Impossible is a typoRunning my pants off and loving myself along the way

I don’t know what I did to deserve such love.

Every now and again, a little package of love shows up from Larabar. This one is full of their new ALT Bars.

They’re made from Pea Protein. The debate about soy still rages on so it’s nice there are protein alternatives now. And of course, it’s Larabar so there’s no funky ingredients. Just dates, nuts, pea protein, natural flavors, you know the drill.

Yeah, yeah, I know, you want to know if they’re delicious? I had the Apple Cinnamon crisp for breakfast. Yup, tastes like apple crisp (with out the ice cream). The texture is a bit dry and crumbly when compared to the traditional Larabar. Not in an unpleasant way, but just different. You don’t get that chewy stick-to-your-teeth feel.

FitGirl: What are you doing?

FatGirl: Eating cake! Look, it’s zero points

FitGirl: No cake is zero points.

FatGirl: Look. Pinterest says it’s ZERO points. It’s a Zero Point Cake.  You make it in a MUG. In the MICROWAVE. In 1 MINUTE. I could eat a dozen of these suckers.

FitGirl: (looking at three cake crusted mugs on the counter) Um, even if it is zero points, which it’s not, having three of them is not zero points.

FatGirl: OMG can’t you do math? ZERO times THREE is ZERO. It’s ZERO point cake. Pinterest said so.

So maybe you’ve seen this pin floating around on Pinterest for the ZERO point mug cake.

Don’t believe everything you pin.

I hate to break the news, it’s not zero points. How do I know? I got a little funky with a spreadsheet.

The info on the pin says:

IT’S 0 POINTS PLUS!! Genius! 1-2-3 Cake. You need 2 boxes of cake mix. 1 can be any flavor you prefer, but the other MUST be Angel Food cake mix. Mix them together (shake them in a big ziploc bag or stir them together in a big bowl). Then simply store the mixture in an airtight container until you get the urge for dessert. Then just put 3 tablespoons of the dry mixture in a big coffee mug and stir in 2 tablespoons of water. Microwave it for one minute

So that’s what I did, I mixed a Betty Crocker Angel Food Cake Mix with a Betty Crocker Devil Food Cake Mix and carefully weighed out three tablespoons in grams. It came out to 30 grams per serving.

Then since a serving of each cake did not match the servings in the Mug Cake, I totaled up the boxes, added them together and divided it into 30 gram servings to figure out the total nutritional values.

Then I put those into the Points calculator, and shaazam – 3 Points Plus.

So, this is a good lesson in not believing what you pin.

Now, I’m not knocking this cake. It’s simple, tasty, and hits the spot if you need just a little chocolate to get you though the night. I totally recommend having it on hand because it’s not like a bag of cookies, that remain open and just seem to talk to you late at night. Since you actually have to cook it, you’re lest apt to have say 4 than you might with an open bag of cookies.

TIP: only cook it for 45 seconds. 1 minute is WAY too long. Your microwave may vary, but keep an eye on it, once the top stops bubbling and it looks dry and just begins to pull away from the edge of the mug, it’s done, get it out of there. Also, for one more point, add a teaspoon of peanut butter, it makes it ever so rich.

OH and I’ve also used left over coffee instead of water, that will boost the chocolate flavor just a bit.

Do you ever feel like your Crazy Inner FatGirl is using any means possible to get her message through?

Toast is just a delivery system for Butter

Yes, I actually had this conversation with myself last night. Butter did not win.

I have always had odd food hangups. Texture threw me off as a kid and if the texture or temperature of a food was wrong, I was just not going to eat it. This included steak (squishy), Spaghetti-ohs (mushy), and god forbid different food groups touched! My mom finally broke down and got “divider dishes” so that my peas and mashed potatoes would remain segregated. Some of these food phobias have lasted, some have faded, others have transmuted.

Oh hello Little Radish? Would you like to step in this bath?

Pickles are one food group I have battled since childhood. I just couldn’t my wee little brain wrapped around the idea that you put a vegetable in a liquid and it STAYS CRUNCHY. It was some sort of food magic that I just didn’t understand so I generally ran screaming. And woe on to you, if vinegary pickle juice got within a three foot radius of anything I was attempting to eat. (Yeah, sorry about that Mom).

Living in Japan changed the way I looked at pickles and I’ve been delicately exploring even since. See, in Japan, there’s rich pickled vegetable tradition and I sort of got hooked.

