The Girl Who Ate Everything

The human mind creates great things. I'm not sure if this is one of them, but you can be the judge: Ben & Jerry's Pint Lock

[documenting in process]

I was in a good mood. Until today. Am I just naturally moody or am I bipolar? Bipolar Robyn...sounds like some kind of messed up cartoon character. "She'll make you laugh and then two seconds later she'll make you cry, WEE!"

I guess I'll talk about the bad first and then the good. Or do people usually do it the other way around? Er. Well. I went to bed after 6 AM last night/this morning because I suck, so I woke up at around 2:15 PM. It's not necessarily a crapload of sleep, and I woke up at 10 AM because for the first time in my life, I got a wrong number on my cell phone. Great. It took me a while to get back to sleep but I eventually did.

When I woke up, my mum and brother had just got home from eating out. I was hoping we could all eat out together because eating out with people is something I don't do much. A few times a month, maybe, and that's including my own family. Yeah, the diet thing doesn't lend itself to doing any social activities that involve eating. No wonder I'm miserable.

I'm also a really crappy daughter for being a broken record that never stops complaining. My mum thought she had done the right thing by going out for lunch without asking me this morning because she asked me last night and I said no. I didn't think she was actually going out though and I WOULD have gone out if she asked me this morning. To be honest, I've given the indication all last week that I didn't want to go out to eat; even shopping for food can me feel depressed to the point of crying. But it figures on the ONLY DAY that she and my brother go out to eat while I'm still home is the only day I would've actually wanted to go.

I became stupidly mad at my mum but I know it's my fault. I wouldn't have such a problem with eating if I weren't so prone to gaining weight, but I guess I was born with that problem. As I said before, I didn't care to get into this whole LIFE business, not that anyone gets to choose (see why I don't want kids?). I don't really enjoy life, not that it's bad (I know I live a good life) but being stressed from eating is one of the most annoying things ever. Also, living in the suburbs where you have no good friends is no day in the park either, especially when you know friends live kind of close, just that they're in the next state over...or really far in another country.

Begrudgingly, I took half of the baby watermelon I had started eating two days ago out of the fridge for lunch. It was thoughtless eating. Nothing was wrong with the melon, I just didn't enjoy it: next to no chewing involved, water in a solid, slightly mashy form. Eating alone once again, like most times.

Maybe I wouldn't have had fun eating out with my family either. I haven't done it in more than a week. Eating at home isn't fun since we rarely all eat at the same time.

I hate that I can't be more comfortable with myself. I don't think I care enough about my weight or I'd do something more drastic about it, but I care more about it in a bad way than most people. Caring about one's weight gives me mixed messages: don't obsess over it, don't eat crappy food, don't restrict yourself, oh but maybe you should since you don't need that many calories, exercise even though it doesn't really do much for you, eat out with people, you don't have to eat what everyone else eats, you can't eat what everyone else eats.

I want the messages to stop, but even if they did I'll always remember them. Oh well.

Oh, so the good thing that happened...well, at least I can remember that something good happened. Lia invited me and a bunch of her friends to eat at Ping's Seafood Restaurant yesterday. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go and probably changed my mind on this three times, but I did go because I knew I wouldn't feel that bad. Obviously, nothing bad happened and I met a bunch of seriously cool people (other flickr people: ranjit, Nina, and kathryn).

I was struck by how nice it felt to eat out with a bunch of people, even though I had never met them before (it also became clearer to me that I eat more sensibly with people I don't know well, thank god). That probably goes to show how sparingly I eat out with people, especially a bunch of them. I wasn't happy because of what we were eating (it was good, although I didn't actually eat much seafood--photographic evidence) but happy because I was with people. Whoa. I suppose humans need other humans, as much as I avoid things like that.

To be honest, it's not so much that I avoid it as much as that I don't have the opportunity to do things like that. I don't have very good friends around here, and I have very few friends who enjoy eating like I do. Actually, I only have one, basically the only friend I made in NYU solely through the means of being in the same class (others were made through other friends or known through other means).

So I had a fun dinner, many thanks to Lia and everyone else. I left a bit early to catch my bus, which was great because I'M A MORON and someone walked west on Canal Street, completely passing the blue trains and ending up by the 1, or even further towards the Holland Tunnel. Um. Despite checking my subway map, I was still a dumbass and thought the blue trains were west of the red ones, which is true if you're more up north in Manhattan. I ended up walking something like 20 minutes to take the 1 to Times Square when I could've walked 5 minutes from the restaurant and taken a yellow train to the same place. I guess I won't make that mistake again. Not sure how I totally missed the station for the C/E.

Strangely enough, even though I was stressed and semi-running around with a heavy laptop bag, I didn't get asthmatic. I distinctly remember coughing while waiting for the subway and finding it odd that I wasn't wheezing. I can't explain that. I didn't wake up too wheezy today, which is a good sign. Not that I ate very healthily last night...could've been worse.

So today I'll have nothing to do. I can't decide whether I should just eat raw food or forget the whole "cutting out all grains" idea and actually eat rice, in which case i'm not on much of a diet. I have nothing against meat, I just wanted to cut out grains and dairy. I suck at this diet thing.

And I'm not really in a good mood at the moment, but at least I was for a while yesterday.

I feel better now, which isn't much of a surprise. Actually, it didn't take me long to feel better just a while after writing my last entry, but that doesn't change that I did feel like that...at the moment.

SO, food. I cooked yesterday! HOLY CRAPTASTICNESS, yeah. I like vegetables because they're easy to cook; you could almost do it with your eyes closed, although I wouldn't recommend it unless you want to burn yourself/your house down. I chopped celery and Chinese cabbage, cooked it with some olive oil for a few minutes and mixed it with teriyaki sauce since that's what we had. And...I ate rice. I figured if it'll keep me sane, I may as well eat rice.

That sounds like a decent entree, but I ate more than that. First off, I had that melon for "lunch" which got peed out rather quickly. I went to the wildlife center in Wyckoff to take a walk with my mum before deciding at the last minute to go to Whole Foods since I didn't really have any food at home.

I was excited to get some FOOD, and then it turned out that I had NO IDEA WHAT TO BUY. All I bought for myself were red delicious apples while my mum got a bunch of vegetables and desserts. She didn't even eat the vegetables that night, in favor of a tiramisu (well, you'd be crazy to want vegetables over tiramisu). Once again, being in a supermarket semi-freaked me out as I blankly stared at the produce around me without any idea of what I wanted to eat or should/could eat. Doh.

I ended up buying some prepared ginger sugar peas and brown rice vegetable sushi. Both were really good, although the sushi seemed kind of expensive when I realized I could probably make it myself (the filling was raw vegetables. My mum pointed out that my sushi didn't come with wasabi, which I wouldn't have noticed since I never use wasabi. Do Americans just not use it much? Ah well, I do like the ginger so I ate most of that.

I ate all the sushi, all the snap peas, and a bowl of vegetables plus some rice. That is a lot of food...oops. Even eating mainly vegetables can't stop me from overconsumption! The food I ate didn't come with nutrition fact labels so I have no idea what my nutrient intake was like. I forgot to mention that I also ate an orange or two, an apple, some honey, and sesame seeds.

Damn, that's a lot. Eh well, I'm cutting back today, having eaten an orange and an apple for breakfast, skipping lunch, and will cook some vegetable-thing for dinner. Tomorrow my mum said we could eat out and I suggest just picking a random place in Ridgewood that we haven't been to before, so hopefully I'll have new photos tomorrow!

First thing: scotch ostrich eggs are scary, dude. [via A Full Belly] Of course, I immediately thought of Keith].

I was strapped in front of my laptop for so long I almost forgot about eating dinner. Ha ha! Um. I didn't, obviously.

For lunch I actually went out with my mum for the first time in a while. We ate at Joel's Malibu Kitchen, a place I've wanted to try because...I've never been there before. There are many good restaurants in Ridgewood; I've tried most of em: three Japanese places, three Chinese places, one Greek place, one French place, two Italian places, a British place (now closed), two Indian places, one Thai place, one American place...keep in mind that this area around the main street in Ridgewood is very small and happens to be mainly very good restaurants. Mmm. The most franchise-ee places are Quiznos, Dunkin Donuts, and Haagen Dazs (there's also a Wild Noodles).

Joel's Malibu was unique compared to most places in Ridgewood, or maybe anywhere in general. Funky decor, ample lava lamps, photos all over the wall, and...smoke coming from the kitchen? Uhoh. The place didn't burn down so I guess it wasn't a big problem. Prices for lunch entrees were inexpensive (under $10). I got the grilled salmon with rice and my mum got quesadillas, which I found interesting since she almost never eats them (she used to order them at restaurants without the cheese; that's not really a quesadilla now is it). I thought the food was good, not really something to rave about but there wasn't anything wrong with it either. Oh, the "bread basket" is quite unique as it comes with a few strips of celery, carrot, zucchini, and fried chips of...something. My mum and I didn't know what it was but it could've been plantain. I guess I wasn't super happy with my lunch because I was still hungry afterwards, but that's not a bad thing as I TEND TO EAT TOO MUCH ANYWAY! So it was a blessing in disguise.

After lunching, we went to the Japanese fish market near the bus station where we got some Japanese cucumbers, nori, and a red bean rice ball. Mmmm...I saved it for after-dinner, hence I didn't eat honey and sesame seeds for dessert. WOO.

I love my mum but talking to her stresses me out a bit. My personality is different; I'm more argumentative. I don't know why as I dislike arguing and I never do it with anyone besides my own family members. In general, I act differently around my family than everyone else. I asked my mum about eating pizza since I'm interested in breaking my pizza fast that's been going on for about two years and she told me about all of pizza's bad properties.

