Down the Mountain

We tried to do some sightseeing in Salt Lake City today but got confused on the roads and didn't end up getting to the visitor's center until about 1. They have this amazing connect pass which allows you into 12 different attractions AND restaurants for two days for $20!!! We decided to get the passes but figured we would start tomorrow so we tracked down a place we have been wanting to visit since before this trip began...
In downtown Salt Lake there is a restaurant called "One World Everybody Eats" it's a community kitchen. I had read about the woman who founded the idea in Time magazine awhile ago and have thought a lot about her ever since.
Denise Cerreta wanted to create community by designing a place where ANYONE could come and eat healthy, organic food regardless of their ability to pay. She originally just asked people to pay what they could afford but now works on a system where you choose an amount when you enter (from free to $20) and then choose from the amazing things the cooks have prepared that day. The offerings are mostly but not entirely vegetarian. There are several small comfortable spaces where you can eat inside as well as out. The place has a super friendly, inclusive energy. This is truly a community kitchen, there are customers in business dress, students and families. The restaurant is self sustaining and she pays her employees a living wage!
Denise was kind enough to let Vincent interview her. She answered all of our questions and cracked up at the now infamous audio of Isabel's nose whistle.
I have always found the set up of soup kitchens to be awkward and unbalanced. Denise was a complete inspiration, she has helped people set up in three other cities and promised to come to Portland Maine to help if there was enough interest!
OWEE has a website www.oneworldeverybodyeats.org
After lunch we wandered around downtown and ended up at this incredible 5 story geneaology library run by the LDS. We thought it was a public library and were about to leave when the kids really wanted to try the computer system and see if they could track down their ancestors. Vinny picked my grandfather (his namesake) and within minutes we had a two page copy of the 1930 census in Brooklyn listing my great grandparents, their children and all of their neighbors! Isabel did notice that at the time my grandfather was 22 years old and still living at home??
Back at the hotel there are these large fat rats that everyone SAYS are a kind of squirrel called a "tubgut" (really!). They are running all over the place and people are petting and feeding them and the entire thing is completely freaking me out! Time to go in...