Burlington

Picture 1 : I stopped at a pick-your-own-strawberries farm on the way up and bought some strawberries.  They were yummy and pretty and sadly not organic.

Picture 2 : IT WAS SO GORGEOUS.  I almost drifted into cars in the other lane because I couldn't stop looking at the views.  So beautiful it was nearly deadly.

Today is Wednesday, and it was my day off.  (So, have you memorized my schedule yet?)  I woke and up and had breakfast...I'd run out of rice milk and cereal so I did this weird thing where I took leftover brown rice and mixed it with organic peanut butter, maple syrup, and ginger.  It was pretty good.  Then I got in the car and made my way north on Rt. 7.  I was heading toward Shelburne (about 40 minutes away), where there is a gym that offers $5 open workouts.  (That's a ridiculously good price, btw).  It took a while to get there, because 1. it's far away and 2. they were paving and painting lines on the road.  Once I got there...funny story.  I walked in the door and the first thing I saw were five 3-year-olds bouncing on a trampoline.  The second thing I saw was that the ceiling was about 9 feet high.  And the third thing I saw that the "gym" was about the size of the cheese house.  And it was at that point that I realized this was a gym for people that do not exceed 3 feet.  AKA small children.  AKA not me.  So I kind of giggled to myself, and then walked right back out.  I sat in the car, a bit miffed, and then called my dear mother, who always knows what to do.  She told me the addresses of three other gyms in the area (at this point, I wasn't just going to drive back to the farm) and I plugged them into my handy dandy GPS and went on a tour of the Burlington area.  The first gym I stopped at was Champlain Valley Gymnastics (CVG) in South Burlington, and they had a nice sized gym with all the equipment.  They don't currently offer open workouts though, but they might call me about working out with their team.  I left and went to Hruska Gymnastics Academy in Winooski...but they were closed.  They do offer open workout on Sunday from 1-3, and it's the home gym of the UVM club team.  They're kinda a bit deal.  After Hruska's I went to Green Mountain Gymnastics.  I almost gave up on finding it, but I'm so glad that I didn't.  It was a clean, beautiful gym that's set up very much like my gym at home.  The woman I met there, Robin, is probably the nicest person on the face of the earth.  They have an open program for middle and high school students on Tuesday and Thursday nights that I could come to, and she gave me the forms and the prices and all the information and I'm totally set EXCEPT that I have to call Head Over Heels in Rutland to make sure it isn't just for little kids.  Because it's way closer than Green Mountain.  But yay!

 I headed into downtown Burlington for lunch.  I ate at a restaurant called Zabby and Elf's Stone Soup.  It's mostly vegetarian/vegan (which is why I ate there) and it was really quaint and delicious.  It's buffet style with lots of different options.  I had a tempeh stew, kale, brown rice, sweet potatoes, and a little bit of salad.  I was in macrobiotic heaven!  I walked around after lunch and shopped a bit...it's the biggest city in Vermont but it's probably smaller than Penn State's college town.  I walked into the Burlington co-op but it was so big that I got really overwhelmed and fled.  I stopped at the Middlebury co-op on the way home and got some miso paste.  

For dinner, I had a bowl of homemade miso soup, some seaweed salad, and some quinoa salad.  The miso soup recipe...I think either I need to perfect it, the recipe isn't very good, or that's just how traditional miso soup tastes.  I'm thinking it's option 1 or 3...I trust Christina Pirello, although sometimes she scares me a little bit.  Either way, I'm not going to post the recipe quite yet.  

Barn Swallows

Seaweed Salad

Arame (soaked 3 minutes, boiled for 10)

Sesame seeds

Toasted sesame oil

Soy sauce

Brown rice vinegar

Red pepper

Combine everything.  And eat it.

Quinoa Salad

1/2 cup quinoa

1 cup water

Tomato

Peas (fresh or frozen)

Scallions

Olive oil

Sea salt

Nutritional yeast

I tried SO HARD to resist putting in curry powder, but I succumbed.  I love it too much.

Bring quinoa and water to boil, simmer for 15 minutes.  Dice tomato.  Slice scallions.  Boil or steam peas until tender, then drain.  Mix all ingredients together.  

Such a busy day!  I left at 10 and got back at 6.  Craziness.