Dirty Apron Cooking School in Vancouver

We had a blast this past weekend at The Dirty Apron Cooking School.

The whole experience was all around exceptional. It's in this brick building tucked in Downtown Vancouver. The 4 of us took a cab over as we didn't want to be cooking in soaking wet clothes from the down pour of rain coming down. We were greeted with welcoming smiles and a lovely glass of sparkling wine. There was about 20 people in the class and we all gathered to sit and watch the chef teach us our first course. After teaching us our first recipe he let us free to find out cooking stations.

Chef and his Students

Our first course was a goat cheese and arugula ravioli in a walnut sage sauce. For the first time in my life, I made fresh pasta people! I'm never going back and Scott & I are investing in a pasta machine. After we were done cooking the appitizer we all got to take our dishes back to a long dining table to enjoy it. Yum! The common comment around the table was "I made that?!".

Our main entree was grilled lamb sirloin with ricotta herb gnocchi and chanterelle sauce. They were nice of enough to provide a piece of black cod for me (being the veg and all). It was also nice that the gnocchi wasn't potato based but instead a ricotta base which made it much lighter. It was all super easy to cook and the staff was great at coming around to check on your progress and offer tips.

Again we came back to the long wooden table and enjoyed the meal with our friends over a delish glass of wine. Our desserts, lemon panacotta that we made were brought out to us after we were finished our entrees. I accidentally forgot to put the gelatin in mine (oops lol). Mine came out like a soup but it was great to dip my biscotti in!

The whole experience was exciting and worth the money. It's something different to do with friends if you are looking to change up your typical dinner night. We got to take our nice aprons home and the recipes we made. The only flaw I encountered is the food is a bit on the unhealthy side but it was nice as a treat.

How was your weekend?
-Michelle

My Life Update : What Is A Health Coach?

I'm taking steps towards my goal - dreams - purpose in life right now!

September Favourites (so far) : Sunsets, Tea and Smoothies



September is going to be the start of some really exciting things in my life. School officially started yesterday and I was an eager beaver and jumped right into studying. I'm attending the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York to become a health coach. I can officially start practicing in February. It's really interesting to meet a wide variety of people from across the world that are enrolled into the program. I love that the common interest is to create healthier lives for everyone in the world.

So what is a health coach you ask?
A health coach guides you to better overall health. Food is not the only thing that determines how healthy you are. It comes from a balanced combination of healthy relationships, fulfilling career, staying active (getting exercise) and spirituality. A health coach helps you recognize where you can improve in your life to find that overall happiness and health. Once recognized, set out and determine how to improve your health, setting goals and creating plans.

We've probably all been there at once when you can eat all the veggies you want but the scale doesn't move. Think back... were you happy at work? were you constantly arguing with others? was there no love in your heart for others? Sitting down a majority of the day? All these factors can bring down your overall health.

When your overall health is down for large periods of time, it leads to disease.

Preventable diseases is one of the reasons I wanted to become a Health Coach. It upset me to see the people around me year after year be diagnosed with diseases. Or hearing about peoples family members being diagnosed with a disease way to early in their life.

A few simple (sometimes challenging) life changes and you can prevent so much turmoil from entering your life and the ones you love.


Would you ever consider seeing a health coach?

-Michelle