If you know me, you know I can spend LOTs of deniro on food, no problem… actually it is a problem that I need to work on, however there is one thing I don’t like spending money on and that is breakfast out. I just don’t really get it… I can fry an egg, make a piece of toast, even some bacon and life is good. I just don’t see the sense, but I was hungry. My opinion has changed slightly.

So,the  Charleston Cafe is located in a small shopping plaza  on Johnny Dodds on your way towards Shem Creek from Mt Pleasant and I feel like I am slightly changed for life since eating there, seriously. Breakfast is a meal I typically like to start out on the healthy side, not this day.

On the special board, Pumpkin Pancakes with a caramel syrup and homemade whipped cream so yes, even though I have never ordered a pancake in a restaurant IN MY LIFE, I love pumpkin and had to have it and so glad I did! Texture, flavor combination was perfect! Although I could not finish it, I couldn’t have imagined it any better. Why didn’t I finish it? Well, because I ordered the Amber’s Special! Crab cake benedict topped with poached eggs, shrimp and smoked sausage, a side of grits and a homemade sweet potato biscuit! YES, that is what I had for breakfast!

The grits were outstanding, it looked more like a trough of grits, but they were creamy and for breakfast that is how I prefer mine. The crab cakes were fresh, meaty and had nice consistency, I really liked the sausage and shrimp with the eggs. I have to mention FISH and I don’t do breakfast together. I am not sure I would order it again, only because I want to move on to something else. Not that I could even think of tasting the biscuit, but I did and it was perfect. Good bits of sweet potato, moist with what appeared to be a blend of white and wheat flour – I brought it with me for later!

What did Greg have?? a side of jalapeno bacon which was ok –  with all of the other flavors it may have been a bit lost and it just wasn’t standing out. It had a serious kick, even for us and we love spicy. He had eggs and cheese with sausage that was battered in pancake batter and fried – ummm YUM! How did I never think of this, in all honesty, I was pretty bummed I hadn’t!

The coffee was great, nice and rich without being too bold. Other than the strip mall the ambiance as great,  although we sat outside on the sidewalk because it was gorgeous, the inside was quant and a good blend of southern country home meets diner.

If you are in or around Charleston or Mt. P – you have to check this place out, it’s no joke! Did I mention the pancake had candy corn on it?

• Food – 8.5 (delicious and creative)
• Ambiance – 7.5
• Service – 8
• Value – 7.5 – hard to tell since we ordered so much – most likely if we would have ordered our typical breakfast size 8.5

Here is a quick list of things I love to do with berries:

1. Make Jam/Jelly
2. Eat Fresh
3. Freeze  – rinse, lay out in single layers on a cookie sheet, freeze and Ziploc
4. Put 6-8 berries in a champagne glass on the table for your next cocktail party and pour champagne or limoncello over them in front of your guests – gotta love the action moments!
5. Make a ricotta cheese ice cream and add the fresh berries the last 8 minutes of your ice cream maker cycle (you can use low-fat/no fat ricotta but I would use heavy cream along with it
6. mix in to sour dough bread before the final rise and bake – or in d-licious scones with whole wheat flour, pecans or almonds and some hemp seeds and flax seeds – talk about NUTRITION!!!!!!!! better than a power bar for sure
7. Infuse your Booze – that’s right berry gin, vodka or bourbon! Store in a sealed jar, cover the berries in your choice of above and let sit in a dark, cool spot for at least a week and strain with a seive
8. Fruit salad with fresh mint, basil (thai or lime preferred), drizzle with a balsamic reduction and serve over arugala. Goat cheese and pecans are a great topper to this and I eat this for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert
9. Dessert brushetta - crusty bread, chevre or nutella, berries, herbs
10. Smoothie & Shake IT! – yogurt, protein powder, water, milk, almond milk, coconut water, soy milk – whatever your liquid is, well that is up to you. Same with your “stir/shake ins” almonds, almond or sun butter, banana, spinach, carrot, beet - it’s all delicious! For a sweet treat packed with protein: chocolate almond milk, 1/2 banana, 1T almond butter and your berries (feel free to add some whey or soy protien if you need it) - blend and FREEZE – hello ICE CREAM!

