Italian Style Exhibit at MIA

A couple weeks ago, a friend and I went to the Minnesota Institute of Art to see their Italian Style exhibit.  We are both into fashion so we jumped at the chance to see actual outfits from different eras.  The exhibit featured the work of Italian designers from post-WWII era to present day.  I was kind of mesmerized walking through the exhibits.  It's simply amazing how things come back in style after a couple decades.  It was really fun to see pieces that walked a runway or attended a fancy gala up close to appreciate the detail.  My absolute favorite was this outfit from 1966 that I would love to wear today.  The shirt  and trim of the jacket featured intricate beading and sequin detail and made the whole look really shiek.  I don't usually think of sequins as shiek; they usually are just sewed on haphazardly to shirts to give them more sparkle.  But the way these were layered made me really admire it and see sequins in a different way.  The exhibit had around 50-60 mens and womens looks spanning the decades after WWII.

I really enjoyed the exhibit and it got my creative juices flowing.  I'm incredibly lucky to know an actual designer and have been working on some custom pieces with her.  My favorite of our design collaborations was this swim suit cover up.   We are currently working on a leather jacket and "the skirt".  Check out her etsy shop featuring her awesome boho jewelry at https://www.etsy.com/shop/thefree?ref=shop_sugg. 

Chankaska Winery

On my way down to my parents' house, I decided to stop at Chankaska Winery just south of St. Peter. For $7, you can taste 5 of their approximately 20 wines.  As typical of MN wineries, Chankaska makes fantastic sweet wines.  But what really impressed me was the red that I tried.  I usually find Minnesota produced reds lacking, but their Cabernet Sauvignon was truly delicious. I ended up buying the reisling, the port, and my new favorite dessert wine - the North Forest Krem.  It's an apple wine made with local walnuts and maple syrup and is more of an alcoholic cream than a wine.  It is a creamy dreamy dessert wine and was delicious just over ice.  It comes with a recipe card to give you ideas of what to do with this wine.  I think it would also be delicious in coffee. 

Ice House

 I recently enjoyed dinner with a friend at a "new to me" restaurant.  We went to Ice House on Eat Street in Minneapolis.  I need to keep checking off restaurants in this area; so many intriguing options.  I wasn't super hungry so I ordered the brussels spouts appetizer and the pumpkin souffle appetizer.  Both were excellent.  Then I had a very different cocktail that I enjoyed - a pomegranate hibiscus gin-tini with a layer of vanilla cream foam on top -  Delicious.  My friend had the roasted beets appetizer and the Ice House burger which were also delicious.  If you like whiskey, this might be a good place for you to check out.  They appear to have a strong whiskey shot and whiskey cocktail program.

Minneapolis Christmas Market!

For years my sister has been talking the Christmarkets in Europe and how fun they are to peruse.  Mulled wine, hand made crafts.  Imagine my joy when the Minneapolis Christmas Market was announced.  I could have this wonderful experience at home instead of having to travel across the ocean!  Last night my husband and I and our good friend from Germany ventured out into the cold to explore the acclaimed Christmas Market.  Located in Peavey Plaza on Nicollet Mall, the market brings Christmas cheer to downtown Minneapolis and provides a primo lunch/dinner option for those that work in the area.

Despite the cold, we explored the whole market.  I loved looking at the intricate ornaments and crafts.  But I'm not into buying knick-knacks so my main mission was the German food!  We enjoyed gluhwien (hot mulled wine) and applwein (hot mulled hard apple cider), bratwurst, potato pancakes, pretzel stick, and apple pastry with caramel and cream cheese drizzled on top.

