WEEK 5: Star-spangled Green Cuisine Goodness

Week 5 was a short but busy workweek. Not only was it the week of July 4^th, but it was also the week Sydney and I hosted Camp Green Cuisine, our 2-day kids camp for the kids of the Kennesaw Teen Center.

Monday was Day 1 of Camp Green Cuisine. The camp was from 12:30-4:30pm, but Sydney and I came into work around 8:30am to prepare the game plan for the day. Since the weather called for rain, we had to adjust our itinerary a bit. Luckily, our schedule was easily modifiable and everything worked out! In the morning, before the kids arrived, Sydney and I created stencils of our camp title and logo. One thing I learned: stenciling is a very tedious and time-consuming task! After we made our stencils, we went to a room on the 2^nd floor in The Commons and spray painted the title “Camp Green Cuisine” on each of the camp tees. While we were finishing designing the shirts, Melissa gave the kids a tour of The Commons, followed by a 45 minute lunch. After lunch, we met the kids at Hickory Grove Farm. Before tie dying, the kids received a tour of the farm. They learned about the daily farm operations and the importance of living sustainably. They also learned the connection between the farm and the food in The Commons and visited the farm’s fields where the recently sowed produce is growing. Some of the vegetables were germinated, which was awesome because the kids were able to visually associate what we were teaching them. They also got a tour of the chickens, goats, and the hydroponic farming house. We ended the day with some fun tie dye and popsicles :-)

Tuesday was Day 2 of Camp Green Cuisine. This day was filled with DIY flatbread pizzas and parfaits for lunch followed by lots of gardening! When the kids arrived around lunchtime, we started the day giving them a lesson on basic nutrition concepts. We also played an interactive fruit and vegetable game to test their knowledge and get them pumped for the day's activities. Each teen made their own flatbread, which included sauce, cheese, and a variety of meat and vegetable toppings. We also gave them some take-home recipe cards in case they wanted to duplicate any of the recipes at home. After lunch, we got to work in the garden! We taught the kids basic gardening and weeding techniques and also explained the different gardening tools and how to use them properly. We showed the kids all the herbs that were currently in the garden as well as the herbs and flowers that they were going to plant themselves. By the end of the outdoor portion, the teens had planted 3 different beds of thyme, parsley, and cilantro. After a long, hot day in the garden, we ended the day making DIY parfaits. We had pre-chopped berries, melons, and granola with both vanilla and strawberry yogurt, but allowed the kids to use their creativity to make their individual parfait. It was such a great day full of fun, learning, and delicious and nutritious food! Camp Green Cuisine = a success! :-)

Wednesday was our last day of work because our awesome boss Melissa was nice enough to give us off Thursday and Friday for the Fourth of July weekend! Wednesday was a pretty mellow day. I worked a majority of the day on creating a brochure of DIY urban gardening. I included the definition of urban gardening and 3 different DIY methods that are easy to do and also allow for lots of creativity. In the brochure, I included the how-to's for raised flatbeds, horizontal flatbeds, and vertical flatbeds. After creating the brochure, we spent the remainder of the day doing the regular upkeep of the garden aka weeding and watering the wonderful herbs and flowers. Wednesday night was spent packing for our 4 day adventure the the Music City: Nashville, TN!!!

Sunset on the way to TN!

Live concert on Broadway

Thursday morning was spent mainly doing some last minute errands and blogging. Our drive to Nashville was 2 hours full of gorgeous scenery, accompanied by an awesome playlist we compiled for our road trip! We arrived to Nashville in just enough time to unpack and head straight to downtown! Our first stop was Broadway... not the musical FYI. Broadway is a main street in Nashville known for the music scene. essentially, it was a huge outdoor music festival! There was a huge stand with different bands playing all night. All the bars were open and everyone was out having a great time. We learned that Broadway is usually a place where tourists go, but we didn't care because it was totally awesome and definitely a great start to the weekend! After hanging out at the concerts, we went to check out the bar scenes of Nashville. We spent the rest of the night chillin' at Soulshine Pizza Factory dancing and listening to a local blues/soul band.

Happy 4^th of July, Ya’ll! Independence Day is my favorite holiday, so you can imagine how excited I was to get the day started! We started our day getting breakfast at a local restaurant called Bongo Java. Bongo Java is Nashville’s oldest coffeehouse and was named Nashville’s best coffeehouse every year from 1994 to 2012, which is pretty awesome. After breakfast, Syd and I went back to Broadway to shop around and buy some souvenirs. One thing is for sure…Independence Day in Nashville is definitely the place to be! In addition to the inevitable fireworks, there was tons of live music playing all day with food and alcohol vendors lined up and down the streets! So many people were dressed loud and proud in patriotic outfits and cowboy boots (There were countless amount of stores solely for cowboy boots lol). For lunch, we went to Dick’s Last Resort, which was a super fun time! The food is just regular bar food, but the experience and laughs you get while your there makes the experience so much more memorable! After spending all afternoon on Broadway, Sydney and I met back up with our friends and we all went to a BBQ to have some brews and celebrate with good company. After the BBQ, we went to the Korean Veterans Memorial Bridge to see the fireworks! I didn’t know this at first, but I later found out that Nashville was rated #1 for best fireworks in America in 2013 and rated #2 for 2014!

Me at Dick's Last Resort

Bongo Java Coffeehouse

Fireworks <3

Park in east Nashville

Saturday we spent all day exploring both east and west Nashville! In the morning, we drove to East Nashville to have brunch at a vegan restaurant called Wild Cow. It was very delicious and would definitely recommend it! After that, we drove to a park that was about 20-25 minutes from where we were staying. On the road we took to get to the park, there were miles of absolutely gorgeous multimillion-dollar mansions along each side of us. Each house’s driveway was at least a mile long! We later found out that the neighborhood we were driving through was home to many famous country singers! After hanging out in east Nashville, we went to west Nashville to check out the shopping life at some local thrift stores. After being on our feet all day, we ended the night going to dinner with our friends at Chagos Cantina, a local Mexican restaurant that’s known for its awesome happy hour ;-)

PFunky Griddle!

Sunday was our last day in Nashville :-( We wanted to leave with a bang so we decided to get breakfast at an awesome restaurant called PFunky Griddle. The PFunky Griddle is sort of like The Melting Pot except its primary focus is breakfast foods. You order whatever you like and they bring out the ingredients for you and you can cook your meal right in front of you on your own personal griddle. I ordered all-you-can-eat whole-wheat pancakes with blueberries, peanut butter, and coconut shavings for my toppings.  Can you say, YUM? ;-) After stuffing our bellies, we hit the road back home to good ol’ Georgia and spent the rest of the night unpacking and unwinding from a long, successful weekend! B-)