Snow Day

Hello from the green mountains of Vermont! Yesterday morning Matt, Riker and I got up literally before the crack of dawn to make the 7 hour trek up to my parents' house for the weekend. We were originally planning to come on Thursday night after work, but when Thursday evening rolled around we were both exhausted and not too sure we could handle such a long drive that late. Instead, we got up at 4 AM Friday, packed a bag full of yogurts, fruits and other snacks, and after two coffee stops/bathroom breaks we made it home by 11:15 AM. We wanted to get there nice and early since we had plans to be on the mountain skiing by early afternoon.

We actually had some discounted tickets to ski at Stowe, leftover from our friends trip to VT back in January, but I realized about 5 hours into the drive that I forgot the tix at home. Epic fail. Oh well. I really had my heart set on skiing, so after dropping Riker off with my mom, we drove out to Sugarbush for a half-day pass (Stowe is majorly expensive even for a half day).

I love Sugarbush, and this time we skied a mountain we haven't been on yet and it was absolutely beautiful. It snowed most of the time we were there, interspersed with rays of sunshine, and it was a perfect afternoon. Followed by a nice evening of dinner with the fam.

We met my grandma and parents at Harrison's Restaurant in Stowe, a cozy little underground place featuring gourmet American fare. My mom's been wanting us to try Harrison's for a while, so I was excited to check it out. Especially since we got the best table in the house, right by the fireplace.

We started with curried and white wine mussels and a bottle of red, both of which were delicious after spending the afternoon in the snow.

For my entree I selected the pecan crusted Ahi tuna with broccolini, brown rice and sweet potato puree. It was beautiful!

The tuna was perfectly cooked and I ate every last bite.

We would've loved to stay for coffee and dessert, but Riker had other plans for us. He was a bit of a crankpot and definitely wasn't in the mood to sit there any longer, so we headed home for the rest of the evening. I had brought back some hazelnut cookies, champagne truffles and speculoos chocolate from Germany for everyone, which made for perfect little sweet nibbles with coffee after Riker went to bed.

Talk about a great first day home.

***

This morning we had a leisurely breakfast at home before my mom and I left the boys at home and headed out for coffee and errands. A new coffee shop opened in town that she said had the best lattes, so I had to judge for myself.

She wasn't kidding. I had a Vermont maple skim latte, and it was fantastic. We sat and chatted over coffee for a while and had a nice time catching up. Eventually we made our way home and then the whole group ventured out to the nearby town of Montpelier for lunch.

I had told my mom if there was one place I wanted to eat this weekend, it was The Skinny Pancake. This small cafe is famous for amazing savory and sweet crepes, made with all locally sourced ingredients - even the meats and cheeses are from local farms. My kind of style!

I ordered the veggie crepe with spinach, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers, basil and sunflower seed pesto, and Cabot cheddar, and I added smoked salmon for some extra protein. The crepe was crispy on the outside and the filling had so much flavor, I became an instant fan of this place. They also carried our favorite beer, Heady Topper, which was the icing on the cake. It's so hard to find, so you know we had to order one. ;-)

The rest of the afternoon was spent doing a little shopping, taking a walk through Hubbard Park (talk about some serious hills!) and taking a nice long drive in the afternoon sunshine.

Riker is teething and pretty cranky, so grabbing hot tea and taking a drive was actually the best part of the day - he likes sitting in the car and he usually sleeps. ;-)

We also found a farm that sells its own grass fed beef, and since Matt is really trying to eat healthier, sustainable meats, we stopped and stocked up on a cooler full of steaks and roasts for him to take home.

I nabbed the last carton of free range eggs too. Good find!

Now we're back home and making dinner, planning a relaxing evening in with a movie and some cards. Hope you're having a great holiday weekend so far!

Munich Top Five

This Saturday morning started off in a typical way...coffee and omelets. Matt whipped us each up an omelet stuffed with fresh spinach, cherry tomatoes and vintage cheddar cheese, and they were delicious.

As I was drinking my morning coffee I found myself wishing for one of the foamy cappuccinos I had multiple times a day while I was in Germany. The cappuccinos abounded! I got to thinking about all the things I loved most about Munich while I was there, and thought a "top likes" overview would be more fun than rambling through each day there, especially since I was working for much of the time, so here we go! My Munich Top Five.

1. The Charm.

This was actually my second trip to Germany; a few years ago I spent a week in Berlin attending a conference, and I really enjoyed the experience. I spent a few hours in Munich on that trip as well, but this was my first time actually getting to see the city, and I have to say...I loved it much more than Berlin.

It was so quaint and beautiful. I was told while there that Munich/the Bavaria region is very unlike the rest of Germany, and Germans often joke that when you go to Bavaria, you're going abroad.