Christmas Market Tips:

• Go at night (it's open until 9) so you can see the whole village lit up with lights.  This will also allow you to snag free parking as most of the meters end at 6 pm.  We parked a few blocks north on Hennepin without a problem.
• It costs $6 to get in, but the tickets are reusable.  You can go as many times as you like.
• The gluhwein and applwein are initially expensive because you are buying the souvenir mugs.  If you go multiple times, bring your mug back.  The refills are cheaper.   I wonder if you brought a styrofoam cup if they would only charge you the refill price.  Also, the applwein right by the entrance on the top level is the best.  We got a mug on the bottom level and it was a little more bitter.
• Visit the syrup stand.  You get unlimited free samples.  Our favorite was the coffee maple syrup and the bourbon vanilla maple syrup.  
• The curry brat is so very delicious.
• The potato pancake is basically a homemade hashbrown patty.  It is served with sour cream and apple sauce.  It is amazing.  You get 3 decent sized patties so this is definitely sharable.
• Bring your food to the warming tent on the bottom level.  It is decently warm and has a bunch of picnic tables to make eating easier.

Per our German friend and those who have been to an authentic Christmas Market, this one is fairly legit.  To put a rating on it, it gets about a B+ to A- which is pretty good for the first year.

The last day of the market is Christmas Eve.  I recommend checking it out.  It isn't huge so you can devote about an hour to it and get the full experience and not freeze your tail off.

The Puerto Rico Adventures

I think one of the best things about Minnesota is that it gives you full permission to leave during the winter.  Heck, even MN took a vacation from itself last week with the unseasonably warm temps.  My husband and I took a break from MN by visiting Puerto Rico.  Since we work opposite schedules a lot of the time, going on vacation is the only time when we get uninterrupted quality time together to do something fun!  Kind of a way to really appreciate each other and rediscover all the reasons we got married in the first place.  When we booked the trip, we had no clue how much there was to see and do in PR.  We had quite the busy trip so I'll include the highlights and pictures!

We arrived Monday evening.  We stayed at La Concha in the Condado region of San Juan.  The hotel was wonderful.  Very modern, right on the beach, and we even had a little kitchenette. The hotel is on a busy street with tons of restaurants and bars so every night we wandered around our street. 

My husband usually sleeps longer than I do so my morning ritual is to go sit down by the beach and journal, plan the activities for the day, and just relax enjoying the sun and the waves.  I started every day like that.  On Tuesday we went to Old San Juan and toured the old forts built by the Spanish.  That was really interesting as they are hundreds of years old.  We wandered through Old San Juan and enjoyed the architecture and the super bright colors of the buildings.  Thankfully the city was not super busy.  It was a week day and the incoming cruise ship hadn't docked yet.  We stopped for lunch at Pirilo which is a rustic pizza place.  The starter for the pizza dough is 300 years old!!!!

Wednesday was definitely an adventure day. First we went to a farmers market and stopped at several fruit stands on the side of the road.  We stocked up on delicious fruit - mini pineapple, regular pineapple, avocado, champagne mangoes, mini bananas, and mandarins.  Then we continued west to Camuy where we visited one of the largest cave systems in the world.  This cave was carved by a river and was almost 200 feet tall and quite wide.  We took a guided tour through the cave.  Then we went to the Aricebo Observatory which is home to a ginormous radio telescope.  You may recognize this from the movies Contact and Goldeneye.  Very cool to be so up close and personal.  Then we happened upon this beautiful waterfall.  If we didn't have such a long car ride home, I would have jumped in and enjoyed a swim.   Last we happened upon another cave in one of the national forests.  We had about an hour until it got dark but decided to venture into the woods in search of this cave.  We basically did a trail run for 30 minutes until we found it, explored for 10 minutes, and ran back out.  Thankfully without any mishaps.  Not quite before the sun set though :P  When we got back to San Juan, we ate at Casa Lola near our hotel.  Holy amazing mofongo (mashed plantains) and bread pudding.  We also had amazing BBQ pork and beef brisket.  We went back to this restaurant several times as it amazing Puerto Rican food.

Here we are the Cave Park in Camuy.  So cool how ginormous this thing was.  

Here is the Aricebo Observatory.  They actually used the telescope when we were there so we got to see it move around and get positioned!  

This is part of our haul from the fruit stands and farmers market.  Our favorite were definitely the pineapples.

