Exploring Home: Part 2

Everyone who goes to DC ends up on the Mall at some point. In fact until more recently that's all I really could think of to do when I though of DC which is sad because I've lived in the DC area all my life. Until moving to Alexandria and having metro access to DC I found it to be an intimidating and terribly boring kind of city to approach. Wrong.

DC has tons to offer in the realm of food, drinks, dancing, art and festivals. The international mixing of cultures here offers a wide array of activities and events and I am only now just beginning to appreciate that. The DC Shorts Film Festival is coming up soon and next spring the Environmental Film Festival will be going on, both of which I plan to take advantage of. Then there's the "yoga buffet" as Katie likes to call it of all the different studios and styles of meditation and yoga. And you know what ya'll? I even signed up for pole dancing classes. It's for my health....

Recently I've been on a walking kick where after taking the metro somewhere I'll just start walking. I know at some point I'll hit another metro stop somewhere and I'll get home but it's been such a great way to actually see the city.

Last week a few of my girlfriends came out to DC and we did a little daytrip that I wanted to share. Inevitably we did start our day out on the Mall but wait! There's a new face on the Mall! The Martin Luther King Jr memorial is finally done and open to the public so we went there first to check it out.



We spent probably 20 minutes or so taking pictures and walking around to read the MLK quotes that are on the walls behind his statue. During our stay we witnessed, by accident, a really cool interaction between two people. An older black man was standing next to a quote from Alabama and he was having a stranger take his photograph. While she was photographing he was explaining that he was 10 years old when the riots broke out in Alabama and that this particular quote had significance from his childhood. A white woman of perhaps the same age was walking by as this man was telling his story and she stopped and listened and then walked up to him and asked if she could shake his hand. She told him that she had been there too and they shared this memory. Rachel and I just looked at each other and said "ugh...someone should be capturing this." So look out in the future for a post about this project idea!



After the monument we went to Teaism for lunch and then headed over to The National Museum of Women in the Arts. This was my first time at this museum and we had the place to ourselves. I get the feeling that it's probably usually pretty empty since it's not right on the Mall. I would reccommend this gallery though - some cool photography and a really cool exhibit on the Gorilla Girls right now! Here's a few pictures of some photos I really liked.


Imogen Cunningham, Jesse Dorr Luca


Ann Hamilton, Untitled #8


Berenice Abbott, Eva Le Gallienne


Anna Gaskell, Override #26

To close out the evening we went to Busboys and Poets for some vegan nachos and a brownie sunday. Day well spent.

Where To Eat: D.C.

Last week I spent a day in the city with some of my favorite girlfriends and we tried out Teaism for the first time. I used to be a big tea-head when I worked at Shaharazade's in Shepherdstown years ago and while I've backed off quite a bit I do still enjoy a good tea and can sometimes be caught turning my nose up at a bag of tea dust masquerading as a good quality beverage.

We visited the Penn Quarter branch of Teaism but there is also one at Dupont Circle and Lafayette Park (which I have since been to and must say, its not as organized, friendly or well presented as the Penn Quarter one). Two doors up from the restaurant is the actual tea store where you can buy your favorites to take home, but lets get to the good stuff - the food!



While I didn't get to sample the breakfast menu there seemed to be lots of options for vegetarians and vegans for the lunch menu. In fact, if you ask they'll give you a special menu that lists all the menu items and then tells you if things are vegan or gluten free.

I ordered the veggie burger with a side of miso dressed sweet potato salad and a Moroccan mint tea. Other things that looked tasty on the menu included the seitan stir fry, the veggie bento box, and of course mochi for dessert!

In addition, they served beer, wine and fancy sounding cocktails. The atmosphere is casual. You order at one counter and pick up your food at another but the decor was inviting and there was plenty of seating inside and out.

Where to Eat: Flagstaff

During my stay in Flagstaff my friend Rachel was on the hunt for the best coffee in town. She had read about Macy's coffee and as luck would have it I had also read about Macy's delicious vegan offerings. Their full title is Macy's European Coffeehouse, Bakery and Vegetarian Restaurant, but I'm sure we're all fine with just Macy's right?

