I don’t really know the future of this blog in 2013 – or really, in general. But I do know I’m not quite willing to give up on A Serving of Life as a documentation of my life through food. Yet.

So, we went on a trip for New Year’s. It was our way to celebrate one year of marriage. We had a blast. And here’s the rundown:

In general, Charlotte was a wonderful city. It was clean, progressive, lots of art and transplants, great food options and a phenomenal developing craft beer scene. We went over the New Year holiday and as far as weather goes, it was OK. It wasn’t Wisconsin cold, but we did wear winter coats. The public transportation–a train system developed in ’04, I believe–was really convenient; we stayed just a couple of stops from downtown and rode in every day.

One of our favorite parts of the trip was ice skating. They set up a little rink near one of the convention center’s downtown and we took full advantage. We both haven’t ice skated in years and years, but we truly did feel like kids out there on the ice. And no one fell!

One of the first gem’s we stumbled upon was Harvest Moon Grille. On our first full day in the city, we were simply wandering, stopping to read menus in windows. Of course we wanted a good choice, it was our first real meal there. A very nice man stopped us and pointed us in the direction of Harvest Moon Grille, where I had a pulled pork eggs Benedict and Jeff had biscuits and gravy.

A farm-to-table restaurant, Harvest Moon boasted using all local farms within 100 miles of the restaurant. Newspaper articles hung on their walls show big write-ups from the recent DNC National Convention held there and many others.

Needless to say, we did a lot of walking. Walking to see the next block, the next set of restaurants and bars, walking to get to our dinner destination.

It was funny to us that in the midst of all the walking we learned two things: A brewery was very close to our hotel (Mecklenburg) AND there was a smokehouse with the most amazing food every just across the street from our hotel.

McKoy’s not only offered a place to sit and eat after a long day of walking, they also offered much southern hospitality and great food. We shared the smoked pot roast, pork and chicken platter complete with greens and black-eyed peas and mac and cheese. It was so, so, so awesome!

Also on the top of our deliciousness list (no pictured) was the restaurant we ate at for our anniversary, which was Good Food on Montford.

On one day, we decided to head a little bit out of town to the NoDa District. Of course, we hit up both the NoDa brewery, which was very small and family-style COMPLETE WITH two brewery dogs!

Also while in the NoDa area, we stopped at a beer shop Jeff had long been following on Twitter, the Salud Beer Shop. He was in his tiny version of Heaven in that shop. He bonded with the locals while we drank on-tap brews. He had the guys at the store send us a couple of boxes of beers he’d selected while we were there. From the beer shop, we headed to Cabo Fish Taco for a late lunch, after which we learned it was a restaurant featured on Diners Drive-ins and Dives.  We shared the BBQ Mahi tacos and the Wahoo Tacos.

One of my true favorites of being in “the south,” although we decided we’d argue that Charlotte doesn’t feel entirely southern, was the deep fried pickles you could order at nearly every restaurant. The Liberty advertised the best burger in town. Jeff ordered it (and loved it) while I had the brisket sandwich, which was very good.

All in all, it was a great trip; we had so much fun. And, of course, it reminded us again why vacations are great and why we should keep taking them. I cannot wait for the next trip!