Of Flowers and Anchorage (Kentucky, not Alaska!)

Fernando (aka hubby) bought me these beautiful red and white roses - for some reason, that's a popular combination in Louisville grocery stores. These are perfect for my desk! I keep looking at them as I'm working at my laptop and they make me smile. They're also an incentive to stay at my desk and be a good little medical writer.

We had an interesting restaurant experience recently at the Village Anchor Pub & Roost in Anchorage, a picturesque suburb of Louisville that's 10 minutes away from our apartment. From the outside, it looks like an unassuming pub in a well-kept building (the refurbished Anchorage train depot). Inside it was hopping! We got the last table because we didn't have a reservation, and we saw them turn away several people who came in soon after us. After a moment of feeling undeservedly smug, we checked out the menu.

Prices were on the steep side for pub fare (the fish and chips and fried chicken entrees were $16 each) and there weren't too many items that sparked my interest. However, I've been meaning to try a Hot Brown since coming to Louisville so this seemed as good a time as any. I can't speak for other Hot Browns but at the Village Anchor, the dish is a very cheesy casserole with lots of bacon and cherry tomatoes. Overall it was quite yummy although you'd never guess it's a sandwich at heart.

More interesting is the quirky vibe of the place, evident in the framed pictures crowding the ceiling instead of the walls. When we asked for the bill, I raised an eyebrow when our waiter plonked down a well-worn romance novel with "pearl" in the title. Nah, I thought, he can't be reading this. He quickly explained that that's how they presented the bill, as a bookmark in an old romance novel. Nice touch. It made me think of this online romance writing contest that I tried my hand at a few years ago. It's amazingly fun to write a romance novel actually! You can be as campy and over-the-top as you want, and let's face it, we could all use a lot more of that in our lives:)