown told me about it on Good Eats.  So I had to do Alton proud and order one... even though it was non-alcoholic.  It was tasty!

The food was good too.  The menu wasn't huge, but they had several veggie options.  Drew ordered a sampler plate.  I think this is the way to go if you are trying a new cuisine.  When in doubt, try it out!

Sampling it all.

Muy happy.

I ordered a bean & cheese papusa (left) which is kind of like a quesadilla with a really tasty thick tortilla.  I also ordered a veggie pastel (right).  It kind of reminded me of an egg roll, Latin style.  And on the side was their famous coleslaw.

El Salvadorian Comida.

I thought the food was good.  I really wanted a sauce, especially for the pastel.  Maybe they had one and I just didn't ask.  It was a bit heavy, and obviously the pastel is fried.  But it tasted good!

El Salvadorano also serves breakfast, which I'd love to try.  I feel like my meal would have been complete with a little eggs and ketchup.  Is that weird?  We will definitely try it out next time we are down for the farmers' market.

So, El Salvadoreno is definitely Supper Club Approved!  Try it out if you are in the area and looking for something a bit different and new.  Then call me and we can meet at The Peanut and discuss over a cold cerveza. :)

If You're Not First, You're Last

Or... Wow!  I Look Super Hot in Race Photos!

Last week Brittney and I ran the Olathe Medical Center 5K.  See KC Run was there taking pictures. 

While I love the concept of getting free race photos to everyone, I seriously hate race photos in general.  My theory is that no one looks pretty while they're running, especially if they are putting forth some sort of effort. 

Please don't try to prove me wrong by sending me your Sports Illustrated worthy race pics.  Let me live in my little dream world where we all look like Shrek when we run.

Here are some pics from the race.

The Start.

The race was small... like 200 runners.  Which means good odds and not a lot of competition!

Shrek 1 & Shrek 2.

We've been doing all this speed work lately so our coach encouraged us to do a 5K to see where we're at.  By his estimation we should have finished under 21 minutes.  We did not.

Eat my dust, boy runner!

We started out way too fast.  I looked at my watch and saw a 5:40 pace at the start and FREAKED OUT!  It's hard not to want to keep up with the fast kids at the start, but it will kick your ass in the end.

We evened out our pace, but both of us were feeling it.  Around mile 2 I lost Britt when she had to stop for a quick walk break.  I battled out the last mile on my own and came in at 22:24.

What a lovely face I'm making.

Even though it wasn't what I hoped for, it was good enough to place second (for the girls)!  This is why I love small races.  They can totally boost your self-esteem.  Which is important because once you see your race photos, the self-esteem goes right down the crapper. 

What was even cooler?  The first place finisher overall was female!  Hoo-rah!  That like never happens.  Her time wasn't anything stellar, and would never have won in a larger race.  But how cool for her to say that she won a 5K??? 

As for me, I guess I'll just have to hope all this speed work I've been doing will pay off when it comes marathon-time.  Surely, right?

She would...

Remember in my last post when I shared my pinspiration for my "new" chairs? 

Remember how I told you the originals cost $800 each?

Remember how we were all like, "OMG.  Who buys an $800 chair???"

Remember???

Original, uber-expensive chair.

I was perusing The Pioneer Woman (trying to win a Kitchen Aid that would match my chairs perfectly!) when I came across a post about a bedroom re-do that she had done in the girls' room.  Anything stand out here?

Look familiar?

Who spends $800 on a chair?  The Pioneer Woman, that's who.

And you know I'm just pleased as punch that she and I have the same taste in chairs. 

Now if only I could win one of her give-aways...

I Feel Blue.

And no, it's not because I go back to work tomorrow*.

When asked my favorite color, I usually respond with either pink or green... depending on how I'm feeling that day.  But the more I think about it, the more I think it's actually a shade of blue.  I'm always very drawn toward blue, so much so that when we moved into our house we painted the walls a shade of blue; Behr Blue Morning. 

Not to be confused with Behr Blue Mourning.  Very different things.

