Long Weekend Highlights — Mercer + Green

Memorial Day weekend is my favorite weekend of the year. It is the unofficial, official start to summer and for me and Doug that means the start of weekends away from now until September. Doug, Maddy and I split our summer weekends between the Hamptons with my family, the Hudson Valley with his, and the Connecticut shore where I serve on the board of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. It's a lot of hours in the car but well worth it for all the sunshine and time out of the concrete jungle of NYC.

This past weekend in the Hamptons was filled with many healthy highlights for us. We got to take four Soul-Cycle classes in three days(yes we are mildly obsessed) with our beloved SoulGuru Laurie Cole, drink lots of green juice and smoothies, eat lots of veggies, and spend time with friends and family.

One of the high points was a visit to the Organic Avenue pop-up shop in South Hampton. Only open in the summer season, this OA outpost had everything we needed for a healthy weekend. It is so refreshing to be able to get raw snacks, green juice and treats away from home. I love that Organic Avenue has continued to open so many shops, and cannot wait to see where they pop up next! Selfishly I hope it is near my apartment... Doug throughly enjoyed his hummus and flax crackers!Green juice is good for doggies to! Thanks to the kind staff at OA, Maddy got to try small glasses of Green Love and Cucumber Juice. She adored both. I think the green juice consuming population of our household just increased by one! The Juicy Naam is another summer weekend favorite of mine. I don't think a trip goes by where we do not visit at least twice. They have great juices, smoothies, and freshly prepared raw food. There is also a small farm stand in the front with local produce! I hear Giuliana's Juicy Naam Cleanse is also wonderful. I have yet to try it myself but this may be the year!

I love the "I Am..." names of all of the smoothies. The juices also have wonderful names. The Jupiter and Moon are my personal favorites!Seaweed salad + kelp noodle salad + I Am Buzzing + Lulu's Chocolate = quite the perfect picnic! On Saturday I got an "I Am Grounded" smoothie substituting the banana for coconut meat. It was delicious, filling and hydrating!I hope your unofficial start to summer was great! I will be back tomorrow with the start of an exciting new post series. Hint: it has something to do with the other season some would say we are in!