{Make sure to read to the end for my BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!}

I know God loves us! How do I know this?  He provides the rain, which nourishes the roots of the grape vines, which produces fabulous grapes, which are picked and pressed into delicious wine!  Okay, this probably shows you how very LITTLE I know about wine.  I have only been drinking wine for a few years – and red wine only one year.  I see that a very wise person has described what I’m trying to say better:

“Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards;

there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine;

a constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.”

Benjamin Franklin, circa 1779

With this in mind – I wanted to write and share with you a few pointers on how to enjoy your wine and a four-day weekend away from home with friends.  Let’s start with food choices and then I’ll get back to the highlight of this post.

A little background about my weekend.  I just spent 4 days in fabulous northern Michigan in the Traverse City area.  My best friend has a cabin on a lake up there. It’s very rustic, but we aren’t expecting room service or anything.  As long as we have a fire pit, a cork screw, and a coffee maker – we are happy campers, literally!

This was our second annual summer trip. We started the tradition last year to celebrate us all turning 50.  I am very blessed to have a group of friends from childhood.  We still love to get together and share in each other’s lives as often as we can.  One of my friends coined the term “we’ve been through THICK and THIN together”, which is so true, because she is one of my best Keto buddies and we used to be thick and now we are both thin!!!  #Winning!

Now back to the food choices while being gone 4 days.  For starters, I packed and made my friends a late breakfast each day.  It was completely Keto and the three friends I was with this past weekend are not Keto – but good news!  They did not die, and they were quite satisfied with my Keto brunch. One day I made sausage gravy over scrambled eggs and another day I made bacon and scrambled eggs.

I also took a loaf of Keto Zucchini bread and that lasted the whole weekend.  My one friend did notice a slight aftertaste in the bread – this would be from the Sukrin Gold sugar substitute that I used in the recipe.  I serve a lot of Keto desserts when I’m with friends (try to reel them in, ya know?!?) and she was the first one to say something like that.  I do think it is normal for some people to detect the aftertaste or a slight mouth cooling or burning sensation.  BUT, she still said it was delicious!

I don’t snack, so I didn’t pack any snacks for myself…expect for a bar of 92% Ghirardelli dark chocolate bar to enjoy, if desired, with my wine.  We all managed to finish off that bar because I did share with my friends! That’s the kind of friend I am. Ha!

We only ate out one meal a day – and I was always prepared with the restaurant we selected. Nowadays, it’s very easy to check the restaurant website to make sure there are keto friendly options.  Well – easy if you have cell signal, which I had basically zero at the cabin all weekend.  Ha! But once I got in the car I was able to scout out the restaurants.

I love steak and beef and seafood.  As long as the restaurant has a steak on the menu, I am good to go.  That’s exactly what I had two of the four nights and the other nights I had a burger and parmesan coated White Fish.  If you’ve never had White Fish in northern Michigan – what are you waiting for?!?  Mmmm.

Every restaurant I was in was so accommodating when I said, “I don’t eat potato…”. Before I could ask if there was another option, the server was giving me ideas.  They were all fabulous suggestions.  The best being sautéed spinach.  Oh, I am loving my spinach these days!

So, there you have it – seems pretty easy peasy to stick with keto food choices on the go?!?  What do you think?

Now on to the star of the Wine Camp 2.0 weekend.  WINE!

The Traverse City area is wine country.  I have visited Traverse City pretty regularly since I was a child and I do not remember this area being a wine tourist dream in the past.  They now have dozens of wineries on each peninsula in the area. Last year we did the Mission Point peninsula and this past weekend we did the Leelanau peninsula.  It’s interesting to me to see how unique and creative each winery strives for to make their winery memorable and their product sell.

I can’t really drink a lot of wine at one sitting, so when I taste, it’s small sips and I sometimes don’t even do all the tastings with my purchase.  Last year, I did end up liking quite a few of the red wines I tried (this is when I had switched to drinking reds as I learned that red wine is much more keto friendly).  It took some getting used to drinking reds, but now I can’t imagine how I ever drank white wine.  The white wines I used to drink were so sweet!