Tim Macy, a California boy originally, opened Macy's in 1980 and was the first commercial coffee roaster in Flagstaff. It's obviously earned it's name around town because the place was full of what seemed like a mix of locals and foreign tourists when we went in for breakfast.



Unfortunately their menu doesn't seem to be online but from what I remember of the vegan offerings there was the waffles, tofu scramble, an avocado BLT and some baked goods. Reviewers on Happy Cow raved about the BLT but as I went at breakfast I can't offer my personal endorsement. The waffles with Earth Balance and fresh fruit was just what I was looking for though.

Arizona

I recently took a trip to Arizona. My first trip to the southwest as an adult and while I expected beauty and an inspiring landscape I don't think I was prepared for how much the city of Flagstaff and the crisp dry air rising out of the canyons would effect me.

Our trip included a three day yoga festival, a visit to the Indian Condos in Walnut Canyon, a trip to Sedona, a day of exploring the beginnings of the Bright Angel Trail of the Grand Canyon, Gallery Walk in downtown Flagstaff, a Navajo festival, several delicious restaurants and plenty of time playing dominoes and cooking with my wonderful family.



Out of this trip Rachel and I have decided to come back in the fall of 2013 to spend a few days in the Grand Canyon. We plan to walk down Bright Angel Trail and camp at the bottom to spend some time seeing the Ribbon Falls and exploring before we come back up the Kaibab Trail. We have also discussed the possibility of MOVING out to the area! I would be interested in teaching on a reservation and Rachel would be interested in possibly working with the different tribes and their crafts.

Also from this trip I may have found a possible career path! The Flagstaff Yoga Festival was a lot of fun! We took Thai Massage, Bellydancing, Yoga Philosophy and then there was this class called In the House of Ganesha. Taught by Candice Garrett, it was a shorter version of a workshop she does on the pelvic floor combined with the root chakra and Ganesha. This was by far my favorite class and I found the subject really inspirational. Candice and her teacher Leslie Howard are working on the west coast to help men and women connect with their pelvic floor muscles to correct and prevent injuries and pain. Candice is the director and founder of Nine Moons Prenatal Yoga. Together they will be doing a teacher training in February that I hope to attend to learn more about how I could blend yoga and therapy to help women with pelvic inflammation and chronic pain.





The big outdoor store downtown. We checked out sleeping bags and shoes for our furture canyon adventure.


Flagstaff neons




Walnut Canyon where we got to visit the Indian Condos. The cliff dwelling people of the Anasazi tribe are thought to have inhabited this area from around 600 to 1400 AD. There were still black charred smoke marks on the ceilings of some of the condos and fingerprints from the construction of the rooms! No one knows what happened to the people here. There was no evidence of war or famine.


I couldn't have asked for a better travel companion :)


You can stamp your passport at the National Parks! I wish I had brought mine.




We met these three lovely photographers who are a part of The Visual Collective. They were doing impromptu portraits in an alley of the main drag of downtown Flagstaff. They asked to take our picture so we in turn took theirs! If I moved to Flagstaff these are the kinds of people and groups I would want to get in with!



One of the most interesting things about Flagstaff is the Native American influence and local population. During our walk downtown we saw this group carrying their banners and passing out flyers to encourage people to stop the expansion of a ski resort on sacred land. The San Francisco Peaks are sacred to 13 tribes of Native Americans and as the ski resorts and shops expand the Native population is protesting.

This site explains that "The Peaks have particular spiritual and resource significance to the Hopi and Navajo. Both of these nations claim ancestral religious rights to the mountain. In the Hopi worldview, Katsinas (spiritual beings responsible for bringing rain and maintaining social and ceremonial order) live on the mountain, to which select tribe members make periodic pilgrimages for visiting sacred shrines. To the Navajo, the mountain is a physical manifestation of sacred forces and also a home to spiritual beings. Both tribes approach the mountain with the utmost respect, and only for ceremony or collection of medicinal plants. To the Native Americans of the Colorado Plateau, the San Francisco Peaks should not be used for personal enjoyment, economic pursuits or even scientific study, as these land uses betray and contaminate this sacred place."