"It's bread, cheese, and tomato sauce, practically indigestible. The crust is so thin, the burnt parts will contribute to cancer. I don't like the crust. Blah blah something or other."

Those weren't her exact words but I had to condense them and add the blah blah. When my mum eats bread, she only eats the insides, believing that the crust is more likely to cause cancer. I'm sure Slice would love to hear that. She probably doesn't like crust that much (I love crust, but I love chewy bread that make my jaw hurt), a reason that makes more sense to me than being afraid of cancer. If I'm that freaked out about my health, I'll just refrain from EATING ANYTHING and live in a cave and talk to myself. ...yup.

For dinner I made sushi filled with raw cabbage and cucumber. Why? Why not? No one else makes it, probably because it doesn't taste like ANYTHING (well, rice and seaweed) but I figured it was semi-healthy. I need all the semi-healthy food I can get because, remember kiddies, I'm prone to gaining un-health. I don't know how to make sushi but it's pretty self explanatory and we have a bamboo mat that probably hasn't been used in years (until now...bwahaha). I ate two rolls of that plus a small cucumber and celery salad in oil and vinegar, and after consuming maybe a cup of rice, I ate more plain rice with furikake that, like the bamboo mat, probably hasn't been used in years either (there was hardly any left, I just found it in the cabinet; it was the most asian thing in there). Topping it off, I ate the Sakuraya red bean rice ball. It may just be because I haven't had one in a long time, but it was really good; soft, not sticky and splodgy, with a load of red bean paste inside. (A "load" could become a new food measurement! Or not.)

So I'm satisfied and probably (er, definitely) ate more than I should have in one day. I forgot to mention that I also ate an apple and two oranges somewhere in between all the other food. It's not that bad, right? I may be overeating, but I think I have the "healthy food" part down. Maybe. I can't feel overly guilty about eating a red bean rice ball.

I just went to the Chinatown Ice Cream factory yesterday but I didn't notice the durian ice cream (from A Full Belly). I tried sorbet for the first time (lychee) since I'm trying to not eat dairy and it was pretty good. I prefer ice cream but I needed some kind of dessert fix.

Vietnamese food

I ate normal food, of course. The food sprawl above is courtesy of Thai Son. I walked on Baxter Street frequently during the school year on the way to campus but never got to try the Vietnamese restaurants and in general, I rarely eat Vietnamese food. WHAT A FOOL I WAS! Because...it's really good. While out with Alex, an Internet friend from NJ (NJ sucks so much that we go to NYC to do stuff), we settled in Chinatown after walking over the Williamsburg Bridge (because, you know, they're right next to each other...um.)

Specifically, I ordered the "Bahn Hoi Bo Lui", described as "Grilled Beef Sesame Seasoned on Tiny Rice Stick w. Lettuce, Cucumber & Mint Leaves". If you're thinking "huh", that's pretty much the same idea I had. Tiny Rice Stick? What the f...okay. I figured it couldn't be that weird so I ordered it. I don't know if I ate it correctly but I figured all the stuff that wasn't a lettuce leaf went into a lettuce leaf. The beef resembled meat balls/rolls and were freakin' good. I'm notoriously crappy ar describing anything more complex than a piece of paper, but I'll attempt to describe the "tiny rice stick" by saying that it was like extremely thin rice noodles pressed into sheets, but very light with holes. That still doesn't make much sense; you'll just have to order it yourself.

Williamsburg Bridge

As for the Williamburg Bridge walking, Alex and I walked to and from Brooklyn to see Sondre Lerche. Nothing very food-related happened in Williamsburg besides me noticing ALL THE RESTAURANTS and BAKERIES and how slim everyone was despite the high restaurant and bakery density. Today my legs feel a bit strange, yet I don't think I walked much more yesterday than I did while I was still living in NYC; suburban life has made my body useless and weak. Sweet.

grilled salmon and rice

That's what I ate the other day at Joel's Malibu Kitchen.

On a total random note, my room smells weird. No, not because of ME, but because something was a-brewin' in the kitchen. Jesus christ, what did my brother make?

American donuts suck. Honestly, check out these cute Mister Donut characters from Japan. ...okay, that doesn't reflect on the quality of the donut but THE SQUIRREL HAS A DONUT TAIL! This was brought to my attention while reading Rei hime's LJ. Donuts aren't as much fun here. :(

"I don't feel like just eating oranges for lunch..."

With a long, skinny spoon in tow, I make a dessert out of raw honey and raw sesame seeds. Mmm.

"Damn, I'm still missing something."

My eyes dart to my brother's 1 lb bag of Kettle Chips, folded up and slightly hidden in the shelve below the microwave that no one uses.

...*crunch*

I ate more meat today than I have in weeks. Not just meat, actually...everything altogether. Oops.

spicy chicken and shrimp

After some silly arguing, which was primarily my fault since I was hesitant to eat out because I EAT A LOT, REMEMBER, but if I didn't eat out then I'd be left home alone while my brother and mum went to a nearby buffet place, we decided to go to Ivangie's, a Chinese and Japanese restaurant in Ridgewood. I've been there twice before and I gather that they're better than most Chinese restaurants. At least they say they don't use MSG or douse their food in oil, which means most do, perhaps. Doh. That's not going to stop me from eating in Chinatown.

The menu is quite large and I had no idea what to get. I actually wanted to go out for Thai or Indian food but my brother wasn't into that (the wimp), so I picked something spicy on the menu. My dish had thinly sliced chicken, shrimp, and snow peas in an egg-drop-ish spicy sauce. The portions are somewhat huge but I almost finished it, in addition to a bowl of brown rice.

udon with lots of seafood

My mum didn't finish her udon with craploads of seafood (I think I ate half of her salmon, oops) but she also had a spring roll appetizer. Unfortunately, the spring rolls didn't hold up well at all; I guess they weren't wrapped tightly enough. I made spring rolls once and it was easy as pie, while my mum, who LOVES spring rolls, refuses to try and make them for some reason. She said she's made them before but they fell apart.

My mum is extremely adverse to cooking anything. I'm happy to say that she cooked rice noodles the other day after I had cooked rice noodles for myself and found out they were one of the easiest things in the world to make (you boil water, turn it off, and soak the noodles for a few minutes; who can't do that?). She has a valid reason for not liking to cook: she used to do it all the time when my brother and I were little, usually after a probably boring and tiring day of work. Without going into too much detail, her life hasn't been super-fun. My brother and I didn't add too much to her pain, but it seriously depresses me that she has lost most interest in cooking because it turned into such a chore when we were little kids.

...Then again, I didn't really like her cooking when I was little. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't anything to brag about. Her mum cooked loads of traditional Chinese stuff, and my mum didn't pick up any of it. Once the cooking skills stop being passed down, that's pretty much it; it's not like I can pick it up from anyone else. There are no long-time family recipes, no special desserts or dishes, or traditional foods in my family. Of course, we're Chinese and eat loads of Chinese food, but another part of me feels culturally empty in the food department. Both of my mum's parents have passed away and don't even ask about my dad; no good food comes from there (although you can't tell them that).

Er...in conclusion! I was planning to just talk about what I ate today but my thoughts drifted a bit. Back to what I ate.

After eating at Ivangie's, we went to Whole Foods where I picked up two gluten-free pecan cookies (they come two per pack). Good idea? Not really--it's not like I'm allergic to gluten, I'm just trying to avoid wheat. When I got home I noticed that each cookie had 400-something calories. Holy. Crap. There's a lot of butter in these babies. The massive caloric value can also be attributed to each cookie being the size of a satellite dish. I was hoping the cookie would taste so bad that I wouldn't want to eat the second one, but it was actually pretty good. More crumbly and airy than a normal cookie but it was flavorful and had a slight chewiness.

Whole Foods also makes gluten free bread. I have no desire to try this; what the hell is gluten free bread? That's not really bread. Or if you've had good gluten free bread, let me know. I can lay off the bread until I start eating wheat again. (I'm not eating wheat at the moment to see if it triggers my asthma. My asthma seems to be environment-driven, not diet driven as much, but it can't hurt to lay off the cake and cookies.)

From Elyse Sewell's LJ comes pictures of Argentinian food. "Welty" and "Barfy" win for being the best...or is it the worst?

I haven't done adventurous fooding in NYC in a while (or not as much as I used to, which was much too frequent) but this listing of the top 100 best/inexpensive restaurants is triggering something in my brain. The insane part that wants to try a gazillion places. My stomach isn't even doing anything; I just have a desire to GO TO ALL THESE PLACES. Good god, why? [via A Full Belly]

Also, came across a nice database of restaurant reviews at Wookiee Hut. [via A Year In Food] Of course, I'm reading just about all the NYC-based reviews. Kiddies, this is how I WASTE MY LIFE AWAY. I guess it's a good thing I don't live in NYC at the moment.

The Bottom Feeder reviews foods that I'll probably never eat, but it's fun to read. The reviews are funny but for those who reel at the idea of reading paragraphs (in which case, you're probably not reading this), there's a summary of the foodstuff in question with a handy little 1-10 rating. A simple number would suffice, but there's even a bar graph to represent the number in case you don't feel like reading numbers either. This week is "Dollar Store Week", so while you probably wouldn't eat a $1 can of lychee anyway (I hope), you never have to becuase the bottom feeder already did it for you.

Jesus on a potato chip: I would've just eaten that sucker. Who gives a crap?

