Flour Box is Famous!

This is so cool! Flour Box Bakery is featured on www.homegrownhappyvalley.org! Back in December I made tiara cookies for one of the organizer’s daughters. As soon as I launched my site she told me that she wanted to put FBB on her site. What an honor! This is their adorable logo…

According to their website…
“The mission of Homegrown Happy Valley is to link consumers to local businesses, artisans, entrepreneurs, service providers, and farms. We want people to share their own favorite places. To spread the word about new businesses and cool events. To enrich each other.”

I’m so happy to be associated with this group. Especially since Topher and I also like to shop and eat local. For any locals out there…these are our favorite hangouts. I might have to do several follow up posts on this topic, because we have way too many favorites to list at once. Will we be bumping into you anytime soon? I hope so! We enjoy both Bellefonte and State College locations.

For Coffee:
We have two favorite locations. We love Cool Beans in Bellefonte and Saints Cafe in State College. I love the medium roast at cool beans. My daughter is in a 2-year-old art class that meets there every Wednesday morning. Art for the kids and bean juice for the mommies. What a great concept! Saints Cafe has great everything, including friendly staff. We once stopped in after they had just closed (and cleaned up) and they insisted on getting us a cup of Joe. Don’t think that would happen at some of those chain coffee shops. Here is Team Yorks on a family outing last April. We were so excited for a warm 50ish day that we decided to enjoy our coffees and snacks at their little outdoor table.

For Gifts:
We love Inspired Dreams! This shop is heaven for anyone that shops for babies and little girls. It makes me so happy that we have a daughter and three nieces to shop for. This year for Christmas we found an awesome pink/brown duffel bag with a matching toiletries bag for our oldest niece (age 9). She is a swimmer and needed a cool bag to carry her suit and towel and stuff. For only a few extra dollars they embroidered her name on the bag. It only took a day or so and they matched the pink in the bag. Needless to say, the gift was a major hit! We also like the new Co2 Boutique in Bellefonte (great Vera Bradley selection), Home Reflections on Calder Way in State College (there we found a super cool tea cup for my mom for Christmas), and Tait Farm outside of State College near Potters Mills. They have a great food selection. I put together an amazing gift for a food swap using items exclusively from Tait.

Favorite Restaurants:
It’s impossible for me to narrow my selection of local restaurants. We are fortunate enough to have several great locations. For dinner, we love the Gamble Mill Tavern — bar side. The food does not disappoint. We recently went there to celebrate a huge event and the evening was perfect. Ribs, Fillet Mignon, Butternut Squash Ravioli with Hazelnuts, and a cheeseburger (for my daughter). We all shared bites with each other and it was heaven! We like the bar side because of the cozy atmosphere. The dining room is cool too, but just not as cozy for us.

We also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Cafe on the Park. This place is just so darn cute. We take our daughter every year on her birthday. We love to sit outside because it offers a view of Talleyrand Park and Spring Creek. We like the food too. It’s a simple menu, but it’s consistently good. Plus, they know our daughter’s name. Every time we’re in, they make a big fuss about her and then they let her eat her lunch on a monkey plate. I know I look a little sketchy in this pic, but I had given birth just a few days prior. This picture shows the creek-side view. The other direction is Talleyrand Park. My little girl looks so tiny. At 2 1/2 years she is now practically driving!

That’s all for now. I’ll post again about our favorite local places! Back to baking. I’m working on a couple cool custom orders and I can’t wait to share the pictures!

Have a sweet day,
Anne