It is midnight on Friday night. I have had a lovely calm, quiet and relaxing evening. I put my baby down at 6:50pm, and all I’ve done since then is: make my own dinner, play FreeCiv on my baby’s tablet, and watch old episodes of Entourage. At the same time, I’m feeling a bit conflicted. I am on the Atkins diet which has actually been working great for the past 3 weeks. I have lost 5 pounds and I do feel like I am eating healthier than I have in the past 2 years. However, I’m going to tell you what I miss: snacking. I miss going to the fridge or the cupboard and grabbing whatever is there and eating a lot of it.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, so technically it was a cheat day (who’s on a diet on Thanksgiving, are you kidding me?). I had resolved to take it in stride: don’t overeat like you normally would, just have a little bit of everything and that’s it. Well, I wish I could say I had had better self control. I went completely overboard. By the time dinner was served I was already stuffed: crackers, dip, cheese, crab cakes, I mean, the works. When I finished dinner I literally had to excuse myself from the table to go sit on the couch. I thought I was going to throw up. Did that stop me from having dessert? No way, José. I had a piece of everything for dessert: a brownie, a chocolate-pecan-caramel bar, a slice of chocolate cake à la mode, and something else I’m sure. I overdid it in the worst possible way.
So today I’m feeling guilty. Did I just set myself back several weeks’ worth of effort? Most importantly, what is wrong with me and eating? Why can’t I stop thinking about food?
This whole introspection at midnight after a holiday makes me wish I were a drinker: I feel like I’d be able to handle these existential questions much better if I were drunk right now. At the very least it would make for one hilarious blog post.
I think I’m gonna go get myself some strawberries tomorrow and perhaps make a strawberry-pecan Atkins-friendly cupcake or something. I can’t stop thinking about food, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? Ugh. Oh well, at least there’s always sugar-free jello (the secret awesome Atkins-acceptable dessert).
Before I had children, I was always looking for things to do. Going on diets was a great way to pass the time. Now that baby is here, I have zero time to fill with other things (I know, life is tough). It had been a while since I had set out to apply some discipline to my eating habits, but I think it’s time.
Without further ado, I’m happy to introduce my latest adventure into the realm of deprivation: the Atkins Diet.
I did the Atkins back in 2004 for a month; the goal was to reach a super trim goal of 105 lbs, which I did! I know it doesn’t sound like a healthy weight, but considering my height, you’d be surprised to know that 105 still falls within the normal level of BMI, so don’t worry, I’m not striving for starvation here. Just daydreaming about seeing that magical number on the scale which we all have in mind (think about it: what is your perfect weight?).
Anyways, it’s time to get back on it. It is day 1 and I have planned my meals for the next 3 days until I can go shopping again. Shopping was super expensive (some of those sugar supplements ain’t cheap!), so there’s the first tip.
Catchy title, ain’t it? Yup, that’s what I thought, too. You see, it was 7pm on a Sunday, baby was down, I had had dinner, my husband was watching Dr Who (a show I have absolutely no interest in), so what is a girl to do? Browse the internet.
Somehow in my click-surfing, I came across this video. Before you invest the 40 minutes the video requires to watch, let me give you some information:
You don’t have to watch it, I summarized my take-aways below. Note, I did not summarize the VIDEO, I summarized the things that caught my eye.
Dr David Brownstein has an impressive list of published books on holistic methods, nutrition and enhancing your immune system. See it here: DrBrownstein.com.
I had to constantly remind myself that he IS trying to sell something, so I had to take every word with a grain of unrefined organic sea salt. Despite his yellow-journalistic and alarmist style, I thought he had some good advice for us all.
Good advice for us all
Don’t smoke. You’re an idiot.
Conventionally trained doctors are not trained on nutrition and prevention of disease, but more to treat them with medication/surgery. Seek holistic doctors that will help you get your immune system back in order naturally.
Iodine good. Bromine bad. Iodine is great for you because it helps cells in your body through their regular life-and-death cycle (so they don’t become cancerous). Avoid bromine, which apparently is in every food known to man. Bromine appears to counter the effects of iodine, so if you’re not getting enough iodine, and on top of that you’re getting bombarded with bromine, you are pretty much screwed.
Red meat doesn’t give you heart disease. Chemicals in red meat are the ones that are bad for you. Only consume certified organic beef, chicken, pork, fish, fruits and vegetables.
White refined sugar is the enemy of the State, while artificial sweeteners are Osama Bin Laden himself. Instead, use pure organic stevia, raw honey, or unrefined cane sugar.
How to eat yogurt. Buy plain yogurt and add natural fruit yourself.
Foods to avoid. white rice, white potatoes, cookies, cakes, chips, all processed food in boxes, bags or cans. Refined flours, oils and salts. Oils: canola, corn, margarine, cottonseed, soybean oils, or anything that says “Partially Hydrogenated” on the label. Salts: table salt.
Foods to eat. oatmeal, nuts, anything made with organic whole grain flours that have not been bromated, yams/sweet potatoes. Oils: organic butter, coconut oil, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil. Salts: organic unrefined sea salt.
Soy is good? Try NOT. Only fermented soy is good (found in miso and tempeh). Everything else is crap.
Get rid of heavy metals in your body. No doctor will test you for this, so you have to find yourself a holistic doctor who will agree. It’s supposed to make a huge difference in your well-being and your well-feeling. Metals to test for: mercury, nickel, arsenic, cadmium, lead and aluminum.
So what did I get out of this? Well, that most likely I will be getting cancer along with everyone I know, unless I actually make a change. That was pretty much his point, so I guess I owe it to myself to make some adjustments? (I end that sentence with a question because I have not decided to do anything yet) This is just a good jumping off point to start figuring out better ways to nourish myself and my family. What about you?
Thomas the Tank EngineMy son spent 85% of his 2-year old life watching Curious George. I was already planning a big yellow/monkey theme party, when he switched gears on me. All of the sudden it was all about trains! Thomas became a huge celebrity, and there was no way around it. The party was to be Thomas themed.
So, I got myself a size 7 (girls) pink Thomas shirt, and got him a matching blue one. Attires: check. Plates, cups, decals, all Thomas themed: check. Now, the cake.
I will confess that the river down the center of the cake hides a HUGE earthquake-like crack on the top face of this chocolate layered cake. Nobody noticed, though, and people were very impressed!
Nothing hard about this cake. Just a whole lot of different color frosting and purchased props. I’m most proud of the gray sugar grains which doubled as gravel. Quite nice.
Android KitKat cakeMy husband’s birthday rolled around and it was time to make a cake that he would never eat (he doesn’t like cake – it’s a texture thing), so it had to be particularly impressive.
As soon as I decided to make an Android cake (we are a Droid family) I went out and bought the white frosting (lesson learned from the Enterprise cake), and green icing. While I was at the store, I passed by the candy isle and Kit Kats caught my eye. My husband loves Kit Kats! Maybe I could throw some mini wrapped chocolates in his present box.
On the ride home it hit me: KIT KAT IS THE NEXT DROID VERSION!!!!!!!!!!!!! And so the idea was born: an Android KitKat cake.
My husband was very impressed, and everything was perfect except for the fact that his first instinct was to pronounce “Stevroid” as “Steh-vroid” (it was supposed to be “Steve-roid”). He destroyed all my excitement then… but not all the way! I’m still mighty proud of this one!
The design was easy: google-image the icon for Android and mimic it as close as possible.
The hard part: I used canned icing for the green. If you’ve ever played with these, they don’t come out “smooth,” but intead they come out as spaghetti-like strings of icing. Trying to get it to look smooth took some creative techniques. So what I did was put a butter knife to a lighter, and heated it up. Then used the knife to smooth out the green areas. It turned out pretty well, but the knife gets cold very fast, so I had to do this multiple times. The icing kept sticking to the knife. Perseverance paid off.
Everyone loved this one! One of my master achievements!
Owl & Elephant = Babies!I really don’t understand why or how this happened, but when my baby was born he was showered by gifts that were elephant in theme. Elephant cards. Elephant stuffed animals.
When my niece was born, the same thing happened… this time with owls; but it was not random like mine was. My sister-in-law actually announced that her baby identified with owls. So there went the owl themed gifts and baby shower. This is when it started to click that perhaps all babies are associated to a cute little animal (if this is not true, please don’t tell me — I still don’t understand this, so it helps me to chuck it to a culture/tradition of some sort).
So, when grandmother’s birthday rolled around, I thought it natural to make a cake with both symbols on it. Most of the work came in drawing the figure with a toothpick and getting the sugar to neatly stay within the confines of the drawing. Since I don’t have sophisticated tools, this was the hardest part and I would never do it the way I did it again!!! But it turned out well enough! Grandmother was pleased, to say the least.
