Pairings

I was at my friend's new shop yesterday, Sugarpill.  A truly lovely little spot here on Capitol Hill....herbs, salts, chocolate, bitters, (I got the Blackstrap bitters and Karyn jotted down a cocktail recipe for a gin flip using said bitters and the drink was amazing...thanks, Karyn!) sweet perfumes, local honey, caramel, jam,  soaps, so many sweet little things.  She was asking about what I was doing with the blog and I shared with her it was writing a business plan month...and I kept talking about my leftover pork sandwich.  I don't know how it happened, oh yeah, she said maybe I should make one month about pulled pork sandwiches, and I said that maybe if next month (Tai chi) gets boring I'd add that in.  And then she said...I could create activity "pairings" on the blog, since everyone is into pairing different foods and drinks together these days.  Tai chi and pork.  I kinda love it.

The card Jamie gave me for our anniversary

Relationships are another kind of pairing.  Friendships, marriages, family, business partners.  The older I get I learn more and more and more about how I pair with different people, or how I don't.  How what I bring to the table...maybe bitter, but sometimes sweet, and usually bubbly; how that goes with maybe someone else's flavor, if you will.  I find there is an intuitive thing that happens right upon walking into a room, when you know if you will be a good pairing.  At least that is how it works for me.  Usually.  I have just been thinking a lot about relationships lately.  How we blend together as humans, and sometimes repel each other....and even with the same two people some days can be the best bite of steak you ever had followed by a sip of perfect red wine, and other days can be like milk and sushi (that would be gross.)  I am so grateful for all the relationships,  I have in my life, how they ebb and flow.  They are like the mayonnaise of my life, they go with everything.

And then the "pairing" comes up again when I think of this blog.  Something about doing it with someone else brings so much to the experience.  I couldn't imagine doing it alone, and in fact, when Dina moved away and was blogging less...I felt that loss, I missed having my partner.  And on the other side of that, I think more than two would be too much.  Too many cooks in the kitchen, isn't that the saying?  I love, love, love having Amy be a part of this blog.  I do believe we pair well together.   Like pop-rocks and fun-dip.

So here are some of my first brainstorming ideas on the activity pairings for the blog:
tai chi & pork
mushroom foraging & LSD
poker & praying
bowling & white russians (come on, I had to)
memorizing a poem & mozzarella cheese sticks
hiking & soft pretzels

more to come.  any other ideas???  Please share...

enjoy the sun, if you're in Seattle
-melissa

oh and PS...FYI the vegetables on the blog did have to do with our original business plan, but probably not so much with the actual one we have ended up with.