Late Night

I'm very tired.  Working on an essay.  I had leftovers for lunch, leftovers for dinner, and I just ate some fried food that was good but not good for me.  This is what's getting me by right now.

Candy.  Twizzlers.  Crunch time has reduced me to a junk food consuming robot, and I'm not sure if I'm opposed to it.

Oyster Sauce, side of fried rice

I made bacon fried rice today, which was a staple food of my childhood (and, who are we kidding, the rest of my life, too).  I need to get a little more creative with my photos, though, because I don't think this one was all that flattering.

All that's in there aside from rice is bacon, egg, green onion, oyster sauce, and soy sauce.  I went a little overboard with the oyster sauce, though, so it ended up tasting too much of oyster.  I think that oyster sauce is best used when you know it's there but you can't taste oyster.  It almost overpowered the flavor of the bacon, which is pretty tough to do.  Regardless, it was a satisfying dinner, and it brought back memories of all the other Japanese-Hawaiian stuff my mother makes.

I won't likely forgive myself soon for not bringing back ingredients and tools to make spam musubi (one tool, actually, to help expedite forming and wrapping the musubis).  Also, I'd kill for some Zippy's chili.

Member Benefits

I went to the Cal Cooking Club's first meeting of the semester because, as you all may know, I have an interest in food and cooking.  They invited the owners of Masse's Pastries to give a live demo, and they really dazzled with a relatively simple black currant mousse cake.

The mousse was just so thoroughly good.  It was really creamy because it was made with meringue, and it had gelatin in it, so the texture was almost spongy.  The glaze on top really set off the flavor since it tasted like almost straight currant.  Also, the cake was really moist.  If the cake hadn't been good, the whole thing would've just been average, but everything was as high quality as possible.  In addition, the macaron provided some nice texture, and unlike most I've ever had before, this one didn't overdo it with the almond extract.  The prospect of more events--and food--like this got me to join the club without a second thought.

As an unfortunate side note, I ate out for lunch today.  Since I was super busy covering essentially two big, opposing student demonstrations, I needed something quick to eat, so I got Subway.  It reminded me of the old days when I was editor in chief and would have fast food twice a day some days since it was just so hectic.  Journalists can so easily fall into this pitfall of unhealthiness (although, again, I had a sandwich, not something fried), and I need to be careful to have something homemade on hand when I'm going to be out in the field.

Breakfast for Breakfast

So my trip back to Berkeley went smoothly, but I was still messed up today since the flight was so early in the morning.  When I dragged my body into my building, I immediately sought out food.  What did I have?  Eggs, bacon, and tortillas.  A plan instantly formed in my head.

Okay, so the photo is pretty much everything exactly as I described it.  I hadn't put it all together yet, but I thought it looked so nice as-is.  I fried the bacon then cooked the eggs in the bacon fat, which explains the brown scorch-looking bit on the eggs.  Since my frying pan was in use, I heated the tortillas in the microwave, which was perfectly fine for my purposes.  I threw it all together with some salsa, and it was a really satisfying breakfast.  The only thing that could have made it better would have been some black beans, but that would've made the whole thing a bit of a chore.  This was quick, easy, and delicious.

Apologies

I'm really sorry, but today's the first time in three weeks that I forgot to take a picture of at least one thing I ate today.  Here, have a photo of a brontosaurus eating!

 

The photo comes from the Disneyland Railroad.  Between Tomorrowland and Main Street stations, guests travel through the Grand Canyon and the primeval world, one of my favorite things to see in the park.  It's really short and campy, but it reminds me of when I was a kid and loved seeing relatively life-like dinosaurs.

To be fair, my mind was other places.  I participated in MouseAdventure, a pseudo-scavenger hunt at Disneyland.  It was a grueling five hours of finding things and solving puzzles, so all I ate during the day was peanut butter crackers, Fruit by the Foot, and string cheese.  Also, I couldn't have taken a picture had I wanted to since cell phone use was banned.

For dinner, I had J&S, essentially the king of unhealthful Mexican food.  I had two tacos, two tacquitos, rice, and beans, and I regret none of it.  Vacation rules, right? 

