Oh, hello.

I’ve missed you, but I’m coming back soon with an all-new kitchen and camera gear. The jokes and husband remain the same.

After the last time we got together, Scott and I both started new jobs and and took a few months to build a home. Our time together, while always so special, was put on the — get ready for it — back burner. Like cooking. Like when you’re cooking and you put something on the back burner. Because I cook in the videos. You get it, right?

Yeah, you get it.

We designed the kitchen to be camera-friendly, but I was in need of new gear. Enter the Founders’ Grant, an award from my home away from home, Spong and Carmichael Lynch, sister PR and advertising agencies based in Minneapolis and owned by Interpublic Group. The grant, designed to empower an employee to execute a creative idea, was used to purchase video equipment for the blog. The agencies do work with a number of national brands, but, unless otherwise stated, content here is not sponsored or influenced by business relationships I have with those brands.

With the grant, I’ve been able to get a tripod, camera and mic back in the kitchen to again document the goings-on behind the counter. We’ve been filming and getting things ready, including new design work from the talented Whitley Mike.

See you again soon.

Really, I didn’t. I’ve been having issues in the kitchen. Unlike the time all of the appliances made a suicide pact, this time the issues are of the camera variety.

I shoot all of the videos myself, while I’m home alone, except for that one time Scott got home from work early and was my vodka soda taste-tester. That’s a lot of moving a tripod around, balancing an iPad to get close-up shots and holding an iPhone over the stove while I stir. Well, I need a new tripod and a better way to stabilize the iPad, and in my hunt for equipment, I’ve neglected you.

I’ll fix it.

Soon.

Let’s still be friends.

If you're going to spend your loved one's birthday alone in a hotel room in another city, make sure beer and deep-dish pizza can be delivered to your room.

Oh, hello!

It’s me again. Cavan. I’m the guy in every blog. Surely you remember me.

When I travel, I focus on food. Golden Gate Bridge. Gorgeous. Alcatraz. OK. But what do I get to eat before, during and after those things? I appreciate all the wonderful aspects of traveling. I just want to appreciate them while eating.

With that, more on my recent trips to San Francisco and Chicago:

Because I won’t pretend I am a sommelier but am in expert in “Hey! This food tastes good!” I am no stranger to wine tastings. I did not, however, know olive oil tastings existed. So while wandering through Sonoma, I was thrilled we made a stop at Jacuzzi Family Vineyards and The Olive Press. I was also thrilled when an employee explained that while we could dip bread in each olive oil, we were also welcome to just drink each one as well. It was incredible. There was an unexpected range of tastes in the unflavored olive oils. Then we spent a healthy amount of time getting to know the fruit vinegars and flavored olive oils, and olive oil ice cream. We joined the Jacuzzi wine club and recently got our first shipment. But I’m also having a ball trying tomato vinegar on cheese, in Mexican dishes and with eggs.

Staring at the fish-shaped item for vegetarians to confirm it is not fish-shaped fish for fish-eaters.

Like shooting starchy root vegetables in a barrel: As you saw before, we tried a fish-shaped item for vegetarians at a really great find in Chinatown called Lucky Creation. It was made from taro root and, while I’m not honestly sure what fish tastes like, seemed to have the texture spot on. We also tried a gluten sampler, with what I think were takes on sweet and sour pork, sesame chicken and … well, three other types of gluten. The point is, it was delicious enough that we didn’t mind sharing a table with two other groups and squeezing by the staff in their claustrophobia-inducing kitchen to reach the restroom. Any place that can take a pretentious bastard like me, shove me at a table with two other groups, force me to battle claustrophia as I squeeze my way through the narrow kitchen and into the restroom and still have me grinning the entire time because they offer a whole new world of vegetarian options is good in my book. Or my blog, rather. I haven’t written a book. I didn’t want you rushing to Amazon to buy it. Stay here.

Salty! I looked forward to visiting Millennium for my 30th birthday so much that I memorized parts of the menu and couldn’t wait to discuss multiple dishes with our server, only to be passed from a hostess to a bartender to a general manager to a server during the course of our meal and having such terrible service that I was heartbroken. My much anticipated conversations about the seasonal menu and local ingredients were reduced to, “Yeah, well, just order both.” On the bright side, now I know where to go next time I want to taste my own tears.

While I dined on gourmet tacos in Chicago, Scott was back home preparing his version of Bachelor Chow -- nachos (plural).