Long article about the chocolate revolution. [via a full belly] My mum's and my obsession with good chocolate began maybe three or four years ago when her friend brought her to Richart. Never having seen or tasted anything like their miniature heart-shaped caramel filled chocolates before, I thought they were one of the best things I had ever eaten. EVER. Their caramel is really good, but soon after trying Richart my mum decided that La Maison du Chocolat was her favorite high end chocolate. It's pricey of course, but if you're female (hopefully I'm not being too judgemental in thinking this mainly applies to women) and barely spend any money on clothes, accesories, or bags, then it's not the worst thing in the world to blow it on chocolate. I think. We don't buy nearly as much chocolate as we used to (especially after going the whole raw food phase; yes, we both did it) but we noticed how more and more good chocolate starting becoming available, for better or worse (we became overly excited by the opening of "Le Jardin du Chocolat" in nearby Ramsey a few years ago).

I haven't tried Sharffen Berger many times but I remember buying a solid dark chocolate bar of their's last year in a desperate hunt for something chocolate. Of course, it was good. The last chocolates I've had were Pierre Herme's chocolates for Wegmans about a month ago and I'll list them under the perks of living in NJ (a very short list, I might add).

After finishing up at the MoCCA Art Festival, Diana and I went to Spring Street Natural, one of our favorite restaurants that we hadn't been to in more than two years. I'm not sure how we even came across this restaurant in the first place but I suppose we were just walking in the area one day and needed a place to eat. Besides that the restaurant is huge, our favorite part of the restaurant was the complimentary bread basket in the beginning of the meal that came with ridiculously good tomato bread. I haven't even had tomato bread anywhere else!

Alas, I'm still on my no-wheat thing. Yes, I have stuck to it, believe it or not! And yes, I'm eating other grains (say hello to my good friend, Rice), but I think I'm avoiding all the gluten-y ones. So while I didn't get to enjoy the bread, Diana said it was still tasty.

mm, bass

For some reason I was in the mood for fish and when provided the choices of salmon, cod, and bass, I went with bass because I can't recall ever having eaten it before, at least not within the past few years. What you see above is the "pan roasted wild striped bass with roasted lemon butter, poblano pepper-sweet potato gratin and grilled asparagus." Oh. Boy. This was good. If I'm supposed to complain about anything, I don't know what I could complain about (keep in mind, my standards probably aren't that high, but I'd know if something were terribly wrong). Fish tasted perfectly cooked, skin was very crispy but not dry (mm mm, taste that fat), the butter sauce felt light but oh so buttery, sweet potatoes were...well, sweet potato-ee, and the portion was almost perfect (I should keep in mind that since I'm smaller than a normal human being I should eat less than a normal portion, but when 1/4th of the fish still lay on myplate, I decided there was no point in wasting the $19 price tag). I probably shouldn't have eaten the entire thing but at least I didn't eat bread. Diana and I ordered desserts but it turned out they didn't have mango cheesecake so I didn't have dessert. I guess it was a blessing in disguise.

Of course, my sugar quota for the day was left unfulfilled so when I got home at around 10 PM, I immediately went for juicy navel oranges, honey, and sesame seeds. Mmmmm. See, even though I didn't eat lunch, I think I went over my caloric quota for the day. OH WELL!

As for the not eating lunch thing, I probably went about 18 hours without food in between meals without feeling uncomfortable at any moment. My tummy didn't grumble at all during the 7 hours I was tabling at MoCCA. Is that strange? I'm starting to think that I really do process/handle food differently than most normal people who "need" food in order to not feel like a pile of poop. If I feel bad from lack of eating, it's usually a psychological thing, not physical. The detrimental effects of eating too much are more noticeable (time wise) than the effects of not eating enough. The latter takes longer, for one thing...

So fish is yummy. The end.

I'd almost feel bad eating Charm City Cakes since they're so awesome looking (but of course, I WOULD gobble them up and let them burn in my stomach acids). They made a TROGDOR cake! (If you don't know who Trogdor is, it doesn't really matter.) Since the site is in flash I can't directly link you to the cakes but be sure to check out the cake pictures galleries. Mike's Amazing Cakes are also freakishly cool and un-cake looking. I like the steak cake in particular. [from Lovescool]

Hear a bunch of food bloggers from sites that you probably read (SliceNY, A Full Belly, The Food Section) speak at For the Main Course, A Blog this Thursday in NYC. I'll definitely be in NYC this Thursday (as I was there yesterday and will be there today and, god, it would be a lot easier to just live in NYC) so I SHOULD go to this, but I'm not sure because I suck. I'll as my mum if she's interested. I don't have any friends who are quite as into food as I am. Good for them. [from The Amateur Gourmet]

Today I ate three oranges, a bunch of strawberries, sesame seeds, honey, and water. I ate too much yesterday so I guess that was my version of balancing it out. I passed by the Shake Shack for the first time today on the way to class (I walked from the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd/8th to the School of Visual Arts on 23rd/3rd) and it was pleasantly uncrowded. Because it was 5:30 PM. Still dieting (haha, right) so I can't eat there at the moment, but at some point I will.

Vincon sells a lovely honey jar. [from Cool Hunting] I don't know anyone who likes honey as much as my mum and I do; unlike chocolate, which has many admirers, people don't seem to go at lengths to praise honey and eat craploads of it. I stocked up last week at Dean & Deluca by buying four types of honey that I assumed were all raw. European ones don't always say whether they're raw but from their consistency it doesn't seem like they could be cooked. Anyway, I'm not really going to go into "ooh I love honey mode" but my mum and I eat a lot of honey. We'd never need a jar though since we just eat it with spoons. The other day I poured some into a small dish to eat; that's the Robyn way to eat honey.

So it turns out that I AM going to the food blogging whatchamajiggy on Thursday night (thanks, Amy!). A part of me thought "No way, if I go to events in NYC it should be for CONCERTS! CONNCCEERRTTTS!" But there aren't a whole lot of concerts I want to go to at the moment so hearing a bunch of food bloggers speak should be good fun, minus the hipsters.

Thursday is going to be some weird mega-fooding day. Lunch at Lemongrass Grill, perhaps a bit of chocolate hunting (which would entail lots of walking), the food talk, and dinner at some unknown location.

Today I had an orange for breakfast. About 12 hours later I ate dinner (in between I didn't feel hungry, although I was ready to eat by the time dinner rolled around), which consisted of SO MUCH FOOD (but strange ones, perhaps):

• an orange
• about 6 strawberries
• about 6 cherries
• about a cup of rice (before it was cooked, mind you)
• crapload of chinese cabbage in some spicy Indian sauce (yup, I cooked)
• too much honey (maybe two ounces)
• a few ounces of sesame seeds
• some potato chips (an ounce?...god, I don't know, not a whole bag at least)
• water

Spicy cabbage is surprisingly yummy. Rice is always yummy. Actually, it was really the sauce that I liked--forget the cabbage! And now I am very stuffed with a strange combination of foods. You could ask me why I don't eat balanced meals, but...(shrugs). It's kind of balanced, as I do have my fruits, veggies, carbs, yummy yummy sesame seeds...

While I was walking around in NYC yesterday, I seemed to miss most interesting food spots (besides the Shake Shack). But I never went as far west as 9th Ave or else I may have gotten the chance to pass Billy's Bakery. A bakery I haven't had the chance to stuff my face at yet is a bakery I must go to.

...nevermind, I'm weird.

Yup. Wheat. I had gone about 4 weeks without it but something came up; I WAS OFFERED A WHEAT BASED PRODUCT, AND I ATE IT. It was more like half wheat, half red bean, but...

Corinne went to Mistuwa and I stayed in her apartment with her husband since I'm working on his website. Before she went out, I told her that they have great oobanyaki (and even if it were bad, I'd still eat it because I don't know where else to get fresh ones) because I obviously like telling people what yummy foods they should eat, even if they claim to not like red bean paste and pancake-ee things. I wasn't expecting her to BUY a freakin' box of it, but since she's very sweet, she DID. While I was literally out the door, semi-rushed to go to the bus station, she held the long, opened styrofoam box of oblong red bean paste-filled treats in front of my face, insisting that I take one. Well. ...well. Wheat. Well.

So I ate one and it was delicious. Of course, now I'm thinking that the no-wheat thing is over, unless I figure I can eat it once a week. I think I lost some weight by excluding wheat. IT'S A GOOD THING! However, I'm planning to go on a massive cupcake-ing excursion around the city in mid-July so I knew by that time I'd be off the no-wheat thing. It just happened a little earlier than I thought it would.

Last night I went to Legal Seafood with my mum since it's one of the nicest restaurants at the Palisades Center (as opposed to Chili's and The Outback).

grilled rainbow trout

Rainbow trout is yummy. It's not very distinct in my opinion except that it's a thin, not very large fish. Which is kind of cool. I even liked the skin, which is a part of the fish I tend to not eat (salmon skin mainly, yeecccch). Legal Seafood makes excellent chunky mashed potatoes out of new potatoes, but their green beans and carrots weren't that great.

Auntie Anne's pretzels

For some reason, I really wanted a pretzel, or something wheat based since I figured by already eating wheat that day, I may as well EAT SOME MORE and continue the neverending consumption of carbs. Not having eaten a pretzel in a few years, I decided to get one, figuring it'd be better than Cinnabon. And then I ate the pretzel and realized Cinnabon probably would've been better. I don't know how Auntie Anne's slogan is "Better than the best you've ever tasted" because I think the pretzels from my high school cafeteria, not exactly a place of the best of anything you may ever taste, were better. It might just be a matter of opinion but there wasn't anything special about these pretzels (I tried the almond one). They weren't very almondy, were not overly chewy or soft so that I could say the chewiness or softness factors were great. Despite that, I ate the whole thing (costed about $2.50, damn) and then regretted wasting my calories on the sad pretzel. There's something not worth trying again.

...however, I'm guessing that there must be a good pretzel in Palisades Center; it's got four floors, so it must have more than four pretzel vendors. If other ones look promising, I might try them. No more Auntie Anne's, I guess.

