Alas. The first cold of 2011. The game changer.

I made New Year’s Eve dinner of 40 clove garlic chicken to feed James and Aurora and her sister Lee.  I took pictures of everything as it would be my first post for HmmFoodGood for 2011 according to Goal #5.  We sipped some wine and hung out until 11:30 before Brandon and I shambled home before the drunks got back out on the road.  We kissed at midnight and promptly crawled into bed.  So, no. I wasn’t out at a raging party.

The next morning, we were summoned back for Aurora’s famous crepe breakfast.  We came home to a few hours of television followed by a nap.

You know it was never good when you woke yourself up choking on your own phlegm.

What the f…?

Where the heck does THIS come from?  I was not even close to sick these past few days.  No signs of it. No scratchy throat. No itchy inner ears. Nada!

Here I was, stuffy, phlegmy and overall miserable after the nap.  And it went downhill from there.

Sunday was all coughs and fever so I wasn’t going to play the piano.  There went Goal #2.

Monday was all fever as the massive stuffy nose/head replaced the cough. My hair needed a wash but I wasn’t about to work out.  There went Goal #7.  I did, however, not watch TV and instead read my book.  So, score for Goal #1 and #4…although a lot of TV was watched during the time I was couch-bound.

Tuesday was milder version of Monday.  Since I could use anything to make me feel/get better, I asked Brandon to bring me chicken soup and therefore brushed off Meatless Tuesday and Goal #10 to keep it up.

Wednesday I dragged my butt to work.  I figured I could use all the sleep I can get so I opted to nap in the morning instead of working on the blog.  There went Goal #8.  I also left my lunch at home so I had to go out which, as you will find out soon, led me to break Goal #10 again.  Date night also didn’t happened as I was half alive.  So tacos and TV was it.  I didn’t quite break #Goal 6 though, more like shifted it.

Thursday, having felt much better than the past few days, Brandon and I redid date night and went out to silence my cravings for Hooters wings once and for all.

Friday started with a nap on the bus and all the intentions to eat my leftover, but then my boss and I took our new colleague to lunch for her birthday.  So I did buy 2 lunches in a week and therefore broke Goal #10 BUT I did order a Cobb salad so that made up for sticking with Goal #3.

Yeah, pretty much I’m doing the year over starting tonight.

That means, I have to fit an active activity into the day tomorrow before I wash my hair.  I wonder if the long walk from one end of the parking lot to the farmers market will count…

Goals for 2010: 6 out of 10

1. SUCCESS: Lacto-vegetarian Tuesdays. I totally rocked that. Sure, there were some accidental lapses and a few intentional ones, curiously some of those cases involved bacon.  But more or less, I did REALLY good. And I even threw in no alcohol to that mix. So yay me!

2. FAIL: One hour of piano/guitar/singing, twice a month. Another victim of my television habit.

3. SUCCESS: Keep up with Italian. Still going strong despite feeling like the village idiot in class. The joy of learning the third language on your second one.

4. FAIL: Work out at least once a week. HAHAAHAHHAHAHAH …nope.

5. FAIL: Read at least one book a month.  8 out of 12 and two of those are graphic novels. So yeah, I cheated a little bit.  I didn’t do so well this year because I rocked #6. And I got stuck trying to get through “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “The Zombie Survival Guide” when I should’ve given up and moved on.  The sad reading list looks like this:

1. Serenity: Better Days #1 (Comic book)
2. Serenity: Those Left Behind (Comic book)
3. Angel Time – Anne Rice – the first book I ever hate
4. New Classic Family Dinners – Mark Peel – Read it but haven’t cooked all of it.
5. Dead Until Dark – Charlaine Harris
6. Room – Emma Donoghue [ETA: Totally forgot to mention]
7. Delivering Happiness – Tony Hsieh
8. Naked Heat – “Richard Castle”

 
6.  SUCCESS: Finish reading the magazines as they arrive. And that’s why it eats into #5 goal a little bit.  I usually read my book before I go to bed so I’d bring in the magazines some nights instead.  Someone was laughing at me that I couldn’t finish reading a magazine in a few hours. Unlike other people, I *do* really read my magazines, getting my money’s worth.  Entertainment Weekly gets read the day it arrives, except the big issues.  Food & Wine gets in the next few days as well and will get another going-through when I sift through them later to pull out recipes.  WIRED and Self also get read cover to cover but over a longer period of time, in that order.

