The Friday Five, 3/8/24: 5 things I've been up to this week

This week wasn't exceptionally busy, but next week will be, since I'm going to Miami for work from Sunday to Wednesday.

Dessert trio at Witch's Hat Brewing, South Lyon

What I've been up to this week:

1. Booking wedding vendors. I felt accomplished this week - we rebooked our photographer and videographer (long story there, but our original person, who was doing both photography AND videography, had to cancel on us) AND we also booked our DJ. In addition, we secured a place for rehearsal lunch, which will be the day before with our immediate family and wedding party. We still need to book a florist; someone for dessert; tuxes, so to speak; and also order invitations, and after that I feel like most of the "big stuff" is done. 
2. Going out to eat. On Friday night, we were in Royal Oak, because we have to get our wedding rings (his + my eng ring + my wedding ring) cleaned every six months to maintain their warranties, so we did Pastaio for dinner. It was my second time there and just as fabulous as the first—I ordered the tableside pasta which ended up being someone with a CART, cooking the pasta in front of us (kind of; it had already been cooked, so it was mostly warming it up, same for the chicken I ordered with it) and adding cream, wine, and butter, and it was pretty impressive.
   On Saturday, we ended up at Witch's Hat Brewing Co. in South Lyon, with dinner with two friends, and on Sunday, we ordered Doordash lunch from a Chinese place in Waterford, which was just okay.
   In addition, yesterday we went to an event at the Daxton hotel (more on that below) and had Brooklyn Pizza after. Brooklyn does a unique thing where you can essentially order two half pizzas, so my fiance got the buffalo chicken and I had the margherita; unfortunately, some of the buffalo chicken sauce ended up on the margherita pizza sides (and was too spicy for me), and I also thought their pepperoni and mushroom pizzas are much better than their margheritas. Their garlic knots are good, though. 
3. Wine premiere event at Daxton Hotel. I have been to the Daxton Hotel, in Birmingham, three times now, and the first two times were for dinner at Madam, their restaurant, which is fantastic—I highly recommend if you haven't been (and check out my reel here).
   This time, we were there because the hotel was premiering its own house wine, a chardonnay and a pinot grigio, and both were pretty good. We also had some charcuterie, and I ran into an influencer friend I had never met IRL, which was fun. See the reel here.
4. Watching TV shows. A few new shows this week, including The Regime, on Max, with Kate Winslet, which was weirder than I thought it would be, but interesting; and Ready Set Love, on Netflix, which is in Thai, but you have the option to have it dubbed in English, which is what we've been doing. This show is also weird, but great—it's kind of dystopian, in that they live in a society where there are only like 400 living men, but also mixed with a reality show vibe, in that each year, five eligible bachelors (men) have women competing to marry them and marry into "The Family" (the exclusive enclave/family where they live). There are only six episodes (one-hour long each) but I'm liking it a lot so far. There was unfortunately no Abbott Elementary this week it looks like, and I also started The Way Back, on Peacock, which is great if you like shows with a time travel element. I finished season 1 of it yesterday and six episodes of season two are already up—it's technically a Hallmark channel show but isn't "schmaltzy" like some of those are.
5. Cooking. We cooked two Blue Apron meals this week and also finished the last HelloFresh meal on Sunday. I did not order a box for next week since I'll be gone on a work trip, and I believe the week after that we have an EveryPlate box coming.

Cannoli and tiramisu at Pastaio, Royal Oak