USS EnterpriseI got a call from my mother the weekend before my father’s birthday asking me for tips on cake decorating. How am I to explain the art, the passion, the creativity, the imagination, the [insert more indescribable adjectives here], that it takes to decorate a cake? I told her to make the cake, and not to worry about decorations. I would bring down to New Jersey all the frosting/icing I had on hand, and she would not have to worry about a thing.
When I got there I came up with the PERFECT idea, considering that the shape of the cake my mother made was a bit… uhh… convex? It had a round top, ok? Not a flat one. So, I took one look at the icing colors I had brought, and the cake, and it was so obvious: THE ENTERPRISE!!!! I come from a family of Trekkies, so it just came to me.
Anyways, ideally you would use white frosting, but I used white icing. There is no way around writing such perfect words. You just need a toothpick, black icing, and a very steady hand.
As for the navigational deflector, that’s just gel icing. We used a flashlight to shine a light on it for pictures.
Not too shabby, huh? Considering it was a completely improvised project, I was very proud of this one!
Picture the scene: it is one week before a trip where I’m going to attend 2 weddings. I bought the dresses MONTHS prior. Will I fit into the dresses? Time to freak out.
So, I decided to go on the same diet I went on before I got married. Did I mention the trip is in one week? The rules:
Have 3 meals a day
Only one meal can be “large” (potatoes, meat, etc), preferably lunch
No chocolates or other sweet/fatty snacks (aka “crap”) between meals
Romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, steak, little bit of Ranch dressing
2
Deviled ham sandwich
Falafel pocket and french fries/tdtdchicken noodle soup
3
Deviled ham sandwich
3 meatballs and white rice
Romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, chicken, little bit of Ranch dressing
4
Deviled ham sandwich
3 meatballs and white rice
Romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, chicken, little bit of Ranch dressing
5
Deviled ham sandwich
Salad: greens, cranberries, caramelized walnuts, and vinagrette dressing (Tavern in the Square)
Pork fried rice, chicken lo mein, Peking ravioli, teriyaki beef on a stick (Kowloons)
5
Ham and cheese sandwich
Ham and cheese sandwich
Pork chops and mashed potatoes
6
1 donut, 6 munchkins
Ham and cheese sandwich. Chocolate bonbon.
Hot dog, beans, a few chips
Notes/Lessons Learned/Diet Log
Day 3: I either should have dinner right before bed, or go to bed right after dinner. Let an hour pass after eating a salad and HUNGER STRIKES
Day 4: I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want: a warm cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream… and skinny & crunchy butter cookies with cinnamon sugar on top. That’s the stuff dreams are made of.
Day 5: I deserve a whole ton of credit for beating the ugly temptation monster many times today. First by not eating a Baci I found in the snacks at the office, and then by declining to have the app tater tots or stuffing my face with french fries from my coworker’s plate. The only way I could do this was by reminding myself that I could eat anything I wanted at dinnertime. Man, I hope this is worth it. I also weighed myself today, and I am three pounds lighter than I thought I was! Boom, instant weight loss.
Day 6: and so, on a low note, the diet fell apart. Donuts and bonbons got the best of me. On Day 7 I weighed myself and I appeared to have gained 3 lbs from that faithful day 4, when everything still seemed possible.
For my son’s first birthday I had no choice but to bring to life his favorite character in the whole world: the beloved Elmo from PBS’s Sesame Street.
I say I had no choice because, really, there was no other choice. My son’s obsession with the red furry fella had overshadowed his love for Curious George in its entirety months before his birthday.
For this project I made my signature chocolate cake (ahem, Betty Crocker Devil’s Food mix) with milk chocolate frosting. Everything else is color icing.
As for tools, I use butter knives, toothpics, and a decoration syringe to squeeze icing or frosting onto the cake with precision.
I was pretty proud of this one, the first real notch on my repertoire. And it was delicious, too!
ina
Here’s a side view. The candle was also Elmo themed, and it’s on the side of the cake here (we put it on the cake before blowing it out).Top view.
Back in 2009, a budding talent sprung from the simple love for chocolate cake. It was my nephew’s 1st birthday, and I signed up to make the cake. I thought it turned out ok, I mean, this one will not win any contests, but it gave me the confidence to keep on caking. Enjoy this oldie but goodie.
ina
Side view. I remember it was NOT easy to get those sprinkles to stick to the side of the cake. What a strange angle to throw them at.Close up of candle and letter toppings.Top view. Fun camera angle with the top view 1 yr old candle.
It is RARE when I rave about a restaurant (high standards, you know how it is), so perk up your ears (eyes?) because here’s one such occasion.
I came down to New Jersey (from Boston, where I live) to be there for my parents as they took the final step towards becoming American citizens. Now we are one big happy gringo family (thank you thank you, we are excited, too). Such a momentous occasion deserved a nice dinner celebration. And when I say “nice” I mean the kind of “nice” when people say “I’m going to take her to a nice restaurant.” Yeah, THAT kind of nice.
The Bonefish Grill was everything we hoped for and more. I must say that I was abit skeptical at first. I mean, this is a fish restaurant and I am mostly a meat lover. One look at the menu, and I thought “well, this will do, I guess.” The entire experience ended up being SO divine that I decided to not only rate my own dinner, but also my parents and grandmother’s dinner, the decor and the extra stuff (extra stuff? what could that be? keep reading!). Ready? Set. Go!
Décor: Romantic décorThe place looks like what a nice restaurant looks like. I’m sorry, I know I am overusing that word. Let’s find another one. Fancy? Elegant? Superb? Ooh, I like that one. The décor was superb. The lighting was dim, perfect for a romantic evening (or for any other evening that you wanted to make extra special). The elegant metal fish on the back wall almost made you forget that there was a whole section on the other side of the restaurant that had booths in it (the implication being that booths do not equal fancy, but it did not matter from where we were sitting).
Bread with pestoThe Bread
I’m not going to say this was the best bread I’ve ever had, but I can’t say it’s the worst (for a pretty bad review of bread, see my Rosie O’Grady’s review). It was actually on the “better” side. The pesto dip was definitely a unique twist on the popular appetizer (delicious, too!). I won’t rave, but it gets my thumbs up.
Rainbow TroutMom’s dish: Rainbow Trout $17.30 Sides: grilled asparagus, and vegetable of the day: spaghetti squash with honey and ginger glaze and a bit of brown sugar topping.
My mother’s assessment: “Can’t go wrong with trout… or asparagus!”
I tried it myself off her plate, and I thought it was a bit… “blocky.” It was quite dense, not very tender. This might be a quality of trout rather than Bonefish’s cooking, so I’ll leave that with you.
As for the vegetable of the day, every single one of us left it on our plates. I am a huge fan of sweetened squash, so I was surprised. It was just not as delicious as butternut squash with maple syrup, which I would consider to be spaghetti-squash-with-honey-and-ginger-glaze’s better-looking younger sister. Just didn’t compare.
Chilean Sea BassDad’s dish: Chilean Sea Bass 6oz $23.90 Sauce: Mango salsa | Sides: Veg medley | App: House Caesar
My father’s assessment: “I should have gone with a different sauce. This is good for trout, but not sea bass.”
I did get a chance to try the salad, and it was alright. Not bad, but not anything to write a blog post about.
Steak topped with Lobster ThermidorGrandma’s dish: (Special) Steak topped with Lobster Thermidor $16.90 Description from the website: “A passionate tale of forbidden love – so steamy, so indulgent, that it can only be expressed with a 6 oz wood-grilled sirloin and sweet lobster, lump crab, a velvety sauce with a hint of sherry, and garlic whipped potatoes. Or maybe it was a filet for +$6? Either way.”
My grandmother’s assessment: “the lobster was a joke, but good overall.” That’s translated from Spanish, so what she meant was that it wasn’t nearly enough. I guess she was expecting a whole lobster! She seemed to like it, though.
Sea Scallops and Shrimpina’s dish: Sea Scallops and Shrimp $17.30 Sauce: Lemon Butter | Sides: Garlic Whipped Potatoes and vegetable of the day
I am going to tell you right now: out of all the dishes in front of me that night, I did not envy anybody else’s choice over mine at ALL. I definitely got the best of them all. The shrimp was cooked to perfection. You know how frozen shrimp is chewy when you warm it up? Not so here! Perfect scallops, perfect shrimp, and I am VERY HAPPY to have gone with the lemon butter sauce. I was thinking of mango, but I’m glad I changed my mind. Come to think of it, if I ever went back to the Bonefish Grill, I would probably get the same thing.
Still, did not eat the spaghetti squash.
Warm chocolate brownieDessert: Warm chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce
You know how brownies are sometimes plagued by those pesky nuts? Well, not so here! The nuts were ON TOP of the brownie! Which means that I was able to enjoy every single bite. The brownie was warm, and it had a thing layer of chocolate topping (it was too soft to be frosting, but too hard to just be syrup). The entire thing was just amazing.