I’m still hesitant and picky about the pickles I’ll eat. But when Lil Sis gave me 6 HUGE watermelon radishes from her CSA basket, you bet’cha I pickled them right quick.

Whipping up quick pickles gives ordinary veggies a little piazza. And it’s dead simple. Just thinly chop your radishes. Get  a container that’s big enough to hold ‘em (a sandwich baggie even works). Put in about a teaspoon of sugar, a good pinch of salt, some pepper or red pepper flakes if you’re feeling spicy (dill works great too!), and then cover them with vinegar. Shake ‘em up. Set them in the fridge until it’s dinner time and you are good to go.

I ate all six radishes in about 4 days. Yeah, I know, I got problems.

Weight Watcher’s is changing it up again with a new program called Weight Watcher’s 360.

Yet another branding change.

Now, don’t get your panties in a bunch, the program isn’t actually changing. Points are still calculated and tracked the same way. There are just some added features and a new look, naturally (and naturally, new products and materials to buy).

The change focuses on two new tools – Routines and Spaces. I guess the thought is that, losing weight is not just simple math of calories in-calories-out-presto-changeo-you-are-skinny. There’s old habits to break (ahem, midnight doughnut eating), new habits to form and real life obstacles to get over.

So let’s dig in, shall we?

Spaces
Some places you can control — your home, your workplace, your car. Others, not so much. We’ve created a Spaces tool that gives you action plans for all kinds of challenges wherever you are. Browse through them and “Favorite” the tips you find most helpful so you can come back to them any time.

Gee, thanks.

On first glace, this is common sense and kind of pointless in my opinion. It just seems to be a list of tips to orient the spaces you go through, like the office, the kitchen, the bedroom so that they are in line with the new habits you want to create. OK great, so you “favorite” a “tip” you find “helpful” so you can “come back to it anytime”. That’s sort of like pinning an inspirational quote to Pinterest.

Gee, good thing I pinned that, it made all the difference

Yeah, so you pinned it and you can glance at it anytime, but what change does that affect? Maybe there’s more here that I’m missing on first glance that will be explained in depth as the program rolls out. Whatevers. (Oh hey, by the way, follow me on Pinterest!)

Routines
Yes, it’s actually possible to make the easy choice the smartest choice, with just a little practice. We’ve identified small, but really healthy habits to choose from — we call them Routines — that’ll help take some of the guesswork out of making the right choice. Head to the Routines Tool to select up to three. Check them off daily and you’ll get encouragement along the way.

Baby steps might even be too much for me… sad…

Now this s a little more interesting for me given what’s going on in my life. I work from home and sometimes, it’s a real stretch to get out of my Jammies and into real clothes in the morning. My life is really unstructured right now and that’s great for somethings, not so great for others. Being 100% in control of how you spend your time is amazing and challenging. If I don’t have to be anywhere I wake up, roll over and start working. I am finding it a huge challenge to eat well, work out, even get basic errands done (ahem over due library book). Being able to do what ever I want, when ever I want has, let’s be straight here, lead me to not do anything ever.

I have never really been good at disciplining myself and keeping to a schedule that wasn’t dictated by someone else, school, a job, a boss. Maybe it’s just not in my nature, but I find it crazy difficult to put MYSELF on a schedule. Maybe I’m just lazy, who knows? This has been a hot topic for me lately and one I’m acutely aware I need to work on. Even before rolling into my meeting, I had decided that creating this huge daily to-do list was just going to be too much for me, so I’d just focus on two things a day. Color me surprised when I walked into the meeting and that’s exactly what this whole “Routine” thing is about.

There’s a few other things two, like this nifty “trophy” corner. Yeah, it’s kind of childish, but admit it, you like earning a gold star don’t you?

You know you want that gold star

A couple of annoying things. They roll out the new program and the new mobile app is still in development so none of the new features can be accessed on your smart phone. That basically means you have to use eTools on your computer to see and interact with the new content. AND if you’re not an eTools subscriber? Well, you’re pretty much left out of the experience. In the new program materials they handed out, there are about 400 words on the Spaces concept and about 300 words on the Routines idea. There’s a huge guidebook in the New Member Kit that I’m assuming explains this all in detail but you have to shell out $40 Bucks for it. AND the free paper tracker they give you has NO mention of Routines and Spaces, so they have effectively given you no free way to utilized the Routine technology without buying supplemental materials. There are silicone measuring cups in the New Member Kit that are super cute.

