Update:
I forget how many days it has been since we started our new eating lifestyle. Cruel Wife is smoking me in terms of dealing with it well. She’s a machine.
Me, I’m fixated on food. The Dude sent me the link to this. Nice catch, man. Nice catch. Me, I just got a craving for smoked pork butt.
****
Inscrutable Halfbreed walked into my office yesterday. He’s the guy whose American dad met his mom, who is full-blooded Korean-heritage and they came back to the states and had a family. His mom makes kimchi that I weep over – beautiful woman, just beautiful. She puts a righteous amount of chili flakes in the kimchi.
We got to talking about British tv, such as Dr. Who, Life on Mars, and Wire in the Blood and were wondering why so many of their shows are really quite superior to the crap coming out of Hollywood.
He said he was watching this one British movie and he could not keep up with it because he kept getting confused, saying “I couldn’t tell the women apart – they all look the same to me.”
He stopped and looked at me inscrutably.
I froze, deadpanned, and one eye started blinking arrhythmically. I pursed my lips on one side and looked right, up at the ceiling, to the left, and back up again without focusing on anything. I shifted to my other haunch and looked back at him. I leaned forward and finding no respite from the awkwardness there I finally settled back in my chair, my mouth working kind of uselessly. I started to say something and then stopped several times all the while Inscrutable Halfbreed looked at me with increasing inscrutableness.
“You don’t like a British show because… they… all… … look… … … alike?” I fidgeted, trying sound aloof.
He stared at me inscrutably some more – he cranked that dial up to 11.
“Ok… you do realize that you just said that you couldn’t tell the Brits apart. You do realize how funny that is, correct?”
Inscrutable Halfbreed is highly intelligent and knew damn well what the score was here. “Yes, yes.”
“I’m blogging this, you know.”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
You should know that Inscrutable couldn’t just be a doorman, he could be the door. Just goes to show you how awesome genetics really are. So when he decides to look inscrutable with a hint of irritation you just know fun things are happening under the surface.
****
Anyway, he can’t be too mad because he sent me this link to Social Eatz where this can be found… this burger cannot FAIL. It cannot.
Crap, I forgot to attribute the photo - it was from Social Eatz's site - their picture, their burger, the works - I'm just hoping someone sees this and tells me how good it is and what I am missing.
Athens’ Ark of the World youth centre said four children, including a newborn baby, had been left on its doorstep in recent months.
One mother, it said, ran away after handing over her two-year-old daughter Natasha.
Four-year-old Anna was found by a teacher clutching a note that read: ‘I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her. Please take good care of her. Sorry.’
Triply sad is that even with joblessness sky-high there should still be enough families that are getting by and have hands to help others and they are not helping. You can be out of work but until you find it, you can help watch kids, check on your neighbors, keep an eye out for criminals using the upset to take advantage of others. It’s the time to pull your society together for common good, not fall apart. The minute you dump your kids you’ve show that you are only a part of the problem with little or no solution to provide.
It’s not like I needed a lot more evidence but the Occupy folks by and large seem to be of the same mindset, needing others to take care of them rather than them take care of others (liberal thinking). Abandoned baby found in tent.
Eats? I gotcher eats: http://www.pizzaboomerang.com/
Stick with it.
CW and I are both doing radical eating modification (read: NOT DIET) lately and so pizza just isn’t in the cards. Not many foods I’ve posted are in the cards, really. I guess I’ve fixated on it.
Ultra low carbs unless they come from fruits and veggies. It works and you feel better for it but you sure fight it. I think CW is doing fantastic with it – better than me.
I love the guy getting his sausage trimmed, though. They should do that in real life.
I used to go to NYC a lot, people I would go with would go for various reasons from sightseeing to shopping, I went for the food (or concerts I guess).
If you ever do go, I suggest you carry a bunch of cash to get food on the street. Mmmmm mmmm. There are so many different types of meat on a stick that it would be ridiculous if it weren’t so delicious. Or there are hole in the wall, ethnic joints that are unbelievabile.
As for the occutardishly abandoned baby, it’s probably a post-partum abortion.
When you’re an irresponsible POS, a baby is kind of a drag certainly not the sort of thing you’ll allow to put a crimp in your lifestyle.
For a certain number of people babies are either anchors or a source of free money.
Then there are the people who chose to behave like adults and took care of the little ones.
I used to eat on the streets in Tijuana and up and down the coast south of the border. If it looks like meat, it probably is, and if it smells good it probably is, and if it is hot the germs are probably dead. Most of the carnitas were to die for and the real way of making beans leaves you able to eat canned beans only by turning off parts of your brain that know better.
