Part 1 of The Paleo Kitchen Book Tour: Events, Restaurants & Outfits

Part 1 of The Paleo Kitchen book tour has officially come to a close. My flight landed last night around 11:30pm last night and passed out right away. The trip wasn’t too exhausting until the very end. Flying for 5 hours just hurts. Your body aches, your ass falls asleep, your skin feels heavy from other people’s skin particles floating around in the airplane. That makes you want to gag, huh? Same. But it was all really fun and I feel so incredibly lucky to get to travel like this and meet people all over. Doing this second book has been SO different from my first. If you’re just joining us here on PaleOMG (meaning me), you may not know about my first book, OMG. That’s Paleo? But I had it published a little over a year ago then decided to go with a different publisher this time around and have truly loved my experience. Our Publisher, Victory Belt, has been so hands on and so helpful through the entire process of creating our book.

And one of the things that was especially different from my first book to second book is that this second book has sent us on a book tour all over the United States, stopping at local book stores, Costcos, and even TV studios! It’s been really, REALLY cool. AND it’s given me the opportunity to dress up. I spend my days in workout clothes, messy buns, and headbands. Rarely do I dress up in half of the clothes I own. Who wants to wear uncomfortable shoes when you can just wear Tom’s? Well, this gave me an excuse to wear those uncomfortable shoes, make my legs look longer, and wear more make up than I EVER do. It was so much fun. Until the end…when I had blisters. But what was really cool was when I posted pictures of my outfits, the pictures got WAY more likes than my food pictures do. What the fudge? This seriously makes me want to start doing stuff on my blog that fashion related. AND workout related. So the blog would become more of a PaleOMG Living blog. I’m digging that idea…what do you think?

Doesn’t matter! I’m going to share the pictures anyways! Even if guys hashtag #unfollow when I post those. Jokes on you. Kind of. Not really.

Anywho, back to the point. In this post I’m going to share updates about the events we attended for our book tour, the few restaurants I got to try in different cities, the naughty gluten free treats I tried that people will absolutely talk sh*t about and get all but hurt, as well as the outfits I got to wear along the way, but at the bottom of the post for those who don’t give a sh*t. Let’s do this. Get yourself ready for A LOT of pictures.

We started our trip in Colorado. My home town. When George got to town, I brought him my favorite thing to eat while in Denver: Quiero Arepas. If you’ve never had an arepa, just google it so you can visualize what I’m talking about. It’s a Venezuelan dish, similar to a big english muffin sandwich (that’s how I explain it to people), stuffed with different meats, cheese, beans and sweet plantains. I always get the Reina Pepiada which is a chicken salad with avocado and avocado dressing, then I stuffed it with sweet plantains. It’s amazing. After we had that, we headed to the only strict paleo coffee shop in tow, mmm…Coffee, and had some treats to go. We then headed to The Tattered Cover in Highlands Ranch for our book signing where we had around 120 people come and show their support! Such a great opening night.

The next morning, George and I went straight to the airport to head to Seattle for a signing that evening. Since we had a bit of time to kill before our signing, we stopped by Local 360 because many people had recommended it. Man does traffic blow in Seattle. Thankfully it was a super sunny day so it made up for all the time we spent in traffic. After having some bacon deviled eggs and a pork shank over sweet potato salad, we headed to our signing at Ravenna Third Place Books where we had A TON of people show up to this small, adorable book store and we actually sold out of all the books we had there!

After our short trip in Seattle, we woke up the next morning to drive to Portland. I’m in love with Portland. I hear it’s pretty cloudy a lot of the time, but I didn’t care. It’s such a locally owned restaurant friendly town, with smiling faces and happy people, I just feel in love. And I pretty much crapped my pants when I found out the only bakery I’ve really ever wanted to try, Kyra’s Bake Shop, was 10 minutes from our hotel in Lake Oswego. I squealed, no joke. So we first stopped by the Cultured Caveman truck for some mini meatloaves then I made George drive straight to Kyra’s to grab some of her famous cupcakes and treats. Seriously, she’s famous. She’s won Cupcake Wars on The Food Networkfor her gluten free cupcakes. Pretty damn impressive, if you ask me. You didn’t. Whatever.  Kyra and her team also sent us home with paleo treats like chocolate chip cookies and blondies. AND, right before I left, Kyra added a gluten free cinnamon roll to my bag. BEST.THING.SERIOUSLY.EVER. If you live nearby there or visit, you absolutely have to try one!

After having all kinds of good food, we had our first ever signing at a Costco in Tigard, OR! We were a little nervous about what the turn out would be in a store that is membership only, but we actually had a fantastic turnout and sold out of all of our books! Afterwards, we headed to a Venezuelan restaurant called Teote per Kyra’s recommendation and I tried out their chorizo arepa along with masa fries. No, none of this is strict paleo, but gluten free and seriously wonderful!

After spending the day in Portland, we passed out and woke up early the next morning to fly to San Diego. Since I flew in to San Diego probably 6-7 times while making the book with George (since he lives in Temecula), the city felt familiar to me and I had some sort of direction while wandering around since I could see the water. As soon as I checked into my hotel, I went straight to the hotel gym to get a little workout in. I made up my own:

1 mile run followed by 21-15-9 of Dumbbell Thrusters, Burpees, Sit ups, Then I did 3×15 of some triceps and biceps

After my workout, I got ready for a night out with some of my girlfriends. One of the perks of being in California is I have some girls that live close by, so we headed to dinner at Queenstown where we shared some prosecco sangria, sweet potato fries topped with blue cheese, and then I had a duck confit sandwich on lettuce. Afterwards, we grabbed some gelato at a local shop in little Italy. It was good, but I wasn’t blown away.

