Gallete Café for Gluten-free Crepes

I am thrilled to welcome Z from One Beet, a blog about nutrition, good food and recipes, as a guest blogger here on Traveling Naturally and the Green Earth Guides, as she shares her great eco and organic finds while traveling through Europe this year. This month she is in France and offers some great places in Paris to eat.

    It was a rainy afternoon in Paris and we were hungry. We had spent the past few hours walking through the Louvre and needed an energy boost before tackling the Musee d’Orsay.  We wandered through the streets on the Left Bank near the d’Orsay and came across Galette Café on the corner. We were pulled in immediately by the funky exterior and were sold when we read the menu of gluten-free, organic buckwheat galletes.  
    The food was delicious! We shared two savory buckwheat galletes—one topped with a salad, fresh goat cheese, baked apples, and walnuts. The second topped with an artisanal sausage, onion confit, and tomato compote. Gallete Café prides itself on their traditional menu and commitment to local and organic artisans.  There is a nice page on their website that outlines some of the producers they work with (including the buckwheat flour miller). The menu is simple, yet tasty – it highlights excellent ingredients and innovative combinations.
    So what’s the big deal about buckwheat? Buckwheat is actually a pseudo cereal (rather than a grain), so it is gluten-free and perfect for people watching their wheat intake.  In addition, it’s high in fiber, contains all eight essential amino acids, and is a good source of manganese, magnesium, copper, and zinc.
    Not only did we enjoy the food at Gallete Café, we also appreciated the ambiance. The small café is well designed with a clean, trendy aesthetic. The staff was also very friendly and spoke excellent English (they had menus available in a range of languages at the host stand).
    This place is a worth a trip to 2 Rue du l’Universite for a delicious lunch or dinner. Buckwheat galettes run between 7.50 and 12.80 € and the café also serves organic wheat crepes, oysters from Brittany, a range of beverages and artisanal ice cream. Don’t go looking for breakfast, the Gallette Café opens at 12 noon Tuesday through Sunday. Open until 10:30 pm  Wednesday through Saturday, the café closes at 5:00 pm on Tuesday and Sunday.
Enjoy!
Z
To read more about my culinary adventures, please visit www.onebeet.com

A Green Delight in Umbria

Letizia and Ruurd live what is a dream for many. They run an agriturismo B&B in Umbria, Italy housed in stone buildings, some dating back as far as 500 years old. They have lovingly renovated the buildings and grounds, operating as a B&B for almost ten years. More importantly to those of us who are olive oil fanatics, Letizia and Ruurd have restored the olive grove, planting 250 olive trees so they can make their own divine olive oil.

Committed to treading lightly on the earth, Alla Madonna runs solely on solar electricity with hot water and heat coming from solar thermal panels and a wood furnace. Alla Madonna is decorated with new and vintage natural fibers. Eco-friendly cleaning products are used, the gardens and olive groves are organic, and the food served guests as well as what s used in the cooking classes are locally produced. Google, the truffle-hunting dog at Alla Madonna die Piatto sniffs out the sneakiest truffles.

Guests can choose from six comfortable rooms with private baths. From March to November cooking classes are offered  two times a week. Room rates range from 85 to 105 euros per night for a double room. Please note: Alla Madonna is closed from mid-November to mid-March and for one week in July.

Alla Madonna is about 5 miles from Assisi. If you want to vicariously enjoy the fruits of Letizia's cooking, explore her blog at: http://madonnadelpiatto.com and create scrumptious meals from her simple yet exquisite recipes.

Azienda Agraria Alla Madonna del Piatto
Via Petrata 37, Pieve San Nicolo’
06081 Assisi (PG), Umbria, Italy
http://incampagna.com

Natural Jet Lag Tips

Having just gone on one of my shorter trips to Europe, I found I was hit harder than usual by jet lag. Some of this I chalk up to the simultaneous affects of menopause (groan), but nonetheless, it took me more than four days to adjust to the six-hour time difference.

A couple of things I wish I'd known about before I went off on my trip—the easy-to-use Apps by Soul Lightening Acupressure, one specifically for jet lag and the other for insomnia. The Apps, which cost $2.99 each, illustrate acupressure points and the appropriate times to apply them.

