Get excited, kids. It’s time for this year’s Cleveland Magazine Silver Spoon Awards Party!!!

J and I couldn’t be more excited – this will be our fourth year attending – it’s our favorite party of the year!

(source)

The main reason J and I love this event so much is ALL.THE.FOOD.

Here is just a few of what is being offered:

• BonBon Pastry & Cafe: Spice sponge cake with toasted meringue & lavender (omg, seriously?)
• Blue Point Grille: Blue point oysters
• Deagan’s Kitchen (our fave!!!): Chicken paprikash
• Market Garden Brewery: Chorizo potato cheddar pierogi with beer cheese sauce, creme fraiche
• Mama Roberto’s: Cannoli
• The Root Cafe: Ginger & cinnamon sweet potato collard wrap

And much, much, much more! More food than you can ever imagine. More food than you can imagine in your belly. But still manage to put in your belly.

Be sure to wear your stretchy pants that night, kids. (I’m not kidding)

Here are the deets:

• Wednesday, May 15th from 6-9pm
• Intercontinental Hotel on Carnegie Ave.
• Proceeds benefit the local Arthritis Foundation programs in Northeastern Ohio

General admission tickets are $85 and VIP tickets are $135 – which can be purchased online.

OR, you can win a pair of general admission tickets RIGHT HERE!!

Three way to enter:

1. Leave a comment telling me which of the foods I listed above you’ll try FIRST.
2. Follow me, @SilverSpoonCLE, and @ClevelandMag on twitter. And leave me a comment saying so.
3. Tweet “I want to win tickets to eat more food than @heatha262 & @jamursch at @SilverSpoonCLE http://tinyurl.com/bvsxsaj“. And leave me a comment telling me you tweeted. You can tweet once a day until this Thursday, May 9th at 5pm.

I’ll announce the winner on Friday – good luck and hope to see you there!!!

J and I were provided a free pair of tickets to this event, as well as the giveaway tickets – but I stand by this event 100% – it’s the most delicious food in CLE and supports an amazing organization!

Less than 2 weeks until this year’s Silver Spoon Awards Party!

Since we’ve worked our way through the sexy and strong restaurants, I figured we’d go a different route this week with the “elegant list”:

Dante

Blue Point Grille

Pacific East

Umami

They all remind me of a nice night out on the town. Either on a first date, or a date night with your loved one. High heels and flat front khakis.

Alexa is having a giveaway on her blog this week for tickets to the event. You’re not going to want to miss it, so head on over to her blog for a chance to win!

Like I mentioned in my two previous posts, J and I are volunteering at this year’s event, but I was offered 2 tickets for my parents in exchange for blogging. They’re going to love it! And you will, too! Tickets can be purchased here.

We’re one week closer to this year’s Silver Spoon Awards Party!

J is so excited that he is constantly counting down the days. The only other thing I’ve ever seen him this excited about are the craft beer events!

Since I showed you my “sexy list” last week, I figured today I’d go with my second favorite category, the “strong list”:

Angelo’s Pizza

Bubba Q’s

Buckeye Beer Engine

Flip Side

Shinto

These restaurants remind me of a tall, muscle-y, Jersey Shore kind of guy. Not necessarily my type, but definitely something I can appreciate.

I’m most excited to try Flip Side. I have yet to eat there so I can’t wait to see what they bring!

Anyone disagree with my choices??

Like I mentioned last week, J and I are volunteering at this year’s event, but I was offered 2 tickets for my parents in exchange for blogging. I can’t wait to share this experience with my folks. You should join us! Tickets can be purchased here.

One of my most favorite events of the year is coming up next month! J and I are HUGE fans of the Cleveland’s Silver Spoon Awards party! We’ve gone the last 2 years and don’t intend to break that streak this year.

We’re actually volunteering this year and I’m going to do a couple preview posts before the event to hopefully get all you Clevelander’s pumped up about this amazing event!

The Silver Spoon Awards party is a food and wine charitable event that benefits the Arthritis Foundation. It features the Silver Spoon Award-winning restaurants and international wineries all in one place on one night. Besides the silent auction that takes place, the food that is offered is beyond amazing. All the best restaurants in Cleveland?? SIGN ME UP!!

I wouldn’t consider J and I “foodies”, but we do love food (I’ve got the thighs to prove it!). Last year J made it his mission to try all 32 restaurants featured at the event. He managed 24 of the 32. Total fail. I definitely expect more of him this year.

I have a list of the confirmed restaurants (so far!) and broke them up into categories:

• Sexy
• Elegant
• Strong
• Stylish

I can’t help it, I think of restaurants like I do men.