Home = Eating Out

I ate out twice today, and even though it's a little sad for me to say so, it made me so happy.  Being home hardly equals eating out all the time, but I had some specific foods I wanted today:  El Pollo Loco and In-N-Out.

This isn't a great picture of what I had from El Pollo Loco.  It's a taco al carbon (chicken, cilantro, and onion with a little lemon juice squeezed on top), but I also had a Caeser bowl (chunks of deliciously marinated white meat, Mexican rice, lettuce, pico de gallo, and cilantro caeser dressing).  Honestly, I don't care if EPL is fast food.  I've rarely had chicken with as much flavor as theirs, and they don't have to stoop to deep frying everything to draw customers in.  This was the lunch I was looking forward to all throughout my flight, but my stomach quickly moved on to its next desire once I finished lunch.

In-N-Out was the main attraction.  I hadn't eaten a full-sized hamburger in a month, and I'm the kind of guy who likes a good burger.  I went to the right place for that:  perfectly medium patties, melty cheese, grilled onions, crisp lettuce, and special sauce on a toasted bun.  Add fresh-cut, almost fried-to-order fries and I was in heaven.  I realize that Northern California is not devoid of In-N-Out, but I've really got no good way to get to any of them.  Going home was the easiest way to get my fix.

I'll probably eat out once more tomorrow.  I think I'll have to consider this time vacation time, during which you can eat whatever you want guilt-free.  At least most of it isn't coming out of my wallet.  It's good to be home!

A match made in heaven?

I think chicken and broccoli go together extremely well.  Like peas and carrots well.  Maybe even peanut butter and jelly well.  I don't know what it is, but when I make pasta with anything other than tomato sauce, I enjoy it more with chicken and broccoli in it.

Since I'm going back to Los Angeles this weekend, I needed to clear out the fridge, and my friend, Amanda, and I were quite hungry come dinner time.  I had a lot of leftover spaghetti from when I ate it with the chicken alfredo sauce, so I decided to use it to make this quick and easy pasta dish.  I'm also really glad that I have frozen chicken breast on hand at virtually all times because I just whipped two out, defrosted, and got them right into the pot to cook.  After the chicken was browned a bit, I threw in the broccoli and some chopped garlic.  Once they were done (well, the broccoli was slightly under, but who's counting?), I threw in like a whole stick of margarine, melted it, threw in the pasta, then poured a copious amount of parmesan cheese and a bit of garlic salt on top.  The whole thing came together pretty nicely, and the fresh garlic made a huge difference compared to when I normally make noodles this way with just garlic salt.

I'm going to eat out over the weekend.  A lot.  In-N-Out, El Pollo Loco, maybe Mama's Lu if I'm lucky.

Birthday Curry

My roommate, Kurt, had his birthday today, and I wanted to do a little something special for him.  Unfortunately, he already had dinner plans, so the pressure was on for me to cook him a satisfying lunch between the end of my class at 11 a.m. and the start of his class at 2 p.m.  As it turned out, three hours was plenty.

I made Japanese curry.  He had professed his love for it earlier and even brought some for me to cook back when he went home.  I chose the most appropriate moment to make it.  It's got chicken breast, potatoes, carrots, and onions swimming in the not-too-spicy curry (it was actually a mix between hot and mild Vermont Curry, half a serving of each combined).  As per usual, it's served on top of white rice.  The potatoes got a little mushy, but overall, it was almost as good as my mom made back at home.

The lunch wasn't a surprise for Kurt since I had to make sure he'd be free and actually wanted to eat curry, but I think it was a success since he had a good meal inside of him before his midterm this afternoon.  Plus, it fed a bunch of people, and I've still got plenty leftover for lunch tomorrow.  To call it sustainable living would be an incorrect use of the term, but I know that I'll be sustained well enough to go on with the daily grind.

P.S.  I kind of ate out today.  I bought a Vietnamese sandwich at a club fundraiser because my friend, Gaby, is a member.  Since it was essentially a donation, though, I'm not going to count it, and you can't make me!  It was a really good sandwich (fresh French roll, tasty grilled pork, sweet and sour pickled veggies, not too much jalapeno and mayonnaise, and cilantro to cut through the flavors), which also helps.

Special Post: Thanks!