For those unfamiliar with acupressure, it is based on the same principles as acupuncture, but it is done without needles—fingers, or other tools are used to work the points on the body. Acupuncture is a healing art that has been used in China for thousands of years. Qi/chi (energy) flows through specific pathways in the body called meridians. Along each meridian are points at which the Qi is most accessible for stimulation. Thin, sterile needles are inserted at specific points is to move and balance the Qi, thus restoring health and harmony in the body.

While I have used a variety of homeopathic remedies for jet lag in the past, the most effective remedy I have tried I just learned about on my return home this trip. Biotics brand Cytozyme THY, a thymus supplement* (vegetarians and vegans take note—this is made from cows) chewed in the morning and evening provided me with solid, sound, uninterrupted sleep—ahhhhh relief!


Disclaimer required by the FDA:
*The information provided here is for educational purposes only. This information is NOT medical advice, and has not been approved or evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration. Please consult your health care practitioner for more information.

Friedrichsbad—The Utimate Badding Experience

All you thermal bath aficionados take note—the ultimate bad experience is to be had in aptly named Baden-Baden, Germany, known for its thousands-of-years-old mineral-rich thermal springs. Literally translated the name means bathing-bathing and that is what you can do in Baden-Baden where there are two huge thermal baths.

The modern facility, the Caracalla Spa, has indoor and outdoor pools, sauna, whirlpools and offers a range of spa therapies. At Caracalla, men and women bathe together wearing bathing suits in the pools and saunas, lounging in robes on the deck chairs and solarium.

Not so at the Friedrichsbad where the badding is au naturel—no suits, no nothing, except your own skin. Based on a Roman-Irish tradition, the thermal experience warms and cools your body through seventeen stations or rooms. The rooms are numbered but you do not have to follow them in exact order. In fact you won't  follow the numbers if you pay the extra fee for the soap/brush scrub down—highly recommended.

The grand stone building harkens back to another era, as do the spa rooms. Once your clothes are stashed in your locker, you don a long narrow sheet (called a towel but it is not) and enter the shower room. Here you rinse off and can go into one of two pools, or go through the door into the first warm room. I don't know how they do it, but in the warm-air and hot-air rooms the lounge chairs emanate heat which saturates your body. The protocol is to lay your sheet down on the lounger and then you on top of it for hygiene's sake. And speaking of cleanliness, the lack of chlorine aroma is definitely appreciated (I believe they purify with ozone).

Room number 3—the hot-air room (154ºF)—was my personal favorite—with beautiful tile-covered walls adorned with hand-painted colorful birds. This room is serene and soaks your body with deep heat. The steam room (my second favorite) is where one waits patiently for the scrub down. You can leave and go into the larger pools beyond, but don't miss out on your massage number or you will regret it. I invoked the Kneipp theory of immersing your extremities in cold water by employing the cold water hoses dotting the steam room, which uses natural geothermal heat as its warming source.

The scrub down is all too brief for my liking but wonderful nonetheless. Your sheet is laid down on a stone table and you on it. Soft or hard brush? I chose medium. Expert hands lather you with soap and scrub you from head to toe, both sides, before you are tapped and told to rinse off in the little shower within the massage room.

Then off you go to finish your water therapy. Some people spend three to four hours luxuriating in the spa, others make short order of it and are done in less than two. My advice, don't miss the finale—the resting or relaxation room. This is the cherry on top—a circular room with massage tables where the attendant wraps you in a warm sheet and then a blanket like you are a papoose. The tranquil, nurturing space allows your nervous system to integrate the deep healing of the waters and warmth. Linger here for as long as you want.

The bad is open year-round. Three days a week (Monday, Thursday and Saturday), men and women bathe separately except for the two  center pools which can be avoided by the modest. The rest of the week bathing is fully coed, so the shy and modest should plan accordingly.

The bad is open every day from 9:00 am to 10:00 pm, but you must arrive at least two hours before closing. Prices are 23, 35 or 47 Euros depending on whether you are getting a massage or not.

Friedrichsbad, Römerplatz 1, 76530 Baden-Baden; Tel: 07221 275970