What taco dreams are made of: While in Chicago, I was able to try Big Star with my friend Leah, who writes Eating With Integrity. Initially, we were told we were on page three of the list and likely wouldn’t get a table at all. The hostess then quickly decided she liked us, led us inside, told two people they’d better move on for the evening, and we got a few seats. Our newfound friend didn’t explain her change of heart, but I’m guessing it’s because Leah is adorably pregnant, and it’s never wise to stand between adorably pregnant women and their $3 gourmet tacos. You know what this means: If you go to Big Star, you have to bring Leah. If you bring some other pregnant friend and don’t get a seat right away, then you know your friend is not adorable and likely won’t make good dinner company anyhow. The highlight of the food: roasted peanuts in long bean tacos! I have never heard of such things. I must have more.

Those were my food adventures. They kept me, and, subsequently, you, from my kitchen. But we’ll get back to it soon, friends. I swear on my tomato vinegar.

I've never been to heaven, but I imagine it has a lot of grapes and looks like this.

Dear Diary,

Where did May go? I went places and I ate some stuff. Observe:

May 11
What I Did: I had a minor surgery. I am OK. Thank you for asking.
What I Ate: Needing comfort food, I asked Scott for a Blizzard from Dairy Queen. I did not know what Dairy Queen until I got to college, the result of parents who knew ahead of time what a food snob I would become.* So I’ve only gone five times in my life. Four of those times, I got the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard. Once, I got the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard. I regret nothing.
What I Drank: Water with painkillers.

My Birthday Cake from Sweets by Natalie Kay!

May 13
What I Did: Scott planned a surprise birthday get-together at Bradstreet Crafthouse!
What I Ate: My friend Natalie, of Sweets by Natalie Kay, made an amazing champagne raspberry cake. It was delicious, as always. Natalie is amazing. Do you need a cake, cookies, cake pop or other form of baked goodness? Of course you do. Now you know where to get the best ones.
What I Drank: Everything Bradstreet has with whisky in it. I know this because I kept asking the server for new takes on whisky cocktails and she said, “You’ve already had everything we have with whisky in it.” I regret nothing.

Fish-shaped item for vegetarians!

May 14-17
What I Did: Scott planned a surprise birthday trip to San Francisco and Sonoma Valley!
What I Drank: This is a trend with my birthdays. We’ve now gone on winery tours in Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota and good old Wine Country. (Sorry, Minnesota, but you were the worst.) At one point during our Iowa tour, we were invited to the winemaker’s cellar to try some very odd flavors (my favorite thing!) like basil wine and garlic wine. My friend Tonya had to suck the wine from the barrels out of a big tube. I found her later eating what she called a new kind of plant in the winemaker’s farm. It was grass. And it was his yard, not a farm. We regret nothing.
Oh, You Were Asking About My Photo of a Fish-Shaped Item: We ate vegetarian fish, made from taro root, at a place called Lucky Creation in Chinatown. I’ll tell you more later. I promise.

Scott's Cake Pops from Sweets by Natalie Kay

May 22-24
What I Did: Then it was time to celebrate Scott’s birthday, so I went on a business trip to Chicago and left him home all alone. Some people might think this is unfair considering how much Scott had just done for my birthday the week before, but Scott is not one of those people. He is kind and caring and selfless and I am a bastard, so we really even each other out!
What Scott Ate: I left Scott birthday gifts while I was gone. We had a birthday cake for a get-together later in the week, but on his actual birthday, he got to feast on dark chocolate raspberry cake pops, again thanks to Sweets by Natalie Kay. I’d go so far as to say that, were there ever a war between cake pops and cake, I might side with cake pops. I’m just so grateful this war has not yet taken place and we can eat both.
What I Ate and Drank: My 50-minute flight to Chicago turned into a 3.5-hour ordeal. I got to the hotel late, ordered deep-dish pizza form Giordano’s (my Orlando and Chicago habit, I suppose) and had beer sent to the room. I’ve never been a member of a royal family, but I imagine it is not dissimilar to how I spent that evening. I regret nothing.

Good News: I ate other things in May. Let’s wait until June to discuss. Highlights:

• Another surgery!
• Attacking squash with a mandolin!
• Bruschetta Gone Asian!
• More birthday cake!
• Big Star in Chicago!
• Sonoma Valley wineries!
• That thing that excites you that will make you come back to read more!

*Also: I was chubby and they were trying to help me out.