Berlin had a very big city feel, but Munich - although quite large with an extensive subway system, huge airport, and Olympic stadium - had a smaller, college town feel I adore.

The architecture and streets were beautiful (that street above is where I stayed), and the main square at Marienplatz was open and bustling and reminded me of when I studied abroad in Florence.

Munich is also a hop, skip and a jump from The Alps, which you can see from various points and when flying in and out. They were breathtaking, as was the rest of the surrounding landscape. I'd love to go back and explore the countryside more, and it would also be nice to go during summertime when all the outdoor beer gardens (apparently there are over 2,000 of them!) are in full swing.

2. The people.

Everyone we met was so hospitable. The residents were not as fluent in English as the people I'd met in Berlin, which I actually liked more. Why should they be fluent in English? It was tough to find English menus or signs, so I did a lot of asking: asking for recommendations on what to eat or drink, asking for directions (one night we got lost for a good hour in the rain, and must've stopped to ask 10 people for directions). Everyone was so willing to help us out and wanted to make sure we enjoyed our stay.

The people in Munich are so nice they don't even check your tickets at the subway! The first time we rode, we purchased tickets and stumbled around really confused about where to insert them - there are no turnstyles or anything. Turns out, they work on the honor system. You just punch your ticket in a little puncher machine and it time stamps it, so if anyone checks they see when you bought it. Pretttty sure that would never work in NY.


3. The coffee! 

Europeans are serious about their coffee, which suits this java lover just fine. In addition to good strong regular coffee, cappuccinos and lattes were offered everywhere, even at the office and at my hotel...for free!

You better believe I grabbed one every chance I got - first thing in the morning before heading to meetings, again at the hotel breakfast, and again in the evening. Hey, foamy and delicious cappuccinos don't come along for free very often. Or ever.

And the cappuccinos at the airport restaurants were ginormous!

4. The food, of course.

 I wasn't able to eat much traditional German food being a pescatarian, but I did enjoy some local fish, and loved the traditional European breakfast served up at my hotel breakfast bar. Um, free hotel breakfasts pretty much never include fresh mozzarella and smoked lox in the U.S.

I am a huge lox fan so loved piling it up on top of house made chive cream cheese on locally made whole grain bread, with cucumbers to top it off. The yogurts were also pretty tasty.

I had to try at least one Bavarian pretzel while in Munich, and I was definitely not disappointed. There was a bakery down the block from my hotel, so I ran over at 7 AM the morning I flew out to pick up some freshly baked pretzels to take home. Gah, so good.

They were crunchy on the outside with just the slightest amount of salt, and super fluffy and doughy on the inside. They weren't hugely fat, and had a wonderful buttery flavor. I usually like a lot of salt on my pretzels, but the salt was not needed on these. I'm scarred now - the New York pretzels just won't do after trying one of these.

I also liked that it was easy to find healthy options, whether it was fish and spinach for dinner or fruit and yogurt for breakfast.

I did indulge in a few treats, including some truffles, a delicious Thai curry and basil pasta for dinner with clients, and of course a locally brewed beer or two, but overall I felt like it wasn't hard to stay on track.

5. The environmental consciousness.

On a daily basis I was reminded how environmentally conscious Europe is. The escalators only turn on when you step on them (I actually thought they were broken until someone pointed it out to me), the water comes out low-pressure, and you have to ask, and pay for a bag at the grocery store.

The stores just expect that you'll bring your own bags, and if you don't, well you're going to pay 25 cents a piece for them. I love that! I swear the cashiers at Shop Rite would give me a separate bag for every single item I purchase if I'd let them. I really wish the U.S. would adopt this policy. By the way, the beer up there is definitely for consumption at this house, but all those cookies and chocolates are being carted off to my office for my coworkers. ;-)

Things I wish I'd known

There are a few things I wish I'd known before going to Munich. Unlike Berlin, cash is king in Munich. Most of the cabs, and even a lot of the restaurants, don't take credit cards, and no one anywhere takes AMEX. I figured that out the hard way and had to make a cab driver cart me around town to find an ATM to take out enough cash to get me through the few day trip.

Also, after I figured out the subway system, I wish I'd never taken a cab to begin with. The cabs are expensive - it cost me 70 euro to go from the airport to the hotel, and the train would've only cost about 10 euro, which I found out on my way back to the airport when I was leaving. The train system was a little complicated (definitely asked for help there too, and some nice German lady bought me my ticket), but it goes literally everywhere and is very cost friendly.

And there you have it! I hope to return some day and spend more than a few days so I can get a better feel for the city, but it was really a wonderful trip for the short time I was there.

Now I'm off to relax on the couch for the rest of the evening. Hope you're enjoying the weekend!