Thursday was finally a beach day.  We went to the Luquillo beach and I got to enjoy a pina colada.  There are also a bunch of food kiosks there that were open, thankfully.  We stopped at the Luquillo Beach BBQ and enjoyed some epic ribs, pork stuffed arepas, and local beers.  Magna was our favorite.  We just had a relaxing morning and afternoon. I also got to drink from a coconut!  This is one of my favorite things to do on vacation.  Love me some coconut water fresh from the coconut.  Then we went back to San Juan and toured the Bacardi Rum distillery.  They give you a pint glass, cocktail, and shot as part of the tour.  That was really fun and a very impressive facility.

Here we are at the Bacardi Rum distillery tour.  

Friday we hiked to the top of the national rain forest El Yunque.  It was a long uphill hike to the summit, but so worth it.  When we got to the top, we were standing in a cloud.  It wasn't raining or even super misty, just super windy!!  Thankfully the cloud cleared and we were able to see the amazing views.  We could see the ocean in every direction except south.  We could see other islands in the distance.  Just breath-taking views.  The hike through the forest was really cool as well.  So very lush and green.  We also hiked to a waterfall and saw other great views along the way.  We also stopped at the food kiosks on the side of the road enjoyed another coconut and pinchos (meat shish kabobs).

This is part of the rainforest path that we walked (the flat part!).  

 Here we are at the summit of El Yunque National Rainforest.  In a cloud!

Thankfully the cloud moved away so we could see the stunning views from 4000 feet up!

Here is La Coca Falls.  Thankfully this one was right off the side of the road and didn't require further hiking.

Here is La Mina Falls.  This one did require a 60 minute round trip hike to see.

Saturday was a lazy day at the beach.  We just stayed at our hotel and laid out all day.  We enjoyed swimming in the beach and just not doing anything.  Then in the evening we drove to Fajardo for a kayak tour to the bio luminescent bay.  The bio luminescent bay is one of the few in the world.  The dino flagellite plankton release photons when they are touched.  In other words, when you touch the water, it glows!!  We left with a group of other kayakers around 6:45 pm after it had gotten dark.  We kayaked across the bay, through a mangrove channel, and into a lagoon.  It was seriously the coolest thing.  It was so dark that all you could see was the blue glow stick attached to the kayaks.  It was just a neat experience that we hadn't done before.  Then we got to the lagoon where the real treat was waiting for us.  We could see the plankton glow when we touched it with our hands, when we swished the paddle through the water, and when the kayak glided through the water.  Not only that, but we could see the fish light up as they swam through the water.  Some were even jumping out of the water!  It was just really cool.  So different than anything we had ever experienced.  After the kayak trip, we ate more pinchos at Los Croabas park which was right on the bay.  Then we went to La Estacion for some BBQ ribs, fried plantains, cocktails, and an epic slice of key lime pie. 

Here is the string of hotels next to ours.  Our beach was about 1/4 mile long.  

The hubby swimming in the ocean.  The surf was pretty high on the north side where we were staying.

On Sunday we took a yacht to the island of Culebra.  It was about a 40 minute ride from PR and the weather was GORGEOUS.  We snorkeled in two bays off the coast of Culebra.  We got to see sea turtles, sting rays, fish, and reef.  Then we went ashore at Cubrelita Beach to just hang out and soak up the rays.  Powdery white sand, sparkling turquoise water.  It was probably the highlight of my trip.  Great way to end a wonderful vacation.  We had never snorkeled before so that was just a really sweet surprise that we liked it so much.

Here we are on top of the huge boat

I LOVED jumping off the boat.  Especially the top deck.

Our first time snorkeling!

Sea Turtles!!!!

In sum, it was a great trip.  The island is definitely big enough that we didn't have time to do everything that interested us.  We'll definitely have to go back at some point.  We always like to use the Fodor's guide books for the Caribbean islands.  That is a great guide to the best beaches, activities, and of course, restaurants.  If you like exploring, I HIGHLY recommend PR.  If you are looking for more of a cheap, relaxing vacation, I'd just recommend St. Maarten or Aruba. 