Opinionated CoasterThe “extra” stuff:
Can you believe this super duper fancy place had hashtags for you to share your experience on twitter??? Oh yeah, I was ALL over that.
“#bfgcoasters: if you this a Bonefish Grill Coaster, what would you say?” My tweet:
That was our unbelievable experience at the Bonefish Grill. And now, for the truly tacky finale, brought to you by the never-wasters, my mother and grandmother:
Rosie O’Grady’s rosieogradys.com
800 7th Avenue
(7th Ave & 52nd St)
New York, NY 10019 (map)
Survey Says: High price for ‘eh’ quality
ina in NYC 2013My parents, my grandmother, and I were in New York City for just enough time to visit a friend, have lunch and go back home to southern New Jersey (suburb of Philadelphia, where my folks live). As the foreigners/immigrants we are, it would have been a complete waste to have been in New York City without seeing Times Square. It would have been like… heck, there is no good analogy for this: it would have been like being in New York City and NOT seeing Times Square!
So, after much Google searching for restaurants near the iconic tourist location, we settled on a restaurant called Rosie O’Grady’s in the corner of 7th Avenue and 52nd Street.
Rosie’s is an irish pub that is up a level from a Molly Malone’s. This is the Target to Molly Malone’s Wal-mart. It has a full menu (including filet mignon), and a pub atmosphere. We had high hopes.
I ordered the filet mignon (I must confess my Google search centered around “steak”), while my parents ordered fish. Here’s the low down of our experience:
The bread was cold and stale (or at the very least you could tell it had been sitting out all day), and the butter was also cold.
The shrimp cocktail appetizer tasted exactly like the precooked frozen shrimp I buy at the store and then warm up at home. You can tell shrimp came from frozen because they are chewy, like octopus.
The filet mignon was undercooked despite my having ordered it medium, but I decided to overlook this considering I was having my steak.
The presentation left much to be desired. My meal was $30 for the steak alone, and I was expecting a presentation deserving of the extra cash.
The first limonade the waiter brought for me had a fruit fly floating in it (I would have said swimming, but I’m pretty sure the darn thing was dead)
Due to this incident, the waiter (Marco, from Ecuador, very nice) decided to spot us dessert. We got a free apple pie (which looked like it had been made last week) with ice cream. It did not hit the spot, I must say.
In the end, I don’t think I would go back. Normally I would just say this on principle alone, it is New York City after all and it deserves to be explored. But this time I must say my reasons are reduced to a simple word: “quality.”
Also, let me leave you with a bit of an anecdote. On our way out, I noticed that the hostess was having her lunch (or early dinner?) right by the main entrance. I figured if she wanted privacy she would have eaten all the way in the back (wrong assumption), and I decided to be rude and interrupt her meal (please note that I do know -NOW- that this is the WRONG thing to do to someone who probably has the crappiest job in the world). You see, the curiosity hit me when I saw her eating food from the restaurant, and I wanted to ask her what her favorite dish was. So I did (again, I’m SORRY).
She immediately got up, without looking at me, grabbed a menu, and pointed at the Lobster Ravioli. I smiled a lot and thanked her (and apologized) profusely, but she looked like she was trying to mask a level of annoyance never seen before. She never spoke a word. I immediately felt bad and had a thought: she probably gets bothered by foreigners/tourists ALL THE TIME. What can I say, the language barrier alone makes it difficult to communicate, let alone cultural differences. This woman was ON HER BREAK, and this stupidly culturally-inept person (with an accent, mind you) was interruption her break to ask her a completly inane question that did not matter at all because that person (me) had already decided never to come back to this restaurant again.
I have 20 days to lose 4 pounds. At a normal (for me) rate of weight loss of 1lb a week this seems like a doable task.
Considering that I tend to approach a nice skinny weight when I eat healthy, and that it takes daily doses of chocolate to maintain my weight, shedding pounds should be easier than it sounds. The trick is discipline and will power: if I stay away from chocolate AND add exercise to my week, I *will* lose weight. Can this seemingly impossible feat be done?
Let’s examine the evidence. This was my first week sticking to these rules. How did I do?
Exercise: power walked/jogged 1.2 miles in the morning, plus .7 miles in the evening. Every day except for Thursday: I was running late and couldn’t do the evening leg.
Breakfast: fruit, oatmeal, toast, and/or corn bread, in some combination every morning.
Lunch: turkey/cheese sandwhich on multi grain bread, or pasta with meat sauce. Except for the day I had Bertucci’s for a work lunch.
Dinner: toast, banana, with a small side of homemade Mac&cheese, or pesto tortellini.
No chocolate anywhere!!!!! We should be on our way 🙂
We still got the weekend to go. Sigh. We’ll see what happens.
Warning: this is not a medical advice column, and I am not qualified to give any kind of medical advice. Please proceed with caution and consult your physician for any change in diet that may affect your well-being.
So, just like many many MANY pregnant women out there, I am suffering from a very slight and totally asymptomatic case of anemia (red blood cells tend to get diluted when a pregnant woman’s body makes more plasma than red blood cells to fill it up with). For this reason, my midwives have asked me to add more iron to my diet in the form of red meat, dark leafy vegetables, etc.
My first reaction to this was: No way, I’ll have to take a supplement or something. You see, I suffer from high cholesterol, and I don’t want to make it worse by adding more red meat to my diet. For as long as I can remember I have only had one meal with red meat per week, and eggs only once a week to keep my cholesterol in check.
And then, I read something that makes me feel like my whole life has been a lie:
Image: ThinkstockPork, beef, and lamb are among the world’s best sources of complete protein, and a Danish study found that dieting with 25 percent of calories from protein can help you lose twice as much weight as dieting with 12 percent protein. Then there’s vitamin B12, which is prevalent only in animal-based foods. B12 is essential to your body’s ability to decode DNA and build red blood cells, and British researchers found that adequate intakes protect against age-related brain shrinkage. Now, if you’re worried that meat will increase your risk for heart disease, don’t be. A Harvard review last year looked at 20 studies and found that meat’s link to heart disease exists only with processed meats like bacon, sausage, and deli cuts. Unprocessed meats, those that hadn’t been smoked, cured, or chemically preserved, presented absolutely zero risk.
Image: ThinkstockEgg yolks contain dietary cholesterol; this much is true. But research has proven that dietary cholesterol has almost nothing to do with serum cholesterol, the stuff in your blood. Wake Forest University researchers reviewed more than 30 egg studies and found no link between egg consumption and heart disease, and a study in Saint Louis found that eating eggs for breakfast could decrease your calorie intake for the remainder of the day.
Suddenly I feel like my whole life is ahead of me. My care provider is advising me to add more red meat to my diet??? I can eat eggs more than once a week??? The sky is bluer. The roses smell sweeter. New life has been infused in me!
If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way to have an awesome steak dinner. Doctor’s orders!
So I went on a pilgrimage today in search for hard white cheese (Queso Fresco, either Mexican or Colombian, brand could be Tropical or Santa Fe), which is unavailable in regular grocery stores. This holy grail of cheeses is very common in Latin American countries, and can be found in latino markets. Unfortunately for me, Norwood is out in the middle of white American suburbia, and the chances of finding an ethnic market are slim to none.
Hard white cheese has many uses. You can have them in arepas:
… or have them as tostadas (cheese grilled onto the arepa)
… or to make envueltos (fried plantain, sandwiched between two slices of white cheese, wrapped in a pancake-like mixture, and grilled all over)
Call it nostalgia, call it pregnancy cravings… but recently I’ve just been YEARNING for all of the above. Cheese hunting, here I come!
So, I ventured out to Framingham (pretty much the Little Brazil of Greater Boston) to a little market called “Latino’s Market” (275 Beaver St, Framingham, MA) located very close to my old apartment. They had the cheese, but it had expired (they pulled them off the shelves as soon as I pointed it out, and refused to sell it to me). Noble, yes, but now I was back to square 1. They recommended I went to a new market that had opened up, down Route 135, past the train station, past Tedeschi, past the Walgreens. Mmmmm… alright, where’s the Walgreens again?
I followed every landmark to a tee, and ended up at a little store with no name. It looked like a lottery-ticket selling, cigarette break, sketchy ATM type place. It didn’t even have a name on the outside! I went in anyway.
Inside, was a very nice guy behind the counter. His name is Javier, and he’s the son of the owner. I asked him for cheese, and he pointed me in the right direction. Turns out that his father owns both markets, and his new store (which opened 2 months ago) was going to be called “Latino’s Market 2” but money is tight and they haven’t been able to put up a sign with a name on it. I bought the cheese, wished him the best of luck with the store and walked out with a smile on my face. He was just so nice and I felt so welcome there, that I vowed to post an entry about him and his store.
