He had the buternut squash soup and I had the Raw-Zagna! Made with cashew cheeze and strips of zucchini and other spiralized vegetables. It was yuuuuuummy. We finished with a raw brownie/vanilla ice cream dessert
Of all the places to first adopt a Raw Food Restaurant, Northampton would have been my first guess.
This makes me homesick, but I will share some snapshots I took anyways. Northampton is a pretty hippie, liberal, gay-rights town, always an adventure waiting to happen. It has a lot of history (like any part of New England) and neighbors where I went to high school, so I used to visit Noho a lot as a teen. Harrel's has unbeatable ice-cream, Faces has the weirdest gifts and coolest clothes, Turn it Up has the cheapest used music, Thorn's has anything and everything you could ever want, including but not limited to Tibetan garb, the most expensive handbags, and the world's best mac n cheese, Sweet's is like walking back in time to an old fashioned candy store, Raven's musty flavor of used books just makes you want to read forever, among hundreds of other stores and restuarants. It's a great town.
One of my favorite memories in Northampton is with one of my oldest friends and Noho-native, Liz. As newly licensed sophmores, we were driving around one day through town and decided to hit up the McDonald's drive-thru. I just wanted a diet coke, but the lady handed me a full meal, complete with burger and fries, AND a large soda. Hmm. I was too rebelious to hand it back, but we had just eaten and weren't the slightest big hungry. Liz suggested we take it to a homeless lady that she sees constantly crouched behind the old Hotel Northampton.That seemed charitable enough, so we did just that. This lady was pretty sorry looking, wrapped in rags and obviously filthy. You couldn't help but wonder when was the last time she had a real shower. I awkwardly approached her saying, "excuse me, ma'am. We just got this meal for free by mistake and didn't want to waste it. Would you care for it?" The lady looked suspiciously at us and poked inside the bag. "Is that a hamburger?" She asked, almost accusingly. "Uh, yeah, pretty sure..." With that she tisked, shook her head no, and without hesitation said, "No. Thanks. I'm a vegetarian." Liz offered her the fries at least, which she took, and we both walked away in amazement, waiting til we were around the corner and burst into laughter. Only in Northampton. It's just that kind of town.
I think people living on the edge, socially, emotionally, financially, etc. lose (if they ever had) the perception of how they come across to others. I'm not surprised that the homeless woman was defensive as you offered her free McDonalds food. I think that was so nice of Liz to remember her and the both of you to try! And creative, too!
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