Good morning and Happy Monday!

I am writing to you in real time, meaning it’s Monday morning and I am coming down from one of those Really Good Weekend Highs.  It was the perfect blend of friend time, Luis time, exercise time (I need it to stay sane), and a lot of food.  I’m already looking forward to the next one 😉

THURSDAY

Last week was a strange week since it was a holiday on Thursday, meaning Luis was home and it felt like the beginning of a long weekend.  We were able to go for a run and then have this epic fall lunch.  Look at the colors!

That night, I had a tour and so it also still felt like a regualr Thursday.

FRIDAY

On Friday, Luis was back at work and I was back in the kitchen recipe testing for Bruja’s Bakery.  Luis and I have been toying with the idea of making the bagels bigger, so we did a little test….

And “a little bigger” is probably an understatement!  They’re HUGE, and much to my surprise, Instagram fam says they shouldn’t be so large.  Noted!  We also did some recipe testing for chcolate bagels and green bagels.

We still need to work on the actual flavor, but I love the colors!  It got me thinking of all of the possibily for rainbow bagels, even though I’ve always said I would NEVER make rainbow bagels #lol

So anyway, back to Friday.  In between baking a ton of bagels… and pies!…

… My friend Sarah came over for lunch.  We ate salads on the terrace and then chatted for awhile before heading to Lavapiés to get our nails done and for me to quickly deliver bagels.  Unfortunately, my nail girl didn’t have time to see me, so Sarah and I parted ways and I went up to Ruben Dario to meet Luis after work.

It’s so funny how over 3 years ago, I was walking down that same path to go to his office, as his teacher.  Strange.

So once he left work, we headed to Casa Dani for some tortilla and beers while listening to some obnoxious men speaking incredibly loudly.

But the tortilla was great, as always.  We quickly picked up some lamps that Luis had ordered, dropped them off at home, he got changed, and then we headed back out.  We tried AGAIN to go to Sala de Despiece, but AGAIN, there was a line out the door… a line that was not moving.  Maybe the third time will be the charm?  Because that place is insane…  Instead, we had a couple of beers before ending up at Mercado de Chamberí.  I want to write a post on the best markets in Madrid because there are SO MANY cool ones!  Mercado Chamberí doesn’t get a lot of attention, but it was really nice and we found, what quite possibly could be, the best burger in Madrid.

It was from Juancho’s BBQ in the market (and it’s their truffle burger) and oh my gosh, amazing.

SATURDAY

The next morning, I was more than ready for a good sweat, but first, a hearty breakfast:

 

While Luis went to help a friend move, I went for a long run (and stole his headphones…)

I ran all the way to Lavapiés (about 40 minutes), while listening to podcasts and music.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day and everybody and their mother was out and about and I just kept thinking about how much I love Madrid.  It’s such a great city- the restaurants, the weather, the art exhibits, the street festivals, the transportation.  So much to be grateful for!

So why did I run to Lavapiés?  To get my nails done!  They were lookin’ wayyyy ratchet, so I needed to see my girl in LP.  She wasn’t busy, so I left a new person (and yes, I was sweating during my manicure lol).

I didn’t want to run all the way back, so I grabbed a Madrid Bici bike and biked 25 ish minutes back.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, sign up for Madrid Bici!!  It’s the BEST way to get around Madrid.

The rest of Saturday included lunch with Luis’ family (his mom made lentils, which were so filling I could hardly eat anything else, and then beef filets, meatballs in tomato sauce, wild rice, and these little salmon/tomato pinxos).  Needless to say, I was stuffed.  After lunch, Luis ad I went to the supermarket and then spent the evening watching Homeland!  We watched 3 episodes and I kept saying we could have easily stayed up all night watching it.  Darn Netflix and your ability to automatically play TV shows before you have a chance to exit!!  Works every time…

SUNDAY

On Sunday, our only plans were to exercise and to explore Madrid/ “do research”… this is what we call it when we want to eat out haha.  We ran from Bernebeu to the center of Madrid and stumbled upon this party happening on Fuencarral.  It was a kid’s event and it was so cute… there were little kids everywhere and I especially enjoyed watching these kids on their bikes.  They looked like drunk drivers hahaha

After watching the drunk drivers, we stopped for brunch in Abolea, a place that opened about a year ago.  Luis frequents this spot for lunch during the week, but we wanted to give it a try because they have a bagel on the menu.

The bagel was decent, but nothing to write home about (which made me happy…. how often do you go to a restaurant and hope the food is mediocre?).  More than the food, we enjoyed analyzing the different parts of the restaurant, including their staff, decorations, set up, etc, because we could compare it to what I am learning in my class.  Interesting stuff!  Luis tried the Eggs Benedict (which came with an English muffin, but was served on sliced sweet potato).

And we shared this Acaí bowl, which was decent, but again- nothing to write home about.

Want to see a gross picture of me eating?  Ok.

After brunch, we walked around for awhile before grabbing bikes and biking to Salamanca.  We wanted to get a coffee at Religion Coffee, but decided to find a place that had good cake options.  We headed to Honest Greens and oh my gosh…. I think I found my new favorite cake in Madrid.  Not only was it rice and creamy and chocolatey, but it was PLANT BASED!  And had no refined added sugars!

Yuuuummmmmmmmmmmmy.

Sunday evening/ night included working on upcoming Facebook and Instagram posts, doing a little work for school, laundry, cleaning the house up, making dinner (sauteed squash with mushrooms and onions and garlic and kale and spinach and then add gnocchi and pesto) and then two more episodes of Homeland, which were so good.  Can’t. Get. Enough!