A New Favorite? Sabbath Coffee Roasters

March 9, 20242024, Clawson, Food, Michigancoffee, sabbathCadyLy

Since we moved away from Tallahassee, we have been searching for a local coffee shop that is comparable to our beloved Lucky Goat. We love Lucky Goat because they have great coffee and make the creamiest lattes that we’ve found anywhere. (Plus, they get some delicious pistachio muffins from a local bakery that are AMAZING, but that’s another story and another quest.) They also are the best foam artists that we’ve found, always giving us our caffeinated delights with a cute image on top.

We have found some good places, like Birmingham Roast and Kahve, but were still seeking out that elusive creaminess. When we went to Kahve, we had initially found both it and Sabbath Coffee Roasters, located quite close to each other on different corners of 14 Mile Rd and Main St. However, at the time, Sabbath had a long line out the door, so we decided to try Kahve first.

Today, after our brunch at Biscuits and Gravy, we decided to give Sabbath another try and grab a coffee to go before Donald had to start work. As soon as we pulled up, we saw a sign on the door alerting customers to continue the line outside – a clear indication that they frequently have more customers than can fit inside the store.

Upon entering, we saw that it was a very small space. You could only fit maybe 3-4 people in line in front of the counter before you hit the front door, and there was no indoor seating for you to enjoy your coffee (although, there was an alley with some outdoor seating available immediately adjacent to the shop). This area looks like it would make a really cute Instagram spot when the twinkle lights are lit at night. It appears to be part of a historical area, with a plaque on the outside of the shop’s building.

Inside, Sabbath is interestingly decorated with a variety of skeletons (including a skeleton dachshund!) and dinosaurs.

They have a small cold case in the lobby area with some Liquid Death water and their own branded Nitro Cold Brew.

We took home with us a bag of coffee beans: Liturgy, which is supposed to have notes of plum, milk chocolate, and açai berry. As for the coffee selections, Donald tried their Hot Pot of Gold and I tried a Honey Cinnamon Latte. They were as creamy as we had been hoping for! We may just have found our new favorite coffee spot! We didn’t take a look at the coffees before we traveled home with them, but even after a car ride, you can still see my heart and Donald’s leaf.

If you have any other great coffee shop recommendations, please send them our way!

— Jenn & Donald

Trying Out a New (To Us) Brunch Spot: Biscuits and Gravy

March 9, 20242024, Clawson, Exciting Adventures of the Everyday, Food, Michigan, Weekendsbiscuits-and-gravy, breakfast, cooking, food, recipeCadyLy

The white building with the large chicken on the roof is a familiar sight to those who live near Clawson, MI. It has been a few different restaurants, but most recently it has been renovated into a very popular brunch destination called Biscuits and Gravy.

Google Maps showing Biscuits and Gravy just north of Clawson's downtown area

Given that it’s located just steps from downtown, the restaurant’s footprint is a bit small – both inside and out. The parking lot fits almost exactly the number of cars that the dining tables can accommodate, meaning that if there is a wait for a table, you may also encounter a wait for a parking space. That said, the staff does a great job of managing turnover, and we only had to wait a few minutes for a table.

While cozy, the dining area had a light and airy decor, with touches of (fake) greenery throughout. The tables were well-spaced and the seating was more comfortable than most. We were greeted by coffee served in small mugs, which was clearly a deliberate decision meant to keep our coffee fresh and hot at all times. The servers were constantly circulating to refill mugs and replenish our supplies of creamer and sugar, without us having to ask for a thing!

Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs as we ordered the Big Breakfast, Meat Lovers Omelette, and the titular Biscuits and Gravy. The plates came out of the kitchen heaping with deliciousness! The bacon was extra crispy the way we like it, the grits were yummy, and surprisingly, they even managed to elevate the toast, which was light and crispy with the perfect butter taste!

The only, super minor, quibble that I had was, unfortunately, with the biscuits and gravy. It’s one of my favorite comfort breakfast foods, so I order it a lot in various locations. This version fell a bit short in my estimation, in comparison to the robust, seasoned offerings familiar to true Southern kitchens. However, this was just my opinion. Donald, our “true Southern boy,” delighted in their version, praising the biscuits for their homemade, old-fashioned quality akin to cornbread. I have to admit, those were the largest biscuits I’ve ever seen served with an order of biscuits and gravy! For just $1 more, you get two instead of one, so you can’t go wrong with ordering the set and splitting with your table mate!

Overall, we loved our experience at Biscuits and Gravy and plan on making a lot of return visits. We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of their menu, but our bellies are already excited!

Happy Saturday!
— Jenn & Donald

Tapping That in the Great Outdoors!

February 24, 20242024, Adventures with Donald, Exciting Adventures of the Everyday, Michigan, Nature and the Great Outdoors, Troymaple-syrup, maple-tree, winterCadyLy

Every year the Stage Nature Center in our city offers a Rent-A-Maple program, where — for a small fee — you can have a maple tree on the property tapped in your name. Last year, we just donated to the program and had our name on a tree, but didn’t sign up in time to do the tapping ourselves. This year, we put it on our calendar and signed up as soon as we were able!

