Coming Up in KC: Cafe Gratitude & Little Freshie

Hey there, blog world!

I feel like a bit of a terrible blogger lately inundated with ONLY March Food Photo and April Food Photo posts with a recipe here and there. In an ideal world, they would be surrounded by lots of recipes and fun Kansas City happenings, but as you may have noticed, it’s not been an ideal world, ha. My internet has been having issues going in and out, so I'm using that as my excuse!

So today, I bring you a little bit more in form of two upcoming Kansas City additions I’m really excited for. First up … Café Gratitude!

Café Gratitude

There’s long been rumors of a Kansas City Café Gratitude and I’m so happy that these rumors are finally a reality! They're having an opening celebration THIS Sunday, on Earth Day. Taken from their official announcement here, these are the details:


"WHO: Friends, Family and Fans of Cafe Gratitude.  If you're excited about CG coming to KC, please join us and bring a friend.
WHEN: Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
TIME: 6:00 pm to 10:00ish pm
WHERE: Cafe Gratitude, 333 Southwest Blvd, KCMO 64108
ATTIRE: Whatever makes you feel happy
WHAT: It's a celebration of a dream come true!
As part of our celebration, the MAKEPEACE BROTHERS will have us dancing, singing and feeling the celebration through their music.  They've toured with Jason Mraz and if you've watched the movie, May I Be Frank, you'll recognize one of the members of the Makepeace Brothers - Conor Gaffney.
Your tastebuds will be happy as you will have a chance to sample some variations of Cafe Gratitude treats.
And of course, we'll have organic wine, beer and lemonade so we can raise our glasses and "CHEERS" to our new beginning!"


Be sure to check out their Facebook page for updates. You better believe that we will be there Sunday night, and I will be reporting back with a blog post!


Who else is going??



Little Freshie

And Little Freshie!

I’m very excited for this one, I anticipate Little Freshie is going to be an awesome addition to the Westside Neighborhood, and housed right next door to Fud, and near other great places such as Westside Local, Blue Bird, and Chez Elle.

I don't have any idea when the official open date it, but I'm hoping it's not too far down the road. If anyone does know, you must fill us all in! 

That's in for now ... until later ...

Coming up in KC

Happy Weekend!

And not just any weekend, but the weekend before Thanksgiving! The festivities have begun and the holiday season is here to stay. I plan on posting a few more Thanksgiving’ish recipes before the big day arrives so be on the lookout the beginning of the week! But first … some current happenings in Kansas City:

Coming up in KC

• Tour d’Italia: In case you missed out on the first round, which was November 15th, the Tour d’Italia has one more night, November 29th. It’s a dinner featuring a collaboration between SPIN! pizza, Chef Michael Smith and Cellar Rat Wine that is benefiting Harvesters. If you hurry, you can still catch a seat for dinner on the 29th. Tickets are $39.50 each and include 4 courses, 4 wines and a $10 donation to Harvesters. Seatings are available from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Click here for more info or to get your ticket!
• Gram & Dun: Kansas City’s “original gastropub”, Gram & Dun, from Bread & Butter Concepts will be opening on November 22nd on the Plaza.
  
• Plaza Lighting Ceremony: Speaking of the Plaza … their annual lighting ceremony is this Thursday on Thanksgiving evening. Pre-show performances begin at 5:15.
• BADSEED Pre-Thanksgiving market: Saving the best for last, be sure to stop by BADSEED’s Thanksgiving market tonight. A great time to stock up on local food for your Thanksgiving meals and there will be extra vendors tonight just for this occasion! Starts at 4, goes ‘til 9.

Eden Alley

And for the rest of this blog post … a quick week night dinner at Eden Alley. After running some errands and not getting done until about 8:00, cooking didn’t seem like fun so we stopped by Eden Alley before going back home.

We started by sharing a bowl of potato dill soup. It was good, I liked the dill flavoring in it a lot. I might have to make a dill inspired soup sometime myself!

Erik got the avocado vera cruz:

And I’m always a sucker for sweet potatoes (especially the week before Thanksgiving!) so I got my semi-usual sweet potato burrito.

And now … the weekend. We’re headed to BADSEED with some friends tonight, should be fun!

What are you doing this weekend??

Hen House Holiday Celebration

Hey everyone!

Blogging has suffered a tad the past few days as I’ve been a bit under the weather. I guess it’s that time of year, right? I’ve been fighting back with things like fresh juice, vitamins, water, warm soup, and hot tea!

This concoction of fresh juice is a mixture of carrots, kale, orange, apple, and lemon. Delicious, beautiful color, and chalk full of good-for-me vitamins.

Thankfully, I feel all right, I’m just starting to look like Rudolph from blowing my nose so much. Maybe it’ll at least get me in the Christmas spirit?? Ha. Either way, I’m sure it won’t last long.

Speaking of holiday spirit …

Hen House Holiday Celebration

For those in Kansas City, the third annual Hen House Holiday Celebration is taking place this weekend!

This celebration is held at the Overland Park Convention Center (6000 College Boulevard) on October 28th, 29th, and 30th. Events include:

• On Friday, October 28th, Celebrity Chef and Food Network Star, Tyler Florence will be making two appearances.
• On Saturday, October 29th, new cookbook authors, the Casserole Queens are back in town to help us whip up some holiday side dishes
• Also on Saturday local high school culinary programs will compete for Top Student Chef
• On Sunday, local executive chefs including Charles D’ Ablaing from Chaz, and Tate Roberts from EBT compete for Kansas City’s Top Chef

Not only that, but there will be over 90 displays of food and entertaining ideas that include plenty of samples an tastings. Sounds like fun to me!