<

Japanese cookbooks

Even though I don't cook (not "real" recipes at least), I couldn't resist getting a Japanese cookbook from Kinokuniya, or rather, a cookbook in Japanese about Chinese food. I'd love to learn how to make Chinese food and hopefully my mum can't back out of teaching me after gloating ever few page turns, "I know how to make that!" Yeah, mum? YEAH? Well, teach me, dammit! I think she'll regret being so sure of herself considering that she doesn't even like to cook. Hopefully, she'll want to prove herself and we'll have craploads of dumplings and steamed bread. And we'll get very fat...wait, maybe that's a bad idea.

Is this a horrible accident? [from simple bits] If they were cookies, perhaps...

Want a 280,000 yen melon? What kind of idiot would pay that much for a melon? Seriously.

I can't believe I failed to mention that this past Sunday I went to the Country Pancake House accompanied by CJ and JD (I could be RB but that sounds...well, stupid), who had never been there before. I was more than happy to 1) spread the joy of receiving a plate of pancakes that are larger than your head and 2) have an excuse to eat there.

frittata

Since I was still on my "no wheat diet" at the time (abandoned since Tuesday), I ordered a frittata, which like everything in the restaurant is massively huge. As for the white pool of cheese that seems to be suffocating the frittata, I took off most of it and made it into a patty of congealed mozzerella that was eerily satisfying to stab with my fork. We all laughed as I flipped the cooled cheese patty over and over, probably making sound effects during the process (by the way, I make sound effects...you have to be around me in real life to hear them since spelling them out isn't nearly as effective). I haven't had many frittatas in my life, but I really liked it. There was nothing wrong with it to my knowledge, just LOTS OF EGGY GOODNESS.

orea pancakes

CJ got oreo pancakes after almost considering getting plain pancakes (that would've been lame). He ate about two before getting full. Yes, getting full from two pancakes is normal but it disturbed me a bit since I know that I'm capable of eating two and I'm considerably smaller than CJ, along with not being a guy. Maybe I think about it too much but I'm consistently disturbed by the realization that I can eat the same amount of food as guys that are older and taller than me.

Anyway, if you go anywhere in NJ, you NEED to go to the Country Pancake House. And invite me while you're at it.

"What diet are you on today?"

"NO DIET. EAT TIME. ME. UH. YUP."

I didn't really say that (although it's not that far off from how I normally speak in semi-caveman tongue), but Mary did half-jokingly ask me what diet I was on. My "diet" for the past month was not eating wheat, but since I ate the oobanyaki and today was "the day of massive fooding", I figured eating wheat wouldn't hurt. To put things in perspective, I don't drink alcohol, coffee, or soda, don't smoke, don't take drugs, and don't do anything massively unhealthy besides sitting on my butt most of the time while surfing the Internet and letting my brain cells die off while developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

Mary, Victor and I met up for lunch at Lemongrass Grill in Greenwich Village (which has recently moved from University Place to 13th Street to merge with a Japanese restaurant). I was kind of the "surprise guest" since Victor was originally planning to meet Mary alone; when I told my mum this, she said, "You were probably the third wheel." Wow, mum, nice way to make me feel like a pile of poo. But... back to the story.

Thai lunch box

My lunch was really good. Oh. Yes. I would order broad rice noods (not noodles, noods...it's Robyn-speak) again but they have a bunch of choices that come with either beef, chicken, or tofu. I'd do the permutation but I stopped doing math as soon as high school ended. I don't know what dressing they used on the salad but it was deeeelicious. No complaints here, except that I got white rice even though I asked for brown rice. Ah, whatever.

I've been wanting to go to Jacque Torres Chocolate Haven ever since it opened but for some reason I could never drag myself over there (for no good reason, I tend to avoid the west side of Manhattan). Victor expressed much interest in getting chocolat and Mary had never been there; methinks it's time for a CHOCOLATE HUNT.

inside the chocolate haven

"Oh my god, it smells like chocolate."

"The smell of chocolate hit us as soon as we stepped inside the door. Oh. Lordy. Lordy...god god...chocs galore...OHMYGOD.

Yeah, we liked it. I was probably a little too excited as I was almost drooling on the glass panel over the main counter (glass panels are good for food sanitation, folks!) but COME ON! They were making stuff! Right there! Over there! And there. AND THEY HAD FREE COOKIE SAMPLES! And lots of cute chairs! And PILES of chocolate bark! And shelves of chocolate bars and various chocolate covered goodies! One of the most amazing things about this place is that it's pretty inexpensive, at least not as much as I though it would be.

What does 1 kg of chocolate look like?

Thus, that is why Victor bought this 1 kg brick of chocolate for $24. $24! I'll have to ask him how it tastes, but I'm sure it's good. I didn't believe him at first when he said he was going to buy it, but I'm glad it was my fault he did. [cue evil laughter] For the rest of the day he revelled in the fact that he was carrying around 1 kg of chocolate.

best chocolate cookie ever

Cookies. One of my favorite food groups is that which contains cookies (IT'S A FOOD GROUP, DON'T TELL ME OTHERWISE) and the woman behind the counter suggested their dark chocolate cookie with walnuts. I've never had such a chocolate laden cookie before in my life; if it had any more chocolate, it would actually just be chocolate. I'm exaggerating a little bit but for a cookie it had an abnormally high percentage of chocolate (what the world needs is more abnormally high percentages of chocolate). Mary described it as being two cookies mashed into one, comprised of 3/2 chocolate and 1/2 cookie.

Mary had to go back to work so we headed down to Water Street to see her off. I figured this was a prime opportunity to finally visit Financier, a place I had lived a short walk from all school year yet NEVER went to during opening hours, only to find that it had closed early due to a private function. TODAY ONLY. WOW, what luck I've got. I suppose it was for the best since by that time I had probably consumed roughly 5000 calories, but I was slightly dejected.

Victor and I went to Chinatown since in my mind, the more I walk, the more reason I have to replenish the meager number of calories I burned by eating even more. I was craving some kind of drink so we shared a red bean shake from Green Tea on Mott Street. We both thought it was good but had a funny taste we couldn't recognize. Victor never had red bean before but I didn't even know what it was--something reminded me of chalk and I sure hope it wasn't chalk.

I have more to say, but I'm tired. SHALL RETURN. LATER.

radioactive cake

The above photo has nothing to do with the food blog panel last night, but I wanted to stick it in because I CAN. It looks like Western Union is honing in on the Chinese population by utilizing radioactive cake. Or something. I really don't understand this ad. If you know Chinese, feel free to enlighten me.

Of course, I enjoyed the food blog panel last night because 1) I like food and 2) I like blogs. Amy accompanied me because she actually wanted to, ie, I didn't have to force her. Thanks, Amy! ;) We sat in the front row because we're short. Yes. That's the reason, not because we're nerds. [cough hack COUGH] ...oh, okay, we're nerds.

I didn't take photos because I didn't feel like whipping out my camera (while being right in front; it ain't a concert, you know) and obviously, someone else was going to do it. The panelists were Adam Kuban, Alaina Browne, and Josh Friedland, moderated by Andrea Strong. I've been reading all their blogs for a while now, except (funnily, perhaps) Andrea's. And I just subscribed to hers. ...I really need to start unsubscribing to some blogs.

So what was the panel about? Um. Ummmm. Well, everyone talked about their experiences with blogging and the reactions they've gotten and how BLOGGING HAS CONSUMED THEIR LIVES, and I may have made that last one up. I think my above-average love for food has resulted in a below-average ability to remember things, so I can't recall much of what happened. Little bits of goo swimming around in my head include:

• rise of food blog popularity
• comparing food blogs and mainstream media
• niche food blogs
• NYC food culture
• maintaining blogs
• pancakes

Alright, they didn't talk about pancakes, but that would've been cool.

I don't remember how extensive the bit about focusing on a certain topic in blogging was, but it made me think about how I don't really do that. I just talk about what I eat and whatever food related stuff comes my way without any kind of structure. And of course, I take photos; I really need to save up for a better camera.

Oh, my mum is calling me to share some Jacques Torres chocolate, so I better be off. Lastly, other people/blogs at the panel that I recognized-ish were The Amateur Gourmet, A Year In Food, Kathryn and Lia (actually, I didn't see Lia and the place wasn't that big so I'M JUST BLIND, HA HA oh god).

Okay, I lied; LASTLY, here are some random links:

• I need alfajores
• Oh...my good lord, that's huge
• yakisoba shirt

The Great Wind Eater has Indigestion

Today, I felt just like the Great Wind Eater (taken from my comic at poofy.net, which after reading a few comics is obviously a product of my food-addled mind). Tonight after dinner I ate some kind of second dinner, which started with a cupcake and ended with PLAIN RICE. The day my house doesn't have a rice cooker is the day we've all died. Or moved. But I figured "died" would sound more dramatic. When I had to cook rice using a pot in my "intro to foods" class last year, I thought, "Well this is stupid, just use a rice cooker!" (My rice came out horribly over-cooked and watery, by the way. I didn't do so well in that class overall. SEE WHY I DON'T COOK? HA HA!!!)

pastel cupcakes

Today I went to the Wyckoff Bakery, a place I've been to maybe twice in my lifetime but is less than 10 minutes away from my house. This is probably a bit odd considering my obsession with bakeries, but I tend to get more stuff from Whole Foods or Market Basket. The pastel cupcakes looked beautiful, but I wanted something with more icing.

cookie monster cupcake

And so I did. This is a very sad looking cookie monster, and I almost feel bad saying this but the combination of the melty chocolate pupils and the cookie jammed in his mouth give me the impression that he was forced into some kind of S&M act against his own will that involved...eating cookies. Don't ask me where my head's at (seriously, I'm asexual; when I grow up, I'm going to reproduce by BUDDING). I had no problem putting cooking monster out of his misery.

icing to cake ratio

Check out this lovely icing-to-cake ratio. It's a cupcake Susie Felber (who wrote my favorite cupcake description on that cupcake that almost put me into a sugar coma) would almost like! If there were no cake. I love cupcakes with a ratio of almost 50/50 cake and icing, which doesn't happen very often. Cupcakes with a millimeter of icing make me want to cry. As for the taste of the cake and icing, it was good. Nothing bad, at least. Neither part was overly sweet (although I could go for slightly sweeter icing). One of the best parts about eating the cupcake is knowing that I shall be burping sweet sweet cupcake breath for the rest of the night (there's something you absolutely didn't need to know).