The next morning, I got up early to get a little workout in at CrossFit Invictus. They were super welcoming and had actually already seen my new cookbook! So cool. I had 3 good looking coaches for my partner workout AND a good looking workout partner. It’s something in the California air, I swear. After my workout, I wandered around little Italy, found a cute little restaurant, and had a smoked salmon omelette topped with mascarpone and caviar. Bomb. Then George and I went to another Costco, this time in Mission Valley, and had yet another great turn out! We had a huge pallet of books and sold almost all of them, then left behind signed copies!

Since our book signing was in the afternoon, I had the entire evening free. So what did I do? Shopped, of course. We already have started planning our next book tour, so I had to start getting outfits together! So me and my girlfriends headed to mall, shopped until my suitcase couldn’t fit anymore (which was two pieces), tried some French macarons at Lette in the mall, then headed to dinner at The Smoking Goat. I offset my sugar intake with a giant ribeye, salad, and truffle duck fat fries.

The next day was seriously ALL traveling. I woke up to get some quick breakfast at the hotel, then flew from San Diego to Charlotte, grabbed some really crappy tacos in Charlotte in which I ate about 4 bites because it was way gross, then went from Charlotte to New Jersey and got in at about 11:00pm. I was starving and miserable. And hell grumpy.

The next morning we decided that since our book signing and cooking demo was in New York City, we would find a hotel near by. We found a hotel, dropped off our stuff, then went straight to brunch because we were starving. We ended up at Jane where I had some eggs benedict (sans English muffin) with some salad and spicy broccoli. After brunch, I met up with Brittany from brittanyangell.com and we decided to wander the city to find a gluten free bakery. Something I noticed about NYC is that is smells in random places, places look really sh*tty on the outside and are really expensive on the inside, and everyone honks. So we made the best of it all by going to Crumbs gluten free, which was stupid good. No it’s not paleo, no it’s not good for you, but man was it wonderful. I got a gluten free milkshake cupcake which was a marble cupcake with vanilla buttercream ice cream and something really good in the middle of it. I didn’t know what was going on, but I want it to happen again.

After our cupcake extravaganza, we headed to Broadway Panhandler for our cooking demo where we made 2 recipes from our cookbook: ginger apple pear smoothie and sage & rosemary meatballs over sweet potato noodles. Afterwards we headed to Hu Kitchen for dinner. It was good! And thankfully they had some juices/smoothies to go, so I grabbed a couple to have the next morning with my coffee. Nothing like drinking your food. Wait, I hate that. But I did what I had to do.

The next morning was another early morning that we had to head back into New Jersey to film a cooking segment with The Juice (previously known as Veria Living). The only time I’ve been on video is on my own youtube channel and when I’ve filmed with AgainFaster. But this was totally different. Even though it wasn’t live, it was maximum of 7 minutes, we had “start cooking” and “start eating” cards flashing behind the camera, and then it was over before we knew it. But they loved the dish and had great compliments about the book!

After filming, we headed to a restaurant called Sanctuary T which was super adorable. I had sausage (one of the best sausages I’ve ever eaten), eggs, bacon and parmesan potatoes. I also got coffee on the side with some heavy cream and it came with a sugar stir stick. It was AWESOME. Gotta love delicious coffee.  After brunch, we headed over to the office of The Daily Meal for a quick video interview before I headed to JFK to head back to Colorado. Can we just talk about the traffic in NYC? It took me an hour and a half to go 17.5 miles. Wtf. I got home around midnight last night and barely slept because Jackson was whining the whole time. I think he was confused that I was home.

Outfit time!! Starting off in Colorado:

I started my book tour off with a crop top outfit. Those little teeny bopper tops are just all the rage this year so I thought, why not. You’re only 13…I mean 26 once.

• Black crop top at Pink’s Boutique in Bonnie Brae of Denver for around $30
• White skirt Forever 21 for $17
• Black pumps by Vince Camuto for $70 from DSW
• Necklace is from Francesca’s for $32 (Couldn’t find the exact one, but I didn’t want to look through their THOUSANDS of necklaces, but you get it.)

Then onto Seattle:

I’m obviously into wearing skirts a lot.

• Blue asymmetrical skirt from Francesca’s for $45 (this is a similar one since I couldn’t find the exact one)
• Pink shirt from Pink’s Boutique for $30
• Necklace from Francesca’s for $25
• Grey wedges from Steve Madden for $50

Then to Portland:

 

First romper of the trip:

• White romper from Pink’s Boutique for $45 (found the same romper here)
• Necklace from Starlet on Broadway in Denver
• Brown wedges from Steve Madden

Outfits in San Diego:

 

For the book tour event, yet another romper:

• Orange and turquoise romper from Starlet for $43
• Beige wedges from Seychelles for $60 at DSW
• Necklace from Inspyre Boutique
• Belt from Starlet on Broadway in Denver

Night out to dinner at Queenstown:

• Jean shorts from American Eagle fro $40 (which I had to alter)
• Black shirt from Pink’s Boutique
• Light & flowy sweater from Nordstrom for $32
• Pink bead necklace from Inspyre Boutique for $24
• Brown wedges from Steve Madden

Night out to dinner at The Smoking Goat:

• Tribal skirt from a friend (second hand is the best!)
• Flowy white top which has gold sequin shoulder embellishments from Buffalo Exchange for $16 (once again, second hand is the best!)
• Leather jacket from Francesca’s for $60
• Necklace from Starlet for $24
• Black pumps by Vince Camuto for $70 from DSW

Last stop, New York City:

 

More skirts and crop tops!

• Black crop top from Express for $50
• Black and white skirt from Francesca’s for $44
• Yellow necklace and hot pink bracelets from Forever 21
• Pink pumps from a friend (second hand, woooo!)