Category: Food: Thoughts & Experiences

Lorenzo and I both love food. Some posts in this category feature local Chicago food related businesses we enjoy. Some are just general discussions about food, psychological issues relating to food, or food related art.

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In praise of falafel and hummus from Salam Restaurant


falafel being made
Falafel being made at Salam Restaurant

Today’s blog post is dedicated to our love of falafel, and hummus, in particular from Salam Restuarant near our Albany Park Chicago home.  Here are 145 yelp reviewers giving stellar reviews on Salam’s yelp page.

So why is falafel bright green on the inside?  It’s because of all the parsley that it is green.  The batter is made up of parsley, chick pea, green onion, and secret spices.  🙂  Here we see them using what looks like a small ice cream scoop to create a formed scoop of the batter before it is dropped into a deep fryer basket and fried in vegetable oil.

falafel and hummus
Falafel, hummus, & pita, from Salam Restaurant

I chose a small order of hummus with pita to go with our falafel.  Boy was it amazing.  According to their yelp page, WGN proclaimed Salam to have the best hummus in Chicago, last October 2010.  Lorenzo couldn’t agree more.  He says it’s the best f*#@^ing hummus he’s ever had.  Can I write ‘fucking’ in my own blog?  Anyway, if you have never eaten this food you need to.  Really.  🙂

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Creating your own waking up rituals- tea time part 1

How you start your day is an important way to improve how you feel throughout your day.  Positive rituals you create as part of your waking up process can help you to feel like this is YOUR day, and that you’re going to enjoy it.

soymilk, yerba mate tea, and honey
Taking a moment for tea time

In our house, Lorenzo and I are very much in love with our tea.  One of our favorite cups of tea is yerba mate, with Organic Valley chocolate soy milk, and honey.  Here is the wikipedia page on yerba mate.  Basically it is a traditional tea native to South America which has caffeine and other natural stimulants.  This brand we use Guayaki can be bought online or at Whole Foods and similar stores, and in bag form only at Trader Joes.  Organic Valley chocolate soy milk tastes so good you could even have a cup of it as an “I’m behaving” dessert.  🙂  Yerba mate has a pleasing smell, and with the honey and soy milk, it is very tasty.  I like to eat a high-protein breakfast, and then have a cup of yerba mate and sit and meditate.  I sit by our front windows where I have a nice view.

Many of my clients work outside their home, and their morning wake up consists of dressing in clothes that they don’t enjoy, skipping breakfast, and rushing out the door.  Their mind and energy is already focused in the future on their work and the hardest tasks of their day.  I understand this completely, but even in the busiest of days there is another way.  Most people could build two minutes into that time where you take a break, take some deep breaths, a few sips of tea, or just sit or stretch, and reflect on the big picture of your life, or something that you love.  Set the tone for your day, rather than letting your tasks and duties set the tone.  Serenity and peace of mind do not come to your life accidentally.  You have to plant it in your heart, one little morning break at a time.  Here’s to your peace of mind, and positive morning rituals that are uniquely yours.

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“Cupcake Week” celebrates delicious new art piece and sugary goodness

So guess what?  Now Lorenzo is making art that inspires life in a whole new way.

copywrighted image of strawberry cupcake done by Chicago artist Lorenzo Ross
The Adventures of Ms. Strawberry Cupcake

Lorenzo’s latest piece “Adventures of Ms. Strawberry Cupcake” has inspired us to create and celebrate our own new holiday: Cupcake Week!  Here’s the inspirational print, now available on our etsy shop PsychicUnicorns

In this print Ms. Strawberry Cupcake is strolling by mountains of chocolate ice cream topped in hot fudge, of course.