So I've had a lot of blogs before, and even though I never kept track of page views, I'm pretty sure none of them ever got 500 or more.  I know for sure that even if they did, it was over a long duration of time, much longer than the almost three weeks I've had this blog.  I don't want to detract from what I posted like 10 minutes ago or my one-post-per-day pace, but I wanted to say thank you to everyone reading by posting a picture of what I'm eating at the precise moment I'm writing this.  It means a lot to me that you care about what I'm eating.

Chili Mac? Sounds good.

My family has always referred to the the casserole I made tonight as the red mac and cheese.  The one I made last week, the more traditional macaroni and cheese, was known as the white one because of its creamy cheese sauce.  My floormate, Brianna, had a more accurate name for it:  chili mac.

The macaroni is mixed with, essentially, chili ingredients:  ground beef, corn, diced onion and green bell pepper, garlic, tomato sauce, and chili powder.  The mixture was put into a 9 by 13 pan and baked with about a pound of cheddar cheese on top.  It could have been a little saucier, but it didn't suffer too much.  This is one of my favorite things to eat because I've eaten it all my life. My grandma made it, my dad makes it, and now I make it.  This may sound weird, but I feel the history behind this dish when I make it even though it's not a really long history, and it's not even an Asian history.  I don't know where my grandma came upon her recipe for this casserole, but I'm sure that I'm never going to stop making it.

Lazy Pasta

When I feel lazy, I make pasta, plain and simple.  All I do is doctor jarred sauce to include meat and/or veggies and boil pasta.  To be fair, I went a little further tonight by sauteing some zucchini, but it was still easy and done within half an hour.

In retrospect, I should have tossed the pasta before taking the picture.  It looks like goo on noodles, much like my goo on rice photo.  In any case, I just seasoned the chicken with garlic salt and pepper, cooked it in a bit of vegetable oil, and poured the sauce on top to heat it up.  Nothing to it.  The zucchini was much of the same, just like I described last time.  Salt and pepper, cooked in olive oil.  I had realized this before, but this time I really noticed the natural sweetness that zucchini has.  I'm maybe even more amazed that salt can help accentuate sweetness, but that's a continuous process of admiration.

I bought a 10 lb. bag of potatoes at Safeway today, so if I don't make meatloaf and mashed potatoes soon, someone knock some sense into me.

Quick and Hawaiian

I was tired for most of today.  I wrote a story for the newspaper, waited in a long line, and read a bunch.  When dinner time came around, I wasn't looking to do very much except eat.  Also, I decided not to eat out, which I think will be good in the long run (though $2 off of Gypsy's already-low prices was pretty appealing).

I made chili rice--Hormel all-meat chili, Hoffy hot dogs, and white rice.  It took no more than half an hour total, and that was because of the rice.  I really just cooked the hot dogs a bit then warmed up the chili.  I really do miss Japanese-Hawaiian food;  I mean, I didn't have it all the time back in LA, but I liked knowing that I could go to Shaka's or Hawaiian Island Barbecue at any given time.  Also, I really need a spam musubi mold (and spam and Yoshida sauce and nori haha).  Anyway, for now, chili rice was good enough.  It's no Zippy's, but it's what I've got.

Pot Luck-y

A few friends of mine decided to have a pot luck and movie night, and I wanted to contribute even though I couldn't really stay for the movie.  I was fortunate to contribute and partake in friends' cooking.

Since two of the diners are vegetarian, I decided to make my standard macaroni and cheese as opposed to my favorite tomato sauce/ground beef version.  I'll probably make that sometime this week to show the contrast.  Actually, this photo doesn't help show the contrast at all since it doesn't show what's underneath the cheese.  Suffice to say that it's macaroni, cheese sauce, and diced onion.  Also pictured are teriyaki sliders made by Amanda (note the fabulous grilled pineapple slices) and a mushroom and onion (forgive me if I missed any ingredients) pizza made by Adity, both delightful and impressive in comparison to my offering.  

I've really enjoyed cooking for the past few weeks, but I'm even happier to eat other people's cooking.  It's a joy for me to see what other people think up and how they make what they make.

A weakness for good sandwiches

is what I have.  I'm not going to say too much in this post because, recently, I've been glorifying my eating out, and I really shouldn't.  I had a lovely sandwich tonight, and I'm not going to say much more about it than that.

