Imagine That.

This is about to be one mother of a blog omnibus, I think I got swept up by the impending holiday weekend and mentally checked out. Luckily I remembered, for the most part, to keep taking pictures. But basically this is what happens to all my food journals. Three solid days of keeping up with it and then...ehhh I think I'll just eat with reckless abandon! Well maybe not that dramatic but still, I'm an awful food journaler (journalist?)! Enough self depracation, lets get this omnibus gassed up. 

Friday, for the second day in a row the break room is out of coffee. This is disappointing, upsetting, but mainly dangerous. That means there are about two hundred people, on the Friday before a long weekend, who haven't been fueled up. Bring on the productivity! I caved and walked over to the cafeteria to buy a cup, its just too hard not to have coffee at the beginning of a work day. Sometimes in this situation I get a fountain soda (!) but I'm forward thinking, with a holiday weekend right on my doorstep (and all the eating that implies) I'll make the smart decision here. This morning I have mixed feelings about the cafeteria. They overcharged me like woah for coffee for our department yesterday morning. But when I got there they were having an amazing special! $2.99 for a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwhich - egg, bacon, cheese (no tengo), english muffin. In case you can't picture it in your mind here's a picture for your eyes:

That's right, I ordered it. You can't turn away from that kind of deal. It was delicious. Although, the guy making it has this paint brush that he just slathers oil onto things with. I don't care for that. Instead of toasting the english muffin he just 'paints' it and throws it on the hot griddle. I don't liiiike that at all. So I told him not to put oil on my muffin. It turns that a hot griddle does nothing to a naked english muffin. Even an uncooked naked muffin is better than an oil painted one though. And for you, any of this is better than seeing a picture of toast again.

Lunch was very exciting, more excitement after that breakfast of culinary fireworks? Yes. We went out to lunch for my coworker's going away celebration and I enjoyed an Arnold Palmer and some very tasty pizza:

Because tonight...is the night, when two become one.

 Gah, who doesn't love Arnold Palmers? And the Spice Girls. And pizza.

 

We ordered the vegetarian pizza, but hold the mushrooms and kick us some pepperoni please. Why do vegetarians think that mushrooms are the same as meat? I'm not buying it. Meat is delicious. Mushrooms taste like dirt. I've had a pretty turbulent history with mushrooms, I consider them to be one of my food nemesis (yes I have many, I'm looking at you cilantro). Have you ever ordered a Hawaiian pizza? Perhaps the most glorious of all the pizzas in my estimation. Well, imagine you are settling in to enjoy a delicious bite and what do you unearth? A mushroom! Gag. In Belgium all Hawaiian pizzas are served with mushrooms and it doesn't matter if you order it without, there is always one waiting...somewhere. Bottom line, mushrooms are gross and they aren't meat, vegetarians. 

For dinner Nick and I went out for sushi. It was so delicious I forgot to take pictures until the last little piece. But I photographed that for you.

Imagine that piece but multiplied, and also with different fish, more rice, and kind of rolled up. Then you will be imagining what else we had. Also imagine that piece but hold the fish and the rice, add some vegetables and then tempura those veggies. Then you are imagining our appetizer. Also we drank sake. Again, I was too excited about that to take a picture until it was finished:

If you notice the sushi in the background you'll see that I did all of my remembering at the same time...Remember those cute little cups because...

They came home with us! We told them about this hot hula girl who was just their size and promised more delicious sake and they were in. Yes, we took the party home with us. Then some candy showed up!

That hula girl really gets around. Candy is what I turn to when its too late for all the caffeine that comes with a fountain soda. And its just. so. good. Those are pink dracula teeth, they taste just like normal dracula teeth, and sour patch watermelons. I'm not sure why but pretty soon after eating all that I fell deeply asleep.

On Saturday I started things off right with some cereal.

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First Breakfast.

First breakfast was so good. I have been eating Coco Krispies since at least fifth grade and I see no reason to switch things up. I like my milk to cereal ratio to be about 7:3. That means I go through milk really fast but a box of cereal lasts forever. Then Nick got up and decided to make breakfast. We had leftover tri tip from the other night and mashed potatoes and I wasn't sad to see them again.

Now don't judge it from the picture, second breakfast was delicious. I kept saying breakfast when I was talking to Nick but in my head I was making the mental correction, "second breakfast". Kind of like the correction I make when I say the word epitome..."epitome", with the emphasis on the O, not the E, epitOme. Also, I had a Tic Tac.

