Lottery And Food

So what have I been doing since my last post? Not a whole hell of a lot. Ashley and I have a money pot that we got from her grandparents which has a troll-like face and the words "Mad Money" on it. It was almost full and Ashley had the idea of cashing it in for lottery tickets. Last Saturday we did just that. We walked over to the Food Pyramid at 51st and Harvard and bought $20 worth of scratchers and few Powerball/Hot Lotto/etc tickets. We sent close to an hour in the store repeatedly cashing in our winnings and buying more tickets. This was my first experience with OK lottery and I had a lot fun. When on vacation as a kid, my dad would buy scratchers and split them between the two of us. If any of my tickets were winners, I got the winnings. This was one of my favorite things about vacations. We also frequented Good Spirits liquor store a couple times during the night, where I spent way too much on speciality beers (which they have a great selection of by the way). The lotto drawing came and went and alas I'm not a millionaire. All in all a fun day, especially the great chicken Ashley made from our Natural Farms meat bag.

The next day I was at a TRASH tournament at TU, so Ashley and I decided to try out The Collective (well she had already eaten there, but I hadn't). We had the Camelot, the Center of the Universe, and a cup of The Rose Bowl, all of which were great. I really like the nontraditional nature of their sandwiches. They combine things you might not think of combining, but which compliment each other perfectly. I also had a pretty decent latte.

Ashley's mom has been in town the past few days, and yesterday we went to Mershon Catering for a tasting. Mershon is going to be catering our wedding reception and we wanted to get an idea of which foods we wanted. We tried eight different appetizers, all of which looked great, and some of which tasted great too. My favorites were the whiskey shrimp, crab cakes, empanadas, and smoked salmon. I just hope we will end up with enough food for everyone, since we aren't doing a full meal.

Then last night we went out to Al's Bistro, which advertises itself as Mediterranean. I had seen it on 71st a number of times and read a review in Urban Tulsa. When got there around 6:30 the place was pretty empty and that didn't change by the time we left. It also seems that they have changed their menu quite a bit from when the Urban Tulsa folks ate their. There were a lot of items with the qualifier Mediterranean on the menu, but not a whole lot of the traditional Mediterranean items that you might expect to find. I had lamb chops that were decent (the sauce was probably the best part of the dish). Ashley and her mom had Mediterranean chicken and chicken curry respectively. The food was okay, but I would have much rather gone to Market Deli (just west of Yale on 51st).