When the boyfriend told me he had to make a reservation for The Stanley a couple weeks in advance, my brows raised in anticipation of the cuisine that was to come. I'd heard rumblings about the newest addition to the Elizabeth community but hadn't done much research on it. Now that we had a reservation, it was time to check out the menu and prep for another Queen City date night.

After the loss of some of the local nightlife flavor, such as Philosopher's Stone and Kennedy's, my hope for a solid night out as an Elizabethan faded. I would walk past the new Pet Supplies Plus and tattered Dollar General and sigh. I'd hoped the newest apartment complex would introduce ground-level commercial space, but when the structure was finally completed that hope also faded away.

However, my optimism was restored when I noticed renovations to the Dollar General shopping center and heard whispers of new nightlife spots and/or restaurants being added to the old Heroes Aren't Hard to Find and Crisp locations. *insert emoji praise hands* One of those spots, of course, was The Stanley, a "farm-driven" restaurant concept opened by James Beard-nominated chef Paul Verica and his sous chef son, Alex.

While the space is small — my boyfriend and I counted about 10 small tables and a handful of stools at the bar — let me tell you, the menu packs quite a punch. Before I get into the menu, let me start by saying, our mouths dropped when our waitress informed us that the menu changed six times in the first week it opened in late May.

We perused the menu and decided against the entrees. I've told you before, we don't eat very much in one sitting, and you can't get a good grasp on the true capabilities of a chef if you don't try more than one thing on the menu. Again, #notaselfidentifiedfoodblogger, however, I'll fill you in later on how Chef Verica gave us the ultimate pat on our backs and that's why I don't care what y'all think.

But I digress. We settled on a few small plates, which included:

Beef tartare, radishes, greens, hard-boiled quail eggs, capers, flat bread - $15

Asparagus: as many ways as we could think of - $11

Scallop, fennel, apple, pork belly, lemon, herbs - $15

Peas, carrots, pork belly - $12

Sweetbreads, hot sauce, carrots, celery, blue cheese - $14

Strawberry shortcake (wasn't listed on the menu)

Just so you know, sweetbreads are not actually sweet pieces of bread. They are the thymus or pancreas of a calf or lamb (according to Wikipedia). DO NOT be surprised. My sweetheart carefully recreated every single dish on our personal plates. I know, I know, heart be still. And I can promise you, every single dish, including the sweetbreads, was phenomenal. I mean, seriously how the actual F do you prepare asparagus three different ways and make it taste good each time?! How do you create carrot foam and make it mouthwatering?! We relished in the moment of the short journey we took with every bite.

And when it was all said and done, you won't believe what happened. As we were wrapping up dessert, Chef Verica stopped by our table and ever so sweetly bent over with his bag over his shoulder and a couple books and said, "I wish every person who came here would eat the way you did." Shocked, we didn't really know how to respond so we just smiled. But um, what?! I wanted to slap my momma I felt so good about that compliment.

Two weeks later, after riding a scooter around Elizabeth and Plaza Midwood for three hours, I donned a pair of boots, threw on a "nice" jacket and walked to The Stanley. For what you may ask? Um, I wanted their perfectly cooked scallops again. No joke, I took a trip to St. Petersburg, Florida, and ended up dreaming about those scallops last weekend. I made it my mission to get scallops for dinner while we were there, but alas, it wasn't the same.

You may be wondering why I thought I could go there on a whim. Just who do I think I am? If we had to wait a couple weeks to get a reservation, why did I think I could just walk in and eat scallops whenever I damn well please?

Well, you're not mistaken in asking that question. You do need a reservation if you're sitting down for date night. However, you can walk in if you can snag a spot at the bar. To my dismay, I took too long getting there and they'd stopped taking walk-ins because they were running out of food for those with reservations (I guess everyone figured out the key to tasting the menu pretty early).

Next time, Stan.

