California Food Adventures

Date: November 1, 2016

Author: astottler

I’m currently in California. I may be 400 miles from home still, but there is something comforting about being back in my home state.

It’s always weird to me traveling and then coming back. I always imagine a ton of different realities for myself. What if I was living there? What would my life be like? This trip was definitely some of that—I was really close to a college I got recruited to for softball for undergrad. I even went on an overnight recruiting visit there! (Which I had totally forgotten I had gone on until my mom reminded me!)

My layover was in the Dallas Fort Worth airport, and I actually found some good options. I got a caprese salad with chicken, artichoke hearts, olives, and fresh mozzarella.

Dinner in SoCal was really exciting though. I was looking at nearby places and discovered one of my favorite East Coast chains was 10 minutes away! Le Pain Quotidien. I went there twice on my trip to DC for the Cherry Blossom race.

I got the grilled chicken and mozzarella tartine on gluten free bread. Their GF bread is really great and seedy. Lots of texture.

Man, I missed California food. And dessert? OMG. Best thing I’ve eaten in a REALLY long time. I have had essentially no non-packaged GF baked cookies since coming to St. Louis. But there was a pie place in SoCal, I Like Pie, that offers a daily GF option.

Honestly, I didn’t have very high expectations for this (I was expecting it to be dry) but it was insane. It was a mini cherry pie.

I brought it to the hotel to eat during baseball and was still really full from dinner, but couldn’t stop eating it. It was so buttery and moist, with delicious cherry filling. The crumb top was of course amazing as well.

I went to bed with a VERY full but satisfied belly!

Monday morning I went for a run first thing. Well, technically I waited around for it to get light out first. The neighborhood of my hotel was borderline sketchy, and safety first!

You know you’re in SoCal when…

Scenes from my run:

Afterwards I sat down for a hotel breakfast. For some reason egg sounded good, so I had some egg substance with a mini blueberry chobani and honey nut Cheerios. How much nut is actually honey nut Cheeries? It says it contains “natural almond flavor.” I guess we’ll find out haha.

For lunch, I picked up some chicken vegetable soup the previous night at Le Pain Quotidien, which came with more of their delicious GF bread.

You better believe I did my research for dinner as well, and it did not disappoint. I went to Last Drop Cafe in downtown Claremont. I got the vegan sandwich on GF bread. The sandwich had all kinds of delicious veggies and dressing, but of course what won me over was the avocado.

Even better? It came with a cookie, and they offer a daily GF cookie option. This was a pumpkin snickerdoodle (!!!) which was the perfect way to celebrate Halloween! OMG so freaking good.

To continue the Halloween celebration through food, since the cookie was small, I decided to get some froyo—pumpkin froyo!

With some white chocolate raspberry and chocolate. Topped with mini m&ms and some hot fudge.

I love cute little downtowns:

I was a little sad to spend my favorite holiday alone in a hotel room, so I tried to quell the feelings with some chocolate from the hotel. And then food network holiday cake competitions which made me want more chocolate, so a Luna bar would have to stand in for a chocolate gingerbread haunted house.

This was my Tuesday morning:

Yayyy for 6am flights! I actually woke up before my alarm. Go me? I guess 3:55am pacific time=5:55am central time which=late for Crossfit.

Apparently getting to my gate super early is becoming a habit for me…plenty of time for breakfast though! I had a bar that I brought, and supplanted with “fruit.”

Lunch in Dallas was also good. I found a Southwest salad (with avocado!) plus part of a GF brownie. Yum!

I made it back to St. Louis in time for Crossfit.

Sidenote: I don’t understand St. Louis weather. It was 85 degrees when I got back. How is it over 20 degrees colder in SoCal than Missouri in November?? And how can it be 40 one day and 80 the next??

At Crossfit we did 1 rep max sumo deadlifts, and I fit 220 pounds. It was probably the slowest deadlift I’ve ever done but I got it up! For the WOD we did Annie with some push ups added in. Annie is 50-40-30-20-10 of double unders and sit ups. My double unders have seriously gotten so much better over the past year.

And how I’m blogging with the kitties and baseball 🙂 I can’t believe I’m only in St. Louis for 2.5 more weeks though!

Where is your favorite area to eat?