I got a craving in Target. Incidentally, a pack of Tic Tac's costs $1.09. Doesn't that seem a little pricey? I was ready to pay and had to dig out an extra $0.84...Well worth the cost though, those things pack a little memory in each orange capsule. And orange are the only flavor worth buying. I said it when I was 10, I'm saying it now that I'm 25. 

 

For lunch we were out running errands and had to go to Costco. A hotdog and fountain soda (!) for $1.50 is the best deal in town. Writing down everything I eat is scary when I see that I have had three hot dogs in one week. When did I become that person?

Mmmmm fountain soda. I also had a churro.

I became that person the year that I worked the concession stand at USD. Actually, that's probably when I became a hot dog person too. So far today my fare has been on the not side of healthy but I had those tempura fried veggies last night so...I'm feeling fine. Also dinner was about to get all healthy up in here!

In this case a picture is worth zero words. I forgot to photograph dinner. 

I also missed the wine.

AND I'm expecting you to believe it was healthy! Honestly though, why would you doubt me? Nick cooked and he made swordfish (the steak of fish!), roasted garlic potatoes, and asparagus. I consider myself the most healthy when I eat asparagus. Its one of those vegetables that I wouldn't touch ever when I was little so I feel SO grown up when I eat it now. Grown up and healthy. And maybe I just know a bunch of childish adults but I haven't eaten asparagus around anyone recently who hasn't pointed out what will happen...later. Dessert was amazing.

 

Pocky are sold in the Asian foods aisle at Ralphs and I used to eat them growing up and they are still delicious! Pretzel sticks dipped in dark chocolate? Yes please. Part of writing down everything that I'm eating is so that I notice where the extra calories are jumping in. I think I just had an epiphany. What's this picture of a loaf of bread doing in my phone?

Oh yeah, I ate bread before dinner! Jalepeno cheddar bread. I cut enough for Nick and I to share, you know, because I'm nice. But he doesn't really eat or like bread so I had his portion too. THEN I had the very healthy dinner.

On Sunday morning I decided to surprise my man with cinnamon rolls. I read somewhere recently that men quite like the smell of cinnamon rolls baking. As in, it puts them in a good...mood. I'm not saying that I was trying to get Nick in a good...mood that morning, but I was definitely testing the theory. Well my surprise for Nick turned into Nick making the cinnamon rolls while I took Gibbs for his morning walk but still, I iced them when they were ready and that's probably the most important part of cinnamon rolls. They were epic.

 

Nick felt the need for potatoes, I seconded that need, so he made potato hash!

 

Potatoes put me in a good...mood. Also its the weekend, so I'm getting a little fancy with my coffee:

iced

For lunch we went to a BBQ and grazed on bits and pieces all afternoon. I didn't take any pictures because they were Nick's friends and I was meeting them for the first time. I didn't want my reviews to read: Sweet girl but did you notice how she took pictures of everything she ate? Weird...So you'll have to imagine, sort of the theme of this weekend for you. We shared several snack size plates of Doritos, some tortilla chips with salsa and guacamole (guacamOle), 3 chocolate chip cookies, a dab of potato salad, and a slice of lemon cake. They didn't fire up the grill until around 6 but by then we had to get going. A note on the salsa and guacamole: The salsa was homemade and looked so good, but giant sized pieces of cilantro were tooling around in there so I kept a wide berth. Usually I also steer clear of guacamole. I don't like it. I have no reason. I've only tried it once or twice and never really enough to form an opinion but I just don't think I like it so I really don't eat it. Well, this time I had some on a chip, it wasn't bad.

For dinner we toyed with the idea of fajitas but ended up ordering pizza from Papa Johns. We had a coupon card for a free large pizza but somehow I still spent $13. I think it was because I ordered two extra toppings and cheesy bread.

The cheesy bread from Papa Johns is so good. The pizza for me is really an after thought. Of course I like to dip the cheesy bread into pizza sauce, which Rae pointed out is just deconstructed pizza. This girl misses nothing when it comes to construction! Maybe it is just deconstructed pizza but I like it that way. Also, red wine.

This morning I was feeling very patriotic so I cooked Nick a big pancake breakfast. I don't want to toot my own horn but it was pretty epic. It definitely lived up to the day. Pancakes, apple topping (with brandy...and more cinnamon) and candied walnuts. Also, the best nectarines I've had all summer.

