Tag Archives: Santa Cruz

End of Summer, Grain-Free?, & BIG NEWS!!!

It has been a busy few weeks.  The kids and I made the trek up to my parent’s house in Santa Cruz for our Nana and Papa time.  We had a lot of fun at the Boardwalk, exploring new beaches, and hiking to the amazing natural pool pictured above (It is called the Garden of Eden).

We also took a ride on the Roaring Camp Railroad which I hadn’t done in years.  The picture below is of my kiddos and parents on the railroad.

We headed from my parent’s house straight over to my sister and brother-in-law’s house near Tahoe for some serious cousin time before the school year and crazy schedules began.

We had a fantastic time and capped it all off with some tubing on Lake Tahoe (That’s my sister and I below…we screamed like little girls!) before making the LONG roadtrip home (It was so worth it).

Prior to going on the trip I had just finished my 80-10-10 trial and was all gung-ho to continue eating grain-free.  I managed to do so through our stay at my parent’s house and then began eating grains at my sister’s house.  Guess what…I felt great!  No bloating, no problems.  I did remain gluten-free though.  Maybe my body just needed a reset and the 80/10/10 did that for me.

Bottom line, I plan on eating what feels right (vegan and gluten-free…with the exception of some egg whites from time to time), and I will play the grain thing by ear.  I don’t feel like restricting myself or labeling myself grain-free.  When I want them and they digest well, I will have them.

AND now the BIG NEWS.  We have a new member of our family.

Meet “Dug.”

Could my kids possibly be MORE excited???  To be fair, my grin was just as big.

Dug will be 11 weeks old on Wednesday and is seriously the cutest Goldendoodle we have ever seen (Think we are biased???)

We are so in love and thrilled that he is rounding out our family.

Off to potty-train…

7 Comments

Filed under Grains, Vacation

A HEALTH FOOD MECCA

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz

I am spending the weekend in a true health food Mecca,  Santa Cruz, Ca…It doesn’t get much more earthy/crunchy than here!!!  Which of course means that I am a happy lady.  It seems as though there is  a juice bar or health food store on every corner.  I would be in heaven if I could pack up all of the grocery stores they have here and bring them home with me.  Two of my favorites are Staff of Life and New Leaf.

New Leaf

New Leaf

New Leaf Produce

New Leaf Produce

My trip up here was motivated by the fact that Bauman College of Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts was holding an open house tonight and I wanted to learn more about their programs.  Tonight I was able to spend some one on one time chatting with Ed Bauman, the Executive Director of Bauman College.  I always enjoy meeting like-minded people and learning something new from them.  It was a very informative and interesting evening.

Grettie & Ed Bauman

Grettie & Ed Bauman

One of the best perks of being up here is that I get to visit with my parents who live in Santa Cruz.  After they picked me up from the airport we had the most amazing plant based lunch at Dish Dash in Sunnyvale.  We ate:

Musaka’a

Layers of grilled eggplant, grilled tomato topped with a special seasoned lemon-garlic sauce and parsley.

Hoset Sabanech

Spinach sauteed with onions topped with lemon-garlic sumac sauce.

Mohmoh

Mushrooms sauteed with onions in fresh lemon-mint sauce.

Tabouli

Mix of parsley, tomato, green onion, fresh mint, lemon juice, burghul and olive oil.

M’shakaleh Vegetarian

Layers of grilled eggplant, grilled tomato topped with a special seasoned lemon-garlic sauce and parsley.

I hope all of you are enjoying your weekend as much as I am.  Since it’s the weekend try to take the time to cook together…maybe even tackle a new recipe!

     
To read more about Bauman College click here.  

1 Comment

Filed under Education, Restaurants, Vegan, Vegetarian