WIAW: #Bootlife Nostalgia

Date: August 16, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Today on the way to teaching spin at my undergrad campus, I listened to an album that I listened to a lot last spring. Immediately it took me back to all my boot workouts: grinding it out on the bike, learning new leg machines, endless dumbbell presses. I actually miss the boot in some strange way. Obviously, it’s nice not having a broken foot. But many good times were had in my boot. While wearing a giant boot with a broken foot was painful and made it hard to get around, I didn’t let it hold me back from doing anything I wanted to do and from enjoying my senior year. And not going to lie, I definitely felt super tough doing some of the things I did in a boot. I tried to make the most of it and have fun with it. Protip: if you go out and don’t want people to step on your broken foot, lighting up your boot works fabulously. The big silver lining of #bootlife was that I spent 2 months working on pull ups like a mad woman, and now I’m busting them out in workouts like it’s no big deal. (I did 50 kipping pull ups on Monday in sets of 5 the whole way!) Being optimistic is who I am; I may be sarcastic and pessimistic about humanity, but on a case by case basis I always look for the bright side.

But again, I think a lot of the good times that were had in the boot were because of the awesome people I was with. I’m missing my college friends like crazy now, and while I’m excited for a new opportunity in a new city, I’m sad I won’t see them every day. I think it’s finally getting real that I won’t be going back to Stanford this fall.

Sigh.

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(Featuring: Boot goes to the beach, boot goes win tasting in Napa, boot goes to the Giant’s game, boot goes to senior nights, boot goes to a Stanford baseball game, boot ‘graduates” from my sorority, and boot does murph.)

After that absurdly long introduction, let’s get into WIAW, shall we? Thanks as always to Jenn for starting the fun all those years ago.

WIAWbutton

For breakfast, I had a few crackers alongside a smoothie bowl. I recently bought Quest salted caramel protein powder, and so far I don’t hate it. I want to try it in waffles/pancakes at some point though!

In the blender went 1.33 bananas, milk, cocoa powder, and protein powder. I topped it with some KIND Raspberry granola.

I taught a noon spin class on campus. It was a class I made when I had a broken foot, and it was fun to actually be able to do the full class for real (I couldn’t stand before).

I had some business to attend to on campus, so I packed a lunch because I knew I would be hungry post-spin. I had a Trader Joe’s chicken, goat cheese, and beet salad, and a few crackers.

When I got back, I had snack part 1: a farmer’s market peach that was absolutely delicious.

Snack part 2 was a new purchase: a Flapjacked muffin. I saw these the other day and actually am not allergic to anything in them, so I was excited to try them out! Plus, given my physical activity for the day I knew I wanted plenty of protein, and these pack 20g in.

I overcooked it a tiny bit. When I originally took it out, it seemed too soft still so I added a few extra seconds and apparently that was too much. It was good though! The cinnamon chips were a good touch!

Before dinner, I attended a spin class. Normally I would never double up spin, but since it’s my last week and I had one spin credit left to a local studio, I wanted to go to one of my favorite teacher’s classes. It was a fun one! I always like her music.

For dinner, we had roasted corn and spaghetti squash mac and cheese.I haven’t had mac and cheese in forever so I was excited!

I love the idea of using spaghetti squash. Honestly, I’m not a huge pasta person. I’m all about the sauce! And who doesn’t love sneaking in extra veggies? This may be my favorite way to eat spaghetti squash thus far!

For dessert, I had my final 2 leftover grad cupcakes: chocolate with caramel frosting, and caramel with chocolate frosting.

A little while later, I had another snack. Because, hello, 2 spin classes, I needed the calories! Another thing I was super excited to try? Pumpkin spice cheerios! We finally found them! Yes, they are good. And I’m ready to dive headfirst into pumpkin. I was crazy into pumpkin a couple of years ago, but less recently. I think I’m due for another year of being crazy into pumpkin. And clearly I’m starting off strong with 2 pumpkin items in one day!

I also had a few milk chocolate chips to cap it off.

Have you had any pumpkin yet? What’s you favorite fall food?

I love pumpkin bread!

Day in the Life Fall 2015

Date: October 29, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I’ve been wanting to do another day in the life post for a little while now, but I was too crazy busy to even document things. Now that midterms are over, I’ve had a little more time to breathe! Today actually ended up being a much lore key day than normal-let’s dive in!

5:45am: Wake up. My alarm isn’t for 20 minutes. I probably need more sleep but eh. Get out of bed 10 minutes later.

Start getting ready for Crossfit. Pre-Crossfit snack is Vanilla Cherry Bread from my freezer supply.

Plus gummy vitamins (of various types-I’m not overdosing!)

6:40: Leave for Crossfit which starts at 7.

