Food And Spirits

     
For a quick meal-burger, pizza, salad or sandwich, the Noggin Room at the 100 year old Perry Hotel is tops.  We had a great pizza there and the next night we had a turkey burger.  They give you a big basket of fresh-popped popcorn.  How can you stop eating that?? 
We sat on the porch in the sun late Saturday night and watched people come in and out.  The flowers on the porch were beautiful especially the geraniums.  Don wants to know how they get them so beautiful.   
Downtown Petoskey is a beautiful place to be!

Raw Foods

                         

Have you ever heard about a raw foods diet?  Just read about it in the newspaper; a woman who had breast cancer went on a raw foods diet and skipped chemo.  She has been cancer-free for 6 years.  With the return of my headaches and not being too patient with anymore pain, I am going to look into this.  Let me know if you know anything about it.

All Things Cherry

                          
We first found Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor and fell in love.  Mostly because there are tons of free samples like chocolate covered cherries, dried cherries, salsa and chips, cherries and nuts, jams and so on.  They have a store in Charleviox and when were there Sunday, we felt like we needed an afternoon snack.  Oh yea!  That was the place to go!!  I must say I like their dark chocolate covered dried cherries, but refrained from buying them.  I love cherry almond jam and this dressing look quite different, so after we made pigs of ourselves, we bought these two things.  They also do mail order. And of course there is nothing sugar-free.

Spice

                             
We found this wonderful spice several years ago up north in Alden, MI near Torch Lake.  I would love to go back to that beautiful town with cute shops on beautiful Torch Lake.  It is a bit of a drive from my dad's place, but we found we can buy the spice at Roast and Toast in Petoskey.  So I had to stock up this past weekend.  We use this spice on everything!
I fell off the no-sugar bandwagon this weekend.  The stuff is totally addictive.  Once you take a bite-it's hard to stop.  And my stomach felt better so I felt "I owed" myself.  Funny how we think that. 
My new symptoms are itching all over and I still have a very dry mouth and lips; very uncomfortable.  I see the rheumatologist on Friday.

Lots of Goodies

I found this in "Cooking Light" Magazine.  I am especially interested in "Kristen's Gluten-Free Cherry and Coffee Cake Muffin Mix."  Although it seems a bit pricey.  The Pecan! Pecan Butter looks good too; but pricey also.  Okay it's a fun look anyway!

Hummingbird Bread

                            
The name intriqued me; as you know we are lovers of hummingbirds.  I found this recipe in the newspaper, and it is a healthier version of the original; whatever that was :)  Looks really good!  Still has the good old sugar and wheat. But it would be something good to make for company or to take somewhere. 

                       

Sugar is Good!

I actually baked something the other day and it turned out great!  I still have it.  Of course since it was for our small group, I made it with sugar and I must say, sugar is good!  If I were making it for us, I would skip the sugar or use sugar substitute.  But there is no way around it, sugar makes the recipe!
So what was this yummy thing?  It was apple/pear crisp.  I used 4 ripe Bosc pears, one Rome apple, and one Spy apple.  I doubled the crisp recipe in the Betty Crocker Cookbook and made it in a 9x9 glass square pan.  It looked and smelled so good.  I wish I had taken a picture.
Now on to a healthier recipe-this looks really good. This might be on the menu for dinner this week.