Here's a close up of the sum of all the parts:

Breakfast was amazing. Lunch I skipped because around lunch time Rae and I decided to take Gibbs for a walk. During the walk we dropped in on Tim, Talisha, and their new baby Wyatt. Although while we were there I ate leftover McDonald french fries that they weren't finishing. So I guess lunch was fries. It was definitely mindless eating so no picture. After visiting we came back and I sat down to do some serious food journaling (journalism?). I felt pretty good about skipping lunch, the mindless fries hadn't registered yet, so when Nick offered me some sake I thought, why not? It might get the creative juices flowing.

Also, who can say no to that little cup? So cute. Still feeling good about skipping lunch I decided to have a little bread before dinner. Dinner started with salad, that's right, keeping it healthy as usual.

That salad dressing from Henry's in the background is delicious. If you have a Henry's near you go out and buy some immediately. I usually like to make my own dressing but this blows mine right out of the water. I left it in the background of the entree shot because dressing like that deserves lots of camera time. I mean, if Cindy Crawford is at your picnic, put her in the pictures. Entree was a ribeye steak, garlic roast potatoes, and asparagus (so grown up) with some red wine. And Nick cooked it just how I like it:

Try not to drool all over my blog please. In case you are getting concerned, I didn't eat the whole piece of meat, part of it was gristle.

I think that about wraps up my omnibus. I ate some Pocky for dessert. It was so good and later maybe I will have a Tic Tac, it depends how nostalgic I am feeling. Here's a preemptive second dinner picture:

 

Nick just saw second dinner, opened his mouth like a baby bird and I popped two Tic Tac's right in there, imagine that!

BLT's in Narnia

I'm sorry to say breakfast was jam on toast again. What can I say, I bore myself. If I could ever get into the swing of things then you would be seeing pictures of eggs on toast WITH canadian bacon (ay), doosn't that sound delicious? Yeah...to me too.

Look at the giant first bite that I took! If you are a stranger reading this blog I hope that you think I am Julia Roberts writing a blog under a fake name. Wait, I just looked at that bite again, totally not big enough to be Julia. And now that I'm re-examining the picture the lighting is awful. It doesn't help that I slightly burned the toast either. Its like looking at toast through the eyes of Edgar Allen Poe. I have to say, I don't hate burned toast (burnt toast?). The only thing I mind about it is that I worry about it giving me cancer. I definitely read that somewhere. EVERY time I eat burnt toast I worry about that, and that's a lot of worrying. I mean, still not enough to make me put down the toast, research the matter and come down definitively on either side of the issue, but then again, there isn't much that would motivate me to do research. I will read fashion blogs all day long though. 

Oh lunch was so much better! Its only Thursday but I still feel confident in saying this will take best lunch of the week this week. I went to Lil Peppers Deli which is one of those hidden lunch places that relies solely on the patronage of the businesses around it. I mean, there is no signage whatsoever. I probably couldn't find it on my own as I've only ever ridden in somebody's car to get there. Its like the Narnia of sandwich shops, you can really only find it by accident. And what a happy accident it is! Plus, a free cookie with anything you buy. I had a BLT (more toasted wheat bread, NOT burnt so I didn't think about cancer) a very wee side salad, half a bag of jalapeno chips, a fountain soda (weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!) and A COOKIE (that I did not order but was just given, I know I already made that point but can a point about a deli that gives away free cookies be made enough? I don't think so.) 

Today at Sophie's I had another hotdog and lo, it was delicious. I followed it up with a fruit salad. I've been feeling vaguely guilty about the lack of vegetables in this blog so far. I didn't have any on hand so I figured, I'll make the fruit into a salad, and voila, problem solved. Also it meant that I could mask another banUGHna with the taste of delicious strawberries. That fruit salad was working overtime!

After nannying I was facing some tough choices, what to have for second dinner? I am at home so there is actual salad in the fridge that I could eat to add some veggies to this mix, but I don't want to over do it on the salad front, I mean...I just had salad at first dinner. Really I had only one other choice:

Second dinner was better than first dinner. I'm not sure what's going on with second dinner photography but ANOTHER dog has snuck into the background of the shot. I will reiterate, she is scenery not savory. I better go, all this blogging is making me tipsy! No...second dinner is making me tipsy.

A Heap o' Tots

I doubt that in the whole history of food blogs there has ever been one about food as ordinary as mine is. As I sit at my desk photographing toast it occurs to me, you might not be interested in my toast…tough toasties reader, I’m not going to jazz up my diet just for your reading pleasure. 