I think I bought about ten bottles of wine last year to bring home.  My friends and I drank them over the course of the year.  I think we drank the last one about a month ago.  Although they were all delicious – they all gave me “red wine headaches” in the morning.  I knew when I was buying them that they probably had more sugar, additives, and tannins than I wanted, but it was worth a shot.  Plus, it was Wine Camp weekend – I had to buy wine, right?!?

I am absolutely not a wine connoisseur, but I am learning!  One thing I know for sure is that I do NOT enjoy “red wine headaches” and another side effect I experience is bloated joints in my hands.  It sounds strange, but every morning after a glass of “cheap” red wine, my fingers are swollen and stiff!  With all my progress in reducing inflammation on keto, I find this rather irritating.

So, in light of the headaches and the joint stiffness, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I did not buy ANY wine during Wine Camp 2.0!  It almost seems like wine blasphemy, I know.  Now, I did do a little wine tasting – and nothing floated my boat at all!  Between my more discriminating wine taste buds and my distrust of the sugar and additives, I just decided not to buy.

I did take one bottle of wine with me.  It was a bottle of Middle Jane Zinfandel that I recently received from an order from Scout & Cellar.  I had just received a wine club order of six red wines.  I probably should’ve taken a few more bottles with me realizing that I don’t just want to trust random wineries now.  Next time I will take plenty of Scout & Cellar scouted wines!

Are you familiar with clean crafted wines?  I just learned of them in the past few months through my keto connections.  My recent order from Scout & Cellar of clean crafted wines are: additive free, pesticide free, grown naturally, not mass produced, vinified by hand, have zero grams of ADDED sugar, zero chemicals added, slow crafted, low sulfite, and independently lab tested.  Best of all – every single bottle I have had is distinctively different from anything I have ever experienced in my days of drinking red wine (which is truthfully only the past year!).  These wines are DELICIOUS and I never thought I would enjoy the drier wines, but I DO!

Given all this and my excitement for my Scout & Cellar wine orders, I have a very special announcement!

I have decided to become an INDEPENDENT WINE CONSULTANT with Scout & Cellar!

I am so excited about including this as part of my Keto journey!  I will be learning more about wine, while I have the support of the company that will be selecting the perfect wines available for sale that will fit the Keto and LCHF lifestyle extremely well.  Best of all – the bottles I have sampled so far have not given me any “red wine headaches” or stiff joints!  Win, Win!

I would be so appreciative if you would visit my Scout & Cellar site “Joyful Keto Wine”and learn how these carefully chosen wines will fit your Keto or LCHF lifestyle perfectly.  You can join as a wine club member OR just place individual orders whenever the need for MORE WINE arises (and who doesn’t need more wine?).  If your order is over $99 – the shipping will be free!  Please make sure to get to my personal site here:  Joyful Keto Wine.

So, in summary – I had a blast at Wine Camp 2.0 and will be taking my own stash of wine to Wine Camp 3.0 2019.  The weekend really sparked a flame in me to explore and pursue a wonderful Keto friendly wine source.  I hope you’ll check it out!  You will not be disappointed!

One last thing – I hope you are all super blessed like I am with friends like these – BFFs since we were elementary school kids.  There is NOTHING quite like it!  #ChooseJoy

(Disclaimer: I am not a health care professional.  I am writing about my personal experiences to encourage others to research a low-carb lifestyle.  You should always work closely with a health care professional to manage your health.  I work with three MDs to manage my health: functional medicine, cardiology, and sleep/pulmonology. They treat my metabolic dysfunctions along with monitoring my important blood markers routinely.  Keto or LCHF may not be an appropriate way of eating for your metabolic health or other health needs.  Please check with your personal health care professional before making any changes in your diet.)

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