So, this week you get the sexy list:

Michael Symon’s B Spot Burgers

Deagan’s Kitchen & Bar

Paladar

Pearl of the Orient

Blue Point Grille

Clevelanders, what do you think, do you agree with me?

Everyone else, do you have a restaurant in your city you find sexy? Why??

J and I are volunteering at this year’s party so we were provided with 2 tickets to the event. However, I offered to in exchange for blogging I have been provided with 2 additional tickets so I can take my folks. They’ve never been and are going to love it. You should join us, too! Tickets can be purchased here.

Hey there! I totally planned on blogging yesterday but my mom and I took a spontaneous trip to Chicago to visit my sis this past weekend and I was so tired from all the shenanigans that I literally fell asleep on the couch at 8pm. I was so damn tired – I don’t even remember going up to bed?

But my weekend was great! My mom and I decided on Wednesday that we were going to go visit my sister for a girls weekend. We’ve never done a mom/daughter trip so it was nice!

Many good things happened on this trip.

I ran 7 miles on the Lakefront Trail at a 9:03 pace (surprised myself!):

Ate a burrito tarasco from the best mexican restaurant EVER:

Got a $12 manicure (seriously, only $12!):

Ate a funfetti cupcake from Molly’s Cupcakes for dinner:

And ran 3 easy miles with my sis Sunday morning before breakfast:

Was pretty much the perfect weekend.

But I always get a little sad when we leave Chicago, especially when it’s such a short trip like this one was. Luckily I have another trip planned soon (so that C can visit his auntie, too!). We’ll be back soon, Mandy!

What is your favorite city to visit? Do you have family out of town, too?

Today was a great day. It’s about time I’ve had one of these!

Granted, I didn’t get to sweat today, but I did get to walk about a mile! I know that is nothing to mostly everyone, but it is HUGE to me. I’d be lying if I said my ankle wasn’t aching a little bit now, but it felt so good just to walk (with a slight limp, of course – poor Kimi had to walk down Detroit with a gimp!).

Where did we walk?

To Deagan’s!

The inside of the restaurant is very warm and inviting – I love love love the exposed brick.

But I’ve found the food to just be so so for brunch (been there twice). I really need to make it back for Taco Tuesdays because I simply adored the shrimp tacos that were served at the Silver Spoon event!

Since J was out of town this weekend golfing his little heart out:

I thought I’d have a little fun of my own at a little store called Lululemon.

Holy moly, this store is dangerous. For realz. They have so much stuff that’s not offered online!! I somehow managed to only buy one pair of shorts and one tank top, but I will definitely be back.

Luckily the store is on the other side of town or I could be in serious trouble!

Kimi and I also had an intense debate over who is hotter: Mr. Bradley Cooper or Mr. Ryan Reynolds. She already recapped it on her blog – you have to check it out!

How was your Sunday? Did you sweat today? And who would you pick: Brad or Ryan?

My husband has an iron stomach.

Not just with alcohol, but with FOOD. Lots and lots of food.

When Alicia invited me and J to attend the 2011 Silver Spoon Awards at the last minute, we were elated! J may have even done a little dance in our living room.

We had attended last year and knew of the amazing food that would be offered at the event. J even went as far to say he was not going to eat all day so that he’d be ready come Thursday night – hehe.

So, we starved ourselves all day got all prettied up and went downtown to the Marriott Key Center building for this fantastic party.

According to their website:

The 17th Annual Cleveland Magazine Silver Spoon Awards Party, a strolling food and wine tasting event, is one of Cleveland’s finest social and culinary evenings where guests will sample delicious signature dishes from thirty of Northeast Ohio’s best restaurants and eight international wineries. All participating restaurants are 2011 Cleveland Magazine Silver Spoon Award Winners.

Simply amazing. 32 of Cleveland’s best restaurants (and Jay was determined to try all of them).

We didn’t waste any time digging in. Here is a list of what restaurants were there and the ones we tried:

As you can see, J dominated 24 of the 32! Hehe – that’s my boy!

Surprisingly, two of our top three restaurants were the same. And even more surprising, my favorite at Deagans was the spicy shrimp tacos and J’s favorite at Paladar was the fish tacos. Eerily similar.

Alicia remarkably puts this event together every year and we were very excited (and grateful!) to be offered tickets.

Thank you SO MUCH, Alicia, for organizing such a wonderful Cleveland event, and for offering my husband the opportunity to test his stomach capabilities. I think he was happy with end result, though he mentioned that next year he’s determined to eat at all 32!!

What’s your most favorite local restaurant where you live??

Tonight I ate my weight in chocolate.

It was amazing.