Looking for latino ingredients? Try this market! It won’t let you down. Tell Javier that ina said hi 🙂 He won’t remember me, but he might next time I go restock on that cheese!
Latino's Market 2, located (approximately) at 650 Waverly St, Framingham, MA. There's Javier in the front, sweeping the snow off the front stoop.
Latino’s Market 2
Open from 8am to 10pm every day
Address (approx) 650 Waverly St, Framingham, MA
Right next to Saucier St intersection with Waverly St, and exactly past the Walgreens parking lot when coming from the center of town.
Waverly St = Route 135
ina
Post-post: My friend @na has informed me that they sell this cheese at Market Basket. Good tip!!!
My friend Enrique Montoya has the funny habit of screaming “Squirrel!” every time I come up with a new thing to do, a la puppy from the movie “Up.” Monologues? Squirrel! Writing a book? Squirrel! Diet? Squirrel! I get his point.
The 3-day diet was the most torturous experience of the past… week. I spent a billion dollars on new groceries, I couldn’t stop thinking about food, and half of the stuff I was eating was just absolutely not worthy of feeding a starving dog.
But that’s not really what made me come to my senses… It was an incident that occurred on Friday in which my own food attacked me. That’s when I said ENOUGH! In short, hot oil splashed off the pan where I was making my tilapia fish and hit me in the eye like a bulls eye. After a couple trips to the emergency room, and some steroids and antibiotics, I am no longer in excruciating pain and I can see perfectly fine.
So, no more diet. Now I want to get into theater 🙂 Squirrel!
I’m only half kidding 🙂 I’m mostly looking forward to going home and decorating for the holidays tonight 🙂
Friday is finally here. Thought it would never come. Wednesday felt like a Friday, so in essence I have felt like I’ve been in a Friday loop (a la Groundhog Day) for 3 days. It’s really been maddening.
Add that to all the other stuff going on: husband’s surprise birthday dinner, husband’s non-surprise birthday dinner, waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to have self-inflicted work meetings, and finding any few-minute stretch to shop for ingredients for the new diet, and you got yourself an exhausting week. Boredom officially cured.
Can I have pizza now?… No?… right, that’s what I thought.
The diet is still going. Today is Day 3 and I don’t feel starved, which is good. I weighed myself this morning and got 112.6 lbs. Did I actually lose 4 lbs in two days? I’ll give my scale the benefit of the doubt, but I bet it’s all water weight. Not fat, not muscle mass, just water. We’ll see where we are by the end of the anti-bloating diet (Sunday morning).
Curious about the meals and every excruciating detail of every meal of the diet? Go to Blogging ina Kitchen.
Alright, Day 1 is behind us. Besides some difficulties getting the ingredients, experimenting with new tastes, and awful timing, I think it went pretty well! I haven’t quit yet, so I guess we are doing fabulously!
I decided not to bore you with the details on the new diet. After all, since this is my new “obsession” I am bound to talk about it a LOT. So, if you want to follow those rants, and details on what I’m eating, you can visit my cooking blog at Blogging ina Kitchen.
I’ll let you know how things are going from a mental, emotional and physical state here. So don’t fret, you’ll still get to find out how the diet is going 🙂 (yeah, I know it was keeping you up at night).
* Disclaimer: If you match these measurements, you do NOT… I repeat… do NOT need to lose weight! (no matter how tall or short you are) I’m just doing this out of boredom.
I got my cholesterol measurements back… youza… awful overall cholesterol (should be less than 199). I got awesome good cholesterol (HDL – should >40), but my bad cholesterol (LDL) is slightly above the upper limit (should be <130).
So, now that we got our baseline… start your engines!!!
So, if you’re a loyal reader (hi ma!), you know that I have been bored out of my skull, and I’ve been looking for something new to obsess over.
I decided that this was as good time as any to go on a diet. Now, it can’t be just any diet. The problem with most of them is that they are so “you create your own plan” that I can’t keep enough interest in making the effort to create my own meals. I needed a plan that would just freaking tell me WHAT to eat and WHEN.
And I have found it…
The diet is called the Flat Belly Diet. The SOLE reason I picked this diet out is because it has a solid Breakfast-Lunch-Snack-Dinner plan in a book that is just 150 pages long. It’s a neat guide to WHAT to eat. All the other books I checked out were way too big, and required way too much thinking on my part.
Diet Description
Name: Flat Belly Diet Creator: Liz Vaccariello, Editor-in-Chief of Prevention Magazine Promise: To flatten your belly (no workout required), and to improve your heart-disease risk markers (cholesterol, triglycerides, etc) Science: Eat 1,600 calories per day (which is less than your average non-dieting person, hence, reducing your calorie intake). Include a food that contains mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) in every meal. This type of fat allegedly prevents the accumulation of belly fat. The Diet: Eat every 4 hours: Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Dinner. The first four days are called the “Jumpstart” and must be followed to the letter. Its intention is to de-bloat you by concentrating on foods that don’t make you bloat (therefore, certain fruits and vegetables are excluded during these 4 days). The next 28 days are more flexible and varied in what you can have. The pocket guide to the diet has an entire list of substitutes in case you don’t like a particular thing.
So, here we are. Day -1 of the diet (I’m starting tomorrow).
Day -1
So, what do I have to do to prepare? First of all, if we are going to measure success, we might as well start with some actual measurements, otherwise known as a baseline.
*save your eye-rolling. I know I don’t need to lose weight, and if you have these measurements, you don’t have to either!!! I’d like to refer you to the very first sentence of this post, which states the reason why I’m doing this in the first place: boredom!
In addition to flattening your belly, the diet also claims to improve cholesterol… so I went to get my blood drawn today and we’ll know my cholesterol baseline in a few days. We are doing this, bitches!!!
Next I had to make something called “Sassy Water.” You’re supposed to drink this with every meal during the first 4 days. I’m not sure of the nutritional value, but the book says it soothes your GI tract. I’ll take their word for it. Here’s what’s in it:
2 liters water (about 8 ½ cups)
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1 medium cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced
1 medium lemon, thinly sliced
12 small spearmint leaves.
You’re supposed to mix the ingredients and let them hang out overnight, then drink the whole thing by the end of each day. If you stick with 8 ounces per meal, you’ll accomplish this seemingly impossible task. Or so I keep telling myself.
I bought the ingredients today and made it at work. After all, 3 of 4 of those servings are going to be had while I’m in the office. It definitely made for interesting conversation in the breakroom… and got some stares, too.
Anyways, Sassy Water, DONE! I got stuff to do tonight, so I have no idea at what time I’ll be going out shopping for the rest of the groceries… don’t you love new self-imposed sources of stress?
I’ll chronicle my journey here, under the Category “Food and Diet.” As for the meals I prepare, I might review them in my Ina Kitchen blog.
I decided this past Monday that I would try to lose weight. I have done well at having fruit and a yogurt for breakfast, having salads for lunch, and having just one dinner (as opposed to snacking in addition to dinner). Well, last night didn’t count: I had dinner at Portia de Rossi’s apartment, and had to have the dessert.
Now that I’m getting the food part down, I have got to figure out how to incorporate exercise into my weekdays. I’ll leave that for next week. Too busy this week!
Earlier this week an interesting diet was brought to my attention: the Blood Type Diet. I am A+, which, according to the diet, means that I would be energized by a vegetarian diet, rather than a carnivore one (which is recommended for O types).
I am too busy to stick to a diet and track goals and milestones, but I have to say I was intrigued. Last Monday I had the pleasure of having lunch with my friend Angela, who is a vegetarian, and I just said “I’ll have whatever you’re having.” She ended up just recommending something else to me (veggie wrap at Vlora), and she had a Caprese salad (mozzarella chese and tomato). I found my veggie wrap quite tasty, and I have to say I was getting a rush out of not knowing what I was going to eat.
The rest of the week I had lunch with my friend Enrique Montoya, who is also a vegetarian. Every day I would tell him to pick his lunch and just get 2 of whatever it was. This was the most exciting lunch week ever! I was very happy with his selections, I felt like I was eating healthy, and I LOVED the surprise of not knowing what I was going to get. It was great!
I didn’t stick to a fully vegetarian diet… I had chicken for dinner on Monday, turkey on Wednesday, and BBQ chicken pizza on Thursday. But I still feel like I made a small dent in my health by choosing the right stuff for lunch.
Here’s another tip to eat right without having to make huge sacrifices: I read a book (I think it was one of the Suzanne Somers ones) where she talked about food combinations. Turns out that your body will absorb nutrients better if you combine foods in certain ways. Here’s a snapshot of the guidelines (I’m paraphrasing, more detail on the website):
Carbs and Vegetables are OK
Protein/Fats and Vegetables are OK
Never combine protein/fats and carbs!!!