It's a grilled chicken sandwich on rosemary focaccia.  I had french fries for the first time in who-knows-how-long.  It was an excellent meal.  It's also going to be the last time I eat out for at least a week.  Wait, Cal scored nine touchdowns today?  Touchdown Monday will mean 27 percent (actually, no one's sure about whether places cap the discount to keep it from getting too high) off food at a bunch of places around here, including Gypsy's?  Monday will be the last time I eat out until at least the Monday after.

Meat and Potatoes

I'm Japanese and Chinese, but I haven't really cooked anything Asian since I've been here.  I've been making a lot of everything else I like:  Italian, Mexican, and American.  Tonight, I got back to what I love--meat and potatoes.

Roast beef, mashed potatoes, and pan-roasted zucchini.  Yeah, it was really good.  The beef was Hormel, already cooked with gravy, but I got it buy one, get one free, so the price wasn't bad at all (normally, those pre-made things are too rich for my blood).  The potatoes were really easy, just seasoned with milk, margarine, garlic salt, and pepper.  Also, I finally showed that I can cook green vegetables!  I was most happy with the zucchini.  I borrowed a friend's olive oil and dressed them just with salt and pepper.  They got some nice caramelization and, except for a few I cut too thin, weren't mushy.  It was a complete, completely-satisfying meal.

The only problem is that my dinner guest, Gaby, and I got hungry later in the evening and ended up splitting a plate of lad na at a place down the street called Thai Noodle.  I attribute this to the insufficient lunch I had, but it was mostly because friends were going.  Peer pressure is the worst thing when you're trying to avoid going out, but I won't worry too much when the company and food are both good.

Freebies and Gypsy's

This is going to sound bad, but I technically ate out three times (!) today.  Allow me to explain.  Munch On Me is a student favorite around these parts because they offer discounted and free food from local eateries.  I was actually on my way back home after a meeting with my mentor, and I ran into Amanda.  Since there was a fire drill going on in our building, she suggested we go out to eat.  The clear choice was to go along, and go I did.  Oddly enough, she planned to go to two of the places that had offered free food on the website.  The first was a mini hero eggplant parm sandwich from Uncle Dougie's.  It was okay.  The next stop, though, was Sumo Grub, which had offered tempura Oreos and Twinkies.

They are as you'd expect them to be:  fried in tempura batter and topped with chocolate syrup and whipped cream.  Suffice to say that I didn't feel great about myself after eating it all.  To give a better idea about this place, they actually offer challenge dishes--giant platters of deep fried foods to be eaten in either 15 or 25 minutes depending on what sort of foods one chooses.  In fact, we had to wait because two people were undertaking challenges when we got there, so the fryers were occupied.  It didn't look good for them when we left, so I'm pretty sure they ended up on the wall of shame.

Since I had had a Costco-sample-size sandwich and a bit of dessert, I was still hungry for dinner when I got back.  Unfortunately, my fellow food lover, Thomas, suggested Gypsy's, of which I've previously spoken praises.  Yet again, I couldn't resist.

I feel like Gypsy's is one of those places that proves that a higher power loves us and wants us to enjoy our time on this earth.  Pictured here is the Godfather's Favorite, which has chicken and pancetta in an eggy alfredo sauce over penne, Caesar salad, and a pink lemonade, all of which I procured for about $8.  Also, note the incredible piece of garlic bread that's four cloves of roasted garlic on French bread, practically the definition of simple yet delicious.  The price is enough to keep me coming back since I always take leftovers back; the incredible flavor and quality is a blessing.  I have enough self-control to keep myself from eating at Gypsy's too often, but I really don't feel guilty about eating out when I eat there.  We'll see if that turns out to be a problem.

Tonight reaffirms what I've known since I first got here:  Berkeley has an almost-unlimited number of restaurants to eat at, some of which are so good that they transcend my ability to capture them with words and photos.

Consolation Cookies

Note:  I made some really good quesadillas tonight, but I forgot to take a picture of them before I devoured them, so the I baked after will have to do.

