wendy’s birthday weekend
for wendy’s birthday we spent the weekend in asheville and brevard, going to all the old favourites. friday night we ate at la paz and i (wendy) realized i’ve been ordering the same thing for 7 years. i had another friday night migraine after dinner, but recovered for saturday.
we headed to brevard on saturday so i could take zeke to my favourite places from my college years. although i’ve been in chapel hill for over 5 years, and in school for part of it, brevard will always be my college town.
first we went to one of my favourite bakeries ever bracken mountain bakery in downtown brevard. i got a chocolate croissant, of course, and zeke got an orange-glazed cinnamon bun. mmmm
then we went next door to d.d. bullwinkel’s and rocky’s soda shoppe to browse and find unique candies. i always loved the old-timey feel of these shops, and i remembered going with my college roomate to hang out there, and getting milkshakes with the physics professor who led our freshman group. zeke and i ended up getting black jack, clove, and beeman’s chewing gum to try. i love licorice, but these really are strange flavors for gum.
after trying the gum we walked to the corner where the “coolest toy store on the planet”, O.P. Taylor’s is. we had a blast doing make-your-own pixie sticks (the tubes of flavored sugar), spotting all the harry potter stuff, and they even had stuffed animals of brevard’s legendary white squirrels. i used to pop in this store for laughs on rainy days, and the owner is almost always there in his colorful propeller hat.
in the afternoon we walked down to the hobnob, a restaurant i have great memories of. and like la paz, i’ve been ordering the same soup for about 7 years now, but my fried goat cheese salad was also excellent. that with a little birthday bubblies al fresco with zeke was the perfect lunch.
after we went to saturday night service at my old church on the way back to asheville, we headed to the grove park inn’s restaurant on the sunset terrace for a nice dinner. our meals were great, and the server was very helpful in finding vegetarian options for me. i also tried my first manhattan, which may be a new favourite. zeke stuck with an interesting variation on the arnold palmer.
on sunday morning we had a great brunch at tupelo honey in downtown asheville. it was so crowded we had to wait an hour and a half! but we were really excited about this place so we munched on a cliff bar and strolled around outside. the food was worth it, and we were perfectly timed to miss the big storm that came through.
zeke convinced me to try some of the pixie stick we made. he loves to see me try sour things because i can hardly stand it and my face shrinks up from the sheer agony my tastebuds are in.