Cupcake Week lasts from Feb 2/22/11 until Monday Feb 2/28/11 so you still have time to celebrate!  If you don’t know any gourmet cupcake places, they are all over Chicagoland.  You can search for cupcake bakery on yelp.com to get you started.

photo of four gourmet cupcakes
gourmet cupcakes from Sensational Bites in Chicago

Here’s what we did to celebrate cupcake week so far.  We went to Sensational Bites, a gourmet bakery that bakes cupcakes, pies, cakes, etc., in Lakeview, Chicago.  We read famed yelper Johnny T’s yelp review and knew that place was worthy of our celebration.  Here’s a link to the yelp page for Sensational Bites

This photo shows most of the heavenly cupcakes we consumed yesterday.  We ate the almond coconut cupcake in the cafe, so it is not shown in this photo. Clockwise from the top we ate: orange dreamsicle, german chocolate, raspberry truffle, and Butterfinger (peanut butter).  They were all close-your-eyes-and-savor delicious!  True story, I think I have been craving the raspberry truffle cupcake for the last six months, not knowing or finding exactly what I needed until my first rapturous moment yesterday when I took a bite.  That cupcake is actually filled with the mushy yummy raspberry chocolate part too.  My favorite, to say the least.  Lorenzo’s favorite was the german chocolate one, saying it’s one of the best versions of german chocolate he has had.  German chocolate is practically a personal religion for him.  🙂  I figured finding out which he liked second best would be more telling, but he replied “Picking one would be like saying which child you loved the most.”  So there you have it folks, art inspiring life.  Yummmmmm!

On Friday I will blog about our continued adventures during Cupcake Week.  Stay tuned.  If you are inspired to celebrate your own Cupcake Week, you may want to buy the Adventures of Ms. Strawberry Cupcake print to make it truly official, and as always eat cupcakes responsibly.  Hydrate and eat plenty of protein so that you can stay healthy and balanced, while swimming in sugary bliss.

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Feed your creativity with Etsy, What is Etsy.com?

Art prints of Lorenzo Ross’ work are for sale on Etsy.com.  But wait, what is Etsy?  While Etsy is a hugely popular site, I believe it has a lot of room for growth in the future.  Etsy.com is like eBay for all forms of handmade art, sold directly by the artist, but much more.  Etsy’s fees for the artist are much lower than eBay, and furthermore they send adorable, encouraging emails to the Etsy “shop owners” to help the artists grow in areas like pricing, promotion, product photos, the psychology of sales, etc.  After all, just because you are creative and make a lovely product doesn’t mean you know anything about business.  Add that to the fact that Etsy is all about handmade, and it is a huge forum for shoppers who want something quirky and unique.  Etsy has a convenient search engine with easy viewing and buying, and the feel-good factor of communicating with and buying directly from the artist.

So as you see I could go on and on about Etsy, but we’ll save that for other blog entries.   So how can you begin to use Etsy?  You could follow this link to our PsychicUnicorns Etsy shop my husband and I have http://www.etsy.com/shop/psychicunicorns
While original paintings of Lorenzo’s cost hundreds of dollars, our prints with paper size 8.5″ x 11″ are $18.00.  Lorenzo will be doing a big range of styles in the future, so stay tuned.  While we can never constrain Lorenzo’s inspiration, upcoming art themes may or may not include diverse images of women, lions, cupcakes, cats and dogs, Obama, and yes perhaps even unicorns.

Feel free also to check out other art on Etsy.  There is a staggering range of art, as I said.  For example I love peacock feathers, and I have enjoyed searching for all the art that comes up when I search for peacock on Etsy.  You can just browse, or make your own Etsy account as an artist or as a shopper.  With your own Etsy account, you can choose an entire shop or an individual art piece as your “favorite.”  This helps you to remember things you like and may buy later, and also helps the artist because it increases their exposure to other shoppers, and validates they have a fan base.

Etsy itself will be just one of the many topics I cover on this Mon, Wed, Fri blog.  Future etsy-related blog entries will include more Etsy search ideas, and features on other Etsy artists.  Other blog topics I will have here are more about Lorenzo the artist, our rescue cats, our in-home dog boarding adventures, fun info about my life as a psychic, and our yummy Albany Park neighborhood, on the NW side of Chicago.  In the meantime, if you have any questions at all about Etsy, feel free to contact me and I will do my best to assist you, or you can go right to the source at http://www.Etsy.com.