So, basically, you can have a chicken salad or steak salad, but don’t have steak with rice, potatoes or french fries. You can have a veggie wrap or veggie burrito or veggie sandwhich, but don’t add meat to it!
Following this rule, I had a GREAT steak salad at Ivy’s for lunch. They were a bit cheap with the steak (after all, it was only a $12 meal), but it was REALLY tasty. Unfortunately, it’s only been 1 hour and I’m hungry again. Mmmm… I should get a banana or something. Need a snack.
I’m having a stupid day. Had to stay home from work to get quotes for Asbestos removal in our basement. The problem is that I am not cut out for working from home. I get bored and distracted easily, and end up eating a billion cupcakes.
Stupid cupcakes. They lure me in with their deliciousness. I hate you cupcakes.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to start cooking again.
I think it came to me when I found myself at home completely bored while Brian was out in Florida.
Last night I made a pork tenderloin that was so amazing even Brian cleaned his plate! http://tinyurl.com/yzbsvzs He actually said that he liked me a little more now. Always a nice bonus 🙂
Next I’m going to make pork fried rice, wonton soup and/or pork sloppy Joes. I have the ingredients for all of them. I guess it will depend on which recipe has the most perishable items. I’ll have to pick one recipe to make next week instead.
I was on a mission tonight to cook my dinner and plan my own menu for the rest of the week. To that end, I picked out one of my many quick cooking books and started jotting down recipes that sounded good.
The book is Robin Miller’s Quick Fix Meals. I started perusing from page 1 onwards, and settled on a couple of recipes. I managed to complete the recipe for Angel Hair with Creamy Turkey Sausage and wild Mushroom Sauce (page 28), but I did not get past making the pasta for the Baked Ziti with Turkey Sausage.
Two things of note: my dinner was absolutely delicious. I made enough to have 2 more portions left over. It was YUMMY.
Angel Hair with Creamy Turkey Sausage and Wild Mushroom Sauce
Angel Hair with Creamy Turkey Sausage and Wild Mushroom Sauce Quick Fix Meals by Robin Miller My comments in blue
Serves 4
Alleged Timing
Alleged prep time: 10 min
Alleged active cooking time: 10-12 min
Alleged walk-away time: 10 min
Alleged cook time for left overs: 5 min
Ingredients
12 ounces angel hair pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup chopped shallots
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 pound of sweet turkey, hot turkey or chicken sausage, cut into 1/2 inch pieces I used 3 links of sweet turkey, and it was plenty
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup frozen green peas
1 1/2 cups low-fat sour cream
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Directions
Cook the pasta according to the package directions, then drain.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring a few times, until they are tender and releasing juice, 3 t o5 minutes. Add the sausage and brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. Add the thyme, oregano, salt and pepper and stir until well combined and the herbs are fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the broth and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low, partially cover the pan, and simmer until the sausage is cooked through, about 10 minutes.
** IF YOU’RE STOPPING HERE:
Let the sauce cool for 10 minutes, then transfer to a large plastic zip-top bag or container (or two) and refrigerate up to 3 days or freeze up to 3 months (no need to thaw before continuing). Let the pasta cool to room temperature and refrigerate up to 3 days.
** WHEN YOU’RE READY TO EAT:
Reheat the turkey mixture in a large skillet over medium heat until simmering. Add the peas and simmer 1 minute more. Stir in the sour cream and Parmesan and simmer 1 minute to heat through. Remove from the heat, season with salt and pepper to taste, and stir in the parsley.
Reheat the angel hair in the microwave for 1 to 2 minutes on HIGH. Transfer the angel hair to individual shallow bowls, spoon the turkey mixture over the top, and serve.
The second thing is that Robin claims that these meals take 15min to make, or at most 1 hour prep-work for ALL the meals of the week. All I have to say to Robin is: Bullcrap! I started cooking at 8:15, and didn’t eat until 9:30pm. And that was for just ONE recipe! It was delicious, though. Just don’t lie to me. I don’t have time for your loose conjectures.
Tori Amos got this gift for christmas: the Biggest Loser weight loss kit. It comes with a journal, recipes, a workout CD, tape measurer, and a calorie-counting notebook. She didn’t think she’d ever do the program, so she gave it to me. Not that I am fat or anything, she just thinks I’m very organized and would count calories (which I’ve done in the past, so I can see where she got that idea).
Upon closer inspection of the kit last night, I ran into this tid-bit of information, and I didn’t feel like just sitting on it Here it goes:
There are foods that induce hunger, and basically work against you in your quest to lose weight. These foods have been stripped out of all fiber, so your body takes no time to process them and turn them into sugar. So you get a high, and burn it quickly, making you crash. You also finish with more hunger/cravings for the same type of food. Hence, an addiction is born. Here are some examples of it:
White breads
White pasta
White potatoes
Pastries
Donuts
Cinnabons
Soft Pretzels
Cookies
I know it’s obvious that these things are not good for you, I just didn’t know that they actually worked against you. When you diet, why would you make things HARDER for yourself? It’s plenty hard already!
About a year ago I took an international business class with a teacher who had spend a considerable amount of time in Japan and China on business. One time, he gave us a whole presentation on the customs of doing business over there, and reminded us that if we were moving to Asia, we should remember that Chinese people do eat Chinese food every single day, so we should make sure we know what we are getting ourselves into.
Ever since that night, every time I went into class I got this UNCONTROLLABLE craving for Chinese food and I made sure to get it every night when I got out of class.
Well, it’s been a year, and my college STILL gives me Chinese food cravings.
One of the things I miss the most about Venezuela is the food. I love breakfast and lunch and miss the quality of the final product and the care that goes into every bite. So here you have it: a whole entry dedicated to my favorite topic: Food. And yes, my diet went down the drain for a week, so sue me.
First, let me remind you (or inform you) that lunch is the big meal in Venezuela, not dinner. You will see this trend throughout this post.
Breakfast at my grandmother’s consisted of arepas with white cheese and ham. Arepas are a “bread substitute” made of corn flour and water, and are commonly eaten stuffed with cheese, eggs, beef, or anything you can think of depending on the time of day you have them. They can be as wide or as fat as you want. Venezuelan style arepas are round, about 1.5 inches thick, and about 4 inches wide. They are commonly made on a stovetop grill, but they can also be deep fried (arepas dulces). My grandmother’s maid made Andes style arepas for us, which are like 5 inches in diameter, and just under an inch thick. Still good for stuffing, though.
Arepa with white cheese and ham
The very first day Brian and I were here this week, which was Sunday, we met my uncle, aunts and cousins at Santiago’s rabbit hole. This is a restaurant owned by a man named Santiago who serves the most delicious rabbit, fried peppers, steamed potatoes and salad. To close the rabbit ceremonies, get the quesillo for dessert! The place doesn’t appear to have a sign at all, and the actual name of the restaurant is a complete mystery. This is a hole-in-the-wall in the outskirts of the city in Filas de Mariche. It has been there for over 25 years and people hear about it by word of mouth. You can email me or comment here if you would like their phone number. They are only open on weekends, and they only take reservations ahead of time (so they know how many rabbits to cook).
The meal is spectacular, and the restaurant’s rustic and open atmosphere makes you forget about the fact that you are eating Bugs Bunny’s cousins. My husband Brian, who is the pickiest eater in the world, even had seconds of the peppers and rabbit. It is truly the best place to come and have a good time. And if you’re lucky, you might persuade Santiago to play the acordeon for you and the other patrons! He graced us with his stylings on sunday to sing “Hoy es tu día” and “happy birthday” to one of my cousins.
Potatoes, Salad and RabbitFried PeppersQuesillo
Monday, after my mother and I went downtown, we got home close to 3pm and had lunch made by my grandmother. She made gratinated ziti with a corn and bechamel sauce. I love this very simple meal, yet I keep forgetting to jot down the recipe. I’ll share it with you when I get it! Brian just had ziti with homemade tomato sauce (his favorite fast meal). I think my grandmother and Marie, Brian’s mother, should face off in a cooking challenge some day. That’s something I’d watch for sure! 🙂 Sorry I didn’t take a picture of it 🙁 Maybe next time 🙂
On Tuesday we headed for my favorite restaurant in all of Caracas: Jardin des Crêpes in Las Mercedes, a trendy area where you will find the best restaurants in all cuisines. I always beg my mother to bring me here. We start with crunchy bread and an orange spread which looks like Cheez Whiz but tastes nothing like it. It doesn’t even have cheese in it! Apparently it’s a bell pepper mixture with garlic and mayonaise, although I cannot confirm this conjecture. Whatever it is, it’s delicious, and they’ll bring it to you without you even asking.
