I just got back from 4 wonderful days off the grid at Lake Lure. I had no internet, email, or cell phone signal. Instead, I had fresh air, books, and board games. It was lovely.
And you won’t see any fashion photos from this trip. I spent most of the time in t-shirts and pajama pants. Ahh…
We rented a pontoon boat for 4 hours on Sunday. We even took Bailey with us (with our friend’s dog-lifejacket).
I learned that I forgot how to play solitaire. After many failed attempts, I think I finally remembered. Or, I made up a new game.
We stocked up on Great Harvest goodies for the trip – Virginia rolls…
…and cinnachip bread (plus peanut butter).
My husband’s mom whipped up most of the meals, like today’s breakfast. We contributed a watermelon, purchased at a road-side stand near the lake house.
We also made my Slow Cooker 3 Bean Chili sans meat for our vegetarian family. We served it Cincinnati-style (as introduced to me by my friend Erica) over spaghetti.
Our best contribution, though, had nothing to do with food. We brought a game I recently discovered at a friend’s going away party – Sequence. We played this game over and over and over again. We weren’t very good at it, but we had fun either way.
Reader question: Do you think you’d enjoy a vacation without the internet or your cell phone?
Note: I’ve tried to post this blog about 10 times now to no avail….so, now I’m trying it sans photos. If this goes up, I’ll go back and add the photos (if it lets me). Silly blogging software…
Note 2: I was able to use my blogging software to get the text up, but I had to manually upload the photos. Sorry for the inconvenience! Hopefully, my blogging software resumes normal processing soon. *fingers crossed*
After lunch, Sis and I headed out for some girl time with plans of shopping and a return to Dobra Tea.
We headed out to what seems to be my favorite street in Asheville – Lexington! This street has Dobra tea, French Broad Chocolate, and some cute boutiques and shops.
Did I mention that I don’t think I’ve seen this much tie-dye or Birkenstock wearing since high school?
Anywho, after checking out a couple boutiques (Minx, a bead store, a hippie-dress shop), Sis and I headed to Dobra Tea (which we visited earlier on the vacay) to wait out the rain that started up while we were shopping.
We decided on a couple snacks – the mochi for Sis…
…the Pita Lebanon (warm pita with olive oil & spices) for me.
Sis ordered The Forest Dragon (from the menu) – “Perhaps our most prolific of chilled teas, the Forest Dragon provides gentle luck and fierce flavor! Powdered Japanese matcha and Chinese jasmine green teas flash infused, to which is added organic rice milk, fresh mint, a generous shake of cardamom and a stream of sweet, local honey.”
We decided to share a taste of each others’ drinks, so we got two small cups for sharing. Her Forest Dragon was really good and unique – I’d love to try to re-create this one at home (mostly because we don’t have a Dobra Tea in town where I can order one!).
I had the Tulsi Chai. I’m a big fan of tulsi teas, and this one was great. It was cozy and warm and perfect to sip while we watched the rain sprinkling down outside.
We had a great spread.
The tea room was a great pit stop – very relaxing!
Eventually, the sun came out and lit the room up.
And since there were a couple more things I wanted to try, and I didn’t want to wait till the next vacation to do so, I got a couple things to go – an iced oolang tea, shaken with sugar (they said on the menu this one looked like beer, and it did!) and a tulsi tea truffle – a marriage of French Broad Chocolate and Dobra’s tea. The tea was great, as was the chocolate, though I wish I could have tasted the tea a bit more.
We visited a couple more shops before calling it a day. Surprisingly, this shopaholic was being very careful and only came home with a new bracelet despite all the shops we visited.
We headed back to the B&B for some downtime. We enjoyed the fresh air from the front porch. I blogged, and Sis read The Art of Racing in the Rain. I had hoped to spend more time lounging on this porch, but I was glad we got this trip in before dinner.
Up next, Spanish tapas in Asheville.
Reader question: are there any must-see shops or boutiques in downtown Asheville that you recommend?
This weekend, I attended my first ever poetry slam. It was one of the coolest things I’ve seen recently.
But since this blog has been a bit food sparse, let me show you some random eats photos before we get to the slam dets. Once again, a noodle bowl saves the day. This one served as lunch and was made completely with things I scavenged from around the kitchen – spelt soba noodles from my pantry and veggies from my freezer. Who needs time to go grocery shopping, right? jk
I also enjoyed my first pumpkin oats of the season.
