Food Reviews: Heather's Choice Buckwheat Breakfast, and Smoked Sockeye Salmon Chowder; Alpine Aire's Veggie Burrito Bowl

Enjoying the cool breeze rising from waves below in the section between Little Harbor and Two Harbors.

Over President's Day weekend, we decided to check out the Trans Catalina Trail on Los Angeles' own Catalina Island. I was particularly excited about this trip because I was planning to try my Heather's Choice meals and, well, because Catalina is a remote, warm island with beautiful turquoise beaches only two hours from home. We didn't have many opportunities to eat our own food during this trip because (for better or worse) the trail goes through several towns and eateries, so my review today is limited to two Heather's Choice meals: Apple Buckwheat Breakfast, and Smoked Sockeye Salmon Chowder, and Alpine Aire's Veggie Burrito Bowl.

Food Reviews: Good To-Go Thai Curry and Herbed Mushroom Risotto

File this under: photographs that are only exciting to Hawaiians and Californians that never see snow ever. Road to Salmon River trailhead, Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness, Oregon. 

Over winter break, Dennis and I borked our backpacking trip in the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness. On all technical aspects, we were prepared for what would have been our first Winter trip, but we were absolutely not prepared for the degree of boredom we'd experience in a cold dark tent at 5PM, with nothing to do until sunrise at 8AM the next morning. I say "borked" because we made it to the site, set up the tent, had dinner, got in our bags at nightfall, and bailed only an hour later. The appeal of warm dinner and warmer toilets in downtown Portland was simply too great. Oh well.

Dennis laughing at my weakness

Before we left we made dinner, so I got a chance to try the Good To Go Thai Curry, as well as the Good To Go Mushroom Risotto, which are reviewed below. I could have sworn I took pictures, but I can't find them. Suffice to say, the mushroom risotto looked like grey slop, and the Thai curry looked like yellow slop. Exciting, I know.

Food Reviews: Good To-Go Smoked Three Bean Chili

I've been really, really excited about trying Good To-Go Meals, following them on twitter, keeping an eye on their webpage and keeping my ear to the ground for any and all new product reviews. It's such a promising brand because their products are all: 1) vegetarian or vegan, 2) painstakingly and truly handmade from the ground up, 3) the brainchild of  Jennifer Scism, whose professional culinary history is very impressive, and 4) clearly a labor of love.

I don't consider myself picky, but I am a little choosy when it comes to vegetarian chili. Chili is, after all, a terribly competitive and contentious dish, rife with impassioned and unsubstantiated personal opinion. As such, there are several schools of thought when it comes to vegetarian chili (just as there are schools of thought for oatmeal cookies, brownies, etc.) and Good To Go's definitely falls in the Hippie Chili category, more of a vegetable and bean stew than a true chili. In the Hippie Chili category you'll find quinoa chili, bulgur chili, sweet potato and corn chili, and so on.