Anyway. I really need to lay off the food. I waaay overindulged today considering I didn't have to walk for miles in NYC. If I walked more, that would make me feel a little less guilty about stuffing my face with food. But do people walk in NJ? Noo, they DRIVE! EVERYWHERE!

So what did I eat today? Er. LUNCH:

• an orange (or two?)
• two little chocolate brownie thingers that my brother bought but didn't like, thus leading to me eating them, thus leading to me feeling preggers
• honey + sesame seeds

Dinner + post-dinner:

• large bowl of Chinese cabbage and some other Chinese vegetable stir fried in curry sauce
• a few cups of rice
• an orange (or TWO?!)
• cupcake
• another mini chocolate brownie thinger
• more honey + sesame seeds
• a bit of plain white rice

(sigh) Do you notice that everything I eat pretty much builds up to the event that I will eat something sugary and fatty at some point (hence my love for honey and sesame seeds)? Of course, I can eat plain rice because I LOVE ME SOME CARBS.

Last thing: I started a new page to list my favorite eating places. I'll keep adding to it but surprisingly, I can't think of a whole lot of places that aren't bakery or candy related. Or maybe it's not that surprising.

Big Tips Candy gives you 15 old timey American candy (primarily chocolate bars) all in once box. So you can eat them all. At once. Or that's what I would do. [from a full belly]

All this candy can be yours for $20. You can also get some of this stuff from Economy Candy, a store that has...well, look at it:

Gosh, do you see any candy?

Apparently, I tried some of the stuff from the Big Tips Candy Collection from my first visit there:

Sugar coma, commencing in 3, 2, 1...

The Mallo Cup was interesting, Goo Goo Cluster was yummy too. My favorite was probably the Yorkie though. I don't think I'm a huge fan of peanuts and marshmallow concoctions, but gooey peanuty cavity-causing foods are always yummy.

And SWEET JESUS, a blog about candy! [from wesley's girl] I shouldn't read this. But. I am. GOD DAMMIT!

"Did these plates get smaller?" asked CJ as his pancakes hovered over the edge of the plate. Because they're so freakin' HUGE, for the love of god.

"I think the pancakes may have gotten larger, if that's even possible." They seriously looked like they had grown. Seriously. Look at this:

pancake pile

Actually, that doesn't really show you how large the pancakes were, just how nicely they stack up. And that they do. What also stacks up nicely is the French toast.

French toast + bananas

I was going to get pancakes and was all set on a choice after staring at the menu long enough to have memorized it when CJ said he kind of wanted French toast. Hmmm...I've never tried the Country Pancake House's French toast before. Bwahaha. Their French toast may be even better than their pancakes. They give you seemingly half a loaf of bread in the form of three super-thick fluffy, soft, sweet eggy (flufsosweggy?...okay, no) slices of egg-dunk toast, which in my case was topped with confectioners sugar, almond slivers, and 2 (or more) bananas.

Oooh. Oooooooooooooo. Mmmmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmmm...French toast. So. Good. I'm not sure how to convey the joy that comes with shoving a huge piece of maple syrup-dunked French toast into your mouth, but it's quite good and involves lots of smiles and "mm"-like sound effects. I could have easily finished the three slices but I wanted to save some for later. CJ's apple cinnamon pancakes were also delicious (I traded a slice of my toast for one of his pancakes that was roughly the diameter of Jupiter) but next time I go (which might be next week for all I know; CJ and I may haev stumbled upon a weekly routine) I'm gonna get me some French toast. We decided that our food wasn't the most unhealthy in the world since there was a lot of fruit. Yup. *cough*

It might just be me, but I've decided that leftover refrigerated pancakes taste better than fresh warm fluffy ones. Of course, the fresh warm ones are great but they're more satisfying to me after they've toughened a bit.

I ate a somewhat sucky lunch today, nutritionally: one orange, some honey, some sesame seeds, and a bunch of potato chips that MY BROTHER BOUGHT AND I HATE HIM FOR THAT. It's not his fault that I eat his chips, but I tell myself it is so I have someone to focus my anger on. It's all my fault of course, and the lack of willpower. (sigh) I really have to learn how to eat more sensibly. Today I'm going to NYC and I really want to go to the Union Square Greenmarket for some bread (yup, how's that for green?) but I know I shouldn't or else I'll easily eat a 1 lb loaf. And. I shouldn't do that. Hell, NO one should do that. Hopefully I'll realize what a bad idea that is and instead of going to Union Square I'll just take my 1.5-ish mile stroll to class.

Wendy's new ad campaign

I'm not about to eat at Wendy's but their new ad campaign, goodtobesquare.com, extrudes Japanese cuteness, the kind that immediately appeals to me [from Fast Food News]. Like any fast food place, Wendy's will never "win" in my book but...lookit all them circles going "wee wee squeak"! Nehehe! The square-isms are pretty good as well, like this one:

"Happiness comes from within. Try to let some out every day. Or else you will eventually be so happy you will explode."

Profound AND true.

Good lord, I can't turn away. The circles. The CIRCLES!

Mmm, biblical.

Noah's nuggets? More fun foodstuffs from bluecockatoo. There are lots of similar snack bars out there but you know the names make these better. The Bible knows what's good for you. [from boing boing]

Oh my, CUPCAKES.

That's quite a stack of cupcakes. More trees should be made of cupcakes.

crack sammich

I don't make these things up. Chinese grocery stores are just full of crack sammiches!

I used to think that I was lactose intolerant, or rather, I was somewhat lactose intolerant as a kid. Asian families aren't very big on dairy products as far as I know, and I didn't grow up drinking milk (or eating cereal) or eating cheese. I guess most of my dairy consumption came from eating ice cream.

Today I was just thinking about how I used to abhor milk (in 9th grade I did a presentation in my health class about how milk was unhealthy and the only person that agreed with me was my teacher; the rest of the class thought I was seriously insane) yet today am more accepting of it. I don't think milk is really great, but I don't think it's the worst thing in the world either. It's a bit hypocritical of me to accept dairy after telling all my friends to never drink milk, but I don't actually drink milk per se, rather I eat ice cream every now and then or eat something else that has milk in it (and I'd rather eat butter than most other fats).

U.S. Food Policy reminded me about the suckness of the milk industry, which I hate for the most part (actually, I hate a lot of big food related industries...maybe it's comparable to a music lover hating big music companies). I'm sick of hearing that you have to drink milk in order to have strong bones/not have your arms fall off/not get osteoporosis. I'm no expert but maybe it would make more sense to tell people to stop drinking so much soda instead of drinking more milk. Of course, you can't tell people to decrease their consumption of something, especially soda, as it's one of the biggest moneymakers in the world. Loverly.

I learned that most of the world is lactose intolerant from my own quest to uncover the satanic origins of milk and from the nutrition class I took last year. However, I've been wondering how serious it really is as I don't know anyone who's lactose intolerant. Not so much that they can't eat dairy, at least. Figuring i know quite a lot of people (most of them Asian), you'd think one of them would be lactose intolerant. I decided I wasn't lactose intolerant after eating ice cream and not having any kind of intestinal explosion (however, I felt weird after eating Smoochies' lactose-free ice cream; I wouldn't recommend it, even though it initially tasted good). Or maybe I AM lactose intolerant but don't consume enough lactose to feel the effects. Or. I DUNNO!

Even if they're not all lactose intolerant, a great deal of the world's population has managed to survive without milk, contrary to what the dairy association has led the American population to believe about milk being necessary to building bones that won't turn into dust. When I was little I thought those "got milk?" ads were cute, but now they make me want to puke, besides making me wonder how much the celebrities got paid to wear their milk mustaches.

And this is stupid. When did we need a snackulator?

One of the main points I would use when telling people why they shouldn't drink milk was that milk is designed for calves, not humans. For the most part, humans are the only animals on Earth that consume milk into adulthood (I know that humans are the only animals on Earth who do a LOT of things, but this one is pretty basic). It's not really necessary, eh? I find it funny how people would cringe at the idea of drinking human milk but don't mind drinking cow's milk even though human milk is meant for human consumption. Of course, it's social conditioning--we're accustomed to drinking cow's milk. Can you imagine lugging a gallon of human milk home from the supermarket?

Oh, and I just remembered a random problem: people who replace cow's milk with soymilk. Even though I'm not big on milk, I find soy milk even worse. Why? Processing. At least milk is just made from the cow, while soymilk is mashed soybean juice. Ish. Soymilk obviously hasn't been around as long as plain ol' animal milk. When I was little I would drink soymilk on the infrequent occasion of going out for a traditional Chinese breakfast at which there would be a bowl of warm soymilk accompanied by those freaky puffed up fried bread sticks (mmmmm, oily). We never drank it at home though, nor did we drink milk.