In a small room on campus at UNC Charlotte, women show up, one at a time, to lean back on a padded, reclined table that looks like it belongs in a doctor's office. On a nearby counter are drawers of lab equipment, one of which is labeled Cleopatra, for the queen who supposedly invented the first vibrator by caging bees. On the wall in front of the table is a large television screen. Once the woman is all set up and given detailed instructions, the lights in the room go off, the television comes on, and a woman-friendly pornographic video begins to play. In the glow of the screen, she'll stimulate herself — for science.

This is just one component of UNCC's Women, Immunity, and Sexual Health lab, or WISH, led by health psychologist Dr. Tierney Lorenz. The lab focuses on investigating questions at the intersection of women's sexuality and mental and physical health. This study is aimed at unraveling part of the complex relationship between a woman's reproductive and immune systems.

"One thing we've found is that sexual activity can change the way that a woman's body responds to certain kinds of immune challenges," Lorenz says. "Does sexual arousal potentially protect against certain kinds of sexually transmitted infections?"

The lab also investigates a host of related questions: The immune system is designed to attack and eliminate foreign objects — what prevents that system from attacking sperm and embryos? And how does a woman's sexual history affect the immune system's function? More specifically, would an abstinent woman's immune system interact with sperm and embryos differently than a sexually active peer's

Lorenz's research suggests that sexual activity in women provokes adaptation in their immune systems. During ovulation in sexually active women, antibody production and other infection-fighting functions drop, but there's very little change in the immune function of abstinent women during the same part of the menstrual cycle.

"The immune system has to have some way of knowing, is there a possibility that I might either be getting pregnant or that I might be pregnant? If so, I need to change the way that I respond to invaders," Lorenz explains. "Sexual activity may cue the body to think that conception is possible, and therefore I should do certain things a little bit differently."

Even as she and her colleagues make groundbreaking advances in our understanding of women's physiology, Lorenz says her work constantly reminds her how much we still don't know. She cites one example after another; the mechanism of copper IUDs remains a mystery, same for the notorious arousal-inhibiting effect of antidepressants.

"The way that our bodies work is so poorly understood," Lorenz says, "and there are so many assumptions that women's bodies must operate very similarly to men's, without any data to support that."

She explains that for about 150 years, textbook writers assumed that women's sexual arousal came from the parasympathetic nervous system — the rest-and-relax system — just like men's. In fact, women's arousal is governed by the sympathetic nervous system, which also triggers the fight-or-flight response. Understanding this link allowed Lorenz, who has worked in clinical settings, to reassure sexual-assault survivors that arousal during assault is neither unusual nor an indicator of "wanting it."

That link has also led to hypotheses about the link between women's arousal and some women's responses to rape fantasies and auto-asphyxiation. Even women who hate that they have rape fantasies often find them an effective shortcut to arousal, Lorenz says.

Science is also yet to satisfactorily explain why female bodies are better at achieving multiple orgasms. "Physiology has not explained that," Lorenz says. "I feel like if I were a drug company trying to make the next blockbuster drug, I'd want to figure that out."

Studying questions of female arousal has come with no shortage of challenges. Lorenz describes one example of the phone calls she gets every month or so: "Does your husband know that you're doing this?"

For Lorenz, it's easy to write off the cranks who call her up. What's less easy to write off are the entities that fund her research. "Nobody wants to be the person who funded the vagina study — ever," she says. "We always have to tie our research back to some other health goal." In one grant proposal, at the request of the funding agency, she had to replace the word "sex" over 5,000 times.

She adds that it would be impossible to get funding for a study that investigated how to make sex better. But, she adds, "When I tell people about the work that I do around desire, around pleasure, around interests, they get excited and interested. They think that that's valuable. The money just isn't there."

Even though there remains much to explore, Lorenz says her field has come a long way. She describes how her mentors, just one generation ahead of her, had to fight for credibility and recognition as scientists. Despite the occasional unsolicited phone call, Lorenz says things are different for her. "To the extent that I present myself as a scientist," she says, "people accept that."