Disclaimer: Don’t read this post if you’re hungry. This post is 100% drool inducing food.

Last night Justin and I got to attend the first Atlanta Culinary Tour of Woodstock.

And it was delicious. I also won the tickets so it was free.

Is there anything better than delicious free food? Nope. Not at all.

The first stop on our tour was Ipps, which is a new restaurant from the same people who own Ippolito’s. Oh my heavens. They were the first stop, and hands down the best stop. Here’s the spread…

They started us off with a glass of red sangria and later a glass of white. I must be a bad wife because Justin has never had good sangria before (the horror!). I think he’s a little obsessed with it now. Their sangria is fantastic!

The samples we tried were an eggplant rolentini, a cannoli and one of the best things I’ve EVER eaten called Pepe. It’s a piece of sausage wrapped in dough and cooked with honey and marinara sauce. That honey, oh good gracious. I’m going to need that again soon. Real soon.

The next tour stop was the Foxtale Bookshop. I have a thing for cute, independent bookstores and this one fit the bill. I can’t wait to go back and browse around.

They also had the most quaint bathroom I’ve ever seen. It was so cozy I wanted to curl up with a book. In a bathroom. Weird, I know.

Our next stop was Freight Kitchen and Tap. We’ve actually eaten here before and love that it’s located right next to the railroad tracks. It’s the perfect spot to sit outside and enjoy the pretty weather. I started with a Singapore Sling, which is evidently a cocktail from my parent’s generation. I loved it!

First up on our tasting was a fried green tomato with a bacon aioli (vat of that to-go please!). Enough said.

The star of the show, however, was the braised pork over cheddar grits. Melt-in-your-mouth good. Next time we come, I’ll take whatever braise they’ve got going.

Moving on. Are you full yet? We certainly were but we still had three stops to go! The next stop was Pure Taqueria. Their upstairs patio is the place to be at night. Especially if you have one of their peach margaritas in hand.

They brought us out plates full of calamari, mussels, guacamole, salsa and cheese dip. I could have eaten that cheese dip all night and been a happy girl. What can I say? I’m easy to please.

Last but not least, the final “dinner” food of the night was at Firestone Pizza and Grill. Here we tried a new ceviche dish and their sausage pizza. They also have a great patio that we’re looking forward to visiting again. So many options for places to go!

Finally, for the grand finale we headed to the new cupcake shop, Cupcakelicious. We got to sample their oreo cupcake, birthday cupcake, and a sweet and salty cupcake. To say Justin was obsessed with the oreo one would be an understatement. My guess is we’ll be back this weekend. When he told the owner how much he and I liked the cupcake, he actually referred to me as a “cupcake aficionado”. I think my face turned bright red. Yes, cupcakes are my thing but “aficionado”, I’m not too sure.

There you have it, our tour of Woodstock. The guys leading the tour did a great job and it’s easily worth the money. I mean, look at all we got to do! They also offer tours for other areas of Atlanta so if you’re looking for a fun date night or group outing, check them out! Your stomach will be glad you did.

Find all the tour info { here }.

When I started planning this surprise trip to Raleigh, I would pull up a map and just stare at it for a while. I knew we could take a direct path to Raleigh, but where is the fun in that? I wanted to find THE best places to stop along the way. Enter, Asheville. Remember when I posted the { mashed cauliflower recipe }? Well, I adapted it from this book…

I LOVE this cookbook. It’s a great resource for upscale Southern comfort food. When I saw that we could detour to Asheville, I knew we had to try this place out. I mean, it would have been wrong to miss it. Seriously, wrong. We knew when we first walked in the restaurant that we were going to be happy customers. The place itself had a really neat vibe. They used old screen doors and windows as partitions. I would SO do that if I had a restaurant.

And as if the decor hadn’t already begun to win us over, they brought us a basket of biscuits and homemade blueberry jam. O.M.Gosh. I have a weakness for fluffy, salty biscuits. I’m not a jam girl so I went for the good stuff…Tupelo Honey. Good gracious…

Fluffy biscuits with Blueberry Jam.

These were some of the best biscuits I’ve ever had, which is saying something since just a few weeks ago we went to the Loveless Cafe. The Loveless Cafe supposedly has the best biscuits in the world and let me tell you, Tupelo Cafe gave them a run for their money.

For my main course, I didn’t have much of an option for what to order. As soon as I saw they had fried chicken with a mushroom Marsala sauce, I couldn’t even think of ordering anything else. It was good. Like, so good you don’t want to share. The sauce was rich and creamy and the chicken crunchy and cheesy. Is there anything more you could want in life? The chicken came with a side of mashed cauliflower…the recipe I adapted and put on this site. Justin and I both agreed that we actually liked the texture of my version more. If you haven’t made it yet, you can find the recipe { here }. It’s delicious!

Fried chicken w/ country ham and mushroom Marsala sauce. Side of mashed cauliflower.

Justin ordered a catfish taco with salsa and a lemon aioli. I think we both agreed it was the best fish taco we’ve ever had. Light and fresh, it was a complete opposite of what I ordered. I managed to sneak two bites of his taco and would have eaten more if he wasn’t paying such close attention. Guys can’t hear 100% of what women say, but they can guard a catfish taco like it’s their firstborn child. Go figure.

Catfish taco with salsa and lemon aioli.

The morale of this story is to take a trip to Asheville and eat at the Tupelo Honey Cafe. It’s ridiculously good food that will haunt you for days. Luckily, I have the cookbook and can recreate some of these dishes at home. Tomorrow I’m sharing a recipe inspired by the restaurant. Trust me, you won’t want to miss it! Have you been to Asheville? Do you have a favorite restaurant that you’ll drive two hours just to eat at? I’d love to hear!

This past weekend I surprised Justin with a trip to Raleigh, NC to see Georgia Tech play on his birthday. I’m still not quite sure how I kept it a secret for the past month or so, but I did! He was so shocked, it took him a full five minutes before he even understood what I was telling him. I got him good!

Since we were there for the weekend, we decided to check out the many college campuses that call the area home. The first one, and most beautiful by far, was Duke University. It was so pretty, I was frantically snapping pictures as we drove through the campus, hence the blurriness of a few of the pictures. The architecture of the buildings was absolutely incredible. See for yourself…

Do the pictures remind you of a castle? That’s all I could think about. I would have LOVED to get to snoop around more and see what the insides of the buildings looked like. I’m curious if they match the architecture of the outside, or if they’ve been modernized a bit. On a completely different end of the spectrum, there was the Law building below. It’ so modern! If you look closely, you can see dozens of hanging light fixtures inside. I loved the them and so I snapped a pic.

And the houses. Oh, the houses! I would have jumped at the chance to see inside any of them. I have a deep love for Tudor style houses. They remind me so much of the English countryside. (Sigh.)

And this quaint little house was just too cute to not take a picture. These Duke people really know how to make me want to live here.

Duke has such a pretty campus and I’m so glad we got to do a little exploring! Tomorrow it’s all about the food we ate. We found a couple great hidden gems…one that was decorated like the inside of a genie’s bottle! For a sneak peak, follow me on twitter { here }. What about you guys, do you have a favorite college campus? Do you like to explore college towns?

P.S. Happy Belated Birthday to my amazing husband. I’m so glad I got to surprise you with such a fun trip!