A Traveling Plate: Morrison, CO

We traveled to Morrison, CO (just outside of Denver) this weekend to see Ray Lamontagne perform at Red Rocks.  This was my first time seeing a concert at this natural ampitheater and it was as amazing as I had expected (although a bit chillier!).

Colorado "Get's It"
Denver is actually where Dan and I came up with the idea for A Peaceful Plate blog last September.  We were laying in a park there, talking about how great the city is.  They have a bicycle-sharing program called Bcycle which is something like ZipCar but for bikes.  There are miles of paved trails for jogging, cycling, or rollerblading.  The local culture is very active - and it shows!  It seemed like everyone we saw was fit and healthy, which made it a pretty fun place to be and made me want to write about healthy food and exercise in my own life.

When we arrived this time, we stopped for lunch at Crepes 'n' Crepes, a small restaurant we found on our previous trip.  I had a salad with their house mustard vinaigrette and a wild mushroom crepe.  Not to harp on the salad dressing thing, but I had hoped for a dressing like this simple Jamie Oliver creation that goes with his green chopped salad.  It's basically 3-to-1 EVOO and red wine vinegar with a little dijon mustard.  What I got was more like a small bowl of honey mustard dipping sauce.

Overall though, the meal was good - the salad had lots of freshly chopped veggies and non-iceberg lettuce; the buckwheat crepe was oozing with mushroomy deliciousness.

Everyone Gets Healthy
It seems like the dialog about what is and isn't healthy is growing.  On the plane, I got into a conversation with the woman next to me about maltodextrin and why do they have to put that on the peanuts anyway?  At Crepes 'n' Crepes, I asked the waitress whether she recommended the regular or buckwheat crepe and she let me know the buckwheat one had no corn syrup in it.  At Red Rocks we saw two stands advertising local food (Locally Twisted Pretzel, anyone?) and overheard at least one conversation about always eating locally sourced meat.


What About GMOs?
As we were waiting for some rain to move on and do a bit of pre-concert hiking around Red Rocks, I happened to pick up a book in the gift shop talking about the hazards associated with all of the genetically modified foods we as a society are eating.  It dove into the evils of the company Monsanto, a subject I am a little familiar with from the movie Food, Inc.  I didn't have enough time to read much of it, but I plan to do a lot more research and post about it in the future!