When Feeling Good Tastes Right: Laney & Lu's Cafe

As a Fat Guy Food Blogger, I can choke down my fair share of grease covered cheese with the rest of them. But there comes a time, albeit infrequent, when you'd like to not feel like the demons of hell are filling your guts with hot diarrhea, forgo the familiar decadent mouth fiesta, and feed your pig hole with something your body can actually use, instead of just pushing out a volcano blast of black tar.
I'm not sure if Laney & Lu's will love that intro, but if you find yourself in Exeter, NH. and want a feel good, freshly made food service, then by all means, Laney & Lu's is your place to go.

Nestled just on the north end of Exeter, this place offers quite the menu of freshly made brunch items.
First and foremost, let's talk COFFEE. Decided to go in and try their weirdest, most least capitalist pig loving offering. Turmeric Coffee.

Turmeric, steamed almond milk, unrefined cold-pressed coconut oil, pastured ghee, turmeric infused maple syrup, spices, blended. Alright, I get it, now what in the hell is Turmeric?

This guys website tells me that this ground herb is a great anti-inflammatory, as well as providing IBS relief, arthritis, prevents cancer, alleviates symptoms of cystic fibrosis, and if you already got the cancer, guess what? this shit helps STOP METASTASES!

HEY CANCER!

 
Kidding and as new-agey as this sounds aside, I'm pumped to give this super herb a try.

If you've ever had coffee made with any kind of oil, you kind of know what you're about to get into. A sip into the turmeric coffee ended up being an experience. The foam on top, served as a thick foam puck, which delivered a small taste of turmeric, foam, holding the spices close your nose, while you sip this slightly maple/gingery butter coffee. The taste was different but extremely positive. With most coffees, that foam top ends disappearing, but here, it stays put and continues it's function of spice and creamy scent delivery, making for a great breakfast hang out coffee.

Epic Egg Sammie

Next I decided to go ahead with their version of a breakfast sandwich. The Epic Egg Sammie features organic egg fried in coconut oil, locally baked Leaven sourdough, spinach, sliced tomato, pesto, local grass-fed raw cheddar cheese, avocado. Leaven breads been popping up quite a bit lately in the northeast, and with good reason. Their bread is thick, soft, and flavorful. The bread trifecta. This tastes absolutely delicious, a smooth bite of the egg and tomato, then wrapped up in cheese sharpness, while hugged by perfect bread. My only complaint would be the size of the sandwich doesn't really fit it's name, epic, at all. It's tiny, but hey you're not here to gorge friend, you're here to taste the wonders of the natural world not swig back a 64oz mountain dew.

And now, the star of the show. Not featured on it's regular menu, but a spring special, The Raspberry Tahini.

A thick slice of Leaven sourdough bread toasted and topped with avocado slices, raspberries, their homemade lemon tahini sauce, and mint. Hey Rich! They also offer Three Bakers Gluten Free ancient grain bread as well. I know how you only demand the most ancient of grains on your bread. The flavors all wrapped together and delivered a smoothly sweet breakfast toast, and when you think that maybe those raspberries would be too tart, the tahini douses those thoughts with a thick faint nuttiness, and refreshes you with a little hint of mint. Absolutely stellar.

The more I think about my experience at Laney & Lu's, the more I think that these foods are extremely well planned to deliver a fresh food experience. Creating that balance with the ingredient quality and flavor quality must be a delicate balancing act, and if there was a high-wire act named Laney & Lu I'd buy a ticket because these two have this flavor/body balancing act down pat. Thank you!

Turmeric Coffee: B
as good as this is, the coffee flavor is a little too slight

Epic Egg Sammie: B
rock solid, but this is FGFB, I'd like it larger!

Raspbery Tahini: A+
absolutely perfect, don't change a thing!

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Review by Josh, who currently draws pictures of aliens and the devil.
http://joshuaandrewbelanger.com / http://grimnorth.com

AFTER THE REVIEW:

Leaven sourdough with Avocado, tomato, radish

 The lady got this one, was good, but after biting into that Raspberry Tahini, I could see the disappointment with her breakfast choice!

Super Seedz Gourmet Pumpkin Seeds!

With Halloween right around the corner, I'm sure we're all starting to think about decorating the house with spider-webs and fake skeletons. Well, the ones of us that are cool at all, right? Yep, I'm already planning what kind of faces I'm going to carve into the ten pumpkins that I'll be buying for Jack o' Lanterns.  Then my mind wanders to a nice batch of baked pumpkin seeds right out of the oven covered in cinnamon and sugar. So the other day when I found a package on my doorstep filled with a delightful array of flavored pumpkin seeds, I figured I was definitely in the mood to give these a try. Yes, the good folks over at Super Seedz were nice enough to send over a bag of each flavor of their famous pumpkin seeds. Some I was excited about, others not so much, but I vowed to try each one! 