It’s quite nippy out this morning. I’m not ready for those 30 degree mornings in the gym…

The workout today was a sprint workout that knocked us all out. Every 9 minutes we did the following: 150m sprint, 3 power cleans (for me-snatches for everyone else), 5 burpee box jumps, and 15 calorie row. We did this 5 times through. I finished each round between 3-3:20, so there was rest but man. The good news is that I did the heaviest cleans since my shoulder (85#) and it was no problem at all!

8:20ish-arrive back at the house. Crossfit ran a bit late today.

Pull some Halloween decorations from my car. How cute is this?

Then-breakfast. Here’s a look at the house fridge:

I grab a bite of leftover risotto because it’s delicious (several other bites occurred throughout the day) and because #carbs.

The main post-workout replenishment was fate yogurt with pumpkin butter. Perfect combo of protein+carbs.

8:45: Shower and get ready for the day.

Yes, I have pumpkin spice chapstick, and yes it’s fantastic.

9:15: Leave for my fake class. What’s that? When I dropped my Tues/Thurs 9am I decided to spend that time camped out at a coffeeshop or otherwise being productive. Usually I work on Microbio, but today was some reading for my Native American Literature class. Sidenote-this is clearly not a literary blog because #biomajor, but I want to post about this book at some point. Sometimes I’ll get decaf coffee, but I’m starting to come off my acid-reducer stomach meds and don’t think I need the acidity. Instead I bring the other half of my bottle of Kevita.

I spent 50 minutes there. And since this is DITL here’s my outfit. It’s kind of a big deal that I’m wearing jeans because I almost never do-I hate biking in them-but I was feeling them today.

10:25-Leave for first real class of the day.

10:30-11:50 Exercise Physiology. Today is gluconeogenesis and hormones for blood glucose control (which are actually one of my favorite things in all of bio-besides cows of course).

When I come out, I see that the leaves have turned more since Tuesday!

12: Lunch back at the house. Today I have cabbage stuffed with ground chicken, a couple of potatoes, and salad with pears. Plus avocado!

12:40-1:45 Lunch is finished but I spend time talking to my friend who ended up coming for lunch. That was my main nap time but oh well.

1:45-2:45 Eat a Luna bar, finish up some reading, and take a 25 minute power nap. My naps are necessary before my next class because it’s just that time of day. Grab another bite of risotto and a few chocolate covered raisins on the way out.

3-4:20: Native American Literature Class

4:30-5 Watch part of an episode of Grey’s Anatomy (I just started season 6). I’m supposed to carve pumpkins with my dorm and a friend, but no word from her yet.

5:00: Give up on my friend and go down to carve a pumpkin. She eventually comes. I love the smell of pumpkin-officially fall!

6:00: Dinnertime! I had vegetarian meatloaf, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, and glazed carrots.

Plus the insides of a key lime freezer pie, which was pretty melty.

7:00: I stayed with my friend until she finished her pumpkin, and then took one for the team to light our pumpkins in true college fashion for a picture. I stuck my phone inside the pumpkin. Worth it.

7:15: It’s been a long week, so I decide it’s finally time to watch Back to the Future II. (Because 2015-so weird!)

9:15-9:35: Start this blog post!

Then a meeting with my RA, most likely followed by some reading for my classes!

What did you do today?

The Royal We

Date: October 28, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I hope everyone is having a fantastic Halloween week! I have finally gotten over the hump of midterms, and I think (knock on wood) they went well! That being said, I definitely spent some time relaxing with Netflix today (much needed) and am currently tackling the pile of laundry that has built up in the past week or so.

Let’s go through the past several days, shall we?

Monday morning began with a track workout. I did a warm up followed by 4x400m, including a timed trial of my 400m run. The good news is in the past few weeks with my training program, I’m 6 seconds faster! Running for a grade is definitely a good extra motivator.

Monday was quite the grind. I had a midterm in Exercise Physiology on Tuesday, plus I was leading section for my English class so I had to prep for that. I think I spent 9 hours studying for my midterm alone. My only break was to meet up to work on my English, and to teach an over capacity (!) spin class. The energy from a full class was exactly what I needed to refresh my mind!

Foods:

Stuffed pepper, chicken, veggies.

Gluten free vegetable past and broccoli with sesame dressing (because there was no lettuce left). Plus a little rice pudding which apparently had almonds (but wasn’t labeled). And now I’m having a bit of an allergic reaction. Meh.

My new favorite snack: pumpkin pie filling (from a can) plus egg whites, cooked in the microwave. I got the Whole Foods brand which was pretty low sugar.

I have not gotten anywhere near sufficient sleep lately. I don’t think I’ve gotten more than 6 hours in maybe a week? That plus 9 hours of studying (plus other HW and class) had my brain so fried that by the time I was going to bed on Monday, I started talking to myself, which alone would be weird enough, but by referring to myself as the royal we. Oh sleep deprivation.

