Good Food is a Destination!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to May! For some of us, it has been a blissful May so far because the weather has been fabulous. The weather here in Munich has been nothing short of ideal, with beautiful 70 degree weather, mostly sunny, and slightly breezy... perfect Holly weather!

May first is a day some of you may know as "May Day." Now, I wasn't aware of the significance it had on Germans, at least Bavarian Germans, until on that day. Wow, did I ever walk into a celebration! They set up a HUGE maypole, and it was an incredible celebration with beer (at like 10:30-11:00am), traditional dress, dancing, and general eating and celebration. They even blocked off the street for the event! I missed the rising of the pole, but I got to see the flag being raised, the traditional dancing around a smaller maypole, and of course, watching lots of people holding beer mugs, several of them in traditional dress. I got there sometime around noon, and there were easily 150 people or more there... and this was just down the street from me! I realized the the small Munich community I live in is very close. It's nice to have people who care and support tradition and the members of the community, old and young. Shared below are some pictures of the exciting day.

Maypole as the flag was being raised.

Up close picture of the maypole. The artwork is just beautiful.

2012 maypole sign.

Traditional maypole dancing!

Why is good food a destination, you may ask. Well, Holly is here today to tell you why. Simply put, anyone can go to the McDonald's down the street (yes, sadly even here in Munich), but if you want to find quality food, you have to look further. In today's world, it's too easy to just walk into a store, grab a box of cereal, and walk out. No one cares to read what's actually in the cereal, or where those ingredients come from as long as it looks and tastes good. Not to mention the prices of today are just outrageous. The reality is: everything, and I mean everything, can be made from scratch, by hand, in your own home. You can even very easily grow your own organic fruits and vegetables in your own backyard. How much money can you save doing this? A lot. Take my plants for example. Leftover seeds from one pumpkin can create multiple pumpkins and even more from those pumpkins, and so on. Okay so there is something I recognize: not everyone has the time to make everything by hand. (Note: Homemade food takes far less time than people think. You don't need to be a gourmet chef and you will have more than enough leftovers.) What do we do in these situations? Search for the good food! Whole Foods Market is a great place to start. Don't have one nearby? Check out these sites for amazing healthy/organic restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, and more in your area:

Happy Cow

Eat Well Guide

On the topic of food, I made two AMAZING smoothies and I will be making new one today (strawberry banana, a classic, but Holly reinvented). I also found the perfect vegetable rice dish to make: vegetarian chili! Serve it over rice and BOOM! Awesomeness! I have compiled ideas from three different websites so I will let everyone know how it turns out when I make it.

Avocado Smoothie!

Welcome to deliciousness. Recipe here. I substituted regular milk with oat milk (my favorite). Still tastes amazing!

 Holly's Banana-Almond Butter Smoothie!

I came up with this smoothie because I wanted to use up the rest of my almond butter (I was eating it by the spoonful and I had to stop).

Ingredients:

1 Banana

2 Tablespoons Almond Butter

2 Teaspoons Honey

1/2 Cup Plain Yogurt

3/4 Cup Milk of Choice (I used oat milk again)

4 Ice Cubes

Directions:

Blend everything to a beautifully smooth consistency! Very healthy for you.

There are a couple more pictures below with captions to explain their significance. Today I have most of the day off, so I will be doing a lot of shopping and running around. I tried to mail a box to the States with a UPS office here and the small box would have cost me 108 EUROS to mail! Ow! (And it's not even that heavy!) So I'm going to see if the local post office is any cheaper. I also grabbed two tadpoles from the pond, but I think one of them had hit its head on a rock that I had placed in the jar, so it died the next day. The other one is quite the fighter and the oldest child and me collaborated on a name: Fred der Frosch! (Fred the Frog in English.) I'll be taking lots of pictures to show his progress. (I also hope to find butterfly eggs!)

Maybe Never Learned to Fly. Be Marlboro. Sorry this picture is such low quality, I didn't have my real camera on me and had to use my cell phone.

FRED DER FROSCH! He's adorable.

The little boy found a strange bug. It looks like a bee but it's not. It has a pointy nose, so he called it "Spikey Mouth," but it actually sounded a little better in German.

I got lost trying to find the UPS place, and I ended up in Karlsplatz (Stachus). So much architecture I hadn't seen yet!

Okay so I might be a really big kid here, but I found a set of mini building blocks and I had to buy it. There was no other option for me. Aren't they adorable??

My plants as of today. I love things that grow, can you tell?

Take care everyone!