about berries – BUY ORGANIC! Blueberries are 10th of the 53 fruits & veggies tested with the highest pesticides! Anti-oxidents – YES! full of vitamins and delicious goodness! Enjoy!

photo credit

Here was my breakfast:

Fresh Juice out of my amazing slow juicer:

• 1 Beet
• 2 Carrots
• 1 Small Apple
• 1c Kale
• 1c Pineapple

In my breakfast, anytime of day, snack and trail mix:

• 1c Kashi Heart to Heart Cereal
• 1/2c HiLo Bran Flakes
• 12 dried apricots
• 2 T Goji Berries
• 1 T Hemp Hearts
• 2 T Flax Seeds (crushed)
• 1 small box of raisins
• 25 Almonds

I eat just under 1/2 of this for breakfast and then usually snack on the remaining half the following day as my mid morning or late day snack. Sometimes I will toss it with some unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk or PLAIN greek yogurt and that’s it!

Sweet craving satisfied!

I do so well, I track my food, my work outs and I don’t even like sweets. Actually, I used to be anti sugar, cakes, candy, etc… the occassional sour patch kid, well that is a different story, but cookies, cheesecake, baked goods… NO INTEREST… so what happened to me? The same thing that happens to everyone with a “sweet tooth” I started eating it.

People eat desert at certain times of the day, the month or when they are celebrating or drowning their sorrows. What am I getting at? There is an addiction related to eating sweets. Are we eating the sweets because of the emotional connection? Because of the habit we have formed? Because of what sugar does to our body?

I say D all of the above! How do we stop? Well I believe in balance but in order to make anything a habit you have to really commit to a minimum of 60 days. So that is it, 60 days starts tomorrow. This doesn’t include natural sugars in fruits/veggies, I am talking any processed sugars. YIKES!

For balance – I treat per week that means A cookie or A piece of cake (PORTION SIZE IS 1/8 of a slice)

Let’s see how it goes!

I had the hanger steak benedict, cooked to perfection, my eggs were beautifully poached and the steak – perfect mid rare, great hollandaise! Greg started with the SheCrab Soup, incredible flavor with big chunks of crab, not as thick as I was used to but the flavor profile was spot on! My brunch came with homeade grits, potatoes that were nice and crisp without being dry or burnt and fresh fruit. I focused on the steak/eggs but did have a few bites of the other items, which were wonderful. Greg had the parmesan crusted chicken sandwich, pan seared and super juicy with a rasberry mayonaise. The wine list is great and offered a wide selection.

I did want to share that another recommendation by the server, who was super sweet and attentive was the PoBoys… apparently they get their bread from New Orleans and the recipes are traditional… so you know what that means? … next time I am getting a PoBoy!

So about the front porch, apparently the music center which showcases amazing artists draw quite a crowd and can sometimes be heard outside while on the porch, if they are playing outdoors. They run a festival from the end of June through the first of August and it is supposed to attract musicians from all over. I may have this slightly wrong but I do know that there is live music, so please fill me in, I may need to rent a room in Brevard this summer.

Oh, and there will be buddhist monks in Brevard this weekend, so you should definitely stop in! Brevard is a happening place and I cannot wait to go back to visit.

PS: we hit up Quotations coffee house afterwards for a cup of green tea and a white chocolate mocha, which was out of this world! The staff at this place was great AND they have a 100.0 sanitation score… I point that out only because I am not sure I have seen one that high before!

Enjoy Brevard!

So yesterday, I was talking with my mom and her boyfriend about their eating excuses. Perfect example: ”well, this week is shot because we went out for so and so’s birthday and then this and that and next week we are going on vacation so that is shot too!” Yes that’s right, giving in before you even give yourself a chance! So I give them both this great lecture about my thoughts and ways to improve on things today. Fast forward to today and I just crumbled!

