Healthy Foodies: Adventures in (Vacation) Eating

We just returned from six days on the road -- in North Carolina to visit family and friends. The itinerary included two nights in Asheville NC, one in Chapel Hill, and the other three near my brother's home north of Raleigh.

My brother's Christmas dinner

As usual when we travel, my eating, exercise and sleep routines are shot to hell. Bad weather created additional setbacks in trying to keep my usual exercise pace of 45-60 minutes of walking (on the treadmill or outdoors) per day. I definitely felt the effects of over-indulgence in foods that are usually not on the menu, and wouldn't have been surprised if our bathroom scales had shown a 4-5 pounds gain this morning. But to my amazement, I didn't gain any weight. (Still trying to figure that out....)
Food highlights include dinner at Laughing Seed Cafe in Asheville -- one of our faves in that way-cool restaurant town. It's what I'd call gourmet vegetarian, and my husband and I were both happy to start vacation with a virtuous (healthy) dinner.
Next day, we drove to Chapel Hill where we stayed at the Franklin Hotel, right in the center of town. I went to graduate school at UNC-Chapel Hill and still have friends there. My brother Don and his wife Jo drove over from the Raleigh area and got a room in the same, very nice, hotel. We only had to walk across the street to a great cocktail bar, then about 2 blocks to dinner,back to the cocktail bar, and then just an elevator ride to bed.
That definitely was the highest alcohol consumption of the trip..........fun, too, of course.
Sunday night George & I met an old friend of mine for dinner at a French brasserie in Raleigh called Coquette, which we all enjoyed.

Christmas dinner dishes

The next couple of nights we ate at Don's; he's a fabulous and meticulous cook, and his meals were no comedown at all from the dinners out. He made shrimp and grits (I ate way too much of that) on Christmas Eve, then an elaborate Christmas Day meal of brined, bourbon molasses roasted turkey with several yummy side dishes and a freshly made pumpkin pie.
On the way home we spent another night in Asheville -- a town that we love -- where we had dinner at a downtown spot called Table. Very interesting menu.

Stuffed pasta, Table (Asheville)

One of my favorite dishes of the trip, though, happened on the morning of our departure for home. The bartender at Table told us to try a downtown breakfast place called Over Easy, so we did. My breakfast tacos were so marvelous, I'm sure that next time we're in Asheville we'll go back to Over Easy and I'll order those tacos again.
In addition to all of the above, I ate fried chicken strips and biscuits at Bojangle's (a chicken chain based in NC that I adore) TWICE, as well as a bison filet steak for dinner in Lexington KY on our drive home.