Toasty bread with garlicky spread
I got the Tenderloin Carpaccio to start, and in my eagerness to taste this delicious dish, I forgot to take a picture of it. Take my word for it: best I’ve ever had.
As main course, I usually get the corn crêpe. It’s corn in bechamel sauce wrapped in a crêpe with gratinated cheese on top. I love it every time. They changed their menu to include Guayanés cheese in it, but you can ask for it without.
Corn Crêpe
My mother and grandmother went for the spinach crêpe, while my aunt went for the mushroom. I can’t say how they were, but they looked yummy.
Spinach CrêpeMushroom Crêpe
And of course, my ever-so-safe husband went for the steak and fries, which was amazing as well.
Steak and Fries with Pepper Sauce on the side
To close the ceremonies, my mother and I usually share a Comédie Francaise, which is a crêpe topped with coconut ice cream, whipped cream and chocolate syrup. It’s to die for. I think it’s better shared! Unfortunately, they did not have coconut ice cream, which broke our concentration a bit. We ended up ordering the nutella and dulce de leche crêpes. Sorry I got carried away and forgot to take a picture BEFORE we devoured it. Hope you still get the feel for it.
Dulce de Leche Crêpe
Something else deserves its own paragraph, and that is, again, the QUALITY of the food here. We don’t have many chains, which means that all meals are made from scratch. None of that frozen ready-to-microwave crap. They truly care about the ingredients. One way I love to remind myself of this is by ordering fruit punch wherever I go. Do not expect the radioactive color of Hi-C fruit punch. In fact, do not ever expect this drink to taste the same ANYWHERE you go. They make it for you to order with whatever fruits they have on hand. Try it out, and you’ll know what I mean! At the Jardin, mine tasted a little on the passion-fruity side.
House Fruit Punch
On Wednesday we headed out to La Colonia Tovar. This is a German colony that was established in 1843 northwest of Caracas, up and down the mountain. It’s a great spot to visit as a tourist. The weather is usually cold, which gives you the feeling of being in a foreign land (much different from the heat of the city). Up there you will find great restaurants, cozy hotels, and tons of things to do: shopping, strawberry picking, tours of the rainforest (get startled by men in monkey suits and see a real walking tree), horseback riding, go-karts, target shooting, or just set up some tables outside and play board games. In my family we love to play Rummy Kub.
We didn’t have much time to hang out, but we did take a few pictures and had lunch at the Bergland Hotel. I couldn’t tell you exactly where this hotel is located, but I’m sure you could ask the locals.
The Bergland Hotel
Now, listen to me: THE ONE REASON TO GO TO LA COLONIA TOVAR TO EAT, IS TO HAVE THE CREMA DE AJOPORRO. It’s a soup based on a vegetable that to this day I cannot translate (can someone help me with that?). You can get it at ANY restaurant at La Colonia Tovar. We went to the Bergland because it’s simply the best. I had the pork tenderloin in mushroom sauce, and my family had some version of pork. My aunt got the trout and my grandmother had the turkey, and they all looked amazing. You will not have a better meal anywhere! Now, I’m no food critic or connoceaur in any way, so please pardon my lack of description of every dish… they look AWESOME but I have no idea what the actual names were. Each name was like 3 lines long!
Crema de AjoporroPork Chop with Cheese and Mushroom saucePork Chop with Mushroom sauceSmoked Pork Chop with FriesTHE TroutTHE Turkey
Everyone got the house natural strawberry juice to drink, while I, of course, got the fruit punch. It tasted a lot of strawberries. Not surprising, considering we were in strawberry land! Yummy.
House Fruit Punch
On Thursday we ate at home. My grandmother made a truly typical Venezuelan dish for us, called Pabellón. This dish consists of 4 main ingredients, which are served separately: seasoned shredded beef (carne mechada), white rice, seasoned black beans (best if served with crumbled white cheese on top), and fried plantains (tajadas). This is just what I needed to feel I had really been in Caracas. My grandmother bragged about the special way she seasons the black beans, with wine and some other spices you wouldn’t expect to find in there. Even Brian had seconds. After I had mine, I finished off the few bites he had left on his plate. I like to eat it by making the “perfect bite” every time, meaning that every bite has a little bit of everything in it. I was just sorry my grandmother didn’t have bigger forks.
Pabellón
In case you hadn’t noticed, if I had my choice of soda, I always picked Uvita Hit (grape soda, “Hit” brand). It is NOTHING like Grape Fanta in the US. I miss it. Funny thing is that Hit is owned by Coke.
On Friday we just went to the food court at the Paseo El Hatillo mall. I’ll post a separate blog about El Hatillo, but it doesn’t hurt to tell you that I had a ham and sun dried tomatoes panini on oregano bread, while Brian had a burger with fries. Not the best meal of the week, but it did the trick in our rush.
Ham and Sun Dried Tomato Sandwich
Saturday, our last day, we had cheese empanadas for breakfast from the local stand in Río Chico (beach town), and grilled cheeseburgers made by my cousins at the beach house. Typical beach foods for when you’re on vacation. We also got shredded beef (carne mechada) and ground beef (carne molida) empanadas. It still makes me laugh: my cousin Lara Croft had ordered a couple of the ground beef for herself, but since all the empanadas look the same from the outside, and they were not labeled, she had to eat whatever she bit into first. Eventually, my other cousins found her empanadas and proceeded to eat them while she cursed them out. Oh, great times 🙂
Cheese Empanada
This morning I had breakfast at the airport. They have a very Venezuelan spot in the food court inside the terminal, called El Budare. They have all kinds of stuffing for arepas, and all kinds of cheeses for cachapas. Cachapas are oversized corn pancakes. You can have them plain with just butter, or put cheese inside and fold it like an omelette. I recommend “queso de mano” which is tough to find in the US, but you might get lucky in latino markets.
El Budare at the AirportCachapa with Cheese
I guess that’s it for food. If you have a Venezuelan restaurant in your area, I completely recommend you head out there as soon as possible and try our typical dishes. You will wonder how it is that you had missed out on it your whole life!
In Boston, you can head out to Orinoco’s Restaurant in either of their two locations in the South End and Brookline.
I haven’t been posting everything I eat every day lately, but I wanted to assure you that I am doing great! I have been eating 3 meals a day, with a healthy snack in between if I’m hungry. I have been going to the gym 3 times a week without fail (even if I’m dead tired and starving, at least I’ll get on the treadmill for 20 minutes so I don’t skip a day). And I discovered that if I don’t have breakfast, my mood deteriorates before I even realize it, so breakfast is HUGE for my state of mind (good to know!).
I also realized that my cheapo analog scale is no better than the stupid digital one I had before, so I started weighing myself at the gym (they have the same kind that they have at doctors’ offices), and I’m proud to say that I have lost 1 pound in 1 week 🙂 I know that losing weight is not the main objective of my new diet & gym routine (controlling my anxieties is), but shedding a few pounds is a nice bonus 🙂 My goal is to lose 7 more pounds, but I’m sure my body will reach its perfect weight somewhere in between, and I’ll just have to accept the new minimal me. I just hope its lower limit is at 7 lbs from now 😛
Hope you are all doing well with your own healthy routines.
Does anybody remember that butter commercial? Did I just make that up?
Anywhooooo…
I got news from my boss that I’ll be getting a new role soon. YESSSS! Not that my new role is my dream job by any means, but it is a CHANGE which we welcome with open arms in these United States of ina 🙂 All I have to focus on now is the transition of my duties! Yes, I said duties.
Something else that has me giddy is that I saw an open position for a Math high school teacher down the street from my house starting in the Fall. I’m not planning on applying for it. I’m just not ready yet. Maybe next year. But just the thought of it makes the blood in my veins rush!
I’m feeling better today, as you can probably tell by now. I decided to be the best wife ever this morning and not press snooze (Brian is a very light sleeper and he’s had a rough couple of nights – my poor love). As soon as the alarm rang, I literally JUMPED out of bed and closed the door behind me. I didn’t even go back in to give him his goodbye/good morning kiss before I left (which I still feel sad about, but I hope he got some rest). Oh, the sacrifices we make for the men we love.
I had Gibb’s muffins for breakfast. Some pointers for those of you planning to make them:
I didn’t grease the muffin pans, so the muffins stuck to them. It wasn’t that bad, I was still able to pop them out with a knife. They bake much more at the bottom than at the top, so I don’t think I’d recommend greasing the pan: it might burn them too fast at the bottom.
They were not sweet and yummy. They were kind of dry and definitely needed something spread on them. I tried strawberry jelly and butter, and butter won. I LOVE the combination of sweet and salty tastes.
I toasted them a little bit before eating, but wished I had toasted them long enough so that the butter melted. Mental note for tomorrow.
