The Friday Five, 7/8/22: 5 things I've been up to this week

For a short week, it has seemed awfully long, so I am glad it is Friday. I am seeing the new Thor movie in 3D tonight so I am looking forward to that. 

Cookie pie at Granite City, always delicious
Cookie pie at Granite City, always delicious

What I've been up to this week:

  1. Cooking, trying a new meal kit, and eating out. A friend gave me a free Purple Carrot code to try, so that's what I cooked last week. Purple Carrot is a vegan/vegetarian meal kit. It looks like I talked about it in last week's Friday Five but I made the Tarragon Noodles later last week, which included what looked like homemade ramen, and it was surprisingly very good; it had zero dairy in it and also included kale chips, which I don't usually like, but I loaded it up with garlic salt, haha. This week I had Hello Fresh, which was a nice treat because I hadn't had them in a while; I love how they package each meal separately, with the meats on the side under ice packs, because it's easy to just put them in my fridge, versus separating the ingredients out, like with the other meal kits. The only other meal kit that does this is Home Chef, although Blue Apron does a "knick knacks" bag for each recipe too, with sauces and other spices in it. 
    As far as eating out, on Saturday night my parents and I did our usual Hungry Howie's takeout, and on Sunday before my Pine Knob concert (see below for that), a friend and I tried out Clarkston Union, which was great. I *still* haven't tried out Woodshop, the BBQ place that's also owned by the Union owner (whom also owns Honcho, which we tried out last time we had a concert at Pine Knob), and I think when I was making the reservation I *thought* I was making it for Woodshop ... oops. The interior is a former church and our seat were pews, which was pretty cool; the food was very good, as well. On Wednesday, my boyfriend and I stopped by Granite City in Troy for dinner, as they had a $12.95 AYCE (all-you-can-eat) pasta deal. I used to looooove their flatbreads so I got the Maple Pepper Bacon Flatbread, which was still delicious, and we ended the meal with their cookie pie. Granite City still does a fantastic happy hour, which is M-Fri from 3-6 p.m., but they have daily specials now too; on Thursday they do an all-day happy hour, and Wednesday's special was the pasta deal.
  2. Seeing movies. Last Friday I saw the new Minions movie but unfortunately took a nice nap during the middle; I'd give it 3.5/5 stars for the portions I saw. Last night I quickly cooked a HF meal and then ran to my local AMC to see Mr. Malcolm's List, to get my money's worth off my A-List membership; I didn't know much about it going in, except that it was Bridgerton-esque, and it ended up being very cute and romantic. I'd give it 3.5/5 stars—it would have been 3.75 or 4 out of 5, except I checked my watch a lot, as it was slower-paced. Tonight I'm seeing the new Thor movie, in 3D, which should be fun. 
  3. 4th of July BBQ. Some of my boyfriend's friends in South Lyon decided to make a brisket, so we headed over there early on Monday so he could help cook. We had homemade appetizers for lunch, which were very tasty—one of the friends is an excellent cook—and dinner was the brisket. We also marathoned Stranger Things season 3, since he hadn't finished it, and started season 4, which we have been watching this week. 
  4. Pine Knob concert. On Sunday night, a friend and I saw Barenaked Ladies, Gin Blossoms, and Toad the Wet Sprocket in concert at Pine Knob. We had pavilion seats for once, which was a treat—we purchased these tickets in FEBRUARY 2020 off Groupon, and it's rare that Groupon does pavilion seats, but we were row YY (second-to-last row) and it was nice not to have to scramble for room on the lawn ... like I will be doing this weekend when I see the DSO play the Music of Harry Potter, at Meadow Brook, lol. It should be a fun show regardless, though. 
    With this show, I was mostly going to see the Gin Blossoms, as I love their songs, but BNL surprisingly put on a very good show as well—they were very personable and even had some Michigan/Detroit-area related jokes.
  5. Watching TV shows. Married at First Sight is back this week, aka my time suck show—the opening episode was three hours long, so I broke it into three one-hour chunks, and finally finished it yesterday. They also had two "kick-off" type shows, only one of which I watched, so I might return to the other one at some point; in addition to that, they do an "Afterparty" show which discusses the episode with some of the cast members. In addition, I started watching Surface on the AppleTV+ press site, which will air at the end of July; I can't say much yet because of the embargo but you should definitely check it out if you have AppleTV+. My parents and I have been watching Physical season 2 on AppleTV+, too, and also Only Murders in the Building season 2, on Hulu ... we still need to finish Julia on HBO Max, too. 
Tarragon noodles, from Purple Carrot - vegan, and surprisingly delicious
Tarragon noodles, from Purple Carrot - vegan, and surprisingly delicious


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