I thought I was going to have class from 7 to 9 p.m., so I ate instant ramen for dinner.  It was more or less unsatisfying, but I wasn't going to have time to cook a suitable meal.  Well, when I got to where the class was supposed to be, it was empty.  I looked through my email to see if I was in the right place, and as it turned out, the class doesn't start until next week.  My walk to campus is literally two blocks, but it felt longer this time because I had made the trip in vain.  To make myself feel better, I stopped at this little market named Sam's and bought some already-made chocolate chip cookie dough.

Needless to say, they made me forget about my failure to properly digest the information in the email.  Crispy on the edges, soft in the middle, and melty chocolate chips will make you forget almost anything in lieu of the beautiful simplicity in your mouth.  I went the pre-made dough because, quite frankly, I don't want to buy the components to make them from scratch.  I don't plan on baking enough to make it worthwhile to own baking powder.  I didn't buy break and bake, though.  I bought a tub of dough because it cost nearly as much as the break and bake and included twice the dough.  In retrospect, I really don't need cookies anyway, but the fact that I made a sound purchase makes me feel better about the whole thing.

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast foods are perfectly suitable for dinner.  Anyone who disagrees can read another post because that's what I had tonight.

This was one heck of a breakfast.  The heart of the meal was my friend Amanda's chocolate chip and banana pancakes.  I made potato pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon to round everything out.  I had sour cream for the potatoes and pedestrian but affordable Pace salsa for the eggs.  When I bought it, the bacon looked really fatty (it was on sale, so I didn't care how fatty it was), but it turned out to be really meaty and salty and smoky and crunchy and delicious.  The next time I do breakfast, I want to try this french toast recipe I got from "America's Test Kitchen," an excellent cooking show on PBS, but my opinion could probably be swain by pancakes as good as these.

We didn't originally plan to feed many, but five or six people ended up eating since we made enough.  People gravitate to good food, especially in a place where home cooking isn't easy to get.  Not to take away from the restaurants in the area, though, since many of them do food the right way.  I just like to eat food that I know was made with a little TLC.

I felt especially good about the potato pancakes because I used yet another of my grandmother's recipes.  She taught me well, and I want to keep proving it with the food I make.

Melty, Crunchy, Rich, Salty, Sweet, Sour

I love sandwiches.  That isn't new information to most people, and for good reason.  I've eaten my fair share of sandwiches while here, but for some inexplicable reason, one kind of sandwich eluded me:  grilled cheese.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches I've ever made for myself.  It's got sharp cheddar, Buddig oven-roasted turkey, and a bit of mustard inside of extra sourdough bread.  The keys, though, are the thick slices of sharp cheddar that came from this 3 lb. block that I've been whittling my way through.  Instead of buying already sliced cheese like I used to, I paid far less for much more and just slice or shred it as need arises.  Also, I love sharp cheddar because the flavor doesn't just mix in with other stuff; it takes control and lets you know it's there having a party in your mouth.  

While I didn't put too much mustard inside, it also played a vital role.  Since I used margarine, the sandwich was by nature going to taste rich.  The cheese added to that richness while adding salt.  The turkey was pretty mild, even sweet, as Buddig tends to be.  Everything would have given in to the richness without the sour bite of the mustard.  It kept the sandwich balanced because it prevented the turkey from being dominated.  If I liked tomato and had a really good one, I'd have put slices in the middle a la The Corner Bakery.  But I don't, so I didn't.

I ate this sandwich with a can of Progresso chicken noodle soup, not pictured because I forgot to photograph my food before I started to eat.  In fact, that picture was taken at the end of my meal, and it was a perfect way to memorialize a sandwich I can only hope to be able to replicate.

Post-hike, post-haste

I went on a hike to The Big C with a bunch of people from my building this evening, and while it was lovely, it also took place right in the middle of dinner time.  We got back around 8 p.m., and I felt a pressing need to make something as quick as possible.  Fortunately, I went to Safeway earlier and had plenty to work with.

Yes, it looks like goo over rice, but it was really good.  This is chicken breast, bell pepper, and onion in cream of mushroom with roasted garlic soup, all on top of steamed white rice.  I was really pleased with how it turned out because it was filling and took half an hour max to make.  I might have put some potatoes in if I had more time to cook it, but this was plenty for a quick dinner after a hike.