I like candy corn around Halloween, peppermint around Christmas, but I like pumpkin around fall. And adding canned pumpkin to oats is one of the easiest ways I like to enjoy it.
This bowl was drizzled with maple syrup and topped with some sliced almonds. Yum!
Anywho, back to the slam. I was invited to the poetry slam with Slam Charlotte by my friend Talicha (click to check out her blog) who was competing in the event. Wondering what a “poetry slam” is? It’s basically a poetry competition where people perform their poems and are judged/scored. Higher scoring poets move on to next rounds of the competition till one winner is selected.
I actually used to write poetry when I was in school, just for fun (ok, as a creative outlet for deep feelings), so I was really looking forward to hearing from some new poets and seeing them perform live.
The event was kicked off by Jamaal St. John who was visiting from New York.
He shared a few poems, letters, and stories. The most memorable line from his performance was from his poem on loving thick girls where he said “a waist is a terrible thing to mind.”
Bluz is the current slam master, and he did a fabulous job keeping us entertained between the various performances and rounds. He’s also introduced me to my new favorite song, which I’d like to use for almost any occasion, but will most likely prove useful as an anthem to play during a particularly tough work day. I’ll have to share it with you guys some other time…or maybe just on my Facebook wall.
Of course, I was most excited to see my friend Talicha perform. She did a fantastic job, but did not end up winning this slam. Ahhh perhaps next time? 
By the way, I got to be a judge along with my friend Sarah. Apparently, they like to offer the newbies judging roles. I felt really unqualified, but they told us to just vote for whichever poem made us feel good, which seemed simple enough. It was a little nerve-wracking, but we had a good time.
Overall, the slam was so impressive. I’d quote more of the poets, but I’m afraid of butchering their words. Instead, I’ll just tell you that they covered a wide range of topics – from sad, to mad, to happy and everything in between. There were poems about sex, Alzheimer’s, a cell phone, a kidnapped child, a hair stylist, and love.
I think I see more poetry slams in my future (from the audience…not the stage).
Reader question #1: Who is your favorite poet?
Reader question #2: What is your favorite poem?
With my Green Monster madness going on recently, I’ve been coming up with some pretty interesting concoctions. Seriously, I have about 3 recipes queued up over here. Anywho, none had more interesting, or shall I say a surprising, taste than my latest – Figgy Green Monster Smoothie.
It’s a fig smoothie that tastes like cake batter.
The smoothie had zero elements that I would normally use to make a cake batter flavor and yet it tasted like cake batter! Ok, maybe it’s just me. You guys know I like to make my cake batters on the healthier side. But I honestly took the first sip after blending this smoothie up and thought…hmm…cake batter?
I came up with the idea to make a fig smoothie because my friend who has a fig tree brought in a bunch to give me. Score! Unfortunately, even without teaching Zumba, my schedule has been hectic, so I haven’t exactly had a bunch of free time to experiment with a cool recipe.
So…What could I do quickly with figs? Why not put it in a smoothie, right? And as it turns out, figs in a smoothie are a good thing.
Figgy Green Monster Smoothie Recipe
Have figs and don’t know what to do with them? The easiest thing you can do (besides eating them plain) is blend them into a delicious and healthy smoothie. Since I’m on a Green Monster kick, I decided to add spinach to mine to make it green. This Green Monster smoothie had an unexpected cake-batter-like flavor.
*Vegan if you use vegan milk*
Serves 1
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 – 2 cups loosely packed spinach (or sub 1/4 cup frozen spinach)
- sweetener of choice, to taste, optional (you can add with the other ingredients or blend and taste first and add in at the end)
- 1 banana (a frozen banana will give you a thicker consistency, but non-frozen works, too)
- 4 figs, stems removed, halved
- 1 cup milk of choice (dairy, non-dairy, vanilla non-dairy, etc.) – I used vanilla soy
- 2 cubes ice
Directions:
- Place spinach, banana, figs, milk, and ice in the blender.
- Cover and blend until banana/figs/ice is processed and smooth, about 1-2 minutes.
- Enjoy!
Here’s a GM smoothie recipe that was actually designed to taste like Cake Batter…Nom!: Cake Batter Green Monster – Peas and Thank You
You may enjoy some of these other Green Monster smoothies:
*Click here to read my Green Monster 101 post* (it explains what a GM is plus some ingredient and blending tips)
Enjoy!
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Reader question: Figs were an ingredient that I never really expected to put into a smoothie. What’s the most unexpected thing you’ve put into a smoothie? Did you like it?