Unfortunately after 5 years the blue walls started to burn my eyeballs.  While house hunting with Brooke I fell in love with a home that had darker neutral walls and pops of green accessories.  Her fabulous realtor, Judy** contacted the seller to tell them that no, we weren't interested in the house but we would love to know what paint color was on their walls. 

And the next week, our walls were painted.  Unfortunately, I haven't really been on top of the whole "pop of color" thing and our house has been very brown since painting. 

Brown walls, brown furniture, brown dog.  Very brown.

That was all partially remedied this summer when I took on the task of refinishing our kitchen chairs. 

I found this inspiration pic on Pinterest and fell in love.  Unfortunately, Anthropologie was charging $798 FOR EACH CHAIR!  Slightly out of my price range. 

Now on sale for the low price of $399.95!

Here's what we were working with:

Before.

These chairs came with the hand-me-down table from my parents.  They're in great shape, so I was excited to see what we could do with them. 

I started out by stripping them.  This was by far the worst part.  Stripping requires serious chemicals, which means you have to wear gloves, goggles, and a mask.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of me in this stellar get-up.

If you happen to get any of these serious chemicals on your skin, you will know it.  I had to rip off my gloves and run to the back and hose off my skin several times during this process.  I'm surprised I wasn't left with any major scars.

The only good part about stripping was getting to make stripping jokes.  Drew would come home and ask what I did today and I'd say, "I was stripping in the garage all day."  Or we'd be hanging out and I'd say, "I'm gonna go outside and strip."  Hilarious.

I am so mature.

Next came sanding.  This was far easier than stripping.  And far less funny.

Drew took on the next part of the project; the priming and painting. 

Priming.

Painting.

And then we were done!  After waiting for the paint to dry for a few days, we brought our lovely chairs in and we now have a pop of blue in our brown house.

AFTER!

How good would crown molding look up there?

Close up.

Day-time shot.

I'm pretty darn pleased with how they turned out.  I'm also pleased they didn't cost $800 each.  And I'm just really glad to be done.  DIY is not my strong-suit.

*I'm secretly SO excited for school to start! 
**Seriously, do you need a realtor?  Judy is amazing.  AMAZING.

Social Media Overload

I'm finding myself with way too much free time on my hands...

Since getting an IPhone a couple of months ago, I've joined the realms of social media addicts with every distraction I could ever want right at my fingertips.  I'm pinning before bed, checking Facebook in the morning, and Instagramming everything I eat/drink/bake.  Because I'm sure people totally care.

Yesterday afternoon I found myself bored, thinking of all the things I should be checking off my summer-to-do list before summer ends* and it's all left until next summer.  Thankfully, before I worked myself into a frenzy of productivity, Lauren texted me.

Lauren: "Hey! Did you know they're doing another Britney tribute on Glee this fall???"

Me: "Shut the front door!  That is fantastic news!"

Lauren: "Yep!  Lea Michelle just tweeted it."

Me: "I should really get on Twitter."

Lauren: "Yes you should!"

Me: "Done."

Lauren: "Really?"

I spent an hour** signing up, texting Lauren for technical support, and picking out folks to follow. 

I spent the rest of the evening scrolling through pages and pages of Olympian tweets.  Obsessed!  Some revelations:

@ryanlochte has terrible grammar.  I love him anyway.

@lolojones is a sassy lady.  I love it!

@arschmitty & @michaelphelps are super tight.

@paulajradcliffe isn't running the marathon?!?  So sad!!!

@mattcentrowitz may be an Olympic athlete, but he's a typical teenage boy.  So cute! #centronation

So yeah, I'm on Twitter.  If you are too, follow me @gibbystylekc***.  Or just check out my tweets over there ----->. 

Or don't.  Whatevs.  But know that you'll be missing out on thrilling tweets like what I ate for breakfast, how much I love @gabrielledoug, and my thoughts on Glee's upcoming tribute to Britt.

No really.  Please follow me.  I only have one follower (holla @griermountain!).

Suffice to say the summer-to-do list has been put permanently on hold.  I'll be spending my last two days of summer vacation exploring the Twitters.  Thank goodness school starts soon!


*This week! :(
**This would take a twelve-year-old 5 minutes.  I am old.
***Can you believe @gibbystyle was taken?  Someone else out there is rockin' my style.