Good breakfast, though! Only 80 calories per muffin. Beats McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts breakfasts any day! Mmm starting to get hungry. Time for my English muffin with PB morning snack!
ina
PS: I just noticed that the picture makes the muffins look cracked and sunk in, but they were not! Those are shadows! They rose a little bit, they did not crack at all! 🙂
I can’t really say that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, since I have been skipping breakfast for the past several months (minus last week). But I can say that breakfast FOOD is my FAVORITE kind of food in the world. Unfortunately, most of what I love about breakfast includes fatty fatty bready bready foods (pancakes, bacon, eggs over easy, chocolate chips, milkshakes). I probably don’t love breakfast as much as this lady over here, but I do… a LOT!
So I’ve set out to find healthy fun breakfast foods. It’s going to be hard, but I hope to expand my breakfast repertoire so I don’t dread breakfast every morning.
I found this recipe for muffins. I will make them this week and let you know how they turned out!
Ingredients
Oat Bran, 2.25 cup
Baking Powder, 3 tsp
Maple Syrup or sugar, .25 cup
Milk, nonfat, 1.25 cup
*Egg white, 2 serving
Banana, fresh, .75 cup, mashed
Almonds, .5 cup, chopped
(optional: handful of rasins or blueberries and .25 cup of shreded coconut)
Directions
Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl, blend wet ingreedinets together and mix gently with dry ingredients. Bake at 450 for 12-15 minutes for muffins or 10 minutes for muffin tops.
1 scrambled egg with mixed-in turkey breast, in 2 slices of wheat bread, a banana, orange juice, and a few bites of a chocolate fudge coconut cookie with white chocolate chunks.
Morning Snack
Lunch
Left overs of chicken and vegetable stir fry, and a pi&ntilda;a colada yogurt. Water.
Afternoon Snack
Dinner
@Uno’s Chicago Grill. Salmon, Haddock and Shrimp combo. A couple bites of broccoli, one bite of brown rice, bread stick. Water. Awful choices!.
Exercise
I made a really bad choice of dinner on Sunday night. But I was STARVING. That must have been like a BILLION calories right there. I tried not to have too much starch, but that bread stick looked so yummy I could not say no. And I’m STILL hungry. I stole a couple of bites of pizza bread with tomatoes that Brian left in his plate (no cheese). I don’t know if it’s going to make me anxious. I don’t feel anything yet… I guess we’ll have to wait a couple of hours and see. Bad ina, bad ina.
I’m dying to go upstairs and have more of that chocolate fudge coconut cookie with white chocolate chunks. I can’t stop thinking about it, but I can make myself stop. I don’t have to go to the kitchen and eat. I can go upstairs, brush my teeth, and be done with the eating for the rest of the night.
One thing that I have noticed is that I wake up really hungry in the morning, and it’s hard to come up with a fun and appetizing idea for breakfast. I LOVE breakfast, but I can’t seem to find anything fun to eat that is healthy. I’m not a fan of fruit salad, so I guess I’ll just have to keep looking.
Also, thought you should know, I weighed myself this morning (no clothes, before showering, before breakfast), and there was no change in weight. At least not any discernible change. I won’t record any change until I see a clear change of 2 pounds or more. Anything other than that is still within the margin of error.
When I wrote the post about the Diet Guidelines, and wrote some things about pizza and Chinese food, I had no idea that I would be facing those challenges just a couple of days later.
On Friday my husband and I had plans to get together with my wonderful next-door neighbors, whom we will call Fred and Ethel, for a pizza night. I had been trying to figure out what I would do, since I’m not really allowing myself to have pizza because of the awful reaction I had to it last Monday. At the same time, I didn’t want to be “that” girl that has to have the salad while everybody else has delicious pizza.
Enrique suggested I got the whole-wheat crust, but Stash’s Pizza doesn’t have whole-wheat crust! (I found out in advance) So I just decided to wing it and figure it out when we got there. Turns out that Fred and Ethel sometimes have pizza without cheese. I figured it was worth a try, as long as we coupled it with a salad 😉
It was AMAZING. The pizza was DELICIOUS. I had to hold back from getting a third slice. The best part is that I did not feel anxious afterwards! So I guess we figured out the anxiety-causing ingredient in pizza: fatty fatty fatty CHEESE, and EXCESS. Stopping at 2 slices was the perfect call.
As for Chinese food, it sort of caught me by surprise. I went to my in-laws for dinner to celebrate my husband’s sister’s birthday, and they brought in LOADS of Chinese food. So, what to do?
I stuck with some maki rolls, pulled the fried skin off of ONE chicken finger, had a taste of the crunchy beef, had a little bit of white rice (one bite) and had a lot of broccoli! One thing that I shouldn’t have had so much of are these cut-outs of Pillsbury doughboy crescent rolls with caramelized onion on them (my mother in law, whom we’ll call Marie, is an AMAZING cook). I had 3 of those (each one was bite-size), and I worried I’d get nervous/anxious after I had them.
It’s been a few hours and I’m still not nervous/anxious at all! This is great!
And so I survived my first Chinese food and pizza challenge. I hope you are all doing well!
@Stash’s Pizza. 2 slices of cheeseless pizza: sauce, onions and spinach. Grilled chicken salad with no dressing. Grape tomatoes. Water.
@All Seasons Restaurant. Chinese food: a little bit of white rice, two small pieces of crunchy beef, 4 maki rolls (varied kinds), 1 skinless chicken finger, tons of broccoli. Water. Appetizer: 3 mini-crescent rolls with caramelized onion Shouldn’t have had that last thing.
Exercise
Swimming for 30 min
This is Friday’s menu in pictures! 🙂 Enjoy:
Breakfast: Wheat toast with strawberry jelly and a banana. Orange Juice.
If you are anything like me, you tend to get in the groove of a particular fad and you become completely obsessed with it, only for it to fade away when the excitement has worn off. I have had this happen to me about my personal finances, about fitness, about certain celebrities, about my eating habits, and even about my romantic relationships.
I recall these bursts of obsessive behavior as historical proof of how disciplined I can be if I put my mind into something. Most times I can’t really decide what I will be obsessed with next, it just sort of happens. The best I can hope for is that the next fad will be a healthy or a productive one.
As you’ve read in the past few posts, the latest fad is to eat right and exercise in order to control my anxiety and depressive episodes. I have been doing great with my meals and I’m looking forward to going back to my new gym this evening. My anxiety is on “pause,” which feels amazing.
During every fad I get scared that it will go away as quickly as it came about, and I’ll go back to square 1. I wish I could tell my future self what things worked and why the fad was so fun to get stuck on.
To that end I’d like to document the meals that have made this fad a reality this time around, in hopes that when the fad fades away I’ll be able to read back and relearn what meals worked for me while I was watching what I ate. I’ll create a “Food and Diet” category to access them easily in the future.
“Diet” Guidelines:
Never eat anything you don’t like. Make the effort to find alternatives that are yummy to you.
Have breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Dinner must be finished before 8pm.
Limit consumption of white bread. Opt for wheat or whole-grain when possible.
Have a fruit with breakfast (I like bananas)
Avoid fried foods
Limit consumption of potatoes. Opt for brown rice when possible. If potatoes or white rice are inevitable, have just a little bit and complement with a salad.
Meat is OK. It’s preferred to eat meat with a side of vegetables, as opposed to potatoes or rice.
Opt for egg whites in omelettes
Hard boild eggs are OK
It’s OK to have a snack between meals. Fruit, yogurt, wheat crackers, dried fruit, light cheese (light is better than “reduced fat”), or my famous whole-grain English muffins with reduced fat peanut butter (thin layer)
No chocolate or any other junk food
Inevitable Fast Food Exposure:
If ordering pizza is inevitable, order one with whole-grain or wheat crust. It’s ok to have sauce and ham or chicken. EASY on the mozzarella, or opt for light cheese. NO pepperoni.
Chinese food is out of the picture. If a Chinese restaurant is inevitable, stick to dishes where deep-color vegetables are the main attraction.
Sushi is OK, but be conscious of the amount of rice being consumed
The best place to get your Chinese fix is a hot pot place. Opt for water instead of broth, and stick to meat and vegetables (limit noodles and rice)
I have been really good with my meals this week (except for that pizza slip on Monday night). I’ve had breakfast every day, and I have had soup and salad for lunch (yay).
Enrique told me to try to get some chicken with my salad so I have enough protein to keep me going through the day. I’ll follow that advice next time. He also suggested fish a couple of times a week. That’s going to be harder to stick to, but I’ll keep it in mind.
