Yes, I am a Registered Dietitian and no, not one of my stories ever have started this way but all of my stories start with "There was that one time I was with my family and friends..."
Everything I do and everything I am is because of the family and friends I have in my life. These people are my people. These people are goodness. These people are unconditional love. These are the people I spend my time with, my most precious currency. These people make my heart happy.
Make the time to be with the ones you care most deeply about and for. Talk. Laugh. Drink. Eat. Dance. Sing. Connect.
Together is my favorite place to be...and if it starts with a salad or vodka, that's cool, because either way I know it will also start and end with family and friends.
Nutrition Nosh Two. Weekly Conversation.
My conversation today is with Pat Hoffmann, the owner of Lonely Oaks Distillery
I come from middle America, small town Iowa. And my small town, I mean small, around 200 people is surrounded by a number of similar small towns. There are many great people that come out of this tiny pocket of Iowa and I get very excited when people from there are doing great things. Pat Hoffmann, a fellow small town resident has started his own distillery, making craft spirits from the land he farms. My cocktail of choice almost always involves vodka and I was very intrigued by a delicious vodka coming from his business only a few miles away from my parents house. Pat, his wife Amy and his five children are all in this together with Pat’s passion for making products he believes in and cares for from seed-to-spirit (which is what I love the most!)
Nutrition Nosh Three. Week in Review.
Cake! Cocktails! This past week was about those 2 things as well as Celebrating! It has been a little while since we have had a meeting of the Cocktail Club and I thought it was the perfect time to do so by celebrating my favorite Libra's: Christine and Jason. I made this fancy cake (can you friggin believe it? Neither can I). I had this revelation laying in bed earlier in the week to do a deconstructed cherry cheesecake and hey oh! This is what happened! I am going to spare you all the ingredients, there is a lot of them, and give you the gist. I baked 2 - 7 inch round white cakes and let them cool. I then whipped together a no-cook/no-egg cheesecake filling and just used it as frosting, pulsed up some graham crackers, butter and sugar, baked it off to get crispy and then just randomly broke it into pieces and purchased a can of cherries. I put a layer of the cheesecake filling, cherries and graham cracker crust in the middle as well - see below! There you go! If you want all the recipe details, just shoot me a message. Christine shared a photo of the piece she took home. The plate makes it look so fancy!
I picked a cocktail for each of my favorite Libra's. Christine wanted to use the bottle of Lillet she had, so we designated the Vesper as her cocktail of the evening - otherwise known as the Original James Bond 007 Martini.
And Jason's cocktail for the evening was the French Martini. As you can see, each cocktail has vodka in it, so it was fun to use Lonely Oak Distillery's North 40 Vodka in our Cocktail Club.
Saturday started out and continued to be a very rainy, cold and dreary day. Christine and my mom rolled into Des Moines and I thought comfort food would be perfect for lunch.
Continuing with my theme of #lessstuffmorelife theme for 2017, I am trying to explore more of the fabulous city I live in and all it has to offer and it was the perfect day to head to Cheese Bar. I am a huge fan of the original space, The Cheese Shop, so I was curious of what was happening at their second location.
Cheese Bar did not fail us on this chilly fall day. The space is bright and clean and white. There are 30 different beers on tap and delightful wines to pair with the rich and creamy cheesy food options. The menu is a little more extensive but still has some originals. I loved my Gruyere 1655 grilled cheese full of gooey Gruyere and perfectly sweet and caramelized onions. The bread was perfectly crispy and crunchy and I could barely eat it all. I had a lovely cherry Lambic, which paired well. I look forward to my next visit where I can try something else on the menu.
The Cocktail Club Clan made their voyage all the way out to my casa (which is a bit of a drive and I get A LOT of shit for it). We had snacks and cocktails and more cocktails. We toasted Christine with the Vesper and we toasted Jason with the French Martini. Stacey decided to toast my healthy counter of smoothie ingredients and whipped up a fantastic Spirulina Cocktail (insert extreme sarcasm) to boost all of our immune systems and hopefully prevent hangovers!
As always, we all signed the Vintage Cocktail Club book to remember our night and if we ever wanted to drink that particular cocktail again. The Vesper is definitely a sipper, the French Martini was two thumbs up. This book holds a lot of memories we like to revisit each time we hold a session.
This is the perfect photo to represent that good times were had by all or maybe not?
We ended the night with singing and cake (and maybe one more cocktail?) Each of my Libra's hopefully made some amazing wishes for their next adventure around the sun.
Look at this good looking group of people! How did I get so lucky to have this tribe? I look forward to all moments spent with them, celebrating each other, celebrating our friendships and celebrating life. This is what it is all about!
Nutrition Nosh Four. Workout Playlist of the Week.
What is Cocktail Club without its own playlist? I hope this playlist inspires a little fun in your workout this week. I am anticipating a dance party happening in my living room at some point, oh wait that already happened! Get that heart pumping! Find the playlist on Apple Music and Spotify.
Nutrition Nosh Five. What I Love Right Now.
When life give you lemons, add vodka! How appropriate right? Lemons are always in my refrigerator, for my daily warm lemon water I have each morning and for a North 40 Vodka on the rocks. It find it hilarious I did not have any kind of juicer and would just cut and squeeze as needed. Then I was wandering around Marshalls for a gift and I found this amazing creation by Joie, the Lemon Squeeze and Pour. Greatest creation ever! Now I can prep my lemons for water....or vodka.
Cheers!
~AE
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