My birthday and an awesome local find

We found the most awesome little pizzeria on my birthday. It's called Kaos Pizza and it's on Pearl St. in Denver (near DU). We went looking for an old favorite restaurant, but found it had closed, so we found this little gem instead. The food was unbelievable! It's a 100% locally-sourced restaurant (and apparently, they are the only one in the Denver area, surprisingly) with fresh food, a lovely atmosphere, and friendly staff. I could spend every afternoon just soaking up the feel of that place. But I would soak up a lot of pizza and wine, too, and that would be bad for my waistline and the concept of a juice fast. Ah, well.

 This picture was taken under the leafy arbor where we ate. The chair back you can see in front of me is at our table. They have misters running to keep it cool out here. Having my sense of smell for my birthday meant this was a really excellent place to hang out. Everything smelled really good and clean and natural. It's been 11 years since I could smell on my birthday. This was such a welcome experience. I really do attribute it to the juice fast. I decided to go ahead and eat for my birthday. So, we went out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was really fun. We were planning to eat salads, but each restaurant Jason had planned to take me to didn't work out for one reason or another. So, I ate a veggie/egg dish from Blue Sky Cafe in Golden for breakfast (Blue Sky runs a double-business by having a rastaurant in the morning and a yoga studio in the afternoon. Their food is really good and really good for your body, too.)

Then there was this incredible place for lunch. Sorry for all the pictures of me. Jason wouldn't take pictures without me in them. I feel a bit over-present on this post. This is the garlic bread and the most excellent pasta sauce we've ever tasted. We bought a gallon of it. The bread had fresh rosemary on it. We watched the dude step out of the kitchen onto the patio to cut rosemary for it. Pretty much amazingly awesome. The kitchen is detatched from the main building. It's right behind me in this picture. The street is in front of me and the main building is to my right.

 You can see the windows on the kitchen in this shot. That's where the magic happens. Seriously, if you're in Denver, try this place. It's affordable and delicious. Best pizza ever. And go this summer. It's so beautiful with the patio open!


Jason took me shoe shopping. He's the best shoe-shopping companion because he knows my taste in shoes and he also has good input himself. It was a lot of fun and I got some cheap shoes that are more like sneakers, so I wear them all the time. We also went to the book store, and the sneaky man let me buy a cookbook for a slow-cooker. I've been hoping to have a slow-cooker for a long time now. I just thought it would make my kitchen more effective and fun. Below is a picture of me with my birthday brownie (I was trying to be careful with calories, but still enjoy the day). And beside it is me with my gifts. Jason doesn't wrap presents. Nope. He kinda makes a mess and they're super easy to get into when he does wrap them. So, he let Amazon's wrapping be enough.

I got a VitaMix blender from our entire family and from Jason, and I got a slow-cooker to go with my cookbook. Both are amazing. I made fresh flour with my VitaMix the other day. About 2 lbs of flour! It's sweet! The dress I am wearing is an awesome birthday find by my mom and sister at Charming Charlie. LOVE that place. Ladies, it's organized the way we think, so only bring the money you plan to spend! It's that incredible.

 For dinner, Jason took me to Indulge Wine Bar in Golden. And they were having a party and the patio was closed and we had a long wait. Sooo....we went to Simms Landing in Lakewood. We dined on the patio and our view was spectacular!

I was completely amazed at the quality of the service, as well. Seriously, the waiters treated us like royalty. They were incredibly accommodating! The place is very well-decorated and classy. It's a really elegant place to go. And the food was amazing. Really amazing.

 We watched it get dark and our view transformed into this. It was gorgeous. We were there a long time. Behind us were lounge seats with fire pits between them so people could have more casual dining or more formal like our seating. And yet, the atmosphere was very relaxed.

 These are apparently the faces we make when we have not had wine in a long time and have a glass each. Haha. Behind me, you can kinda see the lounge seats and fire pits. Not really though. There's a bit much of a glare off of my white face!
Wine makes Jason feel suave, but it comes across like this. It was a lot of fun. Thanks, Jason!
Being able to taste everything and smell everything was well worth the month of not eating food. And I am not hungry, per se, just miss the experience of eating. My friends have noted lately that I am posting a lot of comfort food on my pinterest account and then I blog about drinking juice. Yes, it's a paradox, haha. I miss those cheesy, bread-filled dishes with pasta and meat, but I am also much happier to be losing weight and experiencing summer without the allergy overload. It's well worth it, but those of you who see me on Pinterest know what I am thinking. :) My final day of the juice fast is August 3rd. Still have a ways to go.