I think there was only one time where I wasn’t sure where the meat came from but it was smothered in so many good spices it ceased to matter. It was greasy, that’s all I remember.
And one time in Puerto Nuevo… after just so many pitchers of margaritas, bottles of beer, and lobster burritos I have no idea how I ended up home. Even though lifeguards party hard we at least had designated drivers.
If you’ve never had lobster pan-fried in lard, you have never tasted heaven. I must’ve dispatched half a dozen lobsters that night. Perhaps more.
I went to Kenya in the 80s and ate “Kabob and chips” (french fries, they were a Brit colony after all) all over the place. If they had refrigeration I even ate the slaw, but some of the places had no electricity, much less refrigeration. A few on the Serengeti Plain didn’t even have silverware, they just gave you a bowl of water to wash your fingers.
The Kabob was doused heavily in a local “curry”, fiery red. Mmmmm-mmmmm. I didn’t get sick so I figured I did okay.
I generally had no idea what the meat was and had no desire to ask. I mostly hoped it wasn’t people. I would be utterly unsurprised if I ate monkey or baboon though.
I also liked the street food in TJ. As you wrote, if it was hot the germs were mostly dead, I didn’t get sick there either. The only place I got a disease was Italy, I was flying to Kenya after a couple weeks there and had a bad fever and felt deathly ill for about 24 hours. If you have to have a bad fever I suggest you have it on a 20 hour flight, that flight’s gonna suck anyway.
Some of your stories make me almost think I shouldn’t boycott this place, but then I remember whatever it was that ticked me off and well, boycott it is.
Okay, dude, ya gotta check this site out:
http://www.cheeseandburger.com/
When ya get there, of course check out all 30 burgers they have, but especially #12, #17, #21, #24, #26, and #30. Hell, they all look good, but those numbers appeal to me the most.
Just don’t go to the site when you’re feeling hungry, or you’ll drool all over your desk, keyboard, and anything else in the way.
I will… I will… I want a dead cow burger so bad I can (almost but not quite) taste it.
This culinary lifestyle thing has had interesting results and I’ll probably blog about it and then e:drool all over the site you just passed on to me.
I disagree, LK. The Socialist State has effectively killed off any memory of being charitable towards your fellow man, and instead has taught that the government will provide. Even the oldest generation left has become accustomed to that, and forgotten how to take care of its own.
Why would they ever place a high value on Life, when the government has taught them they are nothing but numbers?
That’s awful bleak.
There’s so much I could say but will save it for a posting. It’s so ass-backwards it’s like the South Park episode where Martha Stewart eats a turkey with her butt. Little KY… sit down on it like this and … uhhh… eerrrrrr…
LK, so just what is your dietary change? Doing Low Carb?
Next Monday will be a month since I started Low Carb, Adkins-like. Have already lost 10 lbs in the first two weeks. Splurged a little last night with wife, had two pieces of Rainbow Roll sushi. But feeling better overall. And no gas eruptions like I normally would have!
It can get a little monotonous at times…
It focuses on no bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, sugar, salt, added oils – but lots of fruit and veggies with a normal amount of beef, chicken, or seafood. No tofu or most canned goods. No beans, either.
It sounds awful, doesn’t it? I will tell you this – food in it’s natural state tastes much better and eating crappy food that we used to eat all the time, processed foods, taste awful. We get filled up easier on the natural foods. There is an unexpected twist – you aren’t starving but when you get hungry you get hungry and damn fast – like lightening.
I cheated guiltily a few mornings ago and ate at McD’s. It was awful. I also tried some fritos and cheese dip – I tossed it out because I got grossed out. There are lots of foods that we fool ourselves into thinking they taste good but really just don’t.
I hate to sound like a nut job food nazi but I am becoming convinced all on my own that most of the processed foods we eat everyday are really awfully bad for us.
I started this in support of CW, as just like two alcoholics living together will always sink the other if only one tries to dry out, I felt it would not maximize her success if I ate nothing but crap while she was trying so hard. I myself could stand to lose 25 more pounds.
She has done awesome at sticking to it, I have been very impressed, and I don’t hand out compliments lightly.
So your new diet sounds like you’ve gone low carb too, just not as rigorous and with more fruit and less fat than the normal low carb plans.
Also, a good choice avoiding processed foods. Lots of junk in there too.
I know the hunger feeling as well. Around 10 AM I’m starving, have something small, then at noon starving again, have a good lunch. By the time I get home after 5 PM I’m “Starvin’ Marvin” again.
