What a week! I find it hard to believe that it’s only Tuesday and I am already tired. But it’s been a long and eventful couple of days…

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to attend Philanthrofest.  For those who don’t know, PhilanthroFest is a large-scale festival showcasing and celebrating South Florida philanthropic organizations, community resources and cultural arts. Anyway, what started out as a rainy WTF day, turned out to be an amazing day and I have to say that the guys who put together this event, Life is Art and Miami Crawls did an amazing job and I know that they made a huge difference not only for these non-profits but also for those who had the opportunity to interact with them.
Early on in my career I had the opportunity to work in non-profit so I understand just how important it is to have communities that are involved. People underestimate the tremendous amount of work involved in a lot of these organizations and usually, the more effective they are the more help they need. To provide them with an opportunity to market themselves, is in itself an amazing gift.

Anyway, on Sunday Hugh and I attended the Tropical Brunch hosted by Les Dames D’Escoffier at the gorgeous Schnebly’s Redland Winery. This was their yearly brunch intended to help fund nutrition and cooking education for local youths as well as underwriting school vegetable gardens in the region, and as you know the cause of green, local food is one very close to our heart.

The menu was inspired by the book Mmmmiami: Tempting Tropical Tastes for Home Cooks Everywhere and I have to say that everything was absolutely amazing.  As you can probably expect, the salads, fruits, and vegetables in the meals were all locally harvested.  While there, we had the opportunity to chat with our friend and our team captain for the Food Bloggers Bake Sale, Renee Jaclyn, and met the lovely CSA blogger Marian Wertalka of Redland Rambles .  I love that despite the differences in our approach to food, we all share the belief that local, seasonal eating is key for a healthy life.

The brunch overall was a success.  There was a very healthy attendance and some exciting auctions.  I bid on a couple of certificates but no luck. At least I had fruity wine to cheer me up.  As it turns out, wine is not only made from grapes.  I learned to like starfruit wine.

Who says you can’t add a fun twist to old favorites?

Annush & Jorge

Yesterday was my favorite geek girl holiday: Foursquare Day. One would think that the fact that it was in fact Monday would tone down the celebrating but it didn’t.  As a matter of fact, for the first time ever the celebrations started at 9:00am in Tobacco Road. I didn’t go to that event but I kinda wanted to 🙂

I did go to the event at Balans- Lincoln Road, where not only was there a proclamation, some of my favorite social media peeps were in attendance.  I really hoped that my BFF Sarah would show up so we could celebrate our BFF anniversary (we met on Foursquare Day 2 years ago) but sadly, the life of a realtor is simply unrelenting… 

Like we do after every social media event, we ended the night at JimmyZ Kitchen in Midtown with our free sangria and mofongo cure. It was a really good time.

So you see, it’s been a really eventful few days…now I need to detox.  I ordered some new vegan cookbooks that I hope will help me get more creative in my cooking.  Let’s face it, I am loving being a vegan but I think that to maintain this lifestyle variety is key. We’ll see how that goes.  For now, tomorrow is veggie coop day. I look forward to creating recipes using this week’s fruits and vegetables.

Until then.