Warming Up for Christmas

Last weekend we prepared for Christmas by celebrating the holidays with friends and eating way too much.  On Friday night, Ryan and I went to the Arvada Beer Company in Olde Town Arvada.  It seems like we've been waiting forever for this spot to open up and it finally did so we had to check it out.  They serve only beer that they brew at the facility, but Mannekin Frites is connected so you can walk over and order some Belgian frites to enjoy with your brew, which we did.

The next morning I woke up early to bake cookies as I had a pierogi pinching party/cookie exchange later in the morning.  Pierogies are a Polish type of dumpling that have various fillings; for the past few years I've been attending, Krissy has always provided a potato filling and a cabbage filling.  Pinching pierogies is quite a process.  We have someone that makes the dough, someone that rolls and cuts the dough, a group that pinches the pierogis (i.e. puts filling inside and closes the dumpling) and someone that boils the pinched pierogies.  And of course we were all involved in eating them.  As soon as the first batch was done we were all over there putting melted butter and salt on top of the piping hot dumplings.

Later that evening, we went to Roy and Marlene's for dinner.  Marlene had the house decorated beautifully and she made such delicious food for us.  She also served me my body weight in cookies and coffee. 

What a great day to continue the holiday tradition of pierogi pinching/cookie exchange and to celebrate the holiday with new friends.

The next day we enjoyed a long coffee outing after church with our friends from early service, as we won't see them again before Christmas, and then watched an unfortunate Bronco loss.  Then we headed to the Sherpa House in Golden with Amy and Dion.  The boys got to sit in back with Lily.  They seemed a bit cozy back there.

Golden's downtown is decorated so beautifully for Christmas so I'm really glad we decided to go.  And the Sherpa House was amazing.  The interior is decorated with various Nepalese artifacts and the information about Sherpas.  I really didn't know a lot about Sherpas but they are a Nepalese ethnic group that lives in the Himalayas.  Apparently, they are such renowned mountain people that they are regularly sought out to be mountain climbing guides.  The server suggested I try the daal bhat and the next table over mentioned that they had been to Nepal on a guided climb with Sherpas and they were often served daal bhat for dinner.  My dish came out with all these different items on it and I had no idea what to do!  The server told me to pour three of my containers over my rice and then the other three containers were sides.  As I've mentioned before, I love playing with food!  This was the perfect dish for me!  And it was super delicious.

Ryan was super adventurous and tried yak bindalu.  He seemed to enjoy it so I wanted to have a taste but he orders everything hot and after a test dip of my naan into his sauce I decided it was a little too hot for me to handle.  Anyway, I definitely want to go back to this restaurant and try more Sherpa food...maybe after I go climb some mountain.