Tickets are $5.00 if you hurry and get them at a Hen House Market, otherwise, they’re $6.00 at the door. Either way, pretty affordable. For more information, please visit www.HenHouseHolidayCelebration.com

I’m hoping to make it out at some point this weekend to participate in all the fun and take some photos to share. If anyone else plans to go, holler at me, maybe I’ll see you there!

Coming Up in KC & Share the Love: 9/16/2011

It’s time for the weekend!! I haven’t done a “share the love” post in awhile, so I decided it was high time to share some blogs and links that I’ve been appreciating lately.

Coming Up in KC

• Kauffman Opening: There is a FREE open house THIS Sunday for the brand new Kauffman Center. Check here for more details. I’ll be there!
• Plaza Art Fair: This year’s Plaza Art Fair is coming up soon, September 23-25th.

Share the Love

• My New Roots: I discovered this awesome blog pretty recently, and thus far I just love her recipes! I was already inspired to make raw raspberry cheesecake from her if that gives you any indication!

• Cooking Up A Family: Courtney is not only an online blog friend, but I actually know her in real life! She’s a fellow Kansas City blogger. Her recipes always look delicious, I’m always jealous of her cute house revamps and she’s also the blogger behind A So-Called Runner.
  (For the record, I think she’s an actual runner, not just “so-called”)

• Every Little Thing: Stacy is a St. Louis blogger and in a lot of ways, I think we’re blogging twins! She helps out with the Slow Food St. Louis chapter and is always going on fun foodie adventures and talking about local food in St. Louis! We were even both at Farm Aid 2011 this year and didn’t even know it!

What are you looking forward to that’s coming up??

P.S. Have a great weekend!!

Share the Love & Coming up in KC: 8/5/11

Is it Friday already?? Have a great weekend!

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{Coming Up in KC}

• First Friday 
• The obvious immediate event in KC … today is First Friday! Go out, eat food, see art, have fun.
• Caffeine Crawl
• A LAB 5702 presentation, The Caffeine Crawl starts in Kansas City on September 17th. It features stops at 6 to 12 different local coffee shops, tea shops and coffee roasters and will include a brief hands-on presentation at each shop. We just got our tickets for Track A which will include: Parisi Coffee, Broadway, Crossroads Coffeehouse, Latteland, Mudpie, and The Roasterie. Sounds like fun to me! Word on the street is tickets to the Caffeine Crawl will be gone very soon. Get them while you can!

{Share the Love}

• Say What You Need To Say
• I love Lauren, and her blog! This week I wanted to highlight The Great Fundraising Act, Part II. It involves delicious looking granola up for grabs with the proceeds benefiting a great person in a time of need. Please go check out Lauren’s blog for all the details!

• The Granola Chronicles
• Courtney also grew up in Nebraska, is now living in California, and has a great blog! This week, her vegan pesto sounds most delicious!

• Clean Eating Chelsey
• I love a good chickpea burger. So when this whole post was about curry chickpea burgers, I said, yes, please!

• Simple Mom
• My friend Karen is always raving about Simple Mom so I finally had to check it out. While I don’t have kids yet, obviously, I really enjoy Tsh’s blog and you certainly don’t have to be a mom to benefit from it. There’s so many good resources on it, I almost don’t know where to start! Check it out, I think you’ll like it.

And finally … Happy Friday!!

Share the Love & Coming up in Kansas City: 7/29/11

It’s Friday!! Last Friday I was out of town and wasn’t able to get a Share the Love post up, so I was very excited to be able to this week. Have a great Friday, everyone, and enjoy!

{Coming up in KC}

• BADSEED: It’s Friday, don’t forget to head out to BADSEED farmer’s market tonight for awesome produce! We were out of town last week, and didn’t make it the week before so we’re excited to be able to go tonight.
  
• Farm Aid 2011: Farm Aid is in Kansas City this year! It’s a yearly concert and fundraiser headed by board members Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews, all about keeping local farmers on their land, and teaching people about The Good Food Movement. It will be at the LIVESTRONG Sporting Park in Kansas City, Kansas on August 13. Not only that, but it features HOMEGROWN concessions, featuring local, organic or family farm-sourced ingredients. Doesn’t that sound awesome? Yes! I was invited to attend Farm Aid as media and cover it on Lesley Lifting Life, and I would so love to be there! Unfortunately, I think we may be out of town that weekend. But it sounds like an awesome event, and I highly suggest checking it out if you’re in the KC area.

{Share the Love}

• Meals & Moves: I had to include Janetha from Meals & Moves this week because of The Great Fundraising Act that occurred this past Monday. Most blog readers are probably familiar with it, but if you’re not, a live auction and bake sale was held on Monday, organized by Janetha, to raise money for fellow blogger, Susan, who was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and hit with some hefty bills. This live one-day online auction raised over $26,000! Amazing! One reason I love being apart of this blogging community.

• Maria Makes Muffins: I love Maria’s blog! She’s always sharing delicious “clean” recipes with beautiful pictures. And isn’t her blog design just too cute? She shared a homemade vanilla extract a little while back, and I thought it was a perfect example of her wonderful blog.

• Choosing Raw: It’s no secret, I’m sure you’ve noticed we’ve been making a lot more raw foods lately. It’s a lot of fun! That’s where Gena’s blog comes in. She has a lot of good raw recipes that look delicious! Most recently, I love the looks for her Hemp Pesto Recipe in which she shares multiple recipes incorporating hemp seeds. Love it!

• Scandi Foodie: Most notably, I love Maria’s food photos. I always want to eat whatever she makes because her presentation is so beautiful! I suggest checking out her recipe page. Lentils with daikon and orange? Sweet roasted vegetables with dried fruit? Cashew cream cheese? Yes, please!!

Have a great weekend!!