Winehaven Winery

Winehaven Winery & Vineyard happens to make my absolute favorite wine.  As a Minnesota winery, Winehaven specializes in sweet wines and a lot of them have a fruit infusion.  Strawberry rhubarb, peach, and rhubarb are amongst their more popular fruit wines.  But, it's the sangria that I go for.  The Winehaven sangria is wonderfully fruity but not too sweet.  It also has a fantastic orange peel after taste.  This sangria tastes so close to an actual sangria with real fruit, but you don't have to go to all the work of making it!  You can just open the bottle!  I'm getting together with some good friends in a few weeks and I thought this would be the perfect wine to accompany our reunion.  We also like Winehaven's Deer Garden Blush and Deer Garden Red so we got a few bottles of those as well.

Yesterday was the perfect day to head up to Winehaven.  It's located in Chisago City which is just north of where 35W and 35E meet up on the north side of the metro and 8 miles east.  So it isn't such a bad drive.  We were lucky to partake in the celebration they were having this weekend - free samples of wine infused chocolate sauce, chip dips, sales on bottles, and of course wine!  Usually tastings are $5 for 8 wines, but yesterday we got to try as many of the nearly 20 wines that we wanted.  It was a really fun little jaunt up north and now I'm stocked on my favorite wine for a while.   

Juice So Good

The purpose for this post has morphed several times over the last week.  My husband and I embarked on a five day juice cleanse this past week.  The juice we used is made by a Minneapolis company named Juice So Good.  They have a location in the skyway and sell to upscale grocers as well as our yoga studio - Corepower.  Corepower has advertised a sponsored juice cleanse in the past, but the timing has never been right.  With running season over and a vacation approaching, we decided now would be a good time to give it a shot.  We created our own cleanse based on our food preferences.

To give more background on Juice So Good, they are a juicing company that makes 10 different juices - all packing about 3 pounds of fruits, veggies, and/or nuts into each 16 oz bottle.  The juice is cold pressed and never pasteurized so all of the nutrients from the food are preserved in the juicing process.  The juices contain foods such as green bell peppers, kale, spinach, apple, ginger, pineapple, carrots, beets, celery, pear, cayenne pepper, and cashews.

The cleansing process is pretty straight-forward.  You get six 16 oz bottles of varying juices each day.  You start the day with hot lemon water, drink the juice about every 2 hours, and drink a bottle of water in between.  Then you end the day with tea.  It's supposed to flood your body with nutrients and kind of reset your cravings to focus more on healthy options.   Each day has about 1200-1400 calories depending on the juices you choose.

I had several motivations for doing it.  I'm always up for a challenge, especially if it is food related.  It seemed quite healthy.  I wanted to drop a few pounds before vacation.  I was curious.  It seemed somewhat therapeutic and I liked that it required a lot of discipline.  Plus, it is so easy!!!!!  I just bought the juice at the yoga studio where I was already at every day and didn't have to get groceries, do dishes, or cook.  It all sounded great.  I set out with incredible resolve and enthusiasm, especially since I was doing it with my man.

So here's what happened:

• On day one I did not feel well because all the fluid made my stomach expand quite uncomfortably.  Additionally, the cashew juice was incredibly delicious so I downed it after a workout.  Well, it contains 24g of fat per 16 oz which is much higher than even whole milk.  Way too much fat at one time.  I was pretty sure I was going to vomit for most of the evening.  So lesson learned.  Don't drink the cashew all at one time and don't drink juice, water, and tea every two hours. 
• Day two I felt a lot better.  I felt like I was getting the hang of it, starting to enjoy it, and could still work out.  I probably felt the best this day.
• Day three I still felt pretty well.  I still worked out and was feeling comfortably full all day but not too full.
• Day four I was pretty exhausted.  I did work out but was struggling.  I was also incredibly cold.  I am always chilly, but only drinking cold juice throughout the day in the winter made me way more cold than normal.  So that was uncomfortable too.
• Day five.  I was done.  I was so physically uncomfortable, I can't even really put my finger on it.  To my standards and my norm, I was protein and sodium deficient.  I have never craved meat so bad in my life.  So I decided to only have 3 of the 6 juices and just go back to solid food.  

