A Day Full of Surprises!

Wow!

What a fun and educating day I have had….I have learned SO much! I hope yall did too from my posts! Dave Grotto was the best—his second book hits stores later this winter. He is such an inspiration and really makes healthy eating and nutrition so basic and easy to understand. So often I feel like we try to complicate things but it’s so basic. Eat real, whole foods. Totally my philosophy, too—NO food is “bad”! Love it.

Another exciting part of the day was when they brought in a special guest to do a cooking demonstration! Drum roll please………………….it was Stephanie Izard from last season’s Top Chef!!!!!!!!

How exciting is THAT?! She was SO nice and down to earth and we chatted about culinary school—she went to a different branch of my school and that was really neat! She did a great demo making banana oatmeal mini pancakes:

After the demo, we all got to try one with pomegranate syrup and sliced banana. It was divine.

Around 3:30, our Living Proof day concluded and we had a couple hours of “free time” until dinner at 7:15. I finally got around to snacking on a new Quaker bar: True Delights. I tried the Banana Coconut Macadamia Nut one.

It.was.awesome. And I’m not just saying that because it’s Quaker! When these hit the stores I will definitely be stocking up. Usually granola bars don’t do anything for me, but this was a wonderful combo of sweet, chewy and crunchy. It had huge chunks of nuts in it along with dried banana pieces for a great combo of textures. I really really liked it!

I rested upstairs for about an hour and then Kath and I bundled up and took a great walk down Michigan Ave! We ended up walking for about an hour and fifteen minutes, which was great! I love walking in new cities!! I just couldn’t believe it was already dark out and it was only 4:30….craazy. We stopped at Starbucks and I got a nonfat tall Chai to take with me to keep warm!

And for dinner tonight we went here.

It was faaaaaaaabulous! Seriously, I couldn’t have picked a better restaurant! Everything about it was perfect. When we got there, we were ushered upstairs to a private room just for us overlooking the skyline. Immediately, we were brought wine (I got a glass of Pinot Noir) and tiny bruschettas and crab cakes:

Here was our special menu planned exclusively for us. It contained the restaurants healthiest choices!

I had the endive salad:

Which was delicious! I loved the walnuts in it.

And for my entree, I chose the salmon. You KNOW I can’t resist salmon when I see it on a menu!

With delicious multi-grain bread (I had 1.5 slices). The picture didn’t come out though! Sad!

I totally cleaned my plate completely. It was sooo freakin’ good! I think dessert outweighed it all though………

An apple crisp made with quaker oats and topped with vanilla ice cream! I thought that I died and went to heaven. The crust was THICK and super crunchy. I ate about 3/4ths of it….could have finished it but didn’t want to have that exploding full feeling as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep at night. To die for.

Amy, the wonderful pastry chef came out and met us! She was so sweet and bubbly!

Some of the bloggers were headed to a bar for another reader meetup but I am so tired that I can’t even keep my eyes open so I called it a night. Tomorrow I am really really really going to try to work out in the morning and then am going to Panera at 10:00 to meet more of my amazing blog readers! Then, it’s back to Florida for this girl!

Kath and I have been working all weekend on a special video…I think it will be ready at some time tomorrow and we will “air” it. Basically, we have taken our camcorders everywhere with us this weekend and shot footage EVERYWHERE! I think you guys will love it!

G’night!