Don't hate me because I don't like it

CrazyInnerFatGirl: Nibble, nibble, grimace. Sip, slurp, blech.

VoiceOfReasonFitGirl: What are you doing?

FatGirl: Enjoying a Pumpkin Spice Latte and pumpkin spiced muffin.

Grimace, blech

FitGirl: Um, you don’t actually seem to be “enjoying” it. Air quotes.

FatGirl: What are you insane? Of course I’m enjoying it. It’s Fall. This is the only time you can get Pumpkin Spice stuff. If you don’t enjoy it now, it goes away and you can never never ever have it again.

Grimice, blech

FatGirl: Besides all the cool kids are doing it.

FitGirl: Do you actually like pumpkin Spice?

FatGirl: What are you insane? Of course I like it. It’s Fall. This is the only time you can get Pumpkin Spice stuff. If you don’t enjoy it now, it goes away and you can never never EVER have it again.

Grimice, blech

FitGirl: Just smile and nod.

See, here’s the thing. I don’t really like “Pumpkin Spice”, especially in my coffee. For all that is good and holy, please stop putting weird things in coffee, like Blueberry flavor. Seriously, that breaks laws of physics. I’m sure of it! And yet, I feel compelled to jump on the pumpkin spice bandwagon every fall hoping that this is the year I’ll fall in love with it.

And Pinterest is not helping. I found a pin somewhere about combining a package of sugar-free pudding, a can of pumpkin, cinnamon, and a tub of Cool-whip and Tadaaaaa “Best dessert eva!” “Only 2 WW points” and 740,733 pins later, it has to be good. So I tried it…

Simple to make…

Pumpkin Spiced Fluff

Just mix pudding with the pumpkin… fold in the Cool-Whip (Yeah, OK, hush, I know that stuff is the devil and barely qualifies as “food” but ya can’t fault a girl for liking a big ole spoonful now and again)

Pudding + Pumpkin + Cool Whip is meh

Graham cracker added flair…

Fluff + graham cracker still meh

and meh.

It was OK, I guess, if you actually LIKE pumpkin spice stuff. It was creamy, dense, just sweet enough. And I don’t, I just don’t like pumpkin spice. And I keep forgetting that I don’t like it and  eat it anyway. I know it’s a food fad with heavy marketing around it and boy does the marketing work. I feel like I’m somehow left out because I just don’t love pumpkin spice.

In a former lifetime, I aspired to be a chef. See, I love cooking and at one of those pivot points of life, I swiveled towards professional cooking. But then, well, life stepped in and well, that didn’t happen (translation – I broke my arm making hauling around 40lb bags of potatoes a thing of the past.) Anyhoo….

I’ve been in a food funk. I’m just not interested in cooking. Oh believe me, I’m interested in the eating and boy, is my crazy inner FatGirl LOVING the fact that I eating like a stoner. FatGirl agrees that a perfectly acceptable dinner could be a spoon, a jar of peanut butter and a bag of chocolate chips. Yeah, I had that for dinner last week, don’t hate.

But I actually whipped out the pots and pans (three to be exact) and I didn’t even have to use my Fancy Knife Skills. Or should I say “skillz” ‘cuz I gots me some mad knife skillz… pause for laughter… wait, the only one who might even chuckle at that is Lil Sis because of that Secret Sister Twin Language thing which her husband likes to point out is meaningless considering we are not twins… but I digress… again…

Anyway, I got to cooking up a restaurant quality meal and you can too, in about 20 minutes life a pro, or almost a pro, or sort-of-wanted-to-be-once pro!

Seared Tuna Steaks with Brown Rice and Sauteed Baby Squash

Hey look! I can cook!

You’ll need:

• some quick cook brown rice (I don’t remember the kind I used but it boiled for 10 minutes)
• a pot to cook the rice in.
• a tuna steak (on sale at Trader Joes!)
• a fry pan for the tuna
• baby zucchinni squash
• some olive oil, salt and pepper
• a bit more olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe some butter if you’re feeling indulgent
• a fry pan for the squash

Now go!

Get the rice ready to go, measure the water and what not and get it on the stove. Now, put the fry pan you want to cook the tuna in on the stove on HIGH heat. You want it SCREAMING HOT.

Now your tuna pan should be nice and hot. How do you know if its hot enough? Hold you hand about 2 inches over the pan, if you snatch it away quick, its hot enough.