7. FAIL: Do my household paperwork on early day from the office.  Not so much. I found myself using that time for something else like catching up to the DVR.  Again, another victim to a television habit.

8. PARTIAL SUCCESS: Eat breakfast everyday.  Not very consistent here, but I did make an effort to do so.

9.  PARTIAL SUCCESS: Take a crack at National Novel Writing Month. Another weak yes.  I did it but didn’t accomplish it.

10. SUCCESS: Keep up with what’s working.  Starbucks and lunch out once a week for most of the year.

*

Goals for 2011

Less ambition! More routine setting!

Well, a lot of the failures last year has to do with bad television habit. It’s like a vicious cycle. If I don’t watch the show(s) that night, then I’d have to sacrifice another night to catch up and therefore losing time. ETC.  Hopefully, I have come up with a good solution.

Here goes!

1. 12 books a year. One of these years I’m going to be able to manage this!  Already have some books lined up to get read:

• Full Dark, No Stars: Stephen King
• Side Jobs: Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden short stories
• Emperor of Maladies: Siddhartha Mukherjee

 
These will be alternating some what with a bunch of cookbooks I haven’t read yet, and the three newest edition.

• Momofuku: David Chang — this has more stories than recipe!
• Ad Hoc At Home: Thomas Keller
• Fiesta at Rick’s: Rick Bayless

 
2. Play piano/guitar/sing on Sundays after dinner for an hour. More manageable and a set schedule on the least busy night of the week.

3. Eat a salad a week…Vegan Tuesdays don’t count! Trying to add more vegetables into the diet here.  And yes, I switched from calling it meatless or vegetarian Tuesdays because I also don’t eat eggs. That just throw people the hell off for some reason.

4. Catch up on DVR on Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends (Friday is flexible). This doesn’t mean no television on any other night.  We will still watch a show with dinner, but I will not linger on the couch and watch everything else on the DVR every night of the week.  Tuesdays, since I already can’t have meat or alcohol, I’ve gotta have me one of my vices!

5. Cook one new recipe a month…and blog it! This could be a total disaster, but it’ll keep me on schedule at least.  Especially with all the cookbooks I have/want to read.

6. Wednesday Date Night. We MUST establish a day or it never happens!  LOL

7. If the hair needs a wash, work out! With much hair, I am not going back to washing it daily. No way in hell!  So, if it’s the pony tail day, it’s a work out day.  And by work out, I mean doing something active.  Like going for a walk or go to yoga class, or doing some mini workouts with the weights I have sitting on the bathroom floor before hitting the shower.

8. Write every week day on the way to work. It’s proven over November during NaNoWriMo that I *can* write on the bus on the way to work without getting motion sick!  The route is pretty straight on and the traffic is never too staccato. And I don’t really miss the morning nap that much.  That’s an hour of productive time I can have.  And I should use it!

9. A secret goal. If you want to know, you’ll have to ask me personally.

10. Keep up with past success. Weekly Starbucks and lunch out; Vegan & Dry Tuesdays; Italian lessons; Reading magazines as they arrive; and participating in NaNoWriMo.

*

So those are mine. What is/are your goals?

Breakfast:

• My Starbucks treat: decaf tall Americano with caramel sauce.
• Leftover plantano frito con frijoles y crema–fried plantains with beans and sour cream–from my Friday’s foray into Salvadorian cuisine. Ahhh…Sarita’s Pupusaria at the Grand Central Market!

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Lunch:

• Mendocino Farms’ Vegetarian BLT.  Yes, you read that right. It has vegetarian “bacon” and pepper jack cheese. And it was wonderful.  You read that right. This bacon fiend actually enjoyed the vegetarian “bacon”!  Then again, I was eating int the sun in line outside of USC’s Bovard Auditorium. It’s like being home again.  Everything tasted better!
• A handful of blueberries

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Dinner:

• A few glasses of wine at TEDxUSC reception and a few noshes, a little cheese quiche and a blue cheese & grapes egg roll.
• Came home and made The Minor Elvis: a grilled peanut butter, banana, and honey on 9-grain toasts.  The real Elvis has bacon in it…

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Satisfactory level: Very satisfied. Again, the surprise that was the vegetarian “bacon”.  It looks horrifying but it tastes like a less salty, not so greasy, crispy fatty part of the real thing.  I would eat that again. And I’d even put it in the Veggie Elvis!

