Urban Pl8 & Scoutmob!  Click here to get your Scoutmob for Urban Pl8.  This is one of my favorite spots on the Westside and their menu is almost entirely gluten free.  Make sure to tell your server that you’re gluten free so they know to make you the GF version of the dish.

Most recently, I went for brunch and got an amazing egg scramble, with a side of roasted sweet potatoes and GF toast!  Awesome.  Please support this local business that works hard to make delicious gluten-free food.  And paleo friendly too!

Some of my favorites on the menu:

• Kale chips (don’t knock ‘em ‘til you try them!)
• Grilled harissa chicken tangine (ask them for some toasted GF bread to dip in the amazing sauce!)
• Paleo coconut shrimp

Yum!  I also love their mixed green salad with chicken and a side of sweet potatoes.  Sounds simple but they make it so good.

Our bags are packed and we’re ready to go…

You might have noticed that there hasn’t been a whole lot of cooking in my home recently.  I’ve cooked on the Eastern Shore, in Richmond, in Alexandria, but not in our little Atlanta apartment.  That’s because our apartment looks like this:

Yup, we’re moving.  We only have two bowls, two spoons, and two glasses that haven’t yet been packed.  We initially moved to Atlanta for just one year, but we’ve decided to make Atlanta our permanent home and we couldn’t be more excited.

In the last few weeks, however, we’ve been dining out a lot more than normal since our kitchen and entire apartment are in a state of chaos.  Boxes are everywhere, we’ve been in and out of town, and well, it’s just been easier to go out to dinner.

Check out some of the meals I’ve enjoyed while my apartment is full of boxes:

Miller Union

Veggie Plate

Remnants of Feta Snack

Urban Pl8

Yeah! Burger

Taqueria del Sol

So today we move into our new home.  So long, one bedroom apartment.  You’ve been a great home for the last year but I must admit, I’m excited to have a little more space…a bigger kitchen, a dining room table that we don’t have to pull out from the wallwhen we have guests over, a fireplace, a fenced in backyard.

Our life has had a lot of transition in the last few years so I’m excited to be here, in our new space, cooking away, and enjoying our life in Atlanta.

As my grandmother says, “Home again, home again, quick as a jig.”

As you know, I love the Westside’s Urban Pl8 and the delicious food they serve.  Well, my friends, it just got even better.  Chef/owner Betsy Pitts has completely revamped their entire menu, making pretty much everything gluten-free friendly.  She is now making all soy sauce in-house and completely gluten-free.  Bread crumbs are made with rice Chex so anything breaded is GF too.  Yes, that means we can indulge in crab cakes at stir fryat Urban Pl8.  Pitts also uses gluten-free bread, upon request, for any of her sandwiches and burgers.

I think my new favorite item comes from Urban Pl8’s brunch menu: blueberry almond meal griddle cakes with maple syrup.  Delicious!  While Pitts has many great egg dishes, it’s such a treat to be able to order non-egg items for brunch.

David and I went to Urban Pl8 twice last week (once for brunch and once for dinner).

For brunch, I indulged in the almond cakes and roasted sweet potatoes.

For dinner, I went with the chipotle rubbed hanger steak with sweet potatoes (of course!) and asparagus.

We also shared the beet and goat cheese salad and the Vietnamese chicken wraps for appetizers.  The wraps were delicious, with a perfect crunch.

In addition to being gluten-free friendly, Urban Pl8’s new menu also caters to those following the paleo diet.  Many of their items are paleo-friendly too and are indicated on the menu.  Check out Urban Pl8′s new menu online.

I love writing.  Each day I try to write something, not just emails or incessant lists, but something with more substance.  It’s never brilliant or earth shattering, but each day I return to my computer, ready to write something new, not always sure in which direction I’m going.  Even when I fear I have nothing to say, I hold myself accountable to write.

Occasionally I think to myself, “What am I doing?”  Why am I writing each day?  The answer is, I’m not totally sure what or why.  I will never pay the bills by doing this, but in my writing, I’ve discovered that I love creating, exploring and putting thoughts into words.  Two years ago, I would never have told you I love to write or even imagine that I would have a blog that receives a significant amount of my time.  This blog and my discovery of writing have been unexpected blessings of my celiac diagnosis.  Who knew that a disease would result in good things?  It does and it has.

I’m particularly excited about my writing today because this week, my first magazine article is “hot off the presses.”  (Yes, I can be a cheesy writer too.)  My article, “Atlanta Restaurants Offer Many Options for Gluten-Free Diners” can now be found around town in Atlanta’s Finest Dining Magazine and for those of you non-Atlantans, you can check it out at this link.

I’m thrilled.  It makes me smile to see it.  It makes me want to write more.

“E.L. Doctorow once said that ‘Writing is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.”

- from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing & Life