Another thing that annoys me is how so many people buy low fat milk. First off, I had no idea people consumed so much milk (and soda) until I worked as a bagger in a grocery story. Holy. Crap. People buy shitloads of milk (although they buy even more soda; bagging those 1-liter bottles was such a pain in the ass). I think most of the milk people bought was low-fat. To me, this is almost as silly as buying low carb bread (which is just...really stupid), but it's widely accepted and some people just like the taste of low-fat milk more than whole. Alright. I don't drink much besides water (definite no-nos: coffee, alcohol, soda) so I can't imagine wanting to drink plain milk. A milk shake? Now THAT's a different story. ;)

...wow, did I write this much about milk? I don't even have a point to this post. Overall, I don't think drinking milk is the worst thing in the world, but saying that one needs to have it as part of a healthy diet is misleading. Because you probably don't. If you're going to drink milk, at least get the good whole kind that hopefully isn't full of hormones and antibiotics (think about all those cows with diseased udders, mm yum!).

Oh, I just remembered something pretty random. Asians probably aren't huge on eating dairy products but I remember when I lived in Taiwan that there were craploads of ice cream shops, mainly in department stores (of which there are CRAPLOADS). Even though I didn't eat LOADS of ice cream in Taiwan, I'm sure I ate more there than I have in NYC. It's disgustingly hot and humid in Taiwan so I guess that works out and would explain why they have that ice slush dessert, which I NEVER ATE in Taiwan to my knowledge. I think they put red bean, fruit, and condensed milk on top...or something. Anyhoo, my mum would always get taro ice cream, which for some reason I didn't like back then but would love to have now. I tried the taro ice cream from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory but it disappointed me since it wasn't very taro-filled. The coconut and ginger are golden though.

And I swear this post is over now.

La Table Nutella sounds like my kind of table. Full of nutella. Because that's the best kind of table (chock full of fat and sugar, MMM). Found through David Lebovitz, it's a temporary cafe that 100000 people want to eat at, thus most of us will never eat there, thus most of us will never get to say about the brownies, "I loved it, but others felt it was too rich...So I ate theirs for them." I'd so do that, although I'd wonder what I'd be doing with insane friends who couldn't finish their brownies. THAT'S WRONG. WROOOONG.

I've subscribed to a few food blogs today. That's also wrong. See how the list of links grows larger every day? AHH.

Preliminary Data Suggest that Soda and Sweet Drinks Are the Main Source of Calories in the American Diet and Soft Drinks as Top Calorie Culprit. [from US Food Policy]

I remember my brother declaring how amazingly one could lose weight by cutting out or drinking less soda. So I asked him what do you do if you already don't drink soda (while pointing to myself).

"You're screwed."

Sure am!

When I was little I drank soda whenever I wasn't at home. When I was at home, I'd drink craploads of juice, mainly orange juice, which isn't that great but is at least not as bad as soda. I regret drinking so much soda as a kid but most kids do that, eh? My mum hated it when I drank soda; if only I had listened to her...

In the past 2-3 years , I think I've drank soda twice. Ever since I started drinking primarily water (it's hard for me to believe that most of my life was spend drinking juice and soda), I haven't drank much else besides the occasional dessert-esque drink. Am I better off because of it? I hope so. Of course, I still maintain my greater-than-desired weight because, unlike Science News' words:

Dieters may not realize how sugary beverages affect them, because they focus on avoiding calorie-rich solid foods, says Robert Murray of Ohio State University. "Liquid calories like this, I think we tend to just ignore them," he says.

I don't really avoid calorie-rich solid foods, but I'm more likely to avoid liquid calories because...they suck. They're not as satisfying as say, a peach scone (one of which I ate today, mmm). Why do people drink so much soda? I'm going to attribute my soda drinking as a kid to being a stupid kid, but if "a quarter of all teens drink as many as four cans a day", that's rather frightening. I don't think a quarter of my friends drink that much soda a day, but...eh.

My diet might be crappy, but can I be slightly at peace for knowing it's not full of liquid calories? Soda isn't just about liquid calories and the idea that people think they can just swap it with diet soda bothers me. Carbonation ain't that good for ya! Yeah! Off the top of my head (my head not being a doctor's head), I recall that carbonation leads to calcium leach-age. And a little anecdote: I still remember in 11th grade eating a lunch with some school officials because my friends and I helped paint a mural and the assistant principal, a rather girt-ful man, chose to drink a diet Pepsi. That's not gonna help, pal. Pick Poland Spring next time. After that lunch I remember being distinctly disgusted at the eating habits of adults, not that they all eat crap of course, but...something clicked.

Oh, I eat crap by the way. But if you read this blog, YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT! Haha. I eat too much...food. Today I ate:

• 2 or 3 oranges
• a few strawberries (NJ grown, HOLY CRAP these are good!)
• 2 pineapple cakes (those Chinese rectangles with pinapple goo, not actually cakes with pineapple)
• half of a sweet zong zi (first and last time I think I will eat one as it wasn't nearly as good as a savory one)
• a peach scone (mmmm)
• dinnner noodle-ee thing that I actually COOKED, consisting of a head of Boston lettuce, Japanese somen noodles, half of an onion, a bunch of peas, mixed together with some Indian curry sauce
• some honey and sesame seeds
• some potato chips
• a mantou
• water

Holy crap, that list is ginormous. ...oh god.

... ...okay, time for bed now that it's past 3 AM and I'm gonna get less than 5 hours of sleep, HUZZAAH!

OH last thing: food blogger get-together makes me feel so antisocial! I'm just gonna stay home here in Jersey, maybe stare at the wall since that's quite fun. Actually, NJ isn't that bad, but living here doesn't help my antisocial tendencies. If I lived in NYC I'd see a free Feist performance and attend the Renegade Craft Fair. Oh, and I'd eat a lot of bread. Obviously.

To the person who left the comment:

honey has 18 calories more per tablespoon than refined sugar

I hope I didn't give the impression that I care a great deal about calories. Because...I don't. HA HA. Okay, that's not completely true as you need to have some idea of how much you're eating but to me choosing between raw honey (my unscientific assumption is that there is a difference between raw and cooked honey, but cooking does change the structure of...stuff) and refined sugar is like choosing between butter and margarine. Perhaps not as extreme, but do you see where my mind's at? (If you haven't figured it out, I'd go for butter.) I'm sure there are a bunch of different kinds of sugar out there but it's nothing like the variety of honeys available. Mmm, mm.

Of course, I eat lots of refined sugar when it's an ingredient in other things (helloooo pastries). But I wouldn't eat it plain with a spoon. If you're curious enough, I HAVE eaten sugar out of a bag with a spoon and it's not quite as pleasing as eating honey. It's not very pleasing at all, actually. If I didn't throw out the bag that day, I probably would've eaten more sugar though.

On a random note, it's been more than 12 hours since I last ate but as usual, I'm not hungry. For people who don't know, I have a tendency to not be hungry, but have the ability to eat at any time. In one of his essays, Calvin Trillin mentioned such a trait in his formerly obese friend, Fats (er, not his real name, but close enough), which has made me believe that my hunger-vs-appetite trait (in that I don't really get hungry but I always have an appetite) isn't that weird. But. I haven't met anyone else who has felt the same way.

...but who am I to talk about being hungry? I JUST EAT A LOT. UH HUUH! I won't be eating for about another 6 hours (I'll be eating dinner in NYC at some currently unknown location) but I know I won't feel like dying in that time period.

ghetto syrup

For some reason, "ghetto syrup" was the first description that popped in my head when I saw this. It was after I ate it though.

Today I had onion rings and a waffle with strawberries for dinner at Vandam Diner. Yup. Why? I WANTED WAFFLES, DAMMIT (didn't really need the onion rings but I figured, why not?). I didn't eat breakfast/lunch, unless you count a few Pocky sticks Corinne gave me. I WAS FORCED! I SWEAR! (Oh...come on, you can't resist Pocky.)

Boy, do I eat crap or what? It could've been worse and I certainly don't get to eat that kind of food at home. Funny that even though I've lived in NJ for most of my life, the home of a million diners, I never go to any of them. For some reason I feel like it's more fun to go to diners in NYC (I've eaten at a handful of em, mainly for the purpose of comparing pancakes, which all kind of suck by the way).

Of course, I was still kind of hungry by the time I got home, thus resulting in the consumption of an orange, a bunch of strawberries (mmmm), a mantou with olive oil (mmmmmmm), a little bit of my brother's chocolate cake from Whole Foods (which is actually more like fudge, so it's probably good that I only ate a forkful of it), some potato chips (baaaad), a pineapple cake, and three chocolate covered almonds from La Maison du Chocolat (they are very good).

... lordy.

So! Time for some links. Have I mentioned the Fancy Food Show? I feel like I have. Oh, how I wish I could attend.

Subscription of the day: Cakehead.com - Sweet News for Food Heads. You can't go wrong with something called CAKEHEAD.

Stupid thing of the day: Overheard in New York: Sometimes Foods Have the Oddest Etymologies.

I think I want this book: Fat Girl.

mm, cupcakes

I didn't eat those cupcakes, but they sure look tasty. (And then I ranted about buying a new camera).

My brother, Bert, and I took the train to Hoboken and the Path to the WTC station to meet up with Jesse for A DAY OF FOODING, planned by me, of course. I actually took the three of us on a little fooding tour the last time Jesse was here. Maybe it's my purpose in life. ...crap. Seriously, that's a little disturbing. I need to find a hobby with less health risks, caloric intake, and poses less of a threat to one's blood sugar level.

I wasn't planning to eat lunch due to the handful of bakeries I intended to hit (come on, it's the Robyn way) and the assumption that Jesse had eaten breakfast, but it turned out that Jesse didn't have enough time to eat breakfast and they both thought I was insane. Yeah, yeah, I know you have to eat but...anyway, I'm glad we decided to eat lunch because I remembered wanting to try Kitchenette months ago. Could I remember where it was? Somewhere on West Broadway?

