cookie fueled dreams

Last night I had a dream about cookies. Specifically generic brand "duplex" sandwich cookies, not Oreos. You know, the ones that are vanilla on one side and chocolate on the other and oh so tasty?. So, in my dream I was trying to ride a bike from New Orleans to Orlando with members of my family being pulled in a trailer behind me. I got about halfway to Orlando when I realized I was starving and pulled over onto the shoulder of the bike interstate. Realizing that I hadn't packed a lunch for myself, I asked my family what they had and someone handed me a baggie of duplex sandwich cookies. I ate the hell out of those cookies and when I woke up I really really wanted to eat the hell out of some in my waking life.

So today at lunch, after managing to perform a miracle and get my power turned back on, I stopped at the grocery store and bought a healthy meal of chicken tenders and a pack of duplex cookies. This was lovely except for one small glitch: did you know that stores only sell duplex cookies in packs that are two pounds in size? Two pounds! That's a lot of freaking dream cookies. In fact, I don't think I even ate two pounds worth of duplex cookies in my dream and you know I burned two pounds worth of calories towing my family from NOLA to Orlando. Somehow I showed restraint and only ate three cookies from the pack. At this rate the remaining duplexes will be soggy and stale long before I finish the pack. I should have saved them and strapped the whole pack to my back for my marathon. Instant cookie dispenser and I wouldn't have needed a single gu for the race. I would surely bet the Kenyans with this plan.

On a note that I'm going to pretend is totally random and unrelated to the fact that I have two pounds of cookies staring at me from my desk, my bras are feeling a bit tight in the cup area, which is normally a sign that I'm chunking up a bit, but this time I don't think it's that. Because I am in denial. I think my boobs are getting bigger because they never re-pressurized from our plane ride home. My boobs are suffering from some kind of ill pressurized jet lag. And so help me, if you try to tell me differently, I will come over there and smack you upside the head with my pack of cookies.

bay to breakers? not so much.

Last night jparks and I went up to San Francisco so I could run Bay to Breakers this morning. We left our house last night and had to turn around to get my hydration pack, which I had left on the couch. We got to our friend's house in SF and went to dinner, where I had a second serving of rice covered in coconut milk (got to carb load! Okay, not really for a 12k, but mmm coconut milk rice) and then we promptly went to bed so I could get a full night's sleep before my big race day.

This morning, before my alarm went off, I sat up, turned to jparks and said "I don't have a sports bra." Not sure why that thought didn't occur to me the night before or why that was the very first thing I thought of in the morning but let's say I wasn't thrilled with this realization.

I know B2B wasn't a super long race and it's not what I'm training for, but I was really looking forward to running it. It's one thing to run 7.46 miles on my own, but to run it on a course, with other runners, and people that are cheering (not necessarily for me, but I can pretend) is something special. It's fun. It's motivating. It makes getting up 5 days a week at 6am and running around my cold neighborhood worthwhile. And thanks to my absent-mindedness I couldn't experience any of that. Stupid boobs.

After deciding that I wasn't walking the race (I only had my spandex running capris and wicking mesh shirt with me. And while those are okay to run in, I have no desire to walk the streets of SF looking like a total tool) I told jparks that bacon and mimosas would help ease my pain. So off to Crepevine we went where I indulged in some therapeutic bacon and a sweet crepe that was served with ice cream. Yes folks, I had some ice cream for breakfast. And a glass of fresh squeezed oj mixed with some bubbly. Missing the race sucked, but brunch really did help it suck less.




Ice cream!

Nom nom nom

Let the real healing begin!

making groceries

One time I sent jparks to the grocery store while he was hungry and when he brought back a bunch of random items I made fun of him for the rest of the evening. (He bought salad dressing, but not anything