Wife can’t do the diet, too boring for her and she can’t do the proteins like I can. Best part: I don’t feel slow and stupid after a large meal.
Very good of you to join CW in the diet. I’m sure that she appreciates the backup support. And you post-surgery probably means less exercise too. Good on the two of you! And I’m sure that you’ve told her how proud you are for her sticking to the plan.
My cheating: helping Wife finish two pieces of Rainbow Roll when she filled up at dinner. Was good, just enough.
Hope the neck is getting better!
Right on all counts. I do try hard to make sure that people understand that the (1) it is not a “diet”, but really is a shift in habits, and (2) it is not specifically “low carbs” so much as an avoidance of the processed carbohydrates that we all know and love to eat to excess.
I am quite sure that we will be allowed to eat more processed carbs in the future but for now the name of the game is learning to control portions and be mindful of a more appropriate balance.
CW has been very good about never drinking alcohol in the house and she’s considerate enough to ask me if we’re at a Christmas party or going out for dinner if I mind her have a glass of wine. I know with absolute certainty that if I said I was uncomfortable with it on that given day she would skip it without hesitation. It means that the least I can do is return the favor in good faith.
Neck is getting better. Good days and bad days. I was getting up a day or so ago and lost my balance and fell ungracefully back into my chair giving me a pretty good jarring. Today has been a Not Good Day but the balance of it all is that it’s better and I’m able to take less and less pain medication. I am so thrilled that words aren’t adequate to describe it.
So, if you are trying to avoid processed carbs, what about whole-wheat pasta or something native to Italy? Maybe something other than white rise, like Basmati or brown rice? Dunno. It’s hard to avoid the processed foods at times, especially when eating out. I’ve taken to ordering without sides, or just a side-salad. Then again, I don’t miss the junk as much. Except for pizza.
Portion size is critical as well, I’ve seen. Eating out is terrible for portions. I did Nutrisystem for a little while, that helped, but the meals were terrible. Not a lot of fat, strange mixture of spices to make up for it.
Sounds like you and CW have a good sense of mutual respect going there, and know each others limits.
And very glad that the neck is getting better and better.
Nah. No pastas or bread, although I have a “shin cup” habit. I get one a day.
Yes, there’s lots of sodium in it. It is, however one of the only ways I can get in my full allotment of chilies per day. Powder, flakes, and sriracha.
This is my favorite brand. Put a nipple on that bottle and I’ll go right to sleep after a good burping.
OK, you got me. What’s a “shin cup”? Other than the cup that you drink from, and the protective one that you wear, I’m at a loss.
I’m getting sodium and fat as well. I drink enough water to wash out the sodium, and the fat doesn’t metabolize into carbs or sugar. So I’m OK there.
The chili looks like some hot stuff. I’m not as much into hot as much into flavor: Salsa Valentina.
And no, I’d make sure that you were pointed toward something flame-proof when burping you after drinking that stuff…
A shin cup is one of the seven wonders of the world, next to tamales, pad krapow, baked brie, liverwurst, and baked brie.
http://www.veryasia.com/noshshcupnos.html
I couldn’t do that diet.
I tried low carb once, for half a meal.
I made the meal, sat down and looked and saw no rice, no potato, no bread, no pasta, no nothing. I got up, got some bread and that was the last time I tried that.
I once lost around 60 lbs from August to November by going no fat.
I ate chicken and shrimp and veggies. I had lots of Hunan Chicken, fajitas, sherbert and bread. I cut out mayo, ate fat-free crackers, fat-free italian or caesar dressing and I’d add balsamic and red wine vinegar and switched to skim milk.
I will say I make my own food, I don’t buy any prepared food at all at the store.
The closest I’ll come to prepared food is that lately I’ve been making my spaghetti sauce out of tomato puree instead of just squeezing tomatoes. My friend doesn’t like tomato chunks in the sauce so I’ve switched while I live here.
I don’t like chemicals unless they’re mind-altering.
It helps that I grew up in an Italian house-hold, cooking was just how food was prepared.
I always thought it odd when I went to others’ houses and they had TV dinners and crap like that. That stuff is like food only not.
v, do you make your own pasta? My daughter and I did that a number of weekends back. It brought me back to the times back when I was dating the wife, we got all my friends together and made pesto and ravioli. There’s just something about making pasta that is (or can be) a very fun group activity.
We splurged this morning at a coffee shop not far away and visited a friend of mine. We split an apple fritter. I can’t be sure but I don’t think it did me any favors at all.
If you have time, care to share the Hunan Chicken recipe? I’m getting the impression that you believe food ought to be good if you’re going to bother eating it.