Out of no where! Partly because G wasn’t home so I didn’t have a need for a structured meal at all, which meant I could snack all day. I ate like 15 apricots, dried mango, 20 crackers, 2 handfuls of nuts, 12 pretzels dipped in any type of cheese I could find in my fridge including some nice pimento cheese and some boursin, I had some toast and jelly, I had ground beef with salsa and cheese (2 helpings), an apple, a half a pear and about 5 cups of tea and a 4 glasses of water. I had all of this and there was not one point in the day where I felt hungry. I always tell people I rarely feel full, today I felt full, but I kept eating. Right now my stomach is so bloated I just want to sleep – awesome combination!

So, I know what you are thinking, most everything on the list is decent for you – yes, but in moderation! Polishing off a tub of cheese is ridiculous! Besides the fact that it has absolutely no nutritional value, it really sticks to your A*s and doesn’t digest.

Back to me never feeling full, I was talking to a friend of mine who was sharing her experience with me about how she went to one of her friends Italian grandparents house in college to learn to make pasta. She was describing the hours of cooking and eating that went on and that pretty much after the first round of food she tried to tap out, but her friends wouldn’t let her and teased her for it. She said she had never experienced anything like it. She is a healthy eater, a good cook and has a good relationship with food, she just looks at it differently than I do. You eat to feed your body and it can be enjoyable and delicious and creative; I eat for pleasure and experience. Luckily for me my body naturally enjoys healthy foods so nutrition just happens for me but it is not the primary reason that I eat or cook for that matter.

It got me thinking about what I can do about it, the typical stuff we learn:

• eat slower
• eat on a plate
• don’t eat in front of anything with a screen (including your phone) not even a book/magazine
• fill over half your plate with vegetables
• use a smaller plate
• snack when you are hungry*******
• have a glass of water before you eat and at the first sign of hunger
• people are typically hungry 3-4 hours

So I started digging around online and wanted to share some good sites that I recommend you visit so be sure and click on the links in this post (I don’t know them personally, I just found what they wrote helpful to me). The best was the snack when you are hungry: THAT MEANS YOU SHOULD EAT LESS AT YOUR MEAL… REALLY??? Yes, I am sure that this is common sense… that NEVER occurred to me! Yes, I will admit it, it never even entered the realm of possibility. That and just because it is noon or 6 doesn’t mean we have to eat… STUMPED AGAIN! Which makes me realize, I do need to start to listen to my body which is the only real reason I am not sure if I am hungry or if I am ever full so check out the link below.

Emotional Hunger Pangs vs True Hunger Pangs? – another day! Bored, Lonely, Sad, Afraid, Mad, … if you had a bad day, sing that American Idol song and drink a glass of hot tea! and read from this woman who seems to have a good relationship with food.

The hunger scale is a nutritionist’s tool that can help you learn how to eat only when you’re actually hungry and stop as soon as you start to feel full.  (Taken from Calorie Lab)vHere’s how it works: When you want to eat, first figure out where you are on a scale of one to ten, with one being ravenously hungry and ten being painfully overstuffed.

1. Insatiably hungry
2. Seriously hungry
3. Stomach growling hungry
4. Slightly hungry
5. No longer hungry but not yet satisfied
6. Comfortably satisfied
7. Starting to feel full
8. Feeling full
9. Starting to get a stomach ache from so much food
10. In actual pain from overeating

(From me again: They say you should always want to be between 3-7)

Eat only when you’re hungry. (taken from WikiHow) Modern Western culture seems to think that people get hungry at about 9 AM, 12 noon, and again at 6 PM. While this may be a generally good schedule for eating, remember that (usually) you don’t have to eat at meal time if you’re not hungry yet. Also, if you are hungry between meals, go ahead and have a healthy snack. It’s not good to starve yourself between meals; if you allow yourself to become too hungry, yyou’ll just overeat when the meal comes. It’s all about listening to your body. You cannot follow this suggestion, however, until you have mastered Step 2, knowing when you’re hungry. Another thing to remember is that by eating a little bit whenever you’re hungry throughout the day, you shouldn’t be eating so much at meal times, because you won’t be as hungry and because you haven’t waited and starved yourself. If you follow the suggestion of eating between meals if you’re hungry, but continue to eat the same amount as if you had not snacked at meal times, you’ll only end up gaining weight.