Put your tuna steak in the pan and for the love of all that is good and delicious, don’t move it! If the pan is SUPER hot it will sear and not stick. Set the timer for 2 minutes. Yup its just 2 minutes a side. It can be rare in the middle… This is a quality tuna steak not a can of tuna fish. When the timer beeps, flip it. If it sticks to the pan, don’t force it, count to 10 and try again, and 10 again. Flip and set the timer for 2 more minutes.

You are shaking the pan with the baby squash right?

Just keep shaking the pan!

Right now, if you’re feeling indulgent, toss it about a teaspoon of butter to the squash for richness. Now, if you notice, your rice should be just about done. And the tuna should be just about done, and well gosh, the baby squash is just about done too!

And that’s how a chef gets everything on the plate at the same time!

I am shocked to say this, but the most awesome sample from a FitBloggin’12 sponsor was the Calcium Gummy Vitamins from Nature Made.

Nature Made Gummy Yummy

Nature Made was crazy generous. They made yoga mats and carriers for us and gave each of us a sample of the new gummy and melt vitamins. And when I say “sample” I mean a life sized jar, as if you went to Walgreens and picked it up off the shelf.

Here’s a secret frustrating thing about me. I hate taking pills. I just can’t seem to manage taking pills every day. And I have tried everything. I’ve done charts to give myself gold stars for taking them, heck I’ve even tried paying myself. Take your vitamins, get a dollar! Weight Watcher’s has a easy-peasy-just-click-here feature too and bupkis, I never click it.

WW makes it easy to click... and I don't

And this is not limited to vitamins. I can’t even take prescriptions the way I’m supposed. Yes, I’m one of those horrible human beings that never finishes out an antibiotic course and will be responsible for the super bug that kills humanity. My bad.

I was kid of dubious of the gummy vitamin concept. It’s medicine, you should not treat it as candy. But since I’ve had this whole jar of calcium gummies, I can’t let it go to waste.

Holy Healthy Batman. I have taken two calcium gummies every day since Fitbloggin. Now, that’s a record for me. Two straight weeks of being a good girl with my vitamins!

Here’s another interesting factoid about me… right after dinner, I need a sweet treat. Maybe it’s just a bad habit, but I’m stuck in dessert mode. There’s something about a little something-something sweet right after dinner that I crave. Now, usually I’m rumbling in the kitchen to find a doughnut or a Weight Watcher’s ice cream bar, but for the past two weeks, my post-dinner treat has been the calcium gummies.

How freakin’ weird is that? That a you can consider a vitamin a desert worthy treat?

The only problem is that it’s hard to stop at two. But I have a tricky solution! I’m headed over to Walgreens to pick up Multi Gummies and B Gummies. I’m so very tricky!

I’ve had other blogs over the years. Some were good ideas that I just never stuck with, others… well, let’s just say I was bored and entertaining myself. One of my first blogs was “A Tradition of Quirky Artists“. It was a blog created by the family to record some of our artistic and creative adventures. I happen to do a search and it popped up! I read the post and giggled endlessly.

Here’s a bit of a preview, then click on over to read the whole post!

Bad Biscuit Bad! How Alton Brown Ruined Christmas

“Alton Brown Ruined Christmas”

So, it’s Christmas Eve in the Glass Needle house and plans for Christmas dinner are not yet finalized. You see, plans were up in the air as we awaited the arrival of a new bundle of joy and we wanted to be set for a Christmas Baby (Baby arrived on the 5th Day of Christmas, but that’s another blog post). Finally we settled on going to my sister’s house for dinner. And of course we needed some sort of food adventure, ideally one that required an empirical test. We do so love our empirical tests. Ham was decided upon. And mashed potatoes. Naturally. And what else goes with ham and mashed potatoes? Biscuits of course!

Now, you have to understand the place biscuits hold in our hearts. There were many weekend morning where we’d throw together a pan of biscuits and brew pots upon pots of coffee when sis and I lived together. I got pretty good at the biscuit making. Light, fluffy, moist, crumbly, biscuits are a wee little slice of heaven on this earth.

The second bit of background information that is very important isAlton Brown. Yes, Alton Brown of Good Eats is a veritable god in our humble opinions. Who doesn’t love his show? His cook books are an education in science and food. Alton Brown’s procedure for BAKING brown rice instead of hoping and praying it came out ok on the stove top changed my life. I have perfect brown rice each and every time! And OMG his brown rice salad??? Not only does it involve bacon, which we all know is awesome, it solves the problem of how do you transport dressing with your salad for a tasty lunch. Why you cook the dressing RIGHT INTO THE RICE!!! Genius! Pure genius I say!

