Charlottesville

Fall: the best of both squash

4 Comments

“Lucky for me I love the heat.”

Famous last words…

It’s supposed to be even hotter today!  Ekk!

The exciting afternoon I had planned was only slightly tempered by the heat.  The gardening was swift and the errands I was looking forward to running on my bike turned into driving.  I lost my bike lock in the move and have yet to go buy a new one so that was a deciding factor as well as the heat.  My errands were still exciting.  I went and registered at the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank as a volunteer and finally checked out the local store Integral Yoga.

September is National Hunger Awareness Month and the food bank seemed like a good place to give some time, of which I have plenty these days.  I am really interested in finding out what kind of programs there are around C’ville to cut down on food waste and feed people.  I would love to get involved in getting nearly expired produce and dairy from grocery stores and redistributing it.

THERE IS TOO MUCH FOOD IN THIS COUNTRY FOR PEOPLE TO GO HUNGRY!

The amount of food that gets wasted everyday from restaurants to groceries to manufacturers is seriously a shame.  I am going to the food bank on Monday for a couple of hours and I think it will be a great place to network and find out what other programs are around.

Integral Yoga is a natural foods store that is close to us, perfect walking/biking distance.  I needed to swing in there yesterday to buy a bottle of Kombucha.  My kombucha home brew has not been turning out exactly like I want so I decided to add a bit of the commercial stuff to my new batch to see if it helps.

Next came lunch

from the garden…

I love that you can eat summer and winter squash together in the same dish this time of year!

I think these seeds might be roastable…?

‘Round 4 o’clock Tate and I hopped on the bikes and cruised over to Kath and Matt’s to meet up for a walk.  Kath’s friend’s Eric, Alex, and cutie-pie Finn (he’s 4 months!)  joined us as well and the 7 of us went on a HOT and lovely 30 minute walk around the neighborhood followed by drinks on the porch.  Matt shared his freshly tapped home brew and homemade crackers and both were DELICIOUS.

Tate and I rode off after a drink or two to catch a documentary at the downtown library.  We did a little off-roading on our way


The film turned out to be slow and pretty poor quality and we were both beat so we called it an early night.

Happy Fall

1 Comment

Humm, it’s fall and predicted to be 94 degrees today.  Lucky for me I love the heat.

Yesterday morning, right as I was deciding whether it was a running or a Jillian day, Tate asked me to go for a run with him before work.

I must have been inspired by Tuesdays run with Kath and Suzanne because I didn’t let up on the gas once!  Even the hills (and there were plenty) were taken with a good amount of speed.

Map My Run informed me that we had done 3.69 miles in 33 minutes.  O.K, so I ain’t winning any races with those numbers but I could set a PR for next months

Fall Classic 10K. I am really looking forward to this run because C’ville is such a running town!  I am continually impressed that there are runners on the streets no matter the time or temperature!  It’s very motivating.

After our speedy run and a speedy shower it was seriously time for breakfast.

A cup of yogurt topped with Tuesday nights baked apples and chopped walnuts and sprinkled with cinnamon and ginger.  That’s not just any yogurt though, that’s my yogurt!

My second batch of homemade yogurt turned out pretty well.

Next time I am going to use 1 or 2 percent milk instead of fat-free and see if it turns out a little thicker.

The afternoon was spent printing and framing pictures for our house.  It was so much fun to go through all of our travel pictures and relive that AMAZING experience.  Our house looks brighter and more personal!  Here are a few of the highlights I put up

*sigh* that was an UNBELIEVABLE trip…memories for life.

Last night was interesting.

Tate and I attended a free class at Sunrise Herb Shoppe on “natural healing with diet, nutrition, and herbs”.  The class was presented by Herbalist, Nutritional Consultant, Certified Natural Health Professional, and shoppe owner, Terri Saunders.

It was a very nice group of people (Tate and I were the youngest by at least 10 years :)) and a lot of information was given but it went on for too long.  We were there from 7-10:30pm!  Terri was organized but strayed from topic every few minutes so we didn’t get into the food aspect until 10pm, which is what I am most interested in.

She did touch on fermented foods, something that I have been aware of, thanks to my awesome whole foodie parents, for some time but haven’t given a lot of thought too.  That is, until recently.  I have been hearing/reading so many praises of fermented foods lately that I think it’s time to move beyond kombucha, yogurt, and the occasional miso or tempeh, and start experimenting with making sauerkraut and kimchee.

The basic concept behind the health benefits of fermented food is that the process of fermentation breaks down food so that the nutrition is more readily available when eaten.  I am no expert on fermented food so if you are interested in learning more, here is a good start

Top 8 Reasons to Eat Fermented Foods

And of course, I will keep you up to date on my adventures with creating some fermented foods of my own!

I have an exciting afternoon planned but first I must Shred, yoga, garden, and shower!