Food, Friends, and Football

I’m fairly certain I have used this “Food, Friends, and Football” blog post title before!  But these are three things that we love, so when football comes back we celebrate it with food and friends!

But first, Labor Day.  On Sunday evening before Labor Day, our next door neighbors Fred & Annie emailed us to tell us there’s a new gourmet ice cream shop called Hammond’s in North Park.  I emailed them back and said I had actually seen it on Instagram and wanted to try it, so to let us know when they want to go, and we could go together.  I got an immediate email back saying they wanted to go tomorrow, and there’s a pizza place nearby.  So, we made lunch & ice cream plans with our next-door neighbors via email.  (Doesn’t everyone do that??) 

The next day we drove down to North Park together and went to lunch at URBN Pizza.  We had been there twice before and liked the pizza.  Their chicken wings are really good too.  We got a Polpetta Con Provolone pizza to share, except we replaced the ricotta cheese with mozzarella (Todd hates ricotta), and added bacon.

I had one piece of this pizza and it was delicious!  Yum!  Our neighbors Annie & Fred.

Todd, Annie, and Fred finished the rest of the pizza while I had my chicken wings.  I forgot to take photos of them, but they are really good.  They are the “Coal Fired Wings” on the appetizer menu.

After lunch we walked next door (yes, literally next door) to Hammond’s Gourmet Ice Cream.  They are known for their Hawaiian ice cream flavors.

The line wasn’t too bad.  I got a half scoop of Lychee Cream and half a scoop of Pineapple Coconut Cream.  So good!

Todd got the Azuki Beans ice cream.

I forgot what Fred got, but Annie got a flight of 4 ice cream samples on tiny cones!

URBN + Hammonds + friends make for a perfect Labor Day.

If you’re a college football fan you would know that the season started last weekend before Labor Day.  We are Buckeyes through and through, because we both went to Ohio State for undergrad, and we met each other in the dorms!  We both lived in Taylor Tower 8th floor (the “geek dorm”).  We always joke that we owe our marriage to the Ohio State computers randomly putting us on the same floor in the same dorm.  Ohio State is so big that we probably would have never met otherwise, especially since Todd was in the College of Engineering (BSEE) and I was in the College of Business (BS Accounting) and College of Arts & Sciences (BS Psychology).  Anyways, this weekend was the second weekend of college football and Ohio State played VA Tech.  Our friends Anne, Gilbert, and Victoria went to VA Tech, so we invited them over for dinner & football.

But first, in the morning, it is Todd’s football tradition to eat a double-batch of popcorn!

I got Todd these Nike limited edition Ohio State shoes.  I had to be at the Nike website exactly on the hour on release day to get these, lol.  An hour later they were sold out.

Todd & Noodle ready to watch some football!

Todd started making the spice cake in the early afternoon.  It’s a pretty labor-intensive cake to make, so he wanted to get a head start.  The spiced cream cheese icing in the making.  I’m always amazed how much sugar it takes to make icing!

Mmm… cream cheese frosting is my favorite.

I helped put icing on the cake, ha ha.

Dinner was All-American Chili.

Anne & Gilbert brought some jalapeno corn bread over.  It was delicious!  We also made roasted root vegetables.

Our Hokie friends Anne & Gilbert.

Hokie Victoria and neutral Greg.  (Greg tried to root for OSU so that we were even-numbered, lol.)

And us, Go Buckeyes!

Unfortunately Ohio State lost to VA Tech 35-21.  It was the first time Ohio State lost a home opener since 1978!  At least we had cake to console ourselves!  Regardless, food + foodball + friends is always a winning combination!