And here's my assessment:

• The juice is delicious.  I even liked the super green ones.  
• The juice has a good variety of food in it so I didn't really get bored.
• The juice has a huge amount of vitamin A and vitamin C.  I wonder if the cleanse could be more balanced to include vitamin B and more protein, salt, and iron.  This would make it more balanced for muscular people and would better resemble a normal diet.  
• The juice collection is too sugary for my taste.  It's all healthy sugar from fruit and veggies, but I just wasn't used to taking in that much sugar.
• I would prefer the use of almond milk to cashew milk.  Almond milk isn't quite so fatty.
• I will continue to drink the juice occasionally because it is a healthy boost and it's filling, but it will only enhance my diet, not be my diet.  
• This cleanse would be absolutely perfect for someone who habitually eats processed, refined sugars and carbs and wants to make a change.  This cleanse will allow you to still get your normal sugar intake but in a more healthy way, and will teach you to crave sugar from fruit instead of from cookies and muffins.  But for someone who eats a lot of protein, you will absolutely need to eat organic meat throughout the process to feel right. Everyone is different, other people might fall in love with this cleanse and do it semi-regularly.  Maybe a few days instead of five days would be better too. 
• All in all it was a very interesting experience.  I feel like I learned a lot more about my body and what I need in a diet.  I am glad I did it and will enjoy incorporating the juices into my diet occasionally (I say occasionally because they are expensive).  
• There is a juice called Radiance that is made up of pineapple, green apple, cucumber, and lime that will now be our margarita mix of choice.  Throw that in a blender with tequila and ice and you have cocktail perfection.

Total Wine & More

I can't believe how these liquor stores are popping up all over the Metro.  I swear the one in Woodbury was fully stocked, staffed, and opened before I even realized it was coming.  The hubby and I were out and about today so we decided to see what all the hype was about. 

So this place is crazy.  There were people milling in every aisle, there were aisles upon aisles upon aisles.  There were super friendly and helpful staff.  I heard them field several questions about specific wines and they were pointing the seekers in the right direction (including me).  They were also making suggestions about specific brands that would compliment your palate.  They were also doing free wine, hard cider, and cognac tastings.  One of the cognacs sampled retails for $169!  And it's true, they have a wildly impressive selection of wines, liquors, and beers from all over the world at price points lower than other liquor stores. 

I didn't want to like it.  I am usually all for supporting the little guy, but it's hard to neglect this new alcohol mecca...  I think my strategy will be to support the little guys when I know exactly what I want and when they have sales.  I'll go to Total when I have a lot of free time to wander and be inspired with nothing in particular in mind.  Just like clothes shopping.  If you know exactly what you want, you order it from the website.  If you have no clue, you go to the mall and wonder.  Boom. 

Sawatdee

One of the things I never had growing up was Thai food.  In my adult years I have come to love rice and curry, but it's really the peanut sauce that sparks my craving.  My husband and I had a groupon deal for Sawatdee so we decided to use it last night for dinner.  We like to go to the one on Robert Street in downtown St. Paul.  The food has always been excellent.  We usually get the same thing - hubby gets the Rama Thai Delight which is spinach, rice, chicken, and peanut curry sauce and I get the chicken satay which is chicken skewers with peanut sauce and cucumber sauce.  We decided to venture out a little more last night, so instead of the chicken satay, I got the appetizer platter.  The appetizer platter included chicken satay, spring rolls, and fried wontons.  Much to our delight, they let us modify the order a bit without an extra charge.  Instead of just veggie spring rolls, we got them with chicken and shrimp.  Instead of regular cream cheese wontons, we got jalapeno cream cheese wontons (for my hubby...but I did sneak a bite and they were amazing).  The food was fantastic.  They also run specials such as happy hour every day from 4-6 and a "Thai for Two" Wednesday deal where you get appetizers, entrees, and a bottle of wine for a discounted price.  My only complaint is that the building always seems to be quite chilly.