Even though Donald has to work on Saturday afternoons, we figured that we could fit this into our morning. We made sure not to sleep in, had our coffee, and Donald made us eggs and toast for breakfast. Once we were fed and ready, we set out into the sunshine, blue skies, and cold weather (below freezing)!

We were met at the door by some of the Stage Nature Center docents/volunteers and quickly found our guides for the event. I was so surprised to see Sarah there! She was in training as one of the guides and happened to be assigned to Donald and me!

As we went from the main building to the staging area outside, our guide, Danielle, kept reminding us that we needed to get a bucket and a lid. Apparently, it was a common thing to forget, and they didn’t want to have to walk all the way to our tree, just to have to backtrack to pick up the bucket that our tree sap would collect in.

Donald made sure to grab them, and then commented on how he could use them to make himself some Mandalorian armor.

Once we found our tree (which already had a tag on it with our names), Danielle showed us how to use a brace hand crank drill to make a small hole in the tree, angled slightly downward, each of us taking a turn. We then used a nail to get the wood shavings out of the hole and sprayed some water in it. Donald then gently tapped the French cast iron spile into our new hole and I hung our bucket on the spile. Donald put the cover on the bucket and we were good to go!

For a quick outing, it was a lot of fun! We received a little goodie bag with some maple candies, a pint of maple syrup, candles, pancake mix, and a certificate for our “lease” of the maple tree. We grabbed a Starbucks on the way home, my parents stopped by for a visit and a surprise (more on that later!), and then it was time for Donald to start work.

We have another adventure planned for tomorrow, so keep an eye out for another post soon!

Happy Saturday from Jenn and Donald!

2024 Project 52

January 3, 20242024, Photography, Project 52CadyLy

Several years ago, my friend, Stacy, started a Project 52 group on Facebook, where we would have a prompt a week and take a photo to fulfill the prompt. It helped us work on our photography skills and encouraged us to get out there and take more photos.

This year, I’m thinking about revitalizing this area of my interests and think that another Project 52 would be fun to do. (And just maybe I can convince Donald to join me, so I’m not doing this alone! Also, please join us!)

I will be using the prompts from 365 Project. I will try to make a graphic for the year’s prompts, but for this week it is: New.

Morning Coffee in Clawson!

September 30, 20232023, Adventures with Donald, Clawson, Food, Michigancafe, coffee, latte, pastriesCadyLy

These have been some beautiful days in Michigan, and this weekend looks to be more of that: temperatures in the mid to high 70s and sunny. Donald and I have been feeling like getting away, so we looked up flights and various places we could go. We *almost* booked a flight to Orlando or Denver, but eventually decided to wait until we had a 3 day weekend. We thought about going up north to the Traverse City area, but it looks like next weekend may be peak fall color, so we are tentatively earmarking next weekend for that trip.

While he worked his afternoon shift on Friday, I spent my evening dreaming up possibilities. By the end of the night, I didn’t have anything concrete in mind – with one exception. I wanted to have a leisurely early morning with Donald at a local cafe enjoying a latte and some pastries. We are always looking for a local coffee place that reminds us of Lucky Goat or Black Dog (some of our favorite coffee shops from Tallahassee). This morning, we searched and found two candidates, both in Clawson: Sabbath and Kahve.

We initially went to try Sabbath first, but there was a line out the door. Popularity is a great indicator of a place’s appeal, but we didn’t feel up to the wait or the crowd. Luckily, Kahve is less than a block away on the other side of Main St. We were able to find on-street parking quickly.

It was already a gorgeous morning. We took a moment to take in the cute downtown area. Clawson has a lot of charm for a small city.

Walking in, the cafe was really cozy with armchairs and a sofa in addition to the traditional table and chairs. It is decorated in a Mexican/South American theme with art and textiles on the walls and vases of fresh flowers scattered throughout.

Donald and I shared the cheese croissant and pumpkin muffin. I had a raspberry white mocha, and he enjoyed a cinnamon vanilla latte. After finishing our drinks, Donald wanted something cool, so we shared a mango smoothie. All of it was delicious! That mango smoothie… heaven!

Of course, I spent a majority of my time photographing the flowers, but we also looked briefly at what we might want to do today. Donald was excited to get a jump on my mom and be the first one to text “Good morning!” She noted that Clawson was having a fall festival today that she might like to go to. We just know that with the weather so beautiful, we would like to spend some time outdoors today.

I hope you have a fantastic day as well! Please let us know what adventures you find yourself in this weekend!

— Jenn & Donald

First NFL Game of the Season!

September 7, 20232023, footballDetroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs, NFL Fantasy FootballCadyLy

For the second year, Donald and I have joined the NFL Fantasy Football league with some of my coworkers. It makes the football season so much more enjoyable. To be fair, we probably wouldn’t watch more than a few games here and there if left to ourselves; however, I am very competitive, so the Fantasy league is just the incentive I need to get fully invested in the games. And, I’m sure, having an enthusiastic partner makes watching the games a lot more enjoyable for Donald as well!

