Monday, March 11, 2024

Saturday Afternoon

Saturday we decided to have lunch at a local restaurant called BigaLora.


BigaLora’s specialty is pizza. We chose the one called “Agrodolce” which means sweet-and-sour in Italian. It had bits of red sweet-sour-peppery garnish along with house-made sausage, but it was a “white” pizza meaning no tomato sauce, just a nice deeply browned crust. Of course I ordered a Diet Coke.

Before the pizza we had salads, and I particularly liked my beet salad, which had chunks of beets distributed in a mix of arugula, olives, walnuts, goat cheese, red onion, and vinaigrette. I thought the amounts of each ingredient were just right. (Photo from the restaurant’s website.)

In the Mall

After lunch, we decided to walk around the small outdoor mall where the restaurant is located. We looked in the windows of Antrhopologie where I saw a really exaggerated prairie dress with several contrasting flower prints and lacy ruffles. Not like anything they would actually have worn in pioneer days! In fact, more extreme than the “hippie dresses” in that style from the 1970s, when I sewed one or two of them.

Between Antrhopologie and the restaurant is a shop in the chain Sur la Table, which has a wide selection of housewares as well as a classroom where we could see people kneading dough. (Len thought they were probably over-working it.) 

We also checked out the kitchen gadgets, though we have so many that we didn’t feel the impulse to buy any unplanned ones. Len did buy a gadget he had been reading about: a dough whisk (in photo). It’s supposed to make the early stages of mixing a small amount of dough more manageable.

Over the last several months, my blogger friend Elizabeth (at Altered Book Lover) has been slowly posting images of all the cups, mugs, and other drinking vessels, as well as other products, at her local spice and housewares store, and when I saw the big selection at Sur la Table, I decided to do the same.



Cups, Mugs, Carafes, Coffee Pots












NEWS FLASH: 

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates “Flat White”




Shared with Elizabeth.
Photos © 2024 mae sander. 



18 comments:

Jenn Jilks said...

My favourite is the bunny mug!

My name is Erika. said...

I saw that Google header today, and I thought of T day. Your pizza and diet coke sound delicious. And it is fun to see all the mugs, cups and other kitchenware. I'm a sucker for kitchenware so I enjoyed it. Have a super T day and week ahead. hugs-Erika

DVArtist said...

Great post. Hmmm I have never seen a bread whisk. Very interesting. The salad and pizza look soo good. That first photo after the mug tree, I want all the items in that photo. I love the matt black of it. What store is this? We had a great kitchen store here but it was cloesed down about 12 years ago. Thank you for showing all the goodies today.

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

I've never been fond of arugula, but it may be because I planted it and may have let it go too long before I harvested it. You salad looks delicious. I went to BigaLora’s web site and that looks like a wonderful place to eat. I am also a fan of white sauce pizza.

I enjoyed seeing what was offered in the way of cups, mugs, and other drinking utensils at Sur la Table. They seem to be more organized and less willy nilly than The Spice Merchant. I'm sure I would enjoy going there. I especially like the rabbit and tulip mugs. Thanks fr sharing your food and drinks, as well as the merchandise from Sur la Table with us for T this week, dear Mae.

Sharon Madson said...

Neat mugs, but the bunny one is my favorite. Happy T Day.

eileeninmd said...

Hello,
The pizza and salad look delicious!
I have never seen the dough whisk.
I like the bunny mug.
Take care, have a great day!

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

I just read your comment. You asked "Is the roasting done on the same site as the place you shop?" Yes. When they are roasting the coffee, it smells throughout the store, but they also have filters for the smoke. They have been roasting their own coffees since 1985 and I think they have perfected the process. They also make small batches so the coffee is always fresh and never gets old. Lots of people shop there for their coffee. Luckily, mine is "free" because of my funding all the British PBS shows and Antiques Roadshow.



David M. Gascoigne, said...

That’s the kind of place where impulse buying could run rampant!

Iris Flavia said...

That food looks yummy!
No more mugs for me I have enough!!!

craftytrog said...

Mmmm! I love pizza. Not so easy now I'm dairy free, but I've found a reasonable vegan cheese.
Love the bunny mug!

Lori said...

I love a good white pizza and arugula is my all time favorite in a salad. I have a dough whisk and I love it.

Jeanie said...

I know that little plaza! It's a delightful one -- and now a wonderful restaurant too!

Valerie-Jael said...

Wonderful food, snd those coffee pots all look very interesting, especially the first row of black ones. Great to have such a nice place to explore. Happy T Day, hugs, Valerie

CJ Kennedy said...

that pizza and salad sound yummy. We used to have a shop like the one you explored, but it closed many years ago. Too bad because they had a lot of fun and interesting things. Happy T Day

Carola Bartz said...

Your food looks delicious, even though I am not a particular friend of goat cheese. I love Sur la Table and I used to go to the one in my town a lot. Nowadays I go to a locally owned kitchen store that pretty much has the same things minus the glasses and mugs. I prefer to support locally owned stores. However, I got some really good cooking ware from Sur la Table. The wine glasses in the picture look like Schott Zwiesel.

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

Enjoyed the pizza lunch and the window-shopping vicariously. Our small-home lifestyle really tends to keep the shopping sprees down to the necessities but the kitchen display was of interest because we're in the market for new everyday glassware (the non-alcoholic type -- our wine-glass supply is fine). I hate a glass with a thick rim or one that feels heavy. Hard to find what I want! Maybe I need to do more than virtual/vicarious shopping -- that might help )).

Lisca said...

Yummy pizza but I would give the salad a miss. I just can't get used to arugula. It is very en vogue at the moment and every restaurant puts it in their salad. I then have to painstakingly pick them out. (Or if it's mentioned in the menu, ask them to omit it.)
Another fab shop! The gadget is a Danish whisk. I have one and I used it to mix my 'Hermann', a sourdough type cake mix that needed attention and mixing regularly. It worked a treat.
Lisca

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

Oh, the pull of those coffee accessories. My sister is always talking about the charms of a Chemex and my dad gave us one of three Keurig coffeemakers---honestly, I was happy with my simple coffeepot until these new forms were presented to me. Sigh.