Blisters and Bruises

The transformation has certainly begun at Each Peach Café… Lori and I have the blisters and bruises to prove it! And we’re loving every moment of it.

The serious work started on Saturday, Feb 12th. Christopher (my partner, Happy Valentine’s Day!), his brother specializes in HVAC and other very useful odds and ends. We walked through the place, making a to-do list and a Home Depot shopping list. Lori and I spent the evening prepping for painting the drop ceiling on Sunday.

Sunday morning we took the multitudes of ceiling fans and lights down. We had been told it “looks like a lighting supply store” because there were so many of them, which was SO true. Then we replaced any broken ceiling tiles. All in prep for painting…

Painting with a sprayer. Yeah. I rented a sprayer from Home Depot that morning, and then let Mike go to town. Of course, it didn’t take long for us to blow through the 2 gallons of paint we bought on Saturday, so Lori desperately found me a paint store that was open on Sunday so I could dash out and get more in an exact match. It was crazy! We managed the get the whole front room ceiling painted and most of the walls primed in less than 4 hours. Wow. Painting with a sprayer is amazing, but doesn’t come without a price. Even wearing a mask, all of our nose hairs were painted too.

This spring cleanse can’t come soon enough for me!

Sunday night, Lori and I started the demolition portion of the renovation by ripping any cheap, ugly, poorly finished trim off everywhere we could. Fun stuff! And a great reward after such a long day of painting and running around.

I was not thrilled with the color of the ceiling after it was completed, and couldn’t imagine going through all that work again to re-do it. Thankfully, it looked much better Monday morning in the daylight and with rested eyes. And everyone else seems to love it! That was a nice Valentine’s Day surprise, but even better was the floor ripper-upper thingy that the property’s work crew brought in for us to use! Awesome! Lori and I ripped up almost all of the flooring and most of the glue too in about 4 hours, leaving behind a nice concrete floor. Just wait to see what we have in store for that!

We could both certainly benefit from a chiropractic adjustment after removing that floor. Worth it? We shall see…

Tomorrow, Tuesday, the trash pile should be completely removed and the floors completely ready for the next step. We may even have time to do the taping in preparation for painting the walls.

Very exciting!

Everyone has started asking about the Each Peach menu, which Lori and I began to hammer out over the weekend. We will serve a standard set of smoothies, with a seasonal smoothie added in every now and again.

Partial Smoothies List
Each Peach Signature > peaches, yogurt, vanilla, honey
House Blend > orange, banana, strawberry, blueberry, yogurt, honey
Monkey Mocha > banana, almond butter, cacao, coffee, yogurt, coconut milk
Blue Breeze > blueberry, lemon, yogurt, vanilla, honey

Add-in options include protein, flaxseed and spinach. All smoothies are also available dairy-free by substituting the yogurt with almond milk or coconut milk.

Other menu items include coffee and teas, wheatgrass, steel cut oats, a salad-of-the-day, a soup-of-the-day, healthy snacks like kale chips (I have all my friends hooked on these!), Richardson’s ice cream and assorted gluten- and dairy- free desserts.

We’re targeting March 19th for our opening, but there’s lots to do before then! Wish us luck, and if you come across any handy gnomes send them our way. Until then, check out our neighbors! They are all awesome… Like Shannon at Bikram Yoga Danvers, Steve at Centre Street PIzza, and Vanessa at Bella Salon & Day Spa.

Augusta

Cleansing Comes Down to Timing

It’s the first of January. You wake up with a fresh-from-the-Holidays extra 5 pounds around your mid-section, and resolution-strength promise to yourself to swear off sugar, alcohol, wheat, dairy and caffeine. For at least a month.

The first few days go well. You’ve survived without sugar and caffeine by filling up on green smoothies and raw nuts. Then you stumble over some delectable home-baked morsel brought into the office by a well-meaning coworker, and one slip brings a lofty dietary plan crashing down to reality.

A week later, you try, again, to control your baser food instincts, growing more dictatorial with yourself with this attempt. You even consider the Master Cleanse* (lemon, maple syrup, cayenne) you’ve heard so much about, to really flush the fat cells out and toxins along with them. STOP.

*We do not advocate doing the Master Cleanse, as it can be very dangerous. Please seek out a licensed holistic nurse practitioner (like at Londonderry Whole Health), or try gentler cleansing and fasting techniques like those offered at Each Peach Café this spring.

Though the start of a new year may feel like the appropriate time to clean the ultimate house, A.K.A. your body, January is not the season for cleansing. Just like other living things, winter is the time for your body to rest – think the slumbering maple, bear and squirrel. Cleansing in winter is destined for failure.

Eastern medicine tells us fasts and cleanses are best undertaken in the spring, “when people have the sense that they’re coming out of the dark winter and into the light. They want to shed layers, literally and figuratively,” explains Marcy Balter, a board member at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. Once a raw-food diet purist, Balter extols the benefits of “warming” foods during cold winter months. Like the soup from our January 12th Winter’s Day post.

Fasting and cleansing makes your liver work overtime, which is extra taxing during colder months. The best way to give your liver and digestive tract a rest this time of year is simply to eliminate the biggest inflammation-causing offenders – coffee, beer, red meat, processed sugars, and bread – and calming foods.

Curries – cinnamon, turmeric, coriander and ginger warm the system and move clogging compounds like mucus out of the body.

Garlic – fights fungus, the yeast candida and inflammation.

Cacao Nibs – has four times the antioxidants of green tea and is the most magnesium-rich food known. Perfect addition to a smoothie for a serotonin and endorphin boost to lift winter blahs.

Lemons – increases body temperature and circulation to clear toxins. Hot water with fresh squeezed lemon is perfect first thing in the morning and before each meal.

Water – lots of it. You can’t clean anything without sufficient amounts of water. The general rule is an ounce of water for every 2 pounds of body weight. Daily. It is difficult for me to drink cold water in the winter, so I leave my water out at room temperature or heat it up and add some lemon.

Still worried this won’t be enough to get you warm-weather-ready (shorts, tank tops and eeek, bikinis)? Each Peach Café is offering a variety of challenges (free), cleanses, and fasts this spring to help educate, motivate and provide support.

In the meantime, everyone is welcome to join me and Denise at Amoskeag Chiropractic this Wednesday, January 26 (weather permitting), for a FREE seminar all about the miraculous coconut. Learn why the coconut is so effective in supporting healthy thyroid function, enzyme systems like the pancreas, and removing excess weight!

In preparation, we opened a case of coconuts last night so everyone can try fresh coconut water (same electrolytic balance as our blood), and a delicious chocolate mousse made from the coconut meat and coconut oil.

Milk-Chocolate Mousse
2 C cashews, soaked 4 hours
1 C young Thai coconut meat (or avocado)
1/4 C raw cacao powder
2-1/2 t vanilla extract
1 pinch of sea salt
1/2 C agave nectar
1-3/4 C filtered water
1-1/2 C coconut oil, melted

In a high-speed blender, blend all ingredients except the coconut oil until completely smooth. With the blender running, slowly pour in the coconut oil. Continue to blend until oil is thoroughly incorporated. Transfer the mousse to a covered bowl and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight to set. Yum!

Next post: step-by-step instructions on how to EASILY open young Thai coconuts. Yourself. At home. With photos.

Augusta