Hello from Asheville, North Carolina! We’re here for the weekend and having a fantastic time in this dog-friendly, vegan-friendly city. I’ll have all sorts of exciting food to talk about when I’m back, but for now, how about some simple bar snacks?!

During our first full day in Asheville, we paid a visit to the Wicked Weed Brewpub, a sprawling establishment with a restaurant, beer garden, bottle shop, and on-premises brewery. Something for everyone! We were there around 2:30 p.m. and had 7 p.m. dinner reservations elsewhere, so we decided a liquid lunch was ideal. :) We headed down to the basement-level outdoor beer garden, found a few empty spots at a table, and perused the menu.

I’m a fan of sour beers, so I had the Sandiaca (barrel-aged in gin barrels with watermelon and basil) and the Floresca (tequila barrel-aged with peaches and pink sea salt). While they were both tasty, I really enjoyed the former. I can drink those juicy sours all day long! (Though that might not be a smart move: The Sandiaca was 9% ABV!) Steven stuck to a pilsner and a grapefruit radler, but we both enjoyed some simple salty bar snacks on the side: marinated olives and boiled peanuts.

I’ve never had boiled peanuts (a Southern mainstay, apparently) before but really enjoyed them… until we found an unsavory, unmentionable, un-foodlike bit of detritus in our bowl of peanuts. Y’all. It was nasty. I won’t go into details, and you should thank me for that. I’m not one to complain about food at restaurants, but I did tell a staff member about this particular issue. After one look, he rushed our bowl away, and we looked on as he showed multiple other staffers, who were all equally horrified. We got the peanuts taken off our menu and got a round on the house, so all’s well that end’s well. Top-notch customer service wins the day!

Unfortunately, I think I’m put off boiled peanuts for the foreseeable future. Although our little bit of extra disgustingness probably came from their kitchen and not the peanuts, I’ve now got a strong visceral, visual association between it and boiled peanuts. And here I was, thinking I’d found a new favorite snack. Alas.