So that was breakfast...dry as toast you might say...Today I am researching cupcakes for a project at work. I have to order 600 cupcakes by July 12^th so I’m pricing out all of the options. I just spoke to a lady who quoted me $1.45/cupcake. Ok, this was my first cupcake pricing conversation to I had no scale to measure that on but it seems a little dear…are your cupcakes that rich too? Anyway, I’m ordering 600 so perhaps you could throw me a little discount says I (hopefully). She puts me on hold to check it out and comes back with, “Well, if we just swirl the icing on top instead (instead of what? She never said.) then it would only be $1.40/cupcake.” Thaaaat doesn’t sound like a bulk discount to me. That sounds like you’re going to put less effort into making the cupcakes and then (rightfully so) charge me less. Why don’t you skip the sugar and make them $1.35 each? How about just pouring all the batter into a large can and leaving it in the sun for a while, how much for cupcakes then? Next time I want to know how much it costs for you to do sub par work I will ask you that specifically. By the way, can you even imagine that conversation the other way around?

Me - $1.45 per cupcake? Hmm how about if you just schmear the icing on any which way, how much you would charge me then?

Bakery Lady - ummm…dial tone

Anyway, I’m still researching, we’ll see how it all turns out. The point of talking about this is that its lunch time, and I’ve been looking at pictures of cupcakes for an hour now. All this cake-gazing has made me want to jet down to the cafeteria and pick up whatever my little belly desires. However, the thought of taking a picture of it and then having to write all about it on here stopped me…Sure, it would have been a grubby little food entry with what I had in mind (tater tots!) but the accountability of all this caught up to me so instead I ate this:

Not really inspiring and technically second breakfast material but still, healthier than a heap of tots. Incidentally ‘healthier than a heap of tots’ sounds like a saying, don’t you think? I can hear a southern lady saying it for sure, ‘How’s Billy doing?’ ‘Oh girl, he’s healthier than a heap o’ tots’. I like that. What I don’t like are bananas. I’m not bananas about them. I don’t die for them, Rachel Zoe, I just don’t. But I do know they are good for me so I try to stomach 2-4 per week. Today after my second breakfast of champions I forced one down. Here’s the before and after to prove it. 

With that background in play doesn’t it look like a hurricane came blowing in and destroyed the banana? It pleases me to think of my hunger as a hurricane. A hungircane. Hungircane Anneka – ironically in that scenario the only people affected would be those who had stocked provisions in case of an actual hurricane, I’m hitting those houses first!

Someone just walked by my desk with a big plate of cookies. They looked delicious and I would like one right now. I guess this is where writing down everything you eat comes into play in helping a diet. Thinking about having to add that cookie to the blog has stopped me. I will not go and get one. I will not photograph it. I will not eat it. I hope this doesn’t turn into a blog about all the things I haven’t been eating…Either way those cookies will be gone in five minutes. Will power is something that doesn't need to be long lasting in an office. Free food invariably creates a feeding frenzy.

Yes, just like that. 

If only we were paid to be here we could all afford to buy our own food…As long as I can resist the urge to jump in the fray I don’t need to worry about those cookies again. Although that siren song is doubly potent, I have to go against the call of a cookie as well as the primal urge to join any mob that passes me by. Those of you who know me well know that I rarely pass that up! See?

Just kidding, that’s not me! But I love this picture, I may get it framed for my house. I read an article a couple of days after this was taken and as it turns out, that guy was comforting his girlfriend who had been trampled to the ground by riot police. Is it just me or does everyone agree that Americans should stop poking fun at Canada, they can obviously retaliate when provoked. So lets all cut it oot eh? Ha! I couldn’t resist, I went all HGTV on you.

Today I’m not nannying so there is no excuse for two dinners. I’m starving though, probably because the raisin bran didn’t make that much of a dent, so its 4:30 and I think I’ll have a yogurt, hopefully that will hold me until dinner.

You might say I have been pining for that yogurt.

Gibbs loves when I eat yogurt...

I’m not sure why though.

Dinner when it rolled around was delicious! Mash potatoes, tri tip, and zucchini. And I think the first real meal to be posted to this blog!

Oh, it looks so healthy and delicious! I would eat it all over again. And I know that I said there is no excuse for two dinner tonight...but I had seconds anyway! And thirds!

Sometimes the food is so good you just shouldn't say no. After dinner Nick and I went over to a friend's house who's birthday it was. They were having pizza and offered us some when we arrived. I'm ashamed to say that after all that tri tip and all those mashed potatoes I was still ready for pizza! But I said no, which is probably a good thing because we all celebrated Tim's birthday with wine and cupcakes, yummmmmm.

The cupcake was a perfect end to the day, considering all the research I was doing earlier. Now I'm full of food, full of dessert - yes that is different than regular food - and full of wine. Time for bed, all this blogging is making me sleepy.