Upon receiving Alton Brown’s baking book some time ago, Sis and I vowed that we would have a Biscuit Bake Off. Biscuits are a chapter on to themselves. He writes how he perfected the biscuit procedure and finally settled upon a recipe that rivals all others. He even states that were he the kind of person who entered baking contests, he would enter these biscuits and he would win. Now that is a biscuit to behold! We must have these biscuits!!!

Well, now wouldn’t Christmas be the perfect time to dive into Alton Brown’s ultimate biscuit recipe?

You see, it’s an edgy recipe. It’s daring. It’s risky. It’s not your normal recipe. IT INVOLVES AN EGG! Yes, that’s right. An EGG in your biscuit!!! GASP!!!!!

We decided not to go with the empirical test method. We were going to do a traditional biscuit along side Alton Brown’s new crazy method. But no! We would trust the fate of our Christmas dinner to Alton Brown! He would never do us wrong!!

Oh, how wrong we were.

Click here to read more: “Alton Brown Ruined Christmas”

FitGirl: What should we have for dinner?

FatGirl: Bareburger.

FitGirl: Quinoa pilaf? Brown rice?

FatGirl: Bareburger.

FitGirl: No seriously. What are we having for dinner?

FatGirl: Bareburger.

FitGirl: C’mon, we can’t have burgers for dinner again. Salmon? Protein shake?

FatGirl: Bareburger.

FitGirl: For goodness sa….

FatGirl: Bareburger.

FitGirl: If you say “Bareburger” one more time…

FatGirl: Bareburger.

FitGirl: Look, I know Bareburger is tasty and organic, but..

FatGirl: I’ll buy you a milkshake.

FitGirl: Bareburger it is.

May I introduce Bareburger

Bareburger - Just your friendly neighborhood Burger joint, just bike on up!

A friend dragged me to Bareburger about a month ago. OK, fine. “Dragged” is a wee bit forceful.  Let’s go with “enthusiastically suggested and I capitulated”. Look at me with the SAT words! I’m not a big burger fan, not because I don’t like burgers but because when I want a good burger, 9 times out of 10 I’m totally disappointed in what arrives on my plate. She added “They’re organic by the way” to entice me further. And I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at that. As a marketeer, I see “organic” tossed around with little care and used mostly to justify a price mark up. Yeah, I’m a bit biased, but more on that in a second…

So, we go to Bareburger on 31st Ave in Astoria. All the employees were so nice, it was almost uncomfortable. In New York, you sort of get used to pleasant but brisk and efficient service. Our server chatted with us like we were real human beings, like folks from the neighborhood, while also providing pleasant and efficient service. We had a 10 minute conversation about burlesque hair styles while we waited for our dinner. I began to feel there was something a little bit different about Bareburger.

"Bare-y nice to meet you!" Get it? Very... Bare-y... yuk yuk

It was all over the moment my burger and onion rings arrived.

Remember when I said that 9 out of 10 times I’m totally disappointed in my burger experience because it never lives up to my expectations? All burgers will now have to live up to the standard Bareburger created for me.

Picture... 1,000 words... you get the drift.

So, the service and vibe in Bareburger is exceptional and the food will make you an instant fan. But there was still something nagging at me.

Good vibes at Bareburger, cool and cozy

The whole “organic” thing. It’s hard for me to get past seeing it as anything but a marketing gimmick. Like my favorite coffee place features “organic” coffee. OK great, that’s awesome right? But the milk they serve for your organic coffee is not organic. So what’s the point of having one and only one element of your meal being organic when it’s overwhelmed by all the non-organic ingredients? It’s like what’s the point of having a diet Coke with your 3,000 calorie Blooming Onion? Sorry, I’m a bit soap-boxy about all this.

See, I WANT to fall madly, head-over-heels in love with Bareburger. I WANT to believe that its NOT a gimmick, and cheerlead the cause.

Keepin' an eye on things

So, I went to the source – Owner, founder, creator Euripides Pelekanos.

EP, as he signs his emails, shared that the ideas behind Bareburger started almost by accident. In 2001, EP opened Sputnik, a live music and art venue in Brooklyn. They served food, but food, while not quite an afterthought, wasn’t what Sputnik was about. Until they put an organic burger on the menu. Now, this was before burgers became the new cupcake, before Five Guys and Shake Shack showed up in NY, before burgers were cool and trendy. People started hitting up Sputnik just for the burgers and the music and art started to come second. In that moment, Bareburger began to take shape.

