Fast Food = Balsamic Strawberry Goat Cheese Panino? That's some Burgerville lovin'.

Remember when the hipster crowd used to say, "For serious"? I can just feel myself reverting back to those days when I think of this sandwich. It was quite a treat. Balsamic-soaked strawberries (to which I am already partial, having made a strawberry-balsamic basil salad recently), arugula, and goat cheese. Pretty dang good.

The tagline for the sandwich is, "Proof that vegetarians aren't crazy." I don't know if we want to be making blanket generalizations, but one thing that is not crazy is Burgerville's new seasonal specials. They already had me with their pumpkins and blackberries and hazelnuts and sweet potatoes. Now they want to up the ante by showcasing a new flavor each month? Dang, Burgerville - stop throwing yourself at me. People will talk.

If I recall correctly, it all started with the rosemary garlic shoestring fries and rosemary chicken sandwich. I thought that was in March, but maybe I missed a month. Then in May, we had asparagus: in a melty provolone and tomato sandwich (which wasn't quiiiiiite as good as it sounds, unfortunately - the provolone was as gooey as ABC gum), and as "golden-fried spears." Now for June, we have strawberry griddle cakes (or something like that), and then this sandwich.

That's it. End post. Wait wait - just one more thing you may not know about Burgerville - they will make ANY of their shake flavors with non-fat frozen yogurt instead! You just have to order it as a smoothie, and listen to make sure that's how they repeat it back to you. My coworker told me about this, and it's true andthey'rereallygoodokaysigningoffforrealnow...

Spumoni! (from Staccato Gelato)

Now granted, the only spumoni experience I have for comparison is that sweet spumoni that comes in the metal mini-goblet thing at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I even found a picture through Google Images confirming that my fond childhood memories of the "metal mini-goblet thing" are accurate. Behold:

"Old Spaghetti Factory: We treat you like mafia royalty."

Photo from blogtown.portlandmercury.com, 3/2008 review of the Old Spaghetti Factory's lunch menu - direct link to the review was taking five minutes to pull up, so I have given up on it. I will try back later to see if I can cite my source properly.

Anyway, I always loved the Spaghetti Factory's spumoni, and I still do. I'm so glad that my parents never told me (or that I never listened when they told me) that the three members of that alluring tri-color swirl were chocolate, cherry, and pistachios. Pistachios - most definitely a member of the nut family, and I declared war on that family around age 12 (Mom?) Pistachios got a brief early childhood exemption from this war because my cool aunt and uncle always had them hanging around, but eventually I lumped them in with all the other nuts I hated. Even now, I won't seek them out although I have no problem with them. But in spumoni, they're another story...

We used our Staccato Gelato 2-for-1 Chinook Book coupon yesterday. I can think of many sweets that I prefer to ice cream/gelato/sorbet, simply because ice cream is cold and hurts my teeth unless I eat it sideways. Staccato Gelato, however, has different flavors every time we go there, which means that while Mike goes to get his ice cream fix, I go to try out new flavors (past winners: Honey Lavender, Mojito, Rose Petal, Thai Iced Tea - yes, I am partial to the girlie foodie flavors. Check out their full list of flavors here, although you'll notice Spumoni isn't even listed, which implies that there may be other sleeper flavors that don't make it onto the official list).

We each got the second-smallest size, which still gets you up to three flavors if you so choose. Mike got Cherry Chocolate Chip, Creamsicle (tasted exactly like an Orange Julius if you ask me - not that I'm complaining), and something else. I got Spumoni, Spumoni, and Spumoni. And since I am writing this post about it, you already know that I loved it. The chocolate - oh so chocolatey - and not too sweet. The cherry - sweet and light, with little candied cherries mixed in every so often. And the pistachio - meaty and delicious.

The picture below is all melty, since we drove home with our gelato. Next time, I'll try to bring the camera along.

YUM! That is all.

Cupcake Rickroll

I'm only posting this because I really, really wanted to put up a link to Becca's recipe for Guinness cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream frosting way back in the day (as in, St. Patrick's Day), but Blogspot was flipping out and wouldn't let me do it for some reason. So I'm doing it now. Make. These. Cupcakes. (And then give them to me!!)

Here's a picture I snatched of one of the cupcakes Becca brought over for us. Soooooo good. So good, that I can't even remember which MST3K episode was on at the time.