Seeing Doubles

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A few people have contacted me about some issues with commenting and pinning from the blog, which should now be fixed:

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***

Yesterday was another double salad day.

After my trip I felt a little vitamin deprived and wanted to pack my day with veggies, so when lunch rolled around I made a big mixed green salad with carrots, cucumbers and broccoli, and a mess of tuna salad made with Sustainable Seas tuna, avocado, lemon juice and salt & pepper. I hate to admit it, but this sustainable tuna is growing on me. It tasted really good with the creamy avocado, and packed over 20 grams of protein. Filling!

Tuna + salad came again at dinnertime...

This time in the form of seared Ahi tuna steaks and California greens.

We bought the fresh tuna at Ahearn's fish market last weekend and stuck it in the freezer until yesterday. The tuna was so tender and flavorful (don't think I can ever buy it from ShopRite again after this), and Matt cooked it perfectly with a little coconut oil in the cast iron skillet. I seasoned it before cooking with salt, pepper and wasabi powder, then topped it off with a sprinkling of my new citrus fleur de sel from Munich. Aaaamazing.

Under the seared tuna steak was a salad bowl filled with:

- Mesclun greens
- Carrots
- Broccoli
- Cucumbers
- Chopped avocado
- Chopped fresh coconut (loving this as a snack lately!)
- A tablespoon of chopped macadamia nuts
- A simple dressing of coconut oil, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, salt and pepper

It was fantastic, and made me ache for summertime.

Breakfast

I was pretty exhausted waking up this morning...the jet lag and Wednesday's 22-hour day is catching up with me, and Riker is teething again so was wide awake at 4 am. I was in no mood to make an omelet and needed something I could take on the road to dropping Riker at daycare, so I went with another yogurt parfait.

This one was pretty similar to yesterday's, but I swapped out maple syrup for honey, added strawberries, and skipped the basil. Portable and satisfying. And the mason jar makes me happy. ;-)

Now it's time to get to work. I am so looking forward to a relaxing weekend, so gotta power through my to-do list on this Friday. Catch you later!

Munich Monday

After a short trip overseas, I'm back home on the east coast! It was a busy but great trip. I arrived at the airport early evening on Sunday, and had about an hour to kill before my flight. In an effort to stay away from airport vendor food, I had packed a big veggie salad with sunflower seeds and some cottage cheese to eat while I waited. It was great fuel for the 12 hour trip.

I took a red eye with a quick stop in London, and landed in a rainy Munich mid-day on Monday. I met a colleague (also a Melissa) at the airport and after checking into our hotel and catching up on some work, we headed out to explore and get a bite to eat. We walked around for a bit looking for a traditional-looking place to stop, and ended up at a Bavarian gastropub.

The menu was entirely in German, but the waiter did his best to explain the options and offer some recommendations.

Sadly he told me my options for traditional German fare as a vegetarian were extremely limited, but he did recommend a fish dish - zanderfilet, which is a local lake fish with a firm white flesh. It came sauteed with lemon and served over a huge bed of garlic spinach. It was really flavorful and quite delicious.

Melissa went with a traditional schnitzel and potatoes, which she said was fantastic.

We worked through our lunch/dinner and powered through our prep session so we could go out and see some of the city. A few hours later and we were ready to tackle the Munich subway system. We were told we had to see Marienplatz and Odeonsplatz, which are in the downtown area and home to many beautiful buildings as well as the local university.

Not gonna lie, we definitely got a little lost taking the subway (the Munich subway map is crazy!) but we figured it out and ended up being pros by the end of the trip. Our little tour downtown was well worth getting a little lost.

The architecture was gorgeous and the downtown city area was so quaint.

The main square was packed with people and full of energy, even though it was cold and rainy.

Love this gothic building! I think it was once an old church, but is now a theater with restaurants and art galleries.

The streets were filled with bakeries, boutiques, meat shops and chocolatiers, and we made sure to hit up a few of the shops for goodies to take home.

I'd been told by a friend to be sure to stop by Dallmayr, which is a famous Bavarian shop featuring all the local treats you could imagine.

I picked up lots of goodies for the family, and a gift for myself too - citrus fleur de sel!

Can't wait to use this fancy salt on all kinds of things.

The chocolates were really calling to both me and Melissa, and it seemed appropriate to end the evening with truffles and cappuccino in one of the cafes along the square. We picked out a few different pieces of chocolate and split them all. The hazelnut ones were definitely my favorite.

Talk about a perfect ending to the day. I headed to bed as soon as we got back to the hotel since we had a big day ahead of us on Tuesday, and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was out. I guess being up for nearly 24 hours will do that for ya!

P.S. If all this talk of chocolate has you salivating and you haven't entered the Spodee giveaway yet, there's still a few days left. Click here and leave a comment so you can be entered to win!