Tag Archives: Waffles

I’m going to make a pretty bold statement and I invite you to agree or disagree: It feels harder to eat healthy in the summer than it does over the holidays. This sounds sort of counterintuitive I realize, but hear me out for a minute.

Yes, Thanksgiving is a food centered holiday and the month between that day and Christmas are often filled with excessive foodie/boozie opportunities to party with friends. I definitely see treats around my cubicle filled office, and everyone seems to want to show their love for each other with baked goods and See’s Candy. The season is stressful, and I get it. At times we want to “reward ourselves” with a delicious taste of something. We want to “let loose and celebrate” with the people we love. And I do agree that this can pose some challenges. I am not made of wood, people — the holidays are certainly a temptation. But let’s talk a little bit about summer.

First of all summer is THREE MONTHS LONG. I’m not talking four or five weeks of forced decadence, I’m talking an entire quarter of the year where deliciousness abounds and everyone acts like “Oh Hey — No big whoop!” You’ve got 12 weeks of BBQs, Birthday Parties, Weekends Away, and Legitimate Long Vacations where you feel determined to Treat Yo Self! It is the reason that Cobbler and Fresh Whipped Cream were invented. And all of this goes on all summer long! And don’t even get me started about the appropriate ratio of summer nights to summer cocktails. OY! I can’t even go there or I will want to pour myself a drink.

Oh wait, I just did. You see what I’m saying?

While fall and winter lend themselves to cabbage-dense soups and roasted vegetables, summer is filled with ALL OF THE BEST FRUIT IMAGINABLE. I realize this is not a complete tragedy, but as someone who tries to keep the sugar they eat low (usually I have *maybe* 1 serving of fruit per day), I am definitely struggling right now to not eat ALL OF THE PEACHES DAILY. There is an entire box on my counter top and it basically sings to me all day long.

I know you think Christmas parties are bad, but seriously I can only eat so many cheese filled appetizers or iterations of white chocolate desserts. But if you left me alone with this box of peaches right now, you would come back only to find me covered in a puddle of sticky fruit juice, laying on my kitchen floor in a diabetic coma. Luckily summer also has lots of amazing vegetables and great weather that leaves no excuse not to get outside and be active, but I’m sticking to my hypothesis here. Summer is nuts. Right now I am freely admitting that I am roaming around being a poster child for this movement:

Speaking of that 20%, last night there was a Food Truck Festival in the Whole Foods parking lot behind my house. Please don’t get Portland PTSD on my behalf, we made it out alive! I had actually totally forgotten about it and then I opened up our windows and heard the DJ in the parking lot. Hello, siren song. Sing to me…

We headed out just to see what they had to offer, and hopefully find a few mostly-Paleo options.

Instead, the first truck we saw was a Belgian Waffle Truck, which of course instantly made us nostalgic for our Portland Appetizer Waffle and we needed to recreate that experience by splitting one immediately. Nice rationalizing right? So the night started off with a Nutella and Whip Cream covered BANG! (OHMYGOD)

We waited in line at the slider truck hoping to score some burgers on a bed of lettuce to kind of make up for bathing in Nutella, but as we were in line THEY SOLD OUT OF FOOD. The Universe was clearly not on our side. So we headed over to Drewski’s Hot Rod Kitchen where they were serving…SANDWICHES.

And that’s where this night sort of went of the rails. We ordered The Mustang with some Sweet Potato Fries (doing what we can here! Sweet potatoes! ha!) and let me tell you, it was OUT OF THIS WORLD. Korean Braised BBQ Beef shredded to tender perfection, Kimchi with a touch of spice (Hey look! I’m eating fermented food! Points, right?), Shredded Daikon, SRIRACHA-WASABI AIOLI, and aged Havarti all served grilled cheese style.

Oh you guys…I’m sorry I’m not sorry.

Since we had split everything, we decided it was only right to get a tiny little mix of Vanilla Bean + Nutella gelato to wash it all down. Ok that is a bold face lie. I wanted the gelato, Garrett said “Holly this is a terrible idea and you will regret it.”

I did not, in the moment. Shortly thereafter my tummy was telling another story. I hate it when Garrett is right.

In conclusion, Summer is haaaaaaaaard. But this is probably as good of a time as any to mention the following:

On August 1st Garrett and I are starting our first Whole 30!

Hey — how crazy do I sound juxtaposing pictures of me eating a sandwich with basically the strictest 30 day Paleo challenge ever? HA! Probably pretty crazy. But we are actually really excited about it and have been contemplating it since May. June and July weren’t really going to work since we were traveling so much, but we have decided to get back to our Happy Place during the month of August and embark on probably our biggest nutritional challenge together since we started exploring Paleo. We’re knee deep into planning, prepping and strategizing for a really eye-opening month. I can’t wait!

As usual, I am happy to document my food exploits for your benefit so riddle me this, folks:

*What elements would you like to see surrounding this Whole 30? Recipes? Pictures of Food? Our reasoning behind doing it? Strategies? Resources? Nothing at all, shut up about what you are eating already, Holly?

and then tell me this…

*YOU would have opted for post sandwich gelato too, wouldn’t you?

I knew I liked you. 🙂