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So, trying to find my way through this Paleo commitment with some missteps. I realized I have been eating out too much and somehow had let a bundle of asparagus sit for a few too many days and much of it was less than attractive (I prefer it crisp). It was 10am and I hadn’t had breakfast and I love eggs so this is where my idea started.

I sauteed a large sweet onion, 2 diced carrots, 1 small hungarian pepper seeded, 1 red pepper julienned, and 2 cloves of garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil for 5 minutes. I then added 1/2 cup white wine, 4 large fresh sage leaves, fresh oregano and rosemary (I did not dice them I put them in whole), 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 bunch of asparagus diced, leaving 4-5 fresh stalks for garnish and sauteed for 15 minutes. I then fried 1 egg and 1 egg white in a separate pan. I placed fresh spinach down then a nice large scoop of the vegetables still hot and then topped with my egg and some fresh pepper. So yummy!

I added 4 cups of water and 1 1/2 tsps of Better than Boullon and let it blend together with some fresh pepper for 20 minutes, food processed it and yes, ASPARAGUS and RED PEPPER SOUP! no cheese, no cream or dairy! It was a little thin so adding in a few pieces of asparagus and fresh chives as garnish was perfect, you could even dice a half teaspoon of red pepper and put that on top too, how pretty the red and green would be!  Enjoy it!

• 1st course Goat Cheese Salad with fresh spinach, strawberries, walnuts and a Gaelic Ale vinaigrette paired with their Gaelic Ale

Nuttly malty flavor and a hint of sweetness in the beer matched well with the walnuts and strawberries. The Gaelic Vinaigrette was emulsified with honey, I was missing the beer a bit or maybe more of a vinegar would have brought it out stronger, but the beer and salad went well.

• 2nd course Scallops Diane – diver scallops wrapped in applewood bacon and a St. Terese’s beer blanc paired with the St Terese’s

St Terese is a wheat beer that is smooth and can really taste mid palate, possible hint of citrus which was a nice compliment to the scallops. These were cooked to perfection, tender, not over cooked and the beer blanc was a nice touch. The beer paired well, not too heavy or overpowering even though it is double hopped and dry hopped.

• 3rd course Roasted Pork Loin with a rosemary creamed corn and a roasted shallot and rosemary cream sauce paired with the Black Mocha Stout

The Mocha Stout is roasted, barley malt and the best thing about this beer, it has a clean finish and very drinkable for being a dark beer in color. Oscar shared that this is a very well awarded beer but their lowest selling! The tenderness of the pork and the creaminess and richness of the rosemary, wow, I can still taste it! Dear Frankie Bones, please add this pork dish to your menu for the fall/winter!

• 4th course FB Signature Coffee Marinated Ribeye and the Thunderstruck Coffee Porter.

After coming off of the incredible flavors of the pork and scallops, I was really looking forward to one of my favorite dishes at FB the Ribeye, but I say the pork won it. The Ribeye was an 8oz cut, smaller than the typical size obviously but I felt like there was just too much marinade or maybe it was too much coffee between the steak and the beer? I finished it and it was good but it wasn’t the highlight which is what I expected.

I have to share some great tidbits from the guests of the evening (other than us eating) Oscar Wong and Chris Peters and Erica Nelson from the brewery. What a treat, in between each of the courses they shared with the group a variety of information re: the brewery, the beer, the culture, the history and while we were eating they came around and gave us even more!

