Whole Health Dietitian — Tastefully Fueling Active Transportation
Everything about the vegetable and sausage panini at Bixby’s in the Missouri History Museum sounded good to me. Everything but the sausage, that is. I would have ordered sans sausage, but my grandpa offered to eat the sausage. I doubt they would have lowered the price of the sandwich if I omitted the sausage, which would have annoyed me, so this worked out well all around.
Are there any animals that hibernate in summer? If so, I want to be one of them — crawl into a dark, cool cave and not emerge until the temperature returns to somewhat sane levels (i.e., below 80-degrees).
On Friday night, we biked over to Local Harvest Cafe for dinner. We shared their vegan Green Plate special and a bowl of chilled borscht. Borscht is basically beet soup, which sounds weird (at least I’ve always thought so and never tried it before), but this soup was amazing! Mmm, I could eat bowls and bowls!
After dinner, we hit up Tower Grove Park. I morphed into a little park creature (i.e., put on my Five Fingers), and we played frisbee for awhile. Before calling it a night, we visited our community garden bed and harvested some beets, carrots, and rutabaga. Some of those beets are destined to become borscht!
From the time we returned home Friday night, until my 6:15am run this morning, I entered hibernation mode. I didn’t leave the apartment, other than short jaunts to water the plants on the porch, for over forty-eight hours. What can I say — I took the heat advisory seriously, but all good things must come to an end.
Happy summer solstice! (But, Weather, I really don’t need 100-degree heat to convince me it’s summer. I believe you, okay? Can you just back off a little now? Please???)
An equally appropriate title would read, “Go, go to KC MO,” because we enjoyed a wonderful extended weekend in Kansas City. We dined at some known favorite restaurants and discovered some exciting new dining destinations.
We stayed in the County Club Plaza (or simply, The Plaza) area of Kansas City. The upside? Many restaurants and stores within walking distance. The downside? Most of those restaurants (and stores), were chain-type establishments (with the exception of Eden Alley). Not very exciting for these foodies.
With the exceptions of Eden Alley and Füd, all of the restaurants I mention offer both vegetarian and meat options.
Oldies but goodies*
We started our gustatory adventures at Eden Alley, a vegetarian and vegan restaurant that also uses many local ingredients. My sister ordered a pineapple bruschetta that was the star of the meal (one of the daily specials, I believe). I selected the egg salad on greens — it was only okay, definitely not the best egg salad ever. From past visits, some of the menu stars include the sweet potato burrito and the spinach and mushroom loaf.
For dinner Thursday evening, we hit up Bluebird Bistro. They focus on local ingredients, with food for vegetarians and carnivores alike. They make everything from scratch, including ketchup. Check out their eight for $8 menu served until 8pm, Monday through Friday. Both the vegetarian shepherd’s pie and the baked egg dish from the $8 menu were fantastic!
We picked Bluebird Bistro knowing that we would return 24-hours later for my brother-in-law’s rehearsal dinner. Twice in one weekend? No problem.
Happy Earth Day!
Last night we hopped on our bikes and pedaled over to Stellina Pasta for dinner. Sadly, they only had one vegetarian entrée. When we eat out, we like to order two different things and split them. With only one option, we decided to just order one entrée and follow up with more food at home. I must say, the dish was delicious: “Whole wheat walnut Tagliatelle with oyster mushrooms, asparagus and fresh mozzarella in oil butter garlic sauce.” Mmmmm. This made the trip well worth it!
With plenty of room for dessert, we ordered the “chocolate peanut butter bomb.” Eh, rather disappointing. It was not bad, but certainly not spectacular. I left wishing we ended the meal after the entrée. Oh well, live and learn.
I puttered around the apartment for a bit when we got home, then plopped on the couch with my book. I completely forgot about Food, Inc. until Matthew asked, “When is that thing on?” Oh, oops! I fired up the t.v. and ended up catching all but the first few minutes. I’m glad I watched it, although I have to admit I was wishing for commercials. I wanted those breaks to get up and move around and do stuff, but I didn’t want to miss anything. In the end, I remained in my seat for the entire 90 minutes, with one quick dash for water and lip balm.
Like Fresh, I found many parts of Food, Inc. difficult to watch, but that’s part of the point. This is what’s going on in our food system, this is the food we put into our bodies, that’s how millions of cows and cute, fluffy chicks are treated, not to mention the workers in the meat processing plants. I love the contrast with Joel Salatin’s Polyface farm.
Did you watch Food, Inc. last night (or at some other point)? What did you think?
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Image credit to http://www.clarku.edu/tbwa/images/web_pages/Accomplishments.htm
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