Tuesday evening was our Draft, and we got rated a “B” in our selections. I feel pretty good about that! Jarrod reminded us 15 minutes before the rosters locked down, so I was able to switch out our kicker to make sure that we had at least one player in tonight’s game. Right before the game, Donald and I were out getting Starbucks and take-out Japanese, and barely made it back home before kickoff.

This is an exciting game for us, with Kansas City being the reigning Super Bowl champs and hosting the game, and Detroit being our home town team. We’re rooting for the underdog Lions. As I’m writing this paragraph, we have 1:47 on the clock in the 4th quarter and the Lions are up by 1: 21 to 20. My boss has already called it – Lions are going to the Super Bowl!

I wonder if we can get tickets to a home game sometime this year?

Current Kindle Unlimited Books

August 25, 20232023, readingCadyLy

You can borrow quite a few Kindle books from Kindle Unlimited … BUT only 25 at a time. Or, well, 25 slots at a time (if you borrow a title and it has an audiobook component as well, it counts for two slots). Right now, I have saved/borrowed my max amount, which comes out to 22 titles.

My reading genres are all over the place! I don’t even remember any longer why I borrowed some of these titles, and to be honest, I have a zillion books in my Kindle account and on my TBR on Goodreads.

I’m hoping that by calling attention to them, I’ll be more motivated to start working my way through them. Plus, I find it helpful to see the covers somewhere. I’m very much a mood reader and seeing the covers makes it more enticing to read the novel vs. seeing a list of titles.

Of these books, the one I am reading right now is Love Lettering. In this book, a hand-letterer who makes custom journals and planners (sounds like someone from the Planners Gone Wild community!) “accidentally” puts a hidden message in a couple’s wedding announcement, indicating that the relationship won’t last. About a year later, the intended groom comes back and confronts her about the hidden message. As it turns out, he never got married. I picked this one mostly because the main character was a planner girl and did hand-lettering and that made me think about my friend, Cindy Guentert-Baldo and my other friends from PGW.

That (and, apparently 16 other books) are what I’m working through right now. As for you, do you use Kindle Unlimited? What are some titles on your TBR?

Troy Farmers Market Goodies!

July 14, 20232023, Adventures with Donald, Exciting Adventures of the Everyday, Food, Michigan, Troy, WeekdaysCadyLy

In the summer, Troy hosts a small farmers market near the Civic Center on Fridays from 11 am – 3 pm.

Since this was one of Donald’s days off, we stopped by on my lunch break.

We came home with a veggie peeler and grocery bag we won from a spin-the-wheel game, pea micro greens fettuccine, sugar snap peas, fresh garlic, a basil plant, and some cookies.

(The purple cauliflower was just pretty. We didn’t take it home with us.) 🙃📸

Recipes: Week of 6/26 to 7/2

July 3, 20232023, Adventures in Cooking, Food, Michigan, TroyCadyLy

I’m at a loss as to the best way to keep track of recipes that I find and that we like. I rarely go on Pinterest, I find it difficult to remember what the recipe was like and if we enjoyed it if I just save a link to a recipe in a Google doc, sometimes recipes are online but sometimes they are in a book or magazine, and I often will make my own tweaks to recipes. How does a girl account for all of this?! (Seriously, if you have a good system, please share!)

Now that our kitchen is (mostly) complete, we are setting up some routines. Generally on Sundays, we will sit down and plan out our meals for the next week. As we go, I will add items that we need to our grocery list on the Kroger app (we found a Kroger that we like, although we still miss Publix). The app lets me see if there are deals on certain brands and clip digital coupons as I place items on my list.

We make sure to add items that we have run out of (milk, creamer, eggs – we are always running out of these!), as well as any snackies that we would like. We try to have our planners/calendars out during this time, so we can accommodate for days where we will be away from home or visiting family, etc. Next, we (lately Donald has been going with me) will go to Mass and stop by the grocery store after (it just makes sense with where things are located for us).

While making out our meal plan, I like to write it all down on a sheet I can post on the fridge. As you can see from this photo, some weeks have a lot of edits to the original plan. 😉

Below is a table of what we actually ate during the week. Probably more for our record-keeping/memories than anything, but feel free to take inspiration if something sounds yummy. 🙂

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Monday	Sausage Croissant	Sandwich, chips & salsa	Chicken Taco Voila
Tuesday	PB Cap’n Crunch	Soup and sandwich	Hawaiian pizza, potato chips & french onion dip
Wednesday	Sausage/Greens/Tomato Omelet	Sandwich	Burritos, chips & salsa
Thursday	IDK	IDK	Spaghetti w/meat sauce, garlic bread
Friday	Eggy	1/2 sandwich	Pepperoni pizza, salad
Saturday	IDK	Burgers, corn, baked beans	Beef stew
Sunday	Pancakes	Salad	Salmon, cheddar broccoli Rice-a-Roni, broccoli

I’ve included links to any recipes I’ve used for that meal, as well as product links, in case you are interested in what brands we used (none of these are sponsored or ads – just what we happened to buy – we don’t get any money if you click on the links).

And, of course, this wouldn’t be one of my blog posts without some gratuitous photos…
Here you go! Yes, I am one of those people who likes to take pictures of my food before eating….