"Do you like hippie food?"

Yesterday in our traipsing around Charlotte, Caroline and I had spotted a cute coffee shop in Dilworth, and, being a fan of all things coffee and all things local,* knew exactly where we were going to obtain our coffee this morning:

*Local in terms of the theme of geography known as “place,” which we describe as the human and physical characteristics of a location, including cultural features and architecture…i.e. local restaurants and markets. Although, eating local/being a locavore is cool, too.

All we could say as soon as we walked in was, “It smells SO GOOD in here.” The coffee was pretty darn amazing as well.
So amazing, in fact, that we kept picking up our empty cups while driving, hoping that maybe this time some magical coffee fairy had replenished our cups as a result of good karmic vibes we’d earned from some unrecognized deed of generosity.

All our generous deeds had apparently already reaped their karmic benefits, because the coffee did not reappear.

We settled on enormous Cameo apples that were super crisp and juicy. (Not so juicy, however, that I ended up with a sticky chin/hand/leg situation requiring Caroline to grab the ‘borrowed’-from-school Wet Ones and attempt to remedy the situation while I tried to keep the car on the road and avoid being crushed by a scary tractor-trailer. Although that would have been funny.)
Caroline then ate an unpictured Luna Bar (S’mores), declared herself officially obsessed with protein bars, and asked if I wanted one. I requested that instead she figure out how make me a Great Harvest Dakota Bread (Thanks again Kath and Matt!) & Trader Joe’s Sunflower Seed Butter sandwich without any accessible form of utensil.

I was denied.

So, I settled on a Kashi Crunchy!* Bar. This flavor was awesome. It tasted like cream cheese-glazed cinnamon coffee cake. Which makes sense, because that’s what it’s called. Well, without the cream cheese part.
*By the way,what is it with Kashi and adding exclamation points to all of their products. Go LEAN Crunch! Kashi Crunchy! Is being crunchy really that much more exciting than being creamy? Or gooey? Or crisp? Every time I say the names of these products I feel like I should also be fist-pumping. Anyone else? Anyone?

We drove to Asheville with relatively little excitement. After stopping by the Visitor’s Center, we decided to just explore a little, and it was then that I was beckoned by the grocery store gods and ended up here, as though pulled by an unseen force of way too pretty produce singing a Hallelujah chorus.

Not only did Caroline find the coconut water she’s been looking for…

(We sampled the Peach & Mango flavor…delish.)

…but we also decided to ask our cashiers where they would go to eat if they were only going to be in Asheville for one meal.

Their response: “Do you like hippie food?”
Our response: “Umm…yes?”

Then they named a restaurant and mentioned the phrase “and it’s pretty cheap.”

Cue the celebratory “dings” ladies and gentlemen…we have a winner! [Confetti falls. Contestant embraces Bob Barker.]

That is how we ended up at Rosetta’s Kitchen, a restaurant celebrating “farm fresh ecletic vegetarian and vegan soul foods.”*

*hippie food
This was the best spontaneous decision ever. Clearly having been following The Smart Kitchen Rules for Travel,our little investigation into “where the locals eat” left us with extremely contented bellies and a meal full of eyes closed, “Oh my goll, am I really eating something so simply wonderful?” moments.

Caroline ordered the Buddha Bowl, which was spring mix, brown rice, sea veggie salad (incredible!), sprouts, tomatoes, avocado, and smokey tofu.
But the most amazing thing in the bowl? The tahini Korean BBQ sauce.

It changed my life. [Although after consulting with Kath, it seems it might really be peanut butter BBQ sauce...which is what we thought. We have been conned!]

Luckily, I cannot see a “weird” BBQ sauce on a menu and not order a side of it, which accompanied my side of house-made vegan miso dressing.
Both of which were used as fork-dipping accents to my Salad Plate: spring mix, carrots, tomatoes, broccoli, sprouts, mushrooms, avocado, and beautiful red cabbage heaped on top of incredibly delicious (and the perfect level of garlicky) hummus.
Unique and fun restaurant feature? You get to serve yourself water from this filtered tap over this beautiful sink.
We were so happy after this meal….
…well, at least until Caroline got a headache, and felt “out of sorts” on our drive to Nashville and slept most of the way and we feared she was allergic to tofu, which produced in her a terrified reaction at the prospect of never being able to eat “that food” (her words, not mine) again. She got over it. We think she can still eat tofu. I’ll keep you posted.

Random aside: the man who took this photograph not only scored points for taking the best “Excuse me, would you mind taking our picture” photo ever [best only because my hair looks good], but for being AWESOME. He and his (we presumed) partner were two of the nicest guys we had ever met. And the most incredible thing? They live in Austin! Crazy…but they did give us a lot of restaurant suggestions for when we get there. Additional bonus points were awarded for using the phrases “I have dreams where I taste that taco in my mouth” and “eating that crepe is like reaching nirvana.” They also said the moment they knew they had to move to Austin was when they entered the Whole Foods flagship store. Clearly, we were meant to find each other.

Caroline and I spent a long time just wandering around downtown Asheville taking pictures and exploring the town. We were in love, but I kept saying, “Just wait until you see Austin.”

Here are some of my attempts at being a slightly artsy travel photographer for your viewing enjoyment!

—————————-

PS. We are safely in Nashville…starting tomorrow we are playing a heads-or-tails game with the map, similar to JoDee Messina’s fun-tastic song “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” except our version will go something like “Heads Texarkana, Tails Oklahoma”

PPS. Something tells me my desire to cross the border in Oklahoma singing “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKlahoma!” will be too strong to deny.