From my textbook-isn’t this adorable?

Tuesday morning I went for a short run to energize my mind and enjoy the fall colors.

Post run, I ate breakfast and stared longingly at the pumpkins that I would get the chance to carve with my dorm post-midterm.

I think the test went pretty well, and I got the chance to rest my eyes briefly before leading section, which definitely went well! At this point I was feeling my second wind.

Tuesday evening I went to Crossfit-we worked on bench press, and a long WOD:

10 minute AMRAP:

9 toes to bar (v ups for me because of my shoulder)

12 push press

15 squats

–

3 min rest

–

Helen, cutoff of 10 minutes:

3 rds of 400m run, 21 kb swings, 12 pull ups (I did TRX rows)

I was maybe a little too ambitious with my shoulder. It was feeling really strong prior to the workout, but the push presses were just too much volume. I started at 55# and had to drop the weight to just the bar in the middle. My shoulder was pretty sore afterwards, so I gave it a full rest today. At the same time, I think a lot of the soreness was just stretching and getting that flexibility back, because it’s feeling good now. I think it’s going to take some pushing while still being careful.

I stopped at Whole Foods for dinner and a couple of groceries. Dinner was veggie soup, roasted sage butternut squash, and brown rice.

On Tuesday night, I attended a school event that is a bit of a tradition here, but that combined with good conversations with cool people resulted in far too late of a bedtime.

That being said, tiredness-wise I’ve actually been doing really well, although a day off was necessary.

I was planning on running today, but I’m glad I waited because tonight I found my new shoes in the mail! They will be broken out tomorrow!

Also-I’m planning a day in the life for tomorrow so stay tuned!

Fall Festivities

Date: October 25, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! I’m still in the heat of midterms, but I thought I’d pop in and share some fun weekend happenings.

I had to start my Friday off on the right foot pre-midterm. An amazing Fuji apple from the farmer’s market with cottage cheese and sun butter. My midterm was a time crunch. I walked out with my brain fried, and grateful that I planned a track workout right afterwards! 4x400m-nothing too crazy, but homework for my exercise physiology class! I spent the afternoon running errands-including a flu shot, new running shoes, and some study time in Peet’s. That evening I went to Crossfit for some squats and a lighter workout that involved lots of push ups-my shoulder is getting stronger!

My evening plans involved friends and a nice bottle of wine.

I still cannot believe I will be leaving these people in less than a year!

Saturday morning I had planned on going for a fall run, but my legs were not feeling it. They had been feeling a little rough between my race, spin classes, and sprint workouts, so I went for a leisurely morning bike ride. I did a beautiful 15ish mile loop, and the good news is I felt much stronger than the last time I did it a year ago-those spin classes must be doing something!

Post ride meal scavenged from the fridge:

Sautéed garlic spinach, rice, and leftover chicken (served with ketchup of course!).

That evening was our Homecoming football game. My Crossfit actually arranged a tailgate prior to the game, so I enjoyed some time outside of the gym with my workout buddies. Everyone looked so different not in workout clothes!

At game time, I met up with some friends.

Our mascot is a tree, and each year, it is quite the honor to be the tree. The trees are crazy-they usually have to do some sort of insane stunt to get the position, although many of these are kept under wraps. The tree makes its own costume each year, with many different interpretations, including a palm tree, the traditional pine, and this year a willow. A fun part of Homecoming is seeing the tree reunion!

I left at halftime (we were up by 2 touchdowns already 🙂 ) to head over to a Wine and Cheese night hosted by my sister. She had an extensive cheese selection, and pumpkin creme brûlée made before our eyes with a hand held blow torch. (How cool is it that she has that??) It was also fun to see her friends and discuss the wedding!

Sunday morning I was up bright an dearly to sub a spin class at my off-campus gym. It was a good class, and I left energized!

The main event for the weekend though?

PUMPKIN PATCH. There’s a historic farm across the bay (that has baby animals in the spring) with all kinds of ruminants, plus a full on pumpkin patch. I made my friends commit to going weeks in advance because I didn’t want anyone to miss out!

First up was the goats. I’m pretty sure these goats are the babies of the pregnant mothers I saw in the spring!

The most exciting thing? I got to see my cow! I saw this cow when it was young (maybe teenaged?) my freshman year of college, and when I returned last spring, it had grown so much! This year? I got quite the wonderful surprise when I saw that it had a young calf! My cow is all grown up!