Fast Facts:

1. Words to live by @ Highland “QUALITY, INTEGRITY, RESPECT”
2. Gaelic Ale makes up 45% of all sales at Highland
3. It took 16hrs to fill the cold mountain liters all by hand (I don’t remember how many men, women, volunteers they said)
4. Thunderstruck was started in their 3 barrel pilot system to replace the Abbey
5. There are 150lbs of coffee in 100 barrel batch of the Thunderstruck
6. Highland started in the basement of Barley’s in 1994 and was there until 2006!
7. Cold Mountain started as a “Holiday Ale” 1997
8. Cold Mountain and Thunderstruck are the only Highland Beers that have ingredients other than Grain, Yeast, Water & Hops
9. Women have stronger and more defined taste buds than men (theory has it it goes back to the days of hunters/gatherers)

 Please click on this link for my infograph: highland info 1

Why this and why now? This is what I have to answer first to keep focused. Why this? I like many of the concepts within the diet but I also like many of the concepts in the Dukan diet as well so what I would like to do is streamline them both but for now, I am working with investigating Paleo. Why now? That is a bit easier and straightforward, I have gained a great deal of weight and don’t want to quit drinking all of the great local beer that surrounds me.

So here is my variation for now and may have to adjust after I combine it with Dukan.

The plan: I am cutting out the following ingredients 4 days a week, not 7 I can’t do 7 long term. The other reason for 4 days a week? Well, my mom is coming to visit, which always means lots of starch and cheese and then we have more friends coming to town, etc… The bottom line is there is always a reason to cheat so I am creating cheat days ahead of time. When I use them is up to me.

So for 4 days a week I will not have any of the following in my diet:
NO cereal grains and legumes: wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, brown rice, soy, peanuts, kidney beans, pinto beans, navy beans and black eyed peas.

NO vegetable oil, hydrogenated/partly-hydrogenated oils: margarines, soybean oil, corn oil, crisco, peanut oil, canola oil, safflower oil and sunflower oil. (Small amount allowed of coconut oil for cooking and olive or avocado oil for seasoning/dressing)

NO sugar, soft drinks, etc… (Fresh fruit is ok)

NO dairy products other than butter and maybe heavy cream !YIKES!

Where will I focus? Well, it is easier to eat fresh and raw ingredients in the spring and summer. Fall we start to loose momentum in our gardens and moving in to winter we have to adjust to frozen vegetables.

Broccoli, Squash, Spaghetti Squash, Brussel Sprouts, Spinach, Leafy Greens, Asparagus and Protein, eggs for breakfast, Chicken, Steak, Tuna for dinner.

Wish me luck, I really would like to do 5 days but I know that I like wheat, oats and cereal, I love cheese and dairy. What will I do with all the yogurt in my fridge if I give it all up? And what about all that incredible cheese? Am I just supposed to watch others eat my good cheese? No way that’s expensive (and delicious cheese!)

Thank you AnaerobicInc Crossfit for the borrowing of your image

We started with oysters Blue Points and Shigoku from the West Coast, the West Coast beat out the East Coast for sure and Asiago cheese with a nice chutney of raisins, cranberries, some nutmeg and Marconi Almonds. We moved on to Spicy arugula Salad with julienned granny smith apples and Humboldt fog blue cheese which is creamy and fabulous and some hazelnuts for crunch.

The Admiral has a few beers on tap (they were featuring the Wedge last night), a great cocktail selection and wine list, we ordered a Barbaresco. For dinner, the Ribeye with grilled asparagus and a really nice smoky blue cheese and thinly sliced fries. Scallops with a wonderful gastrique and extremely flavorful and tender Brussel sprouts. Rack of lamb with a sweet potato puree and a bacon risotto.  The kitchen staff at the Admiral know how to blend flavors and provide their guests with an intimate and almost personalized dining experience.

If you are looking for a dive bar style food/prices this may not be for you but if you like really intense flavors and food that is well thought out and designed this is for you. I know you will be full but split a desert and a french press.

We had to order desert, their desert is scrumptious! Last night we had a Mexican Churro (thin donut like sticks) with a sipping chocolate topped with a coarse sea salt on top. It was the perfect ending to an amazing meal! I recommend for sure and insist you start with the arugala salad for sure!