I had lunch with a good guy I know from school, whom we’ll call Feivel. He’s one of those guys whom I can talk to with no effort. He’s funny and keeps a conversation going without monopolizing it or talking too much about himself. He’s so sweet, nice and responsible. I could totally see the "me" from 10 years ago being willing to go out with him back then, so I must think he’s a catch. Then why doesn’t he have a girlfriend? I will try to invite him to more mingling opportunities in my circle. Heaven knows I have enough single friends for him to meet. The question is why won’t my friends see in him what I see? (they’ve met once before)
I have a theory that girls don’t like to be fixed up with your/my single guy friends for the same reason people shy away from buying a house that has been in the market for 120 days: "if nobody has snatched it by now there must be something wrong with it."
May I say that my house had been in the market for 90 days before we put an offer in, and it ended up being absolute perfection. In the same way that not all that glitters is gold, not all that’s dusty is trash.
Today we went to visit some of my family members in New Jersey. We decided to stop by the Ramsey Golf & Country Club for some lunch. Warning: Abbey’s, the actual restaurant, is closed for lunch and requires reservations for dinner. Anyways, because of this reason, we ended up entering through the back door of the restaurant and through the bar to the hostess’s podium.
The restaurant was completely empty (my family tends to have really late lunches). The hostess seemed nice (at first). I was trying to get us a table while my family was hung up talking to a waiter about why the Abbey restaurant was closed for lunch. I wanted to get things moving, so I got us a table… but my family had already arranged to sit on the indoor porch with a view to the golf course through the waiter they had ran into. The hostess seemed a bit annoyed when the other waiter came over to update her, and she said to him with a deep sigh “so you wanna take this then??” I just walked to the new table and let them figure it out.
When we sat down, we looked at the Lunch menu with a bit of disappointment… we are used to large meals for lunch, but they just had the small lunch options. We dwelled on that for a little while, and then the horror began: our waitress came over. She was talking unusually loudly for a waitress at a high-class place. You could hear her echo across the room at the other side of the porch. She seemed to have a bit of an attitude going with that voice. I was already uncomfortable by this, until she did the unthinkable: she talked back to my father.
When the girl asked him what he wanted to drink, my father just said “1 more minute please,” in a very quiet voice. She obviously didn’t hear him, so she came back even louder “and for you SIR??” He turned and said “I said I needed 1 more minute” and she said “I’m sorry SIR, but you were not looking at me when you said that, so I didn’t HEAR what you said.” I was APPALLED!!!! I COULD NOT BELIEVE THIS!!! SHE DID NOT JUST SAY THAT!!!
We finished with our orders and I was PISSED. I told my father I wanted to go talk to the manager to get a new waitress. He told me to let it go. I looked at my husband, and he said that if she did anything else, I had his permission to go. (Not that I ever need his “permission” to do anything, but knowing my temperament, I trust his judgment in situations like this more than my own). So I had to let it go, but it had already ruined my lunch.
After the main course, I went to the restroom, where one of the waitresses (a different one) came in to talk to her boyfriend on her cellphone.
I came back to the table. We were ready to order dessert. I saw our waitress approaching us from across the room, and she yells out “How are we doing? Are you guys all set?” My jaw DROPPED. Did she really just yell out at us from across the room?
On my way out, I took a picture of the dinky pathetic little fountain that was right next to our table. I thought it was a perfect metaphor for our experience at this place: I guess it’s supposed to be a high class fountain for a high-class restaurant, but it just ends up being a low-class dinky place completely lacking the class worthy of customers with any level of self respect. I felt like I was at any old town diner as opposed to a membership country club. Actually, I have been treated better at town diners than I did here.
The food was pretty good. If you can let go of customer service, then you’ll have a great meal.
I had a nice weekend. In my opinion, weekends are best enjoyed when you do *something* on Friday other than work and TV: it makes Saturday feel like a Sunday, and boom, you got yourself a nice extra day off. It’s all psychological.
Friday felt like a Saturday because so many exciting things happened in my head. I started my new regimen of eating at home and trying to spend as little money as possible. Here’s the train of thought:
We bought our house 5 months ago, and the “big ticket expenses” have not stopped since then! Between electricians, inspectors, tree cutters, a lawn mower, dinning room table and chairs restoration, new sectional sofa, new floors, new carpet, new ventilation system for the bathrooms, and air duct system cleaners (catch my breath), our total expenses for the past few months were WAY higher than before, and there is still no sign of our tax rebate for new home buyers (they sent the check to the wrong address and it will be several more weeks before we get it). Anyways, our budget is shot! My husband and I vowed not to make any large purchases for a while starting December.
So that’s one reason to save (to get out of the hole we carved ourselved into).
The second reason to save is that, if I’m going to get a paycut when I change careers, we are going to need to start getting used to living on less. Starting in January, my husband and I will basically take half of my salary and put it somewhere where we can’t spend it (Savings? Mortgage?), and see how we would do if my salary suffered a 50% cut (strive or struggle?). I want this to succeed so my hubby can be more comfortable with the career change, so I have vowed to save as much as possible! No more eating out if I can help it, and if I go out, watch the amount and keep it under $10.
Nobody said it would be easy, but you should know that this is not the first time I have put myself through similar restrictions with much success. When I lived in Connecticut, I went on the Atkins diet for a month and I was very disciplined at buying the groceries, making the food at home and even weighing my food so I could keep track of it all on Nutrawatch.com. I managed to lose around 2 pounds per week, and I stuck to it as if my life depended on it. Also, I watched my budget so carefully, that I was a master at having lunch out with coworkers on just $3 soups. I never felt deprived because (1) I was extremely committed, and (2) I knew chocolate chip cookies and yummy chips and salsa were always going to be there for me, so it would be OK if I didn’t have them for a while out of my own choice. The best rule to remember was: cravings last about 15 minutes. If you want to eat something outside of regular meals (not because you’re hungry, but because you’re just bored), just distract yourself for 15 more minutes, and you will have forgotten all about it. Just don’t set an alarm clock for 15 min, the alarm will actually remind you of the craving 🙂
Health Disclaimer: The best way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you burn through exercise. Extreme or restrictive diets, such as the Atkins, should not be followed in the long term. Deprivation of nutrients (carbs, in that case) is not good for your body.
The point that I’m trying to make is that I know I can do this while I’m still passionate about it. The question is: how long will it last?
I’ll reveal my results every few weeks. I am keeping track of the savings I have incurred (based on what I believe I would have spent money on before this “program,” such as lunch out or pizza take-out), and keeping track of the new expenses I would have not made if it wasn’t for the program (such as groceries for the week).
I have been going to my husband’s family’s house for Thanksgiving ever since we met. Reason: his mother cooks the absolute most delicious turkey feast you could ever imagine. It is just heaven, the entire production. It’s an event I look forward to every year. Well, in the past year and a half, I have married and acquired a home. This means that the task of hosting Thanksgiving has been passed onto me (I would say “us” … but you know how these things normally go).
So my husband has insisted that I do a “trial-run” turkey, since this is my first time making one, so that Thanksgiving doesn’t turn out to be a disaster worthy of an Everybody Loves Raymond episode.
Well, I’m getting my chance. This weekend I’m having a housewarming (pot-luck style, BYOB) at my house with some friends (er, 30 of them). I beg and pray that they don’t bring me any plants and just bring a lot of food.
Anyways, today I’m going to Hannaford Supermarket to buy the trial-run turkey. My husband’s mother has been advising me through the whole process (after all, I got big shoes to fill), so she recommended Shady Brook, and to stay away from Butterball. Then my husband added that he would prefer if the turkey had no-hormones added (an “organic” turkey, if you will). His mother shut it down fast: “nope, just get Shady Brook.” So that’s what I’m getting.
I’m looking forward to the party, but there is a lot of work to do in advance… I just hope people have a good time and bring delicious yummies to go with the turkey. I’m going to be so busy that day, I hope I enjoy myself. Maybe later I’ll tell you about that time that I planned my ultimate PERFECT birthday party and I ended up so depressed that I swore to never host again. Well, I can’t get away from hosting, so I just hope I enjoy it as much as everyone else.
It is midnight on Friday night. I have had a lovely calm, quiet and relaxing evening. I put my baby down at 6:50pm, and all I’ve done since then is: make my own dinner, play FreeCiv on my baby’s tablet, and watch old episodes of Entourage. At the same time, I’m feeling a bit conflicted. I am on the Atkins diet which has actually been working great for the past 3 weeks. I have lost 5 pounds and I do feel like I am eating healthier than I have in the past 2 years. However, I’m going to tell you what I miss: snacking. I miss going to the fridge or the cupboard and grabbing whatever is there and eating a lot of it.
Before I had children, I was always looking for things to do. Going on diets was a great way to pass the time. Now that baby is here, I have zero time to fill with other things (I know, life is tough). It had been a while since I had set out to apply some discipline to my eating habits, but I think it’s time.