Kitchenette

Woo, victory! Internally, I was doing a happy dance (my digestive system, most likely, gastric juices doing a bit of partying). NYC may be the only place in the world in which I don't need a map.

inside Kitchenette

The restaurant is much smaller than I thought it would be. There's a counter and around 10 tables all fighting for the space around the semi-open kitchen and drool-inducing dessert display. Sometimes cramped is just "uncomfortable" cramped, but in this case it felt cozy. I liked the cheery yellow cherry-spotted wallpaper and ...um. The gigantic albino pear. Not sure what that's about. (A weird sculpture? An alien pod encapsulating baby albino pears?) We got there before noon and it wasn't crowded at all, but the place was packed by the time we left.

mac & cheese

I was trying to decide between pancakes, a hamburger, and mac & cheese. Sweet fluffy plops of wheat, possibly what clouds in heaven are like (edible and covered in maple syrup, that is)? Ground cow in a bun? Pasta slathered in cheese, perhaps the two foods that I eat the least (this may be cheating, but I differentiate between Asian noodles and Italian pasta)? CHEESE AND WHEAT IT ISSS! MMM! As you can see, it's penne and not macaroni but it's still good. I haven't had lots of mac & cheese in my life to compare this to but I was happy with it and thought it was good enough to try again (except next time I go, I want to try PANCAKES). It seemed "just right" in all the departments: hot, but not scalding, not too gooey, not overly cheesey, and it was an adequate portion that completely satisfied me without leaving my stomach feeling brick-like nor necessitating the use of a forklift to transport me out of the restaurant. The pasta wasn't caked together besides those bits from the top of the pan, which I actually really like.

I'm cheap, so $9.50 seemed like a lot for mac & cheese and a side salad. But. Actually, it's not. In the end, we all paid $13 for our entrees plus tip (we also shared a side of garden fries). The consensus? "Mmmm. Good. Let's come again." I'll be a relatively short walk away from my dorm (less than a mile) so I'm positive I'll go, if not for pancakes then for:

cakes and things

...their ridiculously delicious looking desserts. Oh. Yeah. They had a lot. They also had a sign on the back wall that said something about PIE. I want that sign. Hell, I don't even eat much pie, but IT'S SUCH A GOOD WORD! PIE! Just say it. Pie pie pie pie pie pie pie pie pie...pie pie. Pie. Pie pie...okay, it's time to stop.

Then it was on to Bouley Market (and if may be judgemental, their website kind of sucks, although I've found that most websites for restaurants, no matter good or bad, tend to fit in the category of suck). I heard about their bread. So. They have bread?

loads of bread

Yeah, you could say that. When I first set my eyes on the display from outside, I rushed to the window, probably pointing excitedly while Bert and Jesse pretended to not know me.

mm, pastries

The pastries are beautifully laid out, although they'd look insanely delicious even if they were displayed in potato sacks. Foodstuffs that weren't in refrigerated cases were displayed on simple plates, giving the place a home-like feel (if the home were inhabited by bakers who always felt the need to keep plates full of pasties...does such a home exist, and can I live there?). I think my only problem with the market were the doors. I can't remember what bothered me about the doors, but...well, it's not food related. The food is high-end but reasonably priced in my opinion. Most people could certainly spare about $6 for a loaf of bread or a miniature cake. In my case, I spent about $8 on a loaf of fig bread, a madeleine, and a little caramel cake-thinger whose name I don't remember but wasn't like anything I had ever eaten before. Oohhh tasty...I gotta find out the name of it.

Good lord, this took forever to type. Much more fooding happened that day (Sullivan Street Bakery, Jacque Torres Chocolate Haven, Cones, and Polka Dot Cake Studio) but I'll have to talk about them later.

• Insane Japanese crepes: I’m not a big crepe person but HOLD CRAP! Is there anything like that in the US? THEY STUCK CHEESECAKE IN THERE! Some personal anecdotes about Japan: most people eat ice cream in a cone with a spoon and my family probably looked stupid licking our ice cream cones. I once got ice cream from one of those machines like the one in the lj post’s last photo and it was seemingly in the middle of nowhere, a small alleyway around a residential area. BUT THERE IT WAS! And it was good!
• Chocolate Nike sneaker? Uhhh. Well. That would be the best sneaker, figuring you don’t wear it. [from core77]
• Drumset made of cheese (and photoset): That’s pretty awesome. [from kathryn yu]
• The World’s Healthiest Foods: I’ve overdosed on a lot of these foods. COS I TEND TO OVEREAT! HA HA! YEAH. I really need to eat healthier food. [from metafilter]

While lying in bed reading Candyfreak, which just arrived in the mail today from an amazon marketplace seller, my left hand rested on the upper portion of my right arm.

Squish.

What the...

Squish.

WHEN DID MY ARM BECOME SO SQUISHY? AHHHHH. AHHHHHHH. AHHH...*breathes in*...HHHH.

You too can abuse amazon images

Oh well, that's not surprising. So! Back to the book. I think I love the author, Steve Almond, except for his "freak physiology". In his own words:

I have been endowed with one of those disgusting metabolisms that allow me to eat at will. To phyysiologists, I am a classic ectomorph, though my ex-girlfriends have tended to gravitate toward the term scrawny. The downside of this metabolic arrangement is that I am a slave to my blood sugar. If I don't eat for too long, I start thinking about murdering people. and I am inexorably drawn toward fats and carbs. I hate most vegetables, particularly what I call the evil brain trio -- broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts -- which tastes, to me, like flatulence that has been allowed to blossom. Left to my own devices, my diet would consist of dark chocolate and baguettes, with perhaps a grilled pork rib thrown in for variety. I realize that I am going to hell.

Damn you, Steve. But I guess it worked out for the best as he gets to eat lots of candy and tell the world, teeming with people who have normal and less than optimal metabolisms, about it. From my arm-squishiness, I probably shouldn't attempt to duplicate Steve's candy crusades in any way, but after reading most of the book (shall finish it later tonight), I have an exploding desire to revisit Economy Candy and load up on candy bars I've never had before. And corn syrup be DAMNED; it's in everything!

[*Thinks*...yes, indeed I do that, however sparingly.] I'm going to hell too. Or I would if I believed in hell.

While on the subject of food writing, I'd like to share a bit of Jeffrey Steingarten. I'm still plodding through It Must've Been Something I Ate, not because it's boring by any means but because I'm slow (except with the candy book; CANDY, HELLOOO). In one chapter, he recounts the experience of trying to cook a pizza in his oven, which he had to trick into become a gazillion degrees in order to somewhat match a restaurant's oven's temperature. It worked. Kind of:

The results were brilliant, especially in concept. My oven, believing incorrectly that its temperature was near the freezing point, went full blast until thick waves of smoke billowed from every crack, vent, and pore, filling the house with the palpable signs of scientific success. Yes, the experiement had to be cut short, but it had lasted longer than the Wright brothers' first flight. Inside the oven was a blackened disk of dough pocketed with puddles of flaming cheese. I had succeeded beyond all expectations.

You know what my favorite part of that paragraph is? Puddles of flaming cheese. Do I have the brain of a 5-year-old or what? I think that would be a great name for a blog, if any food-lovers out there need a title.

On a totally random (but food related) note, today I opened a bag of scented Jasmine rice that I bought at the Chinese grocery store last week and it smelled amazing. Like. Rice. But. AMAZING. I'm going to eat it for dinner tonight.

If you lived in Japan, you could get Kit Kat flavored with green tea, azuki, and condensed milk. Well, I guess they don't shove it all in the Kit Kat but it's supposed to taste something like that. Dude. DUDE. This makes me weep at the thought of candy in America. Here are our Kit Kat choices. It's not crappy but it's not all that innovative.

Not that making candy is easy. I absolutey loved Candyfreak. Something strange about my food preference (maybe, considering that this website is called "The Girl Who Ate Everything) is that I've never been really into candy, aside from chocolate, but even with chocolate I don't eat many chocolate candy bars. While I can recall the popularity of gums like Bubble Tape, Extra, and that weird shredded gum crap in a bag, I hardly ever ate it. Why the hell did people chew so much gum? I remember during elementary school people asking me if I had gum or if I wanted it. NO! WHY WOULD I HAVE GUM? (If I may reminisce, the most gum I ever ate was in Taiwan, called Playgum. It was in every convenience store and always resembled a white block with a colorful center that was probably fruit flavored. For some reason, I can only remember the purple one. It was extremely soft and sugary.) Today it seems like many people carry around mints. Mints...*shudders*. I also remember during my raw food diet how a few friends told me that they could never give up candy. Now, there are a lot of things I can't imagine giving up (wheat based substances, mainly) but candy? Plain ol' candy?

I have a greater respect for the candy industry now, or rather anything that isn't Mars, Hershey, or Nestle. The old family candy businesses are at risk of dying out, as many old food-related practices are, such as raising cows that eat GRASS (indeed, a novel idea). Candy making may not be as needed as say, sustainable agriculture, but it's...it's tasty. And it smells good. Is that not enough justification for eating highly processed concoctions of multiple types of sugar mixed with multiple types of fat enrobed in some other mixture of sugar and fat?

If there's one candy I like the most, it would have to be chocolate bars. Because...there's chocolate in it. I don't want any of that peanut and caramel crap; there must be chocolate. I remember many years ago trying a Payday, which I THOUGHT would have chocolate but instead was a log of caramel with peanuts on top. What the...honestly, what the fuck is that? I thought everything Hershey made had chocolate in it but apparently not. Anyway, what's going on with candy these days? Check out this information from Payday's website:

2005 Hershey introduces PAYDAY PRO, a high protein energy bar with 15 grams of protein and 14 vitamins and minerals. The PAYDAY PRO energy bar provides a great tasting, nutrient dense snack.

