Friday, May 24, 2013 at 5:00AM On my first trip to New Zealand, back in 2005, my classmates and I spent one night in Whakatane in between our travels from Auckland to Rotorua. With just a few hours to explore the area, we opted for a short hike to a secluded beach.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 5:00AM 
The beautiful original painting above by one of my best friends and favorite artists; Rachel Kokko. She painted these as the favors for each guest at her wedding and put together they make a full painting of the beautiful Chateau she and her husband got engaged and were married at. She's amazing.
After the second worst transportation fiasco I've experienced during my travels (the first involved forgetting my passport), my husband and I managed to change our rental car reservations and navigate our way on to a train from Paris to Dijon. Keep in mind, this was all after spending 20 hours gallivanting around Iceland with only a 4 hour plane ride worth of rest in between the adventure and the subsequent chaos of having no access to our funds. After sleeping most of the way and almost leaving my purse with all our cards and passports on the train, we arrived in Dijon both mentally and physically exhausted. Instead of easily heading to the various gluten free friendly health food stores I had researched and mapped out - we would have to drag our 3 weeks of luggage around the cobbled streets to find the nearest grocery store to stock up on food I could eat.
Thanks to the incredible kindness of the Dijon visitor center employees - we were able to find our way around Dijon and made it to the Monoprix. Looking at the first floor filled with apparel, I was dubious of the gluten free options I might find inside. I ventured up the escalator and found myself in grocery shopping heaven. Rows of fresh produce, sheeps milk cheese and yogurt, and a huge selection of gluten free baked goods. Including the things my gluten free dreams are made of; soft bread, croissants, and delicious cookies. If you find yourself in Dijon - don't fear, plenty of gluten free options can be found at the Monoprix.
Exhausted and loaded down with far too many groceries in addition to our luggage, we splurged on a cab ridge to the historic chateau we would be staying at in the small village of Vougeot.
France, Gluten Free, Gluten Free In... in Eat Out Friday, May 17, 2013 at 5:00AM Most of my visits to Yosemite have come in the busy summer season - but just once my husband and I visited on a whim in the fall to celebrate our engagement. We arrived just as the sun was beginning to set and had the opportunity to see some gorgeous views. Someday I'd love to back in the winter to do some snowshoeing.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 5:00AM 
It's a rhubarb frenzy around our house while the prices are still low and so far I've made jam, pie, shrub, and tea bread. I thought, why not make some scones and curd too! I'm pretty happy with the base scone recipe I've been using for other versions like the Meyer Lemon Curd and Whole Grain Blueberry - this is just a slight adaptation to use vanilla sheep milk yogurt and added rhubarb pieces.
For the curd, I used my Meyer Lemon Curd recipe as a base but pumped up the amount of juice to up the rhubarb flavor. I also added more sugar since I was looking for a sweeter curd rather than a tarter version. For the rhubarb juice, I opted to boil down about 5 stalks of rhubarb since my research on the interwebs informed this would probably give me a sweeter and less tart version than simply running the stalks through my juicer.
Speaking of rhubarb, while I was searching for more ideas on what to make with rhubarb I came across this nerdy Star Trek recipe for Aaktay, or Klingon Steamed Bread. So I'll have to try adapting it to be gluten free sometime while rhubarb is still in season. Anyone have a suggestion on what I could substitute for "all-bran cereal"? I was thinking brown rice flakes perhaps.
Alright that's enough nerdy recipe talk, on to the scones and curd!
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 5:00AM 
One of the reasons I was so keen on the move to Washington State was living in close proximity to the mountains and especially the snow. So it's a little sad that over the course of this past winter my first visit to the snow came just a little over a week ago in May. Our mountains were all quite snowy still, so I spent a while looking at trip reports on Washington Trails Association for hikes that would at least be considered passable without any special equipment. Last time this year we attempted a hike up Kachess Ridge and ended up turning around due to loosing the trail in all the snow. It sounded like the Lake Serene and Bridal Veil Falls hike would be an okay choice, although it was noted that there was some snow on the trail - we figured we'd just enjoy as much of the hike as we could.
Overall, I put this hike in my totally worth it basket - in spite of the amount of stairs (those are my hiking kryptonite). If you include the out and back to the falls, the hike clocks in at around 9 miles round trip with about 2,000 feet of elevation gain. However since there are two gorgeous water features to see along the way, the climb is totally worth it.
Hikes, Things You Should Do In..., Washington in Do