Cheers to a birthday without allergies

I went to my garden today and realized that I have sorely neglected it lately. I water it every day, but apparently, right now, it needs much more than a daily dousing. So, I drenched the thing. I spent like 2 hours digging and churning soil so it would moisten all the way through, I filled the trenches I've dug between the rows with water again and again and again. And I planted some new plants!
Most exciting of which is popcorn! I found blue organic popcorn on Amazon.com and decided to give it a go. I am expecting it to grow like regular corn (which I have at about my shoulder height right now just a few feet from where the popcorn has been planted) and then dry out and be harvested about the same time pumpkins are harvested and voila! I will have home-grown popcorn this winter. Tomorrow, I am planning to go out and water it first thing in the morning (6am) and again at night. If I take care of it, I hope it'll take care of us, too. :) It's been a little weird watering it lately because the person we share the house with was worried about the cost of watering. It's not bad, really, and when you plant more costly things (like artichokes, eggplant, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, etc), it really pays off. But I don't want to be out there watering all the time if it annoys her. She has the primary access to the back yard, so it's me in her back yard. Oh well, she gets to eat from it, too, and enjoys it, so I should get over it and water my poor garden.

Tomorrow's a new day.

For my birthday this year, my wonderful, sweet husband got both sides of our family together to get me a VitaMix blender (professional series...the thing has a logo that says "Culinary Institute of America" on it...which probably means nothing, but makes me giddy inside just a bit) and a CrockPot slow cooker. Now that I have a slow cooker and realize the emense benefit of it, I can't really understand what I've been up to all this time without one. YAY! I now have the most amazing kitchen in the world. I can make fresh juice, amazing things in the blender, and cook sumptuous meals while I get other stuff done all day. Only one thing holding me back from truly basking in the glow of the new kitchen items.....my juice fast.

Oh, the juice fast lingers on, and every day, I tell myself that this is a two-month (relatively short) period of time in which I am resetting myself and after this is over, I can start living in a healthy, balanced way and enjoy good health. This is how I get through the day. It works.

So far, I have lost almost 20 lbs and have had no allergies this June. For me, that's HUGE. Since high school, every June has become increasingly more challenging. Last year, my birthday was an antihistamine-buzzed blur of sneezing and Jason making lovely plans which I could barely witness or experience through teary eyes, a red (raw) nose, and fits of sneezing that left me needing to sit down. My allergies have historically crescendoed on my birthday. This year, though? Nope!

I had a momentary itch in my right eye for like ten seconds on my birthday. Marked difference. I also decided to go ahead and eat some real food on my birthday. And a day later, I had a day of sneezing and hayfever. It was worth it, of course, but still, notable. So, this juicer has saved June for me. I am back on track with losing weight and have had NO allergies whatsoever in the last day or two since I re-started the juicer. It's amazing to really think about the fact that God gave us fruits and vegetables as food, and He knew that those things would provide our bodies with the ability to maintain optimum health. And we decided to "improve" on those food items and look where it's gotten us. The US has so many allergy problems, so many diet-related health issues, and such pained immune systems. We eat processed this and canned that and freeze-dried those and none of us know the actual source of our food. It makes me really sad.

This summer, I am on a quest to learn where my food comes from and to change the way we eat and begin consuming almost exclusively, only things we can trace to their source. This means a lot more cooking, a lot more legwork for every purchase, and a lot better prices, health, etc. Jason is excited because he has been on his own quest for the best-tasting food. He's found that through elimination of processed foods, and finding the most local, organic, fresh foods, we get the best products. Funny how two different quests lead to the same destination.

Since I am eating just juice, and Jason is being fed mostly fresh fruits and veggies, homemade (not canned) beans, fresh salads, etc, we aren't consuming much that we can't get at our local Farmer's Market in Golden. This week, I'll have to take pictures and post them. It's a beautiful menagerie. Once I am finished with the juice fast in August, I will begin buying milk and eggs and such things from local farmers. I've found a couple of sources for eggs (which I have yet to visit to compare) and am still on the hunt for a good dairy in our area. For me, it's important how the animals are handled, for Jason, it's important that the food is FRESH so it tastes the best. Both things mean finding people here who sell those items. We'll see where that takes me! I am planning to begin making and keeping my own yogurt, mozzarella, cottage cheese, mayonnaise, ketchup, etc. I have the most beguiling things growing in my garden and the hope there is that I'll have enough tomatoes, tomatillos, okra, edamame, corn, peppers, squash, collard greens, etc, to freeze and store over the winter that we can eat from our garden for a decent portion of the year. That means now is crunch time! It's a very back-in-time feeling to be planning to put away the summer's produce for winter when there won't be anything to pick in the garden. It's exciting and fun and a little thrilling. And now I have this incredible kitchen full of things that enable health to the fullest. I am so blessed to have a husband who sees the value in this kind of stuff as much as I do, and who believes in me. He views these appliances as investments in our future. Sweet man.

Food for thought. I am reading Michael Pollan's book, "In Defense of Food," and I am really loving it. A lot of new understanding of food and its relationship to our modern life has come about through my reading. If you're looking for a good read, give it a look. (sorry, no pictures today, I am not that organized)