I would be really interested in learning more about the Native American tribes in Arizona. We did get to go to a Navajo Festival and eat some delicious fry bread and watch the Ribbon Dance ceremony and we bought some crafts. At this festival was also a photography exhibit that really kinda blew my mind. Kenji Kawano, Japanese native, has been photographing the Navajo people since 1974 and has been the Navajo Nation's official photographer since 1980. He had a series on display at the festival of the Navajo Code Talkers and the depth of the portraits and his obvious relationship with these people were really inspiring. Check out his portfolio please!

In all I would say our trip was a huge success. I was in love with the weather - no humidity, no mosquitos, cool in the evening and warm during the day. I got tons of inspiration and nature enthusiasm and it was so nice to spend time with family that I don't often get to see. My aunt and uncle are just as fun and youthful as I remember and my two little cousins were surprisingly mature and grown up for such a young age.

I've got two Arizona food posts coming soon!

Where to Eat Rehoboth Beach: The Cultured Pearl

I recently spent a week with some good friends in Rehoboth Beach and one night we are at this gorgeous little rooftop restaurant. The Cultured Pearl, while mainly a fish and meat serving restaurant was more than satisfying for all the vegetarians and vegans in the group. With plenty of maki roll options and several different salads and plates that could easily be made vegan I was a happy girl, plus did I mention it was gorgeous up there?



This is the Delaware Roll. Fishes are my friends, not my foods, so they get a picture too!






Seaweed salad! So fancy.

Exploring Home: Part 1

So I moved to Old Town Alexandria in the beginning of May and since then the works (yes more than one work) have been driving me into the ground with some insane schedules. I haven't had a proper introduction to my own town so now I'm determined to take some time to do so.

Tonight I took Trike out on the drawbridge of 495 and as luck would have it, the bridge was going up! I watched this cute little pirate ship come under the bridge while airplanes from DCA flew over us and the sun set in the distance. It was a really nice way to end and already pleasant evening.

More trike adventures to come in the future.

Cherry Lemonade

Hello Blog Readers!

I know I have been MIA for a while but the works are demanding a lot of my time these days. Don't fret though, I have lots of fun stuff to share! This post features a recipe AND two of my newly acquired old treasures.

I may have mentioned before that Katie and I order a weekly produce box from Argancia. We get a bounty of fresh, local goodies every Sunday (except this Sunday because they shipped our box to someone else, grrrrr) which means lots of yummy food to be made! Last week we got these local Virginia cherries in the box and, unlike their slightly larger, plumper cousins the Bing, these cherries were a little less sweet than I had hoped.

Never to be daunted, I decided to make them into lemonade! If you've made lemonade from scratch before there really isn't much to it and adding the cherries is just one extra step. Make the lemonade the day before you go to the beach or have a cookout so it has lots of time to chill in the fridge.



Cherry Lemonade

3/4 cups sugar
1 cup fresh lemon juice (about 6 lemons)
1 full cup cherries
4 cups cold water

1. Put the sugar and a cup of water in a saucepan over low or medium heat. Stir it often. While you're doing this take your freshly washed cherries and pluck the stems out and then slit them in half. No need to pull them apart or pit them.
2. Plop your cherries in the pot with your dissolving sugar and stir the mixture until the sugar is dissolved and you have a simple syrup.
3. Strain the cherries out but reserve your syrup of course!
4. Combine the cold water, syrup and lemon juice in a pretty little pitcher and mix. Refrigerate until it's time to serve it.



The tea cup in the pictures was part of a house warming present from Pang, isn't it cute?! The small turquoise table cloth is something I bought yesterday at On a Whim in Leesburg. If you haven't been there you really really have to go. They have amazing stuff and I will be posting about some of the other goodies we saw there soon!