A (Gluten-Free) Vegan Birthday in Portugal
When my boyfriend wondered what we should do for my birthday, I was excited to seek out gluten-free vegan (and other sustainable) birthday goodies here in Portugal.
After telling him how much I love his handmade birthday cards, he delivered the drawing above, with beautiful words. This meant more to me than anything.
I also told him some gluten-free vegan sushi and Indian take-away would make me happy. So we ordered enough food to feed ourselves for three days.
Birthdays should be savored.
It was too hot to bake anything in our apartment, so we found a local baker (artist) who makes gluten-free desserts. She was so kind to make ours vegan, too. What an exceptional banana cream pie/cake.
We also pulled these eco candles out of our luggage. We’d used them to celebrate my boyfriend’s birthday in Sweden last summer and we can’t seem to bring ourselves to get rid of them.
Then we inhaled gluten-free vegan ice cream bars, which inspired us to buy a glass blender (40% off at this grocer) so we could instead make frozen banana ice cream in the future. Progress.
The garden has been so fun to watch grow! It’s incredible that the little seeds grow into such healthy sprouts. When we leave Portugal, it will be fun to donate these little clay pots to others.
A week after planting, we harvested the first crop of sprouts and blended them into smoothies. Now I want to make sure I’m growing enough sprouts to supply us every day of the week.
With my boyfriend’s birthday around the corner, and both of us sporting long necks with broad shoulders, we thought we should better support our heads, necks, and backs, too.
We ordered natural pillows.
Shipped from within the EU (there are multiple international locations from which to buy them, even in the States; one should just be sure to verify which location has the cheapest shipping), they arrived in about a week.
The bonus? They were each packaged in their own reusable organic tote bag.
You can see how substantial the new natural pillows are (in the queen taupe pillowcases) vs. the old pillows (in the standard striped pillowcases).
The first night we slept on these new eco pillows, my boyfriend was sleeping so unbelievably peacefully still. With an expression that looked as if he was a prince floating on a cloud, I had to place my finger under his nose to make sure he wasn’t in heaven.
He still smiles and says he was.