Someone else's sauce

Today's dinner was a bit of an indirect collaboration.  Yesterday, my friend Eddie made some meat sauce for pasta.  His intention was to make enough to last for the few days of the week his meal plan doesn't cover him, and he was kind enough to share some with me.  I had a bunch of leftover spaghetti from yesterday, so it worked out really well.

Again, for lack of ingredients, my sauce yesterday was pretty lackluster.  Eddie's, on the other hand, was chock full of good stuff:  ground beef, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, red bell pepper, and garlic mixed into Trader Joe's tomato sauce.  I ate it with my favorite extra sourdough toast, and it was thoroughly enjoyable.  The most important thing I realized is that I really want to have ground beef and chicken breast on hand at all time, if not fresh, then frozen.  Without my staple proteins, my hands are somewhat tied.  

In a moment of weakness, I went out later for a calzone with another friend.  I didn't eat all of it since I had already eaten, but it was good to get out, and it'd make even more sense if you've had food from Gypsy's.

Slapdash Italian

Another potential title for this post is "This is what happens when I strictly use what I've got on hand."  Without much ado, let me show you tonight's dinner:

This is spaghetti with mushroom marinara (Ragu with fresh button mushrooms and onion added), baked chicken breast that was marinated in Italian dressing, and fresh corn on the cob.  My chief complaint against this dinner I cooked is that it's not entirely cohesive.  Maybe it would have been if I had had some mozzarella cheese to melt on top of the chicken, or maybe some pan-roasted zucchini on the side could have held it all together.  I just didn't have the right stuff.  I'm planning on going to the market with a friend on Sunday, so I told myself I'd make do with what I had until then.  

I couldn't save the corn for any longer; I felt compelled to buy it at 6 ears for $1, but I never had anything to make with it, so it languished in the fridge for over a week.  It's a shame we couldn't have had it when it was younger since it was super sweet.  The chicken was easy since it was just marinade, season, and bake, but it came out kind of dry.  I'll have to rethink how I bake it.  The spaghetti was good, but I needed to put more mushrooms in the sauce.  I underestimated both how much the mushrooms would cook down and how much sauce was in two jars (I cooked for seven this time).  Dinner was still enjoyable, but I know I could have done better in many respects.  Maybe I set the bar too high with the tacos...

The biggest takeaway for me from this post is that I'm my own worst critic.  I love food, and when I don't use it to its fullest capacity, I become... concerned, let's say.  Oh well.  Tomorrow's another day.  By the way, sorry for posting so late at night.  I'm dipping into tomorrow, and that defies my intention to post once a day.  I'll have to make sure to blog instead of chatting about Powerline's "Eye to Eye."

Oh dear, ate out again

This time, I planned on breaking my rule.  Sometime last week, someone in my building organized a group outing to The Cheese Board Collective, an amazing restaurant that serves one type of gourmet vegetarian pizza a day as well as one salad and assorted baked goods.  I was told by a friend that this was one of the places I had to try in Berkeley, so I was completely resigned to the fact that I'd eat there sometime, and it just happened to be tonight.

These two beautiful slices have mozzarella, blue cheese, and figs, and on top there's some fresh arugula topped with a lemon vinaigrette.   I'm not really one to hand out superlative descriptions, but this pizza was divine.  The cheeses worked together beautifully, and even though I normally am not a big fan of blue cheese, it worked in perfect harmony with everything else on the pizza.  The figs added sweetness, but the real kicker was the arugula with the lemon vinaigrette--the earthy greens and the tart yet light dressing sharpened the contrast between salty and sweet already present.  This, not Subway, is food worth eating out for.

Okay, so I ate out

but I forgot to take a picture.  So instead, I'm going to show I do when I eat out.

I've been keeping a tally of how often I eat out on my whiteboard, and I feel I've been pretty good so far.  In the two weeks plus that I've been here, I ate out five times:  two Subway sandwiches, one sandwich from a cute little deli named Sam's, one burrito from Gordo's that I actually got for free, and one amazing pasta lunch at Gypsy's.  So the tally doesn't represent the number of whole days I've eaten out; they're individual meals.  I put a Subway napkin up there with a magnet because I had Subway tonight.  My excuse this time is that I had too much to do to make myself anything:  I went to some office hours at 10 a.m., went to a volunteer fair at 11 a.m., read, had class from 2-3 p.m., napped after that, went to another class from 6-7 p.m., and I had my writing test for The Daily Californian at 8:30 p.m.  Somewhere in between there, I made the executive decision to just bite the bullet and get something quick and relatively inexpensive.

