This converted hardware store has my favorite breakfast in town. And this is no irrational obsession. Sun In My Belly seems to do everything right, from the mason jars on the table to the warm and cozy design of the room to the Boursin cheese in the scrambled eggs. Everything about the place is thoughtful.

Here it is: the Kirkwood breakfast. Scrambled eggs with Boursin cheese, thick and sweet honey glazed bacon, and a biscuit with butter and jelly. Perfection. Putting the jelly and the butter in the little spoons is a nice little touch.

Ben had the daily omelette special – bbq pork.

Their holiday decorations were beautiful and simple. This giant branch was suspended from the ceiling over our heads. It had fabric leaves and gold ornaments dangling from invisible filament. Lovely.

I love these old lockers in the sitting area. I need some of these to put things in.

Colored lights, holiday traffic, and that dreadful (ED. NOTE: awesome) song, Must be Santa leave me feeling crazed and exhausted. One Kirkwood breakfast enjoyed in Sun In My Belly’s thoughtfully designed and wonderfully cozy space and I’m back on track, ready to jab elbows with the best of them at Lenox Mall.

These guys know how to cook a bird. And the sides are top-notch. Eliza had green beans and mac-and-cheese.

Their fried okra is one of my faves.

Chef Scott Serpas was previously at Two Urban Licks, the popular Atlanta restaurant with the awful name and (as I recall) pretty great food. His new restaurant, located in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward, has the same lofty feel that Two Urban Licks had.

I decided to have the burger because I was recovering from a case of the stomach flu and wanted some comfort food. It was fine, but I think I’m done ordering burgers at fancy restaurants. Putting burgers on the menu is trendy and always hard for me to resist, but it doesn’t always work out for me. I need to take advantage of fancy restaurants by ordering fancy things.

Eliza had something fancy (jumbo sea scallops with butternut spaghetti squash, panang curry), but I did a half-ass job of shooting it. It looks a little limp in the photo, but she loved it.

This is Eliza savoring her favorite–I’m not exaggerating–her favorite thing to eat. That’s right. More than anything else in the world, Eliza loves veggie burritos from Willy’s in Atlanta. Every time we go back, she insists on eating there twice. It’s an utter mystery to me.

It’s not that Willy’s is bad. It’s just unremarkable. In fact, aren’t all burritos unremarkable? Isn’t a burrito what you get when there’s nothing else around? Isn’t a burrito pretty much the epitome of settling? Here’s the burrito thought process: Well, I didn’t bring lunch to work and I can’t have real Mexican food because there’s nothing near here, and I shouldn’t eat a burger because it’ll put me to sleep, but I need something quick…

…I guess I’ll just get a burrito.

That’s why we get burritos, right? Because there’s nothing else. We’re certainly not excited about it. And when are forced to eat burritos, we get meat on them, right? (Preferably double meat, am I wrong?)

But perhaps on a deeper level, what’s concerning about this is what it says about me. If my wife loves veggie burritos, does she love guys who are like veggie burritos? Does she settle? (I’ve always thought of myself as more of a double cheeseburger.)

But hey, if it puts a shit-eating grin on her face, maybe eating shit isn’t such a bad thing after all.

On Jeff’s recommendation, Eliza got the country ham and cheese sandwich.

I had the creamed spinach with corn cakes and poached eggs. I like eating poached eggs because when they’re placed in front of me, they tremble. They know what’s coming.

Our first stop was Atlanta, where Jeff and Elizabeth kindly let us take over their house for a few days. These guys were our roommates.

Josie:

Marvin:

And here’s Peabody, showing my kind of Christmas spirit:

Unfortunately, despite the fact that Peabody and I have at least a few things in common (a healthy appetite, cat-like reflexes), I am allergic to his kind. So when Jeff and Elizabeth got back into town, Eliza and I checked in to the Decatur Holiday Inn. As you can see, they have pretty high standards there. Some hotels will put anyone in charge of the bar. But at the Decatur Holiday Inn, they equip them with copies of both Bartending for Dummies and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Bartending.

According to Gmail, Facebook, and my dry cleaner, my name is McAllister. The kids at school call me Mrs. McAllister – do you get more married than that? It just seems like such a hassle to get the copies of our marriage certificate and deal with Social Security, the DMV, the bank, American Express, Time Warner, AT&T, etc., etc.

This weekend I slipped up while ordering a burger at Mighty Fine. They asked for my name and I spelled it out as I always do: E-L-I-Z-A. But then the squirrely woman at the counter asked for my last initial. “P,” I replied automatically. Oops. Good thing Ben was there to correct me and remind me that my last name is, in fact, Price because I still haven’t changed it.

Did she really need to ask? How many Elizas could there have been in the joint? It’s not that obscure of a name these days, but it still causes plenty of fast food confusion. When Ben and I first met, a woman at an Atlanta Starbuck’s wrote “Shaliza” on my coffee cup. Ben still calls me that sometimes.

Here is my cup from my latest Atlanta Starbuck’s visit. Is my accent really that thick?

Boiled peanuts made an excellent snack  during the party favor preparation. We stuffed these bags with Peeps, Chic-O-Sticks, Chiclets and a little shredded green paper.

The original Chick helped out with the confetti cutting.

The spread at Melana’s house.

Mother’s legendary deviled eggs.

After the baby shower and the Anti-Baby-Shower-He-Man party the boys had, we had some fun trying out Baby Chick’s new loot on Cleo, the aging and attention-starved kitty.

I usually delight in bringing visitors to Austin’s Caffe Medici, which serves espresso that rivals any cafe’s in the world. So I was at least a little skeptical when brother-in-law Matt told us about some expensive machine called “The Clover” at their local coffee shop. According to Matt, it used some sort of space-aged pressure system to brew the perfect cup of coffee.

Of course, I shouldn’t have doubted him. I’d had Batdorf & Bronson’s coffee before, both at the Dancing Goats coffee shop (also on Matt’s advice) and at Star Provisions. I remember it being great, and even being disappointed once I got home and was unable to match it. But maybe my memory didn’t actually serve me well, I thought. Maybe my tastes were so refined now as to render previous judgments irrelevant.

How wrong I was. In terms of brewed (non-espresso) coffee, it was definitely one of the best cups I’ve ever tasted.

The Clover in action. It’s sort of like an upside-down french press.

After the brewing time is up, the barista clears this little hockey puck of grounds with a squeegee. What a time to be alive.

Here I am with my older sister Margaret.  You can’t tell from the photo, but she’s got a little bun in the oven scheduled to make her debut at the end of October.

Everything we ate was delicious, especially the lardo (pure pig fat, cured in salt and spices), gnocchi with veggies from Elizabeth’s garden, and phatty cakes (a layer of fluffy marshmallow sandwiched between two chewy molasses cookies).

We topped it all off with blueberry, lemon, and rhubarb popsicles.  And I loved the vintage cocktail glasses.