Minnesota Real Foodie Chick Trip (picture tour!)

I recently bought my ticket for this November's Wise Traditions conference in Baltimore (are you going?), and today I'm finally telling you about last fall's pre-conference Minnesota real foodie chick trip!

Below is a picture tour of all the fun things we did, just scroll through and enjoy all the real foodiness… 🙂

***OR click here to watch an abbreviated version in video format.

First, a big thank you to my trip sponsors: Perfect Supplements

I'm so excited that Dan and Paul (and Kristen too I assume!) will be in Baltimore, so if you go you can meet my favorite sponsors this year!

They source SO carefully guys, I really trust them. Pictured here are a few of the products I buy from them exclusively:

Desiccated liver capsules
Cod liver oil (Here are more kinds of CLO that I like)
Coconut oil (See this post for more ways to get coconut oil into your diet)
Probiotics (It's the only kind I'll take. Read more about why: Is my probiotic really helping?)
Vitamin K2 (More: What you MUST know if you're taking vitamin D or Calcium)
Vitamin D
Liver detox caps
Gelatin from grassfed cows
Collagen from grass-fed cows (They actually TEST theirs to make sure there's no glyphosate!)
And lots more for us real foodies — use the code KOP for a discount on anything they sell when you click here. (Plus they have huge bulk sales and free shipping if you're stocking up.)

Now for the pictures!

It all started with another crazy fun invite from my sweet friend, Kay. Remember my trip there a couple of years ago? She and Philip spoiled me, our son, and his friend like CRAZY in their real foodie paradise! (See more pics of their home and their farm at that post too.)

So this time, since the conference was so close to where she lives, she invited myself and a couple of my dear foodie friends to come early so she could spoil us — obviously that's her gift: spoiling friends! Minnesota is a quick direct flight from me in Grand Rapids, and once she collected Hilda, Kim and I, she drove us to their farm where Kay had a comforting, delicious hot meal ready. A creamy chicken vegetable soup (with their chicken and of course real bone broth), sourdough bread and lovely sunny yellow pastured butter:

She gave Kim and Hilda a tour of the house (again, see more home and farm pics here), and I snapped a shot of their freezers, packed full of nutritious pasture-raised meat from their own happy animals. Philip and Kay provide meat for their loved ones this way and truly enjoy nourishing all of them!

The next morning, Kay and I sat in my favorite spot in their sunroom to have coffee and watch the sun rise over their farm. Is God good or what?

Look at the beautiful breakfast Kay made us! A delicious egg casserole, fresh pears, and sourdough toast with pastured butter:

Next we walked around outside for a tour of their farm on that brisk Minnesota November morning:

Then Kay took us on a fun field trip to make soaps together at this neat shop!!!

Next, get this, Kay hired a private chef to cook dinner for us and a few more of her fun foodie friends!

The first course took me out of my comfort zone, and I'm so glad I stepped out! It was steak tartare — yep, that means raw beef but you guys, it was seasoned SO well and I knew it came from Philip and Kay's cows so wasn't worried.

I even had seconds it was so good!

Check out the salad course, isn't this beautiful?!

The main course was SO tasty, and the chicken recipe is from Nourishing Traditions — I just checked with Kay to be sure: it's “Basic Baked Chicken with Wine Sauce” on page 281. 🙂

Dessert was a lovely ginger cookie with homemade ice cream. (I'm fuzzy on those details, probably because I was in real foodie heaven by now…)

The next morning we were off to the conference in Minneapolis:

It was freezing outside, but my crazy California friend Kim loved it and wanted to take a walk!

I'm SO glad I let her talk me into it, we always have the best chats and we visited the most beautiful church together — we had the whole place to ourselves to marvel at God and His glory and blessings. (My dear sweet friend Kim passed away from a brain tumor just over a year after this trip, so I'm very grateful for this time together and always feel close to her when I'm in a big beautiful church like this one.)

Later I was so excited to meet up for dinner with Kim and some of her friends AND a few of my reader friends too! You may recognize my longtime friend Joanie sitting on my right (who writes here on the blog) and Melissa across from me, who is a local friend, blogger, and functional medicine practitioner — she's also our current local chapter leader! 🙂

Here are a couple more of my trusted and wonderful sponsors — first is Radiant Life, who I've worked with for many years, they are who I trust for water filtering, for healthy olive oil, air filters, the safe tuna I like, food storage containers, healthy baby formula kit, earthing products, and more!)

And here is Asher Cowan, Dr. Tom Cowan's son, from Dr. Cowan's Garden where I get the most awesome veggie powders that can be added to anything! These superfoods are organic and nutrient dense, grown in healthy soil and dehydrated just so, to retain the most nutrients and antioxidants as possible. I add them to soups or sauces — it's especially nice for when you don't have time to get to the farmers market for more produce from farmers you trust, or time to do all the cleaning and chopping! (Use the code KOP for 15% off when you click here.)

Here's a picture of a fun party Hilda had in her room one night:

And lastly here's Kay and her sister Brenda, who I also love:

What a great trip — a BIG HUGE THANK YOU to Kay! I'm excited to hang with her and all of my friends again this November in Baltimore — hopefully a bunch of you reader friends can join us and maybe we can meet up — if you are going, let me know!

Watch the trip video (plays after the ad):

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