Category: Travels

This past weekend I went to visit my friend Leslie, who is attending business school in Nashville. Honestly, I was a little nervous about trying not to eat meat in the south. Was it going to be possible?

To my surprise, it was very possible! Read on about what I ate during my southern adventure.

My trip started off rocky with a canceled flight and then a four hour layover in Saint Louis. I had a banana, a poppy seed muffin, and earl gray tea while still in San Francisco. While in Saint Louis, I found a California Pizza Kitchen in the airport and ordered the split pea soup and a $9 salad with mixed greens, two slices of onions and like, 5 cranberries. Ugh! Luckily, my soup was nom and was so filling that I was able to save my salad for dinner when I (finally) arrived at Leslie’s house. For dinner, I added some organic chicken (because Leslie is also a health nut) to my salad and paired it with a tortilla and hummus. Carbo loading before the bars is a must, people!

The next morning we got brunch and coffee. I ordered a breakfast wrap without the sausage and the best latte I’ve had in a while. (I think milk in my coffee would be the hardest thing to give up if I ever try veganism….)

For dinner, we went to a place called Adele’s to celebrate a birthday! Leslie and I split the salmon, risotto with shrimp, and a side of sauteed spinach. A lot of food before a night out at the Honky Tonks!

After some barhopping, we ended the night with slices of veggie pizza (at 3:30am, which is later than I’ve stayed out for at least 2 years).

The next morning we went for another coffee run at The Frothy Monkey and then headed to The Loveless Cafe for a seriously southern breakfast. The Loveless Cafe is a major tourist spot with a wait of TWO HOURS! This was my last day in Nashville and we had places to be and things to see (!) so we ordered our food to go and ate cheese grits and biscuits and gravy in Les’ car. (Pure class!) Disclaimer: I’m pretty sure the gravy was not vegetarian. Oops!

And then it was time for dinner and HOT CHICKEN, which Nashville is famous for. Being from California, I sufficiently embarrassed Leslie and ordered my chicken grilled instead of fried…!

Overall, Nashville was an all around good time filled with good music, good food (even if it wasn’t all vegetarian…), and the best company!

Added bonus: if you’re a fan of the show Nashville, like I am, the Blue Bird Cafe is just like it is shown of the show. …Expect a lot smaller and right next to a McDonald’s…

Stay tuned and eat your greens.

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** Note this blog went through a rebrand and is now veg vibes; which aligns better with the direction I organically gravitated towards. It’s all about your vibe **

This past weekend my guy and I went on a mini weekend get away to one of our favorite spots in Tahoe, Resort at Squaw Creek. This was the first time I vacationed with my new vegetarian lifestyle change and it was a bit of an adjustment but also offered some good learning lessons!

We stopped at Panera for dinner on the drive there and my options were plentiful here …if all I wanted was a salad. Which is normally fine except it was dinner and I was going to be in a car for the next 4 -5 hours so I wanted a little more. I settled on cheese tortellini and a chocolate chip cookie. Hello to all of the carbs and ZERO veggies…

I did better as the weekend progressed, I promise.

The next day we went to Chili’s for lunch. I’m not usually the biggest fan of chain restaurants but I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised with lunch. I ordered the black bean burger (open faced) and it was amazing! There is a possibility my taste buds were swayed because I was still having some major guac cravings, which were satisfied on top of my BBburger, but most likely, it was just really good. And guacamole counts as a vegetable(fruit?) serving, right?!

Dinner was a little more difficult simply because the restaurant we went to in the resort didn’t have many vegetarian options. I think my only option was a portobello wrap and portobello is one mushroom I just cannot get behind…

Soooooo I turned to sides! (Side note: side dishes are my secret weapons when it comes to menus. Pair 2 or 3 together and you have yourself a meal when nothing on the menu looks good or you have dietary restrictions.) I ordered a side of veggies (I told you I got better;) and mini pretzels with a side of jalapeno cheese dip. This was not only a pretty delicious vegetarian dinner for me but also a learning lesson on portion control…

Honestly, when my tiny bowl of veggies and like, 6 mini pretzels came out, in my head I quit right there. I was HUNGRY and this was all I got to eat for DINNER?! Oh, well. I thought, at there is always potato chips…? But, it turns out, I wasn’t hungry after I ate my food (and a few bites of Mike’s mash potatoes….). I was completely satisfied and didn’t overeat simply because there happened to be more food on my plate. Most of the time, serving sizes are out of control at restaurants but it’s what we get used to.

The next 2 days were a little different because, well, I ate meat. But this wasn’t like the nachos incident. I ate meat because Squaw Valley is this awesome place that only uses locally sourced meat. And while the lines and definitions for things like locally sourced and organic fed can be blurry, I still had half of a steak on Saturday night and had bacon in my salad on Sunday. (BTW, bacon is not MY LIFE like most carnivores so my salad was just a salad with some bacon on it. Sorry bacon lovers!)

Overall, I learned the following things on my first Veg Voyage vacation:

1. There are vegetarian options almost everywhere – even if they don’t seem apparent at first (sides! remember?)
2. Meat does not have to be the default. A black bean burger at Chili’s is as good and satisfying as a cow burger.
3. It is possible to be satisfied on a lot less food than I am used to.
4. I still have A LOT to learn about compassionate eating and what things like locally sourced actually mean…

Stay tuned and eat your greens.

PS. I will actually take pictures of my veg noms on my next vacation… This weekend in Nashville!

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** Note this blog went through a rebrand and is now veg vibes; which aligns better with the direction I organically gravitated towards. It’s all about your vibe **