Tag big papas restaurant and catering

Birthday, day three: The breakfast gravy with no biscuits

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Today I slept in until nearly 6 a.m., waking only when I heard The Teenager rise and leave the house for her dog walk client. I laid in bed until almost 6:20. To me, that is the ultimate laziness as I usually begin work at 6:30 a.m.

It’s been another delightful birthday day of celebration. I started the morning with breakfast with some of my Stitch Fix crew, with Southern Candy arriving at Big Papa’s early to bestow the table with some decorations.

There were cards and laughter and Southern Candy ordered her regular biscuits and gravy only to discover the biscuits were not biscuits but English muffins. So much commotion ensued of the giggling and carrying on sort, making jokes about what to call biscuits and gravy that does not contain biscuits, because English muffins with gravy sounds gross.

We had a discussion about making our own biscuits and bringing them and comparing making biscuits with shortening versus lard.

I ordered a spinach, green pepper and feta omelet hoping that the vegetables would help heal the damage done by my weekend of caffeine, sugar, fat and grease.

That might be too much to hope for as my blood pressure was 116/96.

The next item on the agenda was to take FURR foster tripod Louise to a meet-and-greet event at the Phillipsburg Petco, where she behaved like a trooper (even if she did spill her litter box so she could hide under it).

I was able to finish the last set of changes to Coffee in the Morning by Larry Sceurman on the laptop while chatting with another FURR volunteer to happens to be the only person I know eagerly and reliably waiting for my next novel.

I came home, cleaned up my room and finished Netflix’s Queen Charlotte, which, as all the Bridgerton tales do, has quite the sentimentality regarding love and relationships.

I also ate a rather large “elephant ear” with The Teenager that Little Dog’s mom had procured.

I’m off to check my blood pressure, take my evening meds, pack a lunch, and decide on dinner. But I just may allow myself a birthday beverage– as my birthday weekend officially launched with a gin gimlet with photography Joan and her other half, Randy.

Naughty girl buys an Apple Watch, series eight (and there will be fun stuff and medical stuff)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

If you visited the Parisian Phoenix blog yesterday, you know I had a busy day and really my weekend has been a buzz of activity. The Teenager cleaned the house in hoping not to kill her cat-allergic Uncle Tom when he came to visit today and help her with her many projects she has planned: a catio, fixing the door, and improving some other animal conditions. Plus, he wanted to meet the ratty rats as his wife had rats while they lived in their apartment.

This morning, I was lying in bed, thinking more and more about the possibility of POTS. It makes sense, but at this point I don’t want to get my hopes up on a diagnosis. I’ve been tracking my eating habits, my symptoms, my heart rate, my sleep, my blood pressure and it’s exhausting.

And I’m on a beta blocker now, so what if the doctors are struggling to diagnose me because they don’t have conclusive data.

I wrote a long email to two of my friends and bared my soul amount my medical concerns and how I felt about this current journey I am on.

And then I found myself on Apple.com, looking at the Apple Watch I picked out for myself to buy as soon as I paid off the computer on which I am typing. And then the Teenager’s car insurance doubled. And I ended up in the hospital. And we had the plumber visit. And a fuel oil delivery. And in the last six weeks every dime of my savings has left.

But I need answers.

And with the new Apple Card, the Apple Watch is only $17/month for a series eight.

I texted Southern Candy. “I’m about to do something impulsive and I need to talk through it.”

We did.

“I think it would be a good investment if it could help you with all of this,” she said.

So I ordered one.

And said I would pick it up at my local Apple Store.

And when I told Gayle she agreed.

I walked down to Big Papas to meet the girls for breakfast– and this time the girls included one of the guys. It was a group of us from the Bizzy Hizzy and we had a great time laughing and eating the entire place including the biggest pancakes I ever saw in my life.

In the afternoon, the teen and I embarked on our adventures. We put gas in the car at the Penn Jersey Mart which finally has gas again after months of needing new tanks. They have an amazing selection of candy, so of course the Teenager went in and bought candy and sodas, because after those massive pancakes I obviously needed more sugar.

We got stuck in a laborious traffic jam on the highway, so we ate candy and chatted. We picked up my watch and headed to Grocery Outlet because The Teen has restricted grocery budget for this week and I got her so much food last time for $80 she wanted me in charge again. This time I came in at $41. And she added on a handful of items (a cake, a meat and cheese platter, and some meat sticks from Tillamook) that added on another $15.

She’s delighted with the results. Especially since she’s never seen a Pepperidge Farm cake and they had several. And I hate to tell her for the 1800th time that her great-grandmother used to always keep one in the freezer and she never quite managed to thaw it all the way, so frozen cake was common.

So we took it home, invited her father and had partially frozen cake in honor of his grandmother.

“Frozen cake is kind of good,” the Teenager decided.

I don’t know if Big Papa’s was ready for us

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

My body seems to have finally adjusted to my beta blockers. My blood pressure has stabilized around 110/70 for about a week now. If I have coffee it goes up to 120/80. I lived on caffeine and sugar yesterday to keep my energy up at The Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group The Write Stuff Conference, which you can read about here.

Today, I have to deliver cats to a Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab “Meet the Cats” event at the Phllipsburg Petco. One of the organizers has a soft spot for my sweet Minerva and all of my fosters are long-termers at this point and need homes. But this means I need to sneak up on Minerva and Louise which is practically impossible.

But Sassy, my friend who recently left Stitch Fix to return to the medical field, texted me yesterday on her birthday to invite me to breakfast this morning. And she said she would call Southern Candy to join us. I was charged with selected a place.

Well, I said, if you don’t mind coming out my way, there’s a place I’ve wanted to try, Big Papa’s Restaurant and Catering in Easton. And so we did.

I ordered the State Theatre breakfast– scrambled eggs, cherry tomatoes, these adoarble square breakfast potatoes, and spinach. They didn’t have avocado. It was listed as also having avocado, but they offered me extra spinach. Sassy ordered The Big Papa Feast with a side of toast. Southern Candy had biscuits and gravy.

Sassy’s breakfast came with French toast and it was a full order of French Toast. She ordered bacon for her meat and it was a massive pile.

And the amount of food they served Southern Candy looked like two breakfasts to me.

The staff was delightful. The decor lovely. The colors and the music a little quirky and upbeat.

And the biscuits and gravy… their effort in making them homemade showed, but Candy said while delicious, their spices in the gravy wasn’t southern. So we’re going back in a few weeks so the chef can make them her way.

And we ended up being silly and doing a fashion show.