And now I need to roll myself into bed. Ugh. TOO.MUCH.FOOD. (but seriously delicious food)

I had the pleasure of attending an awesome CLE event tonight involving lots (and lots!) or amazing Cleveland restaurants (more about this in a later post). But whenever I’m at an event I have a hard time turning down food. A barbecue, birthday party, buffet……I think you get the idea.

And after spending last weekend traveling I really need to get back on track. Like NOW.

So, here’s the plan:

• NO unnecessary snacking (my biggest problem!)
• Smaller afternoon snack – lately it’s been getting out of hand
• No eating after dinner – kitchen is CLOSED
• Focus on fresh fruits and veggies

I don’t necessarily eat foods that are BAD for me. I just eat too many of them. I like volume (TWSS!).

A cannoli the size of my head. It was delicious.

I’m hoping to reign the good eating habits back in quickly. I really just want to focus on feeling good. And I do NOT feel good tonight. But, let me tell you – it was totally worth it. Every bite.

What do you do to get back on track? What’s your first step?

Thanks for all the great feedback on my last post! I’m thinking about having something similar every Wednesday. Maybe a workout Wednesday series? Hmmmmm…..something to think about….

But, today I wanted to talk about the 5 food groups in our house. These are not the regulated FDA food groups, trust me.

• Cereal – we should seriously buy stock in Kashi cereal – we eat a TON of it!
• Bread – does bread not make the world go round??
• Protein smoothies – I’ve been on a chocolate/banana/pb kick lately (it used to be strawberry/banana)!
• Roasted veggies – cauliflower, broccoli, green beans, squash, you name it – we LOVE it

And last, and most important……………….ICE CREAM!!!

Yes, I have designated ice cream as our #1 food group. I’m not ashamed. We only live once, people.

We all have our favorite: C likes his on a cone, J likes his in a giant bowl with not too many toppings, and I like mine in a small bowl with peanuts and chocolate sauce on top.

Ice cream is so prominent in our lives that last summer I had to instate a rule that if the boys wanted ice cream then we had to either walk or ride our bikes there, no driving (sadly, that rule didn’t last, but I tried!). This summer the rule is going to be in FULL EFFECT. And I say this because, there’s a new sweet spot in town!!

This new throw back ice cream/candy parlor is opening close enough to our house that I foresee this being a HUGE problem this summer. Heck, it’s going to be a problem as soon as they open this Saturday!

Lucky me, my BBF (best blogger friend), Allison, knows my love of sweets and invited me as her “plus one” to a special media preview of this fantastic shop last Saturday.

The inside is darling and decorated with that old school, 1950′s, classy ice cream parlor:

There are options for everyone!

On the right are pb sandwiches (bacon, marshmallow, nutella, or jelly)! O.M.G.

But my eye was on the ice cream.

Unfortunately I had my invisalign in so I didn’t partake in any of the ice cream tasting, but don’t you worry, you will be seeing plenty of this place in the next few months. There’s even a “Terminal Tower” on the menu (10 scoops!), so maybe it’s time for a new challenge when Mandy comes home??

What’s the #1 food group in your house?? Please tell me we’re not the only ones where sweets reign supreme!!

Wow, you guys sure gave my husband a big head with your comments about the snow heart!! I mean, yes, I agree that he’s pretty fantastic, but all those comments went right to his head. I try and keep him grounded around here. I may have had to bring him down a few notches.

But no more snow hearts today….Instead I want to tell you about one of my favorite Cleveland brunch spots: the Tremont Tap House!

My parents are celebrating their 36th wedding anniversary TODAY(!!), so we treated them to brunch this past Sunday.

The happy couple:

Lookin good, guys!!

J and my dad started the celebration off right:

Sidenote: I still don’t know how J drinks those dark beers – they’re too much for me. But he loves them!

My dad made me take a picture of him since I took one of J. Hehe.

Anyways, onto the food!

I ordered the omelette of the day, which was with poblano peppers, pepperjack cheese, and bacon. I asked for it without bacon and an extra large side of fruit instead of the potatoes.

OMG, this was fantastic. One of the best omelettes I have ever had. Seriously. Check out the peppers and cheese oozing out:

SO. GOOD.

J ordered the waffle with apple compote, pecans, and bacon whipped cream:

Besides for the whipped cream (which was dreamy), he said it was OK. Definitely not worth the $14 we paid for it, but still good. Next time he said he’ll stick to his usual (the chorizo burrito!).

The service is always a little slow at the Taphouse (my mom even got her meal for free since they brought out the wrong order and she ended up having to eat by herself since it took so long to bring her the correct one!), but the food and atmosphere definitely make up for it. We always just make sure we aren’t starving when we go there!

But it was a great way to celebrate my parent’s 36 years of marriage and catch up.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! Love you guys!!!!!

What about you? Do you have a favorite local brunch spot??