“But there was one thing that didn’t make @#$%’ing sense”, (Sidenote – Hanging out with EP is like hanging out with that kid you grew up in the neighborhood with, straight forward and very personable, relaxed but really passionate. He kept apologizing for cussing. It was cute). “It just doesn’t make sense to have an organic burger and then pile it with non-organic toppings.”

Hello Mind Reader!

“Organic isn’t just a trend, it’s where the food industry is going”. EP had me consider that all the processed, mass produced, factory food we grew up on was driven by big business in the 50s. World War II ended, the Baby Boom was on. We changed how we lived and what was important to us. We stopped shopping at local markets and started going for convenience and speed. Organic is now becoming big business and will (heck, already is) change the way food is produced and consumed. Now hold that thought…

Bareburger opened in 2009 in a TINY 1000 square foot former bakery that had been closed “forever”, EP says. And he would know as he, and the other owners of Bareburger, all grew up in Astoria. Back in those days, (yeah I know, “3 years ago” is not an eon but things can change really rapidly in NYC neighborhoods) Astoria didn’t have a lot of “fancy” food. You had your typical local restaurants, heavy on the Greek flavors, being an old immigrant neighborhood, but you wouldn’t find many foodie blog write ups about Astoria. Doing a fancy hamburger in a working class neighborhood was risky enough, adding the organic element was nail-biting. EP says they did ZERO advertising except for an 8 1/2 X 11 printout in the window saying “Bareburger. Organic Burgers. Opening June 12, 2pm”. On opening day, with EP in the kitchen, they expected 5 or 6 people at the door. About 60 showed up at 2pm. After a bit of a bumpy start, they knew they hit a nerve. Three years later, the 11th Bareburger will open very very soon in an undisclosed location (Yup, I know where it is, and Nope I’m not telling), and EP joked that they’ve probably served over a million burgers.

And now back to Big Business… EP said that sourcing ingredients and staying profitable can be a challenge when you’re talking organic and all natural ingredients. It’s a challenge on both the farmer’s side of things and the buyer’s side. Licenses and certifications are expensive, then there’s shipping, storage, and probably a bazillion things I’m not even thinking about. “Once you start dealing in volume, costs come down and you have greater control over the product”. Then we talked bacon. Ah, bacon, it always comes back to bacon. EP shared how, because of the volume Bareburger deals in with soon-to-be 11 shops, he can get suppliers to craft products just for Bareburger like special cut, cured and smoked bacon.

At Bareburger it's all about the ingredients

Bareburger wants to have that one-on-one relationship with their suppliers so they know exactly what they are buying. Why? Because they want YOU to know it too. Each table has an FAQ that gives you, in almost overwhelming details, the fat percentages, origin, chemical usage, certification of pretty much everything on the menu. It’s rather impressive.

Guardians of the FAQ

That little FAQ sheet will also tell you that Bareburger is about as green as you can get without building from the ground up. They use recycled vinyl for their booths, reclaimed wood for the tables, and recycled and re-purposed furnishings wherever they can. Again, EP noted how absurd it is to serve organic food on petro-chemical plastics. Bareburger has seen some crazy growth, but you probably won’t see Bareburgers popping up in your local mall. It’s a Main Street, neighborhood kind of joint. Manager Steve told me that one of the things he loves about working on 31st Ave is that it is a neighborhood, all the shop owners are buddies rather than competitors. “Its like you can go next door and borrow a cup of sugar if you need to”.

Green, sustainable and organic are not gimmicks

Yeah, I know your thinking “hey, this is weird, Amy isn’t talking about how delicious the food is”. Just trust it’s crazy pants delicious, but for god sakes, what ever you do, do not have a milkshake. That’s right, step away from the milkshake. Just back off, alright. I will go all Mr. Blonde on you if they are out of vanilla ice cream because you ordered the last vanilla milkshake. Just sayin’ – alls fair in love and war and milk shakes.

I'm not sure they have enough ice cream

OK, so you know the food is beyond good, the service is top notch, and they are organic as part of the fabric of the company. But this is what sealed the deal for me:

No, you can't have a bite.

I asked EP about the logo – what the heck is up with a bear riding a unicycle with a beer and a burger in its hands. He smiled and said “Why not a bear riding a unicycle with a beer and a burger in its hands? Look, after a couple drinks, it seemed like a good idea and it just stuck.”

Sold.

Why not indeed