Something to note is that most of the times I ate out were because of peer pressure.  I mean, I didn't go back and forth about it, but friends were eating out, and I decided to go along.  Food is better when it's shared with good company, so I don't feel so bad about those instances.  The other times are still moments of weakness.

One thing that I realized as a result of this experience is that, in my free time, I need to make some staple foods to keep leftover in the fridge or freezer to be heated up quickly and eaten, maybe some white rice, plain spaghetti, teriyaki chicken, etc.  We'll see if that happens . . .

P.S.  This post is getting the label "ATE OUT."  I intend to use it any time I eat out, even if I don't post the photo of the food, and I'll probably add a paragraph about where I went and what I ate.

It's grrrrrrrape (not soda)!

The title's a joke from The Office.  Michael's trying to get buddy-buddy with Jim, and he sees Jim buying a grape soda.  His opening to a conversation is to evoke Tony the Tiger; suffice to say, Jim isn't impressed, though he does kind of humor him.  Anyway, this post really has nothing to do with soda or The Office, so I'll stop dilly-dallying.

I've been eating fruit on a daily basis, which is a far cry from when I'd only partake when it was washed and presented to me by someone else.  I bought a big bag of grapes last Thursday, and I've enjoyed them and some nectarines I got for 99 cents a pound ever since.  It's funny to me that, while on my own, I seek out fresh fruit as opposed to the canned or serving size fruit cocktail or peaches my mom or grandma used to readily offer.  In fact, while I was at the market, I toyed with the idea of buying a can or two of peaches or pineapple chunks.  At that moment, I decided against it because I thought the cans would be too heavy to bring back (I already had like 60 pounds of groceries to carry three blocks from the bus stop).  I'd like to think that I did myself a favor not going for anything swimming in delicious, delicious high fructose corn syrup, but I was really just lucky that I was unable to pack more weight onto my person.

I think I'm going to start labeling my posts whenever my blue bowl appears in a photo.  I was given that bowl in the second or third grade.  My sister and I attended Options, which provided day care on our elementary school site, every morning before school started since Mom had to be at work early, and this was a Christmas gift.  It has my name written on it (as evidenced in yesterday's photo), and it was previously filled with candy and granola bars and stuff like that.  It's survived something like 18 years, and I think that makes it worthy of a label.

Daily serving

After high school, I basically stopped eating breakfast.  This practice (or lack thereof) began as a result of my night-owl tendencies.  As soon as I woke up, it was much closer to lunch than breakfast.  Things have since changed for me.  Now, I'm trying to keep a regular sleeping schedule because of my classes, and I'm actually awake for three meals a day.

My breakfast of choice so far has been cereal, in part by choice and in part because I was given five boxes of it.  My grandma gave me two boxes of Raisin Bran, and my girlfriend's sister gave me two boxes of Rice Krispies and a box of Frosted Flakes.  Also, while most of the markets in walking distance are on the pricey side, milk is available at a reasonable price.

So what happens is that, since there's a fridge in my room, every morning I pull out my cereal bowl and spoon (which I of course take to the kitchen after I'm done to clean), pour some milk, and enjoy the benefits of not really getting my day started until lunch.

Taco Party!

So this first post isn't exactly current.  I didn't actually photograph anything I ate today because I had the idea for this blog after I ate (plus, no one would have been impressed with my leftovers for lunch or the canned soup and turkey sandwich I had for dinner).

What we have here is yesterday's taco party.  I fried approximately 28 tacos--whose ground beef, bell pepper, and onion filling was a collaboration between friends of mine--and made Spanish rice and black beans (Bush's, but they were jazzed up with some bell pepper and onion as well).  The tacos were accompanied by shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and Pace Picante Sauce because I couldn't be bothered to make salsa.  This fed eight or nine people--it was hard to keep track of exactly how many because the kitchen isn't exactly big--and it was a lot of fun since I hadn't cooked for a group this big before.