ArcaMax

The Frostiball

The highlight of my week last week was helping a friend do her shopping.

That sounds so unlike me. Except for grocery shopping, I HATE shopping. I am not good at it. I have no patience for shopping. Even if I am shopping for myself I just want to get it over with.

My husband calls me a destination shopper. I do the shopping for just about everything for our household but my behavior is very specific. I have my list. I know which stores I need to go to and get exactly what I want. I walk in, find what I need, pay for it and get back in my car and go to the next place. My research is all done before I go, so if I need a certain brand I know the store has it before I leave my house or office. I often run errands at lunch time and get things done that way.

My friend Pam came into town for a visit. One thing high on her goal list for the weekend was to shop for a ball gown. She’s going to the Frostiball this weekend in Wisconsin. The Frostiball takes place in the capitol rotunda. It will be a beautiful event. Lots of food, dancing, champagne and more.

Pam was perfectly happy if I didn’t want to go shopping with her. She knows it’s not my normal “thing”, but then she said something that hooked me. She just casually mentioned that it would be nice if I’d give my opinion on the dresses. She had me. I was in.

She wanted to go to Nordstrom. My husband loves Nordstrom. We all love Michigan Avenue. So now it was a shopping party of three.

At the store Pam’s first stop was the sale coats. Since she was in the store, why not broaden the shopping list? That would never happen to me, but Pam is a much better shopper than me. I would have made a bee-line for the formalwear. By the time Pam had tried on one coat my husband was already making his plans to go shopping on his own. With the aid of cell phones we could always meet up. Not a problem. Off he went.

Pam tried on lots of coats and came pretty close to buying one or two, but none of them rocked her world so we started the gown hunt. Nordstrom didn’t have much in the way of ball gown candidates. Too much of the formal wear was short and Pam wanted a floor-length gown.

We stopped by a couple of places along Michigan Avenue and eventually came upon Saks Fifth Avenue. We heard from a couple of other Frostiball shoppers that Saks only had gowns that were maybe $7000 marked down to $4000. None of us had the stomach for that kind of investment in a dress but we went in anyway.

Well, we found a department the others didn’t. We just happened to be on the escalator and found a whole floor that had been set aside for sale material. Way off in the distance we could see a rack that was very tall and it looked like it had dresses hanging from the bar. Over we went.

First Pam picked through the dresses for ones she liked. We took about six of them to the dressing room. One by one they got rejected. Rats. Then I just went back out and picked up every dress in Pam’s size. Instead of rejecting them based on preconceived notions we decided that no dress should be turned down until it was on her body. Ball gowns can look so different ON than they do on a hanger. Pam got really good at whipping dresses on and off.

There was one that Pam had rejected in the beginning because the mocha/chocolate color was very different and it had an empire waist. Pam has not had much success with empire waists so it stayed on the rack until I ventured out and brought them all back. So she tried it on.

That dress looked like it was made for her. Just beautiful. The only part that was a problem was it was too long. We decided she could get it tailored at home so we snatched it up.

The deal was amazing. I won’t reveal exactly how much she spent. Pam is an amazing deal finder and this one was 71% off! She was more than a tad happy.

Then we had the most amazing experience finding her a totally cool pair of shoes to go with the dress. Pam’s pile of rejected shoes covered the area of a small island. So many shoes were either uncomfortable, impractical or just plain the wrong color to go with the dress… until she tried on the winner. She looked like Cinderella in those slippers and they were going to be great for dancing! Yahoo!

Pam’s shopping trip was a success and I stuck with it for the whole time. My feet hurt a bit by the end but I felt like I had invested my time wisely and had a grand time with my friend whom I have missed so much.

I’m dreaming today about how beautiful she’s going to look at The Frostiball.

Nothing makes a woman’s day like feeling pretty in a fancy dress.

Zola Burgers
The back story of these burgers is there was once a restaurant in Chicago named Hillary’s. Hillary’s was located in Water Tower (a shopping center) on Michigan Avenue. We used to go to Hillarys fairly often. I loved their Hillary Burger. Hillary’s closed so I was faced with trying to figure out what was IN a Hillary burger or go without them forever. I think I did a pretty good job of figuring it out. And now I’m sharing this burger with Zola Dieters worldwide.

So, that’s why it’s now called The Zola Burger. These burgers are ultra-easy to make. You can even form patties and freeze them for later grilling or grill a bunch at once so you can have leftovers for food you can transport to the office and re-heat. Don’t be put off if you are not normally a cumin fan. These burgers have a wonderful flavor.
Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 lb of ground sirloin

1 tsp of cumin

1 tsp of garlic powder

1/2 of a red bell pepper minced

1/2 tsp of black pepper

Celery salt

In a large bowl plop in your ground sirloin. Add the cumin, garlic powder, black pepper and the minced red pepper. Mix thoroughly with your hands and form into 4 patties. Sprinkle celery salt to taste on top of the patties.

Take out your grill pan. Lightly spray with a bit of olive oil. Grill the first side on Medium High until you get some good grill marks. Then flip over and cook the other side on medium until it gets to the doneness level you like.

Cheers
Enjoy,
Zola

Send email to Zola at zolacooks@gmail.com.