Surprise Lunch Date

One of the things that has kept me sane during my maternity leave is keeping B at his sitter part-time. He asks me most mornings, "I see my friends?" On the days he is scheduled to go, he gets really excited when I say, "Yes," and he hustles off to pick out his clothes. It is nice that I then get the day to cuddle with Cash, nurse in peace, get housework done, and so on. I had no idea how much an almost 3 year old can get in the way and make daily chores impossible. God bless my sitter, Michele.

After I dropped off B this morning I got a phone call from my dad. It was my favorite type of phone call I get from my parents. Basically, asking me if I wanted to accompany him somewhere in exchange for lunch. Sign me up!

His main destination was some pork store (insert joke here). He had been trying to go for weeks, but they have weird hours and each time he had driven the thousands of miles out to Queen Creek it had been closed. He knew for a fact it was open today, and come hell or high water he was going to go.

Before we hit up the elusive pig store we stopped for lunch at the Queen Creek Olive Mill. Um, yum!

It's one of those places that you look at the menu dumbstruck because you could literally eat each and every dish and picking one is like picking your favorite cast member from Jersey Shore. I picked the Kalamata, or the "Pork Shop" Italian.

They also have a store where you can buy all sorts of food, health, and beauty items with their olive oil. Very earthy place filled with organic goodies.

After we ate we headed out for the pig place, which is actually called The Pork Shop (apparently my afternoon had an odd theme). This shop is really just a shack at the front of some farm.
It was cramped and filled with every thrift store pig tchotchke possible, but it smelled divine. Dad was drooling over the snack sticks (real, fresh Slim Jims), fresh cut pork chops, and bratwursts for days. As we were paying he spied the green chile pork burritos and offered to split one with me. (Another reason I love outings with Dad: we eat as the spirit moves us.) We sat at the picnic table outside and nearly died when we bit into the burritos.

There are no words for how delicious this was. I have now added it to the list of items that haunt me at 3am, along with pizzookie from Oregano's and hot wings from Venezia's.

It was one of the best lunch dates I have had in a long time. I really appreciated my Dad dragging me from the house. I could have easily stayed home staring at my Cash-man, lamenting and counting down the seconds until I have to go back to work. Rather, I drowned away my sorrows with lots of pig.