Now before some of you get your panties in a bunch, that we're reviewing something that's promoted as a healthy snack, I'm going to say this: OPEN YOUR MIND, FRIEND! I'll give anything a try once, healthy or not. Also I'm sure a lot of you enjoy a bowl of nuts? Perhaps some honey roasted cashews? Pecans? Almonds? Not much different from a handful of pumpkin seeds, right? Well I'm just here to give you my unbiased review so that's what I'm going to do. ONE FLAVOR AT A TIME! First up....

The first thing I'm going to say about these seeds is that they blow the ones I make at my house out of the water. They have no outer shell on them. That awful outer shell that gets stuck in your teeth and gums? Out of the equation. You just have the seeds and the flavor. And the these have plenty of great cinnamon sugar flavor! They are very easy to just pop in your mouth by the handful. These were great!

Sea Salt? Zzzzzzzzzzzz. I guess that's better than regular salt, right? Salt from the sea makes it sound just a bit more exotic and dangerous. But yeah, these aren't bad. The seeds themselves have a great flavor but the salt doesn't add too much.

Coco Joe are a weird medley of coffee and chocolate flavor. The flavor is definitely bold and the seeds are very coated with it, compared to the others. They aren't bad but the cocoa flavor seems very fake. The flavor reminds me a lot of Cocoa Pebbles, but mixed with coffee. I found these interesting but couldn't eat too many of them in a row.

Somewhat Spicy...it's all really in the name. Anyone who reads this blog faithfully knows I'm not a fan of really spicy things. Will I eat them on a dare when I'm with my stupid friends? Yes, and I hate every second of it. That being said, I'm more into spicy than I was in my younger days, but I still don't love it. I thought these had a slight tangy taste and then a dull burn for a little bit. Nothing too bad, just...somewhat spicy. If you're into that, you'll be into these.

Tomato Italiano reminded me of the flavor of those old Pizzaria chips, but on pumpkin seeds. Do you remember those?

I can't imagine in a million years why they stopped making them. WHO DIDN'T LIKE THOSE?! But yeah, these are pretty tasty! It definitely reminds of that pizza flavor from those old chips or maybe the Pizza Pringles? But hey, that's a good thing in my book.

Curious Curry weren't my favorite because I'm not really a curry fan. To me these taste like someone rubbed them on a bouillon cube. But this is one of those things where it's just a personal preference because I let someone try them who loves curry and he nearly ate the whole bag. So curry fans? You'll love these. Me? DID NOT.

Maple Sugar & Sea Salt were my favorite of the entire bunch. I'm not going to even beat around the bush. I'm from New England and maple syrup runs through our veins. Toss in a little exciting sea salt and you've got me sold. These burst with sweet maple flavor and I'll have you know this bad was gone in no time. Definitely a delicious snack!

Really Naked. These ones were plain. I was expecting to taste a few and then scoff at them. "WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT PLAIN FLAVORED ANYTHING?!" But you know what? These really give you a chance to taste the actual pumpkin seeds without anything else getting in the way and they aren't bad! But they aren't bad for a handful. Then after that I was reaching for one of the more tasty options.

And finally, the flavor I dreaded trying the most...SUPER SPICY! I had flashbacks of the worst experience with a hot item ever, (At a place called Bingas Wingas in Yarmouth, Maine...their 08' Fire Sauce is hell in a bottle), and I knew that these could never be close to that bad. So I filled my hand and dumped them in my mouth. These were very similar in flavor to the Somewhat spicy, but the heat was turned way up. They ended up not being too bad though. I was able to keep myself composed and didn't rush for a drink. Just nice flavorful steady burn for a bit. If you're a fan of the heat, these might be good for you, but maybe not hot enough!

Looking for something different to snack on? Give Super Seedz a try! Definitely an out of the ordinary review for us but I thought they were overall a pretty solid product and I would definitely buy up a bag of the Maple & Sea Salt again if I saw them in a store!

Be sure to check out their website for more great info on these! You can find it HERE.  They let you know all about the flavors, and if you're into it, the plentiful healthy info about these. AND if you're one of our readers who are concerned about GMO's and Food allergies, these might be your new favorite snack!

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Review by Rich!