Scenes of South Beach

As I prepare to leave for NYC tomorrow I can't help but wish I were going to Miami again instead. Our first day in South Beach was spent between sleeping on the white sand and roaming the sunny streets. Here are a few shots. I especially loved meeting the two little weenie dogs - the little white one is blind but she hid it well.

Somewhere New: Miami Part 1

My April Somewhere New was an amazing trip that I am feeling ever so nostalgic for now. I'm slowly but surely editing the pictures from the week I spent in Miami with Marty Cherry. I have so much great stuff to share but here are just a few shots from our first day playing around on the beach tower.

Exploring Home - An Epic Day in the District

A few weeks ago I spent an epic day with Rachel. We worked on our MLK project (which is to be called Collecting the Dream and will soon be released for viewing and participating via a website/blog) in the morning and then decided to just go all out for the rest of the afternoon.

We started our day at Ghana Cafe with some delicious fou fou, peanut soup and fried plantains.

Somewhere New: State College, PA

I'm a little behind on blogging these days. S'cuse!

For the month of March I went to visit my old-time(er) friend Jon in State College where he is furiously (sometimes grumpily) working on getting his Dr in Sociology. State College is a college town but is still fairly sleepy even for that so we spent the weekend just talking and walking. Jon introduced me to his favorite coffee shop Saint's Cafe where I got my first soy spiced chai latte. I have yet to find another one that compares! Here are some pictures of me following Jon around and pestering him with my camera.

Giving me a tour of the "stacks" in the university library.

What are these mysterious markings, I wonder? Another month down - get ready for a ton of Miami posts as I try to catch up on blogging! Happy Travels!

Exploring Home: The Postal Museum

On one of my DC adventure days with Rachel we visited the Postal Museum. While I wouldn't say this was the most engrossing museum I have visited in DC it DID have some interesting stamp specimens as well as a very complete history of the pony express, how mail transitioned to rail and there was an interactive portion in the contemporary section talking about the importance of hand-written correspondence. Here are a few pictures from the museum. On a rainy day its definitely worth a look.

In the interactive section I mentioned viewers were encouraged to write on Post It Notes about why they thought hand writing letters was an important thing to do. Some of my favorite responses: "You can't hold an email or smell the perfume on it from a lover. Can't see how little children's hand writing has improved or the work that went into it." "I saved my grandmother's handwritten letters. Will my grandchildren save my emails? Doubt it." PS - I love to write letters so if you want to get a postcard or little letter in the mail send me your address!

Sporkfed's Lemon Ginger Scones

Oh how I long to go to California. The beaches are endless, the men (I imagine) are gorgeous and the food is all vegan. Or well.. a lot of it is from what I hear. LA based sisters Jenny and Heather Goldberg are the duo behind Spork Foods. I came across their online cooking classes a while back and began waiting patiently for them to come out with a cookbook and of course they did. These scones are from their first (I hope there will be many!) cookbook Sporkfed.

I am slowly but surely working my way through this cookbook and these scones were a delicious way to start.

Where to Eat Vegan: Martinsburg, WV - Good Natured Market and Vegetarian Cafe

I spent a day in Martinsburg, West Virginia recently and Rachel M. introduced me to Martinsburg's well kept secret: Good Natured Market and Vegetarian Cafe. I went to college not 15 minutes from this place and never knew it existed. They serve up vegetarian, vegan and gluten free meals and serve as a venue for ecological films and music.

Every day they have a new veggie burger (check for eggs though!), 3 soups, and a little chalk board full of sandwich and entree specials. Of all the choices I decided to go for the Peanut Noodle Bowl because as Isa pointed out, bowls are where it's at for us vegans. I was not disappointed. A heaping bowl of noods, tomatoes, sprouts, sugar peas, green, and black sesame seeds with a peanuty sauce to top it off was paired with their signature salad and the vegan tahini Goddess dressing.

Things I would like to try in the future: the Toasted Veggie Stack - which has the strange but delicious sounding combination of fried onions and mango (sub vegan cheese of course) and I also had my eye on the Sweetest Potato Falafel.

they even have a store up front that sells everything from plastic bag dryers (I got one so now I don't have to hang them all over the kitchen) to tempeh.