Thoughts: Holy crap. I ate a lot of carbs this week…

Breakfast & Snack:

• Starbucks decaf hazelnut soy latte.  This is what I’d order when I want a breakfast in a cup.  The tall decaf Americano with caramel sauce is more of a treat.
• Fage yogurt with peach.

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Lunch:

• Leftover half of bibimbap from Cafe Sura, the only Korean restaurant in Long Beach!  Fresh, it came out in the traditional sizzling bowl.  Rice gets all crispy in the bottom.  You crack a raw egg on it and watch it get cooked.  And that’s the part I forgot about the leftover.  Half way through I looked down at a piece of yolk.  Oops.
• Vietnamese green onion pancake.  Nhien bought a pack from 99 Ranch and she heated me one up for my veggie day lunch.  Isn’t she a sweetheart!
• Half an Asian pear.

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Dinner:

• Grilled cheese: sourdough with brie and aged cheddar and a generous sprinkle of bacon salt.
• Chamomile tea and buckwheat honey.

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Satisfaction level: So-so.  Being so stressed out, at some point I just want a big juicy burger to take my frustration out on.  But I calmed down and the meat craving went away.  I did want something meatier and not so starchy for dinner since I had a carb heavy lunch, but I didn’t really have much else in the fridge and I was too lazy to fix up lentils.

Thoughts: Again, now in week 14, going veggie has become a lot easier.  Stress still brought on the craving of certain things.  But once calmed and collected the next day, I didn’t feel the craving as much.

Now that I seem to have mastered the Meatless Tuesday…well, except for the accidental egg incident…I’m thinking maybe I could go a little bigger.

Maybe I can take on, in addition to Meatless Tuesday, a Beef-less August.  No beef or bison or venison.  Follow my mom’s footsteps on not eating beef (aka harming large animals) for the month of her passing.

What do you think?  Should I?  Could I?

So, I didn’t have breakfast on Tuesday…

Lunch

• Homemade “cream” of mushroom soup. Essentially I just throw all of my veggies in a pot: cremini mushrooms, onion, garlic, thyme. I didn’t bother to blend the soup. Just added  cream and call it a lunch. LOL.
• Melted brie on a slice of sourdough bread

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Dinner

• I was determined to make this Thai pesto for my March challenge.  Again, throw everything in a blender and made a small batch of pasta to toss in it.
• Stole some of Brandon’s waffle fries from Chic-Fil-A.

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Satisfaction level: blah. I didn’t crave any meat but the blah-ness probably is from being sick.

Thoughts: I know that I said I was exhausted but yet I managed to cook TWO homemade meals?  Yeah, I know. Weird, right?  Well, there was nothing else in the house I could eat that would be vegetarian and nutritious.  I mean, I could’ve had Top Ramen or a can of soup but I did have all of these ingredients I was going to cook with if I wasn’t sick anyway.  I thought I might as well while I had the energy spurts.  After all, making soup means I can sit down and rest in between, and making pesto was just a whirr away.

• Starbucks treat: the usual.
• Small pink lady apple.
• FREE Starbucks pastry day! So I got a chocolate croissant.

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Lunch:

• Toaster oven panini: 2 slices of buttered sour dough, Irish cheddar, Brie, sliced tomatoes and basil, wrapped in foil and baked until cheese melted then broiled for the crunch.
• Girls Scouts’ Thin Mint cookies

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Dinner:

• Wendy’s plain baked potatoes topped with cremini mushrooms sauteed in butter, a little Limoncello, and chives.
• Fresh & Easy Swiss truffle.
• A handful of strawberries.
• Fage yogurt with peach.