No offense, but if you eat a candy bar for nutrients, you're stupid. Basically. Perhaps because you probably ate too much candy.

Out of all the old timey candy Steve Almond mentioned, I had only tried the Goo Goo Cluster. I know that I can't possibly turn into a candy freak because I don't ...get insane satisfaction from eating candy, it seems. I enjoy it, yes, but I thought the Goo Goo cluster was "alright". Not bad, but not really something I'd need to eat again. Overall, anything with peanuts doesn't scream "eat me again". My favorite nut and chocolate mixtures involve hazelnuts or almonds. Hazelnuts are perfect with chocolate in my opinion, yet quizzically taste kind of crappy on their own. I know because I've eaten loads of plain ones (even though they don't taste great, I still eat them...hm). Almonds on the other hand are always good plain, especially raw. Mmm.

(I don't know if I've ever mentioned my nut addiction, but I can eat lots of nuts. Lots. Half a pound in a day, easily, if I allowed myself to do so and didn't mind going into a protein coma. When I started reading the news "alerts" informing people that eating a handful of nuts a day was healthy, I thought, "A handful? You have to tell people to eat a handful of nuts a day? You have to tell me to STOP at a handful of nuts a day! And by stop, I mean shut my jaw closed." Anyway, I've stopped eating nuts ever since I started eating grain products again...er. Yeah, I overeat that too.)

A chapter was devoted to 5 Star Chocolate Bars, which I at first thought I had never tried. Upon seeing the photo, I remember that I HAVE tried the hazelnut one, perhaps 4 years ago. It was really good. Considering that I still remember it, it must've been pretty damn good, and after reading Steve's praise for the bars I feel the need to try the other flavors. What I remember about the hazelnut bar (and this was before I started eating artisan chocolates) was its incredibly richness and meltyness. And hazelnutyness. I didn't chomp it down like a regular chocolate bar but savored it by eating it slowly. I can't believe I remember this.

Anyway. A trip to Economy Candy is an absolute necessity right now. Anyone want to go? I'd love to buy a few candy bars and split them with someone. A plus is that the store is close to Sugar Sweet Sunshine, or Teany if you want...tea. But wouldn't you rather have cupcakes?

...wow, someone remind me that my arm is expanding and growing every more squishy so perhaps I'll stop this food madness.

Oh, if anyone is wondering, the most candy bars I've eaten over the past year (as in 12 months) haven't been American, which was my excuse for eating so many. I gorged on chocolate bars (and biscuits) while in England and I sampled some Scandinavian goodies I found in Brooklyn. I had a few random things from Economy Candy but my candy bar consumption has mainly been British. I think they had a lot more stuff that wasn't peanut-based, thus leading to my hoard-age. I remember Topic being especially good (although what kind of name for a chocolate bar is that?).

If I may include some signs of semi-health in my diet, today for dinner I ate jasmine rice and a stir fried vegetable mix of swiss chard (grown on a farm just a few miles from my house) and onions, flavored with salt, olive oil, and some raw coconut oil. I tend to only cook vegetable because it takes the least amount of time and I actually think it tastes good

...And for dessert I had an orange, strawberries, a Chinese pineapple cake, some chocolate covered almonds, a dark chocolate mendiant square, and a slice of pear and strawberry pie. Wow. I suck.

Some food related shirts from threadless (there are more than what I'm posting here but these are the ones I like most):

Get In My Belly!: If stuff that looks sleek and well done is a style, I think "crappily drawn" is also a style. One that I like. I'm sure a bunch of people would buy this shirt.

A Balanced Diet: May contain peanuts. Delish!

I Can't Believe I Ate The Whole Thing: Actually, I can believe I ate the whole thing. I don't think I'd buy this shirt (would buy the previous two) but it's an accurate reflection of...my eating habits.

Oh, what did I eat today? Err. Lunch:

• some strawberries
• an orange
• a mantou + extra virgin olive oil
• some chocolate covered almonds
• slice of pear and strawberry pie
• a pineapple cake

Dinner:

• chicken tandoori wrap from Whole Foods, which was really filling...it was good, but I wouldn't put "wraps" in my list of favorite foods
• 5 Star fruit and nut chocolate bar, very good
• an orange

...wow, I thought I ate more. Am I forgetting something? Well. The wrap was pretty huge.

mm, low calorie

I've wanted to make plush cakes out of felt. But dollyday did this very well, so perhaps I won't...or I'll look at it as inspiration?

Today I went to the Union Square Greenmarket at around 5 PM. If you live in NYC, you'll know that it was RAINING VERY HARD. In the time I walked from the Path station on 14th street a few avenues east, the rain got harder and harder and...damn. But the bread was priced down so I bought two loaves.

Oh, I ate crap today. SWEET! Seriously, today my diet consisted of bread and olive oil, fruit, cakey-things, and chocolate. Wow. (My diet is always weird on Mondays since I leave home at 3 PM for class and don't get back until after 11 PM). Could've been worse, I suppose.

Su Good Eats lists some free food related things coming up. The ones I'd most want to take advantage of are the Starbucks Ice Cream Social and Cold Stone's free tasting. But I'm sure I won't go to either because...that would be a BAD IDEA (besides that a million people will have the same idea).

pile o cupcakes

From picturing_food comes pagandreamer's PILE O CUPCAKES. I mean, that is just a pile...not like a neatly stacked cupcake display, a MOUNTAIN! Which is more awesome than neatly stacked ones (not that those aren't also awesome). So many...cupcakes...

I am so very jealous of all this cute Japanese food. Such as this:

whoa, cream puffs!

Dude. DUDE. I know those are fake display foods but the real ones don't look all that different. Does Beard Papa's make those in the US too or is it just a Japanese thing? Because I WOULD go to Beard Papa's to try that. I went once, I think on the day it opened near Astor Place, and I never went back because I just don't like cream puffs enough. But upon going to their homepage, I found out they have a location at Garden State Plaza, the shopping behemoth that I've learned to hate over the course of my lifetime because I used to go there weekly, if not more. For some reason I hate going there and seeing loads of weary looking teenagers sitting outside doing pretty much nothing, although I'll admit that there may not be much else to do in NJ (well, I have the Internet...hooray!). However, I'm probably going back soon since my mum said she'd take me to Neiman Marcus' restaurant (not in San Francisco, but that was the only website I could find), at which point I would also check out Beard Papa's.

Ah, I think it's time for lunch? Heehee.

I'll probably be in Tribeca tomorrow so I may go back to Kitchenette and start my day off with something disgustingly unhealthy like a cupcake. WOOO. I'm also probably going to Jacque Torres Chocolate Haven AGAIN tomorrow, at the request of a friend who has never been there. Wow. (pokes self)...hm. Hmmm. Hm? Squishy.

I wanted to go to sleep, but I decided to blog instead.

• Tokyo Bust Pudding: or BOOB PUDDING, to put it more bluntly (from growabrain)
• WAKE n' BACON: wake up to the scent of bacon. Not such a bad idea, actually, but you'd need to wake me up with cake. (from boing boing)
• Woman: Can you please make sure it's a boy lobster? I'm only into boys, and don't want to eat a girl.
• Gorillaz Peel the Potato game: I'm not a Gorillaz fan (don't hurt me) but what do they have to do with potatoes?

peanut butter cookie

Today I went back to CHOCOLATE HAVEN because I'm a glutton. And. My friend asked me to go. That's a valid reason, yes? Each time I've went was for the sake of showing the place to other people. Naturally I had to try the final cookie in the triad of 10000 Calorie Chocolate Haven Cookies and just like the others, this was one of the best cookies I've ever had. Why? Because. ...it was. Soft. Chewy. Sweet. Full of fat. Mm.

Since my friend Carol and I were going to midtown to see Samaritan Girl (skull-cracking suicidal fun!) we stopped by Buttercup Bakeshop, per my request. So far that day I had eaten some Pocky (Corinne "forced" me yet again, oh my) and the cookie. And. Now. It is. Time. For...

cupcakes!

Actually, that's not what I ate. That's what I saw in the window though. Good lord, how could anyone pass that without wanting to go in?

Hummingbird Cake

Carol and I shared a slice o cake since it's GINORMOUS. Actually, if it were half the size I would've thought it was too small even though half the cake was enough to satisfy me. Hmm. It was like eating banana nut bread with icing; heey, that's totally cool with me as I LOVE BANANA NUT BREAD!!! AND ICING!!! TOGETHER, EVEN!!! TRIPLE EXCLAMATION MARK ACTION!!! I'd want to try it again except that there are a crapload of other choices (such as the trays of cupcakes) that must be eaten at some point in my life.

When I got home from NYC I ate an orange and a slice of bread, but basically I ate one of the least healthy diets ever for one day. But you know what? I felt fine. No indigestion, no sugar coma, no hunger, no insane full-ness. I'd like to believe I burned off a little bit of that cake by walking from the movie theater to the Port Authority terminal (it's probably only around a mile though). So...um. Seriously, if the bulk of your daily eating was in cake and sugar form, would you feel relatively good?

Don't worry, I'll eat real food tomorrow.

I'm overly mesmerized by this floaty dancing burger thinger. And good lord, that's a lot of burgers. A lot of them are robably close to me but I'm not into hamburgers (I've realized that I'm not really into foods that aren't sweet, or those that are savory, but I'll talk about that later). When i first saw Kono Pizza, I thought it was kind of stupid. And then. I thought it was BRILLIANT! ...Okay, perhaps a few steps below brilliant as it would be better in "sweet cone with cheesecake" form, but it's like a different form of a sammich. Or pizza. One question I have is what is the woman doing? "Ooh floating cones of cheese, I purse my lips at you." Alrighty.

...oh wait, they have dessert ones! I'm sold. Gimme those. [all links from growabrain]