I really love eating well

I've been avoiding eating out as much as possible for months. But sometimes, I throw caution to the wind because I just want to go out and have a nice meal with special people. Tonight, the special people were my boys. I love them so much. We don't get to spend a lot of time together because we've all got our stuff to do. But tonight, it was Farmer's Market downtown, the weather was perfect closer to evening, and I wanted to walk around with my boys and enjoy one of the pleasures of small town life for which I'm cultivating a fondness.

We ate at Crush Kitchen + Bar, a local eatery that strives to adhere to the idea of building their menu from locally available produce (in fact, most of their produce they grow themselves) and having nearly everything made in-house. ("Except the gelato," we were told.) It's really nice to know that even in my small town I can find a restaurant that will provide me something really good to eat that supports my healthy lifestyle choices. We ate well!

I blurred the edges of my Paleolithic diet just a little. I started with the fried squash blossoms. The boys each tried one and then I ate the other two. YUM!!! So light, filled with ricotta and drizzled with a little chili sauce. (Not like my grandmother's...she always stuffed them with feta and dipped them in egg and flour before frying. Her's were MUCH greasier.) For dinner I ordered the full plate of roasted beets on a bed of arugula and topped with chopped raw almonds and a few bits of goat cheese. Beautifully dressed and lots of herbs too! So good! Not too far off the Paleo path, and I easily came in on target with macro-nutrients and fiber for the day.

We were too full for dessert, but I fully intend to go back for it at a later time. Maybe next Thursday we'll buy some cucumbers and tomatoes at Farmer's Market and eat them on the street then end up at Crush for some dessert. I read about their zeppoles from the menu and while I'm not much of a dessert eater...well, here's what the menu says. You read and decide what you'd do:

Zeppoles Italian donuts filled with vanilla bean pastry cream rolled in orange sugar on a bed of bittersweet orange chocolate ganache.

Duh!!! Guys? Can I have mine with the French press coffee?

After dinner, my youngest and I walked around downtown a little. All the vendors were packing up their pop-ups and putting away the produce. We had missed it all. But it was worth it. I got to spend a couple hours of quality time with my sons. We had good meaningful conversation, laughed some and ate well. Plenty of joy points for the day!