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Satisfaction level: Low. I don’t know why!  I mean, I’ve eaten a lot worse during the day before and yet I didn’t feel such cravings.  I didn’t particularly crave meat but I JUST WANT TO EAT!  I mean, dinner was a lot of food. I had a lot of mushrooms leftover which I sauteed up.  But after an hour, I had to raid the fridge for the yogurt.  Even after that I still felt like I should eat some more.

The funny thing is, though, the next day, I was still feeling the hunger but the thought of red meat totally turned me off.  Usually, I’d run screaming for a burger on Wednesday, but not this time.

Then again, tonight I just chowed down some pastrami sandwich. LOL.

Thoughts: Thai people have a word, “hoay”.  Craving is close enough a translation word but it’s not exactly and famished is not it either.  A feeling of dissatisfaction that leaves you kind of longing or hungry for more even though you’re not physically hungry.  That was how I felt on Tuesday when I went looking for the yogurt.  It’s like a munchy that your brain tells you to eat but you’re physically unable to.  Strange, strange feeling.

Then I realized, I think I wanted a beer.  But I wasn’t supposed to drink on Tuesdays.  So…that might be it.

Oh god. Am I *THAT* dependent on a wind-down bottle?  I hope not…

Then again, it’s easy to do when you have a restaurant downstairs selling awesome vegetarian/vegan sandwiches at lunch time.

Breakfast:

• The usual coffee treat from Starbucks
• Fage yogurt with peach puree. Yum!!

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Lunch:

• Half of the French Onion Soup Melt sandwich from Mendocino Farms.  Grilled onion on melty aged gruyere on pretzel roll.
• Organic tropical iced tea
• A nice dose of sunshine
• Afternoon snack: crackers and a big spoonful of whipped cream cheese.

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Dinner:

• Trader Joe’s frozen entree of paneer masala and spinach rice.

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Satisfactory level: So so.  Well, the breakfast wasn’t all that substantial and the lunch, although nice, was a little bit on the light side.  It also didn’t help that I was cutting up 7 lbs. of meat to make the St. Patrick’s Day Guinness Beef Stew when I’d usually be cooking dinner either.  LOL.

Thoughts: Like I said, it’s becoming more natural and less of an obligation.  I was VERY tempted to drink while I cook dinner but I did very good.  Then again, knowing that I’d be indulging the following day is a pretty good motivation.

**

Oh yeah, St. Patty’s day at my house was off the hook.  We have a full house this year with my friends and Twitter gang.  Lots of food but not a lot of booze consumed.  Well, you know, it’s in the middle of the week after all.  But we managed to have a few Irish car bombs thrown about.

I had two. And was still standing at the end of the night. Yey me, the wayward alcoholic!

I don’t know why nobody has pointed out before, but my Twitter/blogger friend Dave Conrey called me a Thai-rish.

Kiss me, I’m Thai-rish!   LOL.

He said he’s going to make a t-shirt out of that.  I’m still waitin’, Dave!

**

The week of fun-ness to balance out the crazy work week continues tomorrow as Brandon and I will go on a little romantic getaway to Sunset Strip for the night.

Why?

Well, you’ll have to tune back in later to find out about that now, won’t you?

Breakfast:

• A tall decaf Americano with half-and-half, Sugar in the Raw, and Caramel Sauce…not syrup.  And YES, I like my coffee like my men: tall, decaf Americano, white and sweet topped with caramel sauce.   I was too stressed out to eat anything else that morning.  However, lunch came at me fast.

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Lunch:

• The Vegan Spicy Soyrizo & Black Bean Wrap from Mendocino Farms in my building.  The place gets PACKED very quickly so by 11:45 I was already ordering.

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Dinner:

• Homemade French Onion soup from scratch topped with a slice of toasted French bread and heaps of Gruyere.
• Ghirardelli 62% dark chocolate and a Cutie orange.

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Satisfaction level: Awesome.

Thoughts: I did VERY well resisting a fondue cheese sandwich at Mendocino Farms for lunch, knowing that I was doing French Onion soup for dinner.  Soyrizo was a total surprise. It WAS really, really good!  This place managed to change my mind on 2 vegetarian/vegan items already.  First is the Veganaise.  I’m hooked on that sucker.  I was never one to like traditional American mayonnaise to begin with, having grown up on mostly the sweeter Japanese one.  Veganaise, however, is still very good without that greasy, oily after taste. And now the Soyrizo.  Don’t get me wrong. As one heck of a pork advocate, I’m never giving up the real chorizo.  But dang, that was super good.

Mendocino Farms is great for Meatless Tuesdays because they have a lot of vegetarian and vegan option that are super tasty.  If anyone is thinking of crossing over, I’d try their foods first.  All of their veggie sandwiches I had there never left me hungry.  If I could eat/cook like that everyday, I would consider becoming a lacto-ovo-bacon-vegetarian.  Heh.

1. Brandon tore his calf muscle

As he changed the oil on his car on Friday, Brandon discovered some coolant leakage. Upon further inspection by the auto shop, there are more than just that. We think the Anniversary accident knocked things loose. So, this morning, instead of waking up to drive me to my stop, the Mister decided to sleep in a little. I left my car 5 blocks down at my bus stop.

As he was walking over to the car, Brandon stepped off the curb and, according to his ER doctor, probably landed wrong on his heel. He heard something popped and he was in excruciating pain and couldn’t put his foot down. Being a Marine, dude sucked it up, hobbled across the 6 lanes to the other side, then his body went into a bit of shock and he sat down and passed out for a second. He then proceeded to hobble some more to the car, got in, calmly called me, and drove himself to the ER about 8 blocks down.

I received the call around 8:30.  By the way, I’m in Downtown LA, 25 miles away, with no easy way to get home at that time.  You see, my special commuter bus runs 3 times into town and twice out in the evening.  If you need to get back any other time, you’ll have to take the Disneyland bus to Norwalk Station and either catch 2 more buses to get to my house or someone else have to come get you from the station.

Thank GOD for my former bus buddy Patty who retired about a month ago.  I called her asked for a ride and she was available.  Now, skip to read #2 and come back to read the rest of this.

Patty dropped me off at the ER and I waited for a good hour before Brandon hobbled out on crutches.  Torn calf muscle, he said, and possible torn tendon but they don’t know that yet.  And now we were off to his physician to get a referral to see a specialist and get an MRI or something else.  His doctor gave him a shot of stuff and sent us home with vicodin.

2. Patty’s car died on the way to rescue me

After she hung up with me, my friend Patty went to finish her errands.  Her car sputtered and died on the way home.  Thank GOD her sister was home, so she drove over to sit with Patty’s car until AAA arrives so Patty could use her car to come get me.

3. A coworker had to go to the hospital

Meanwhile, as I ran from work to come home to take care of Brandon, a coworker apparently got ill enough to need to be rushed to the hospital.

4. Burbank DMV’s computer system went down

My boss took the morning off to go to her DMV appointment.  System was down so no appointment could be kept.  She pretty much wasted her morning.

5. The bus before my usual home bound bus broke down

Ana took the bus into town with me this morning.  She usually takes a different bus or she would drive.  However, she was getting on the earliest bus home.  She waited, and waited, and started to get panicky about the bus home.  As she found out later, when my usual bus showed up, the one she was waiting for has broken down.  So she was on a super crowded bus back, behind her usual schedule.

I’m telling you. Cosmic Fuckery.

Just a little bit.

Having been up very late on Monday night, I rolled out of bed on Tuesday and made myself an egg on toast.

*sigh*

Breakfast:

• A slice of buttered 7-grain toast topped with one sunny side up egg cooked in a pat of butter along with slices of vine ripen tomato.
• A mug of English breakfast tea

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Lunch:

• A small Caesar salad with no croutons. Hey, I’m already off the wagon on the egg today, I might as well!
• A few spoonful of butternut squash bisque which was absolutely disgusting
• A big chocolate chips cookies

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Dinner:

• A square of veggie Perry’s pizza…with generous sprinkle of Bacon Salt. – YES it *is* vegetarian!

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Satisfaction level: Very satisfied but incredibly guilty.  Grrrr…

Thoughts: I was doing SO WELL!  Then again, lack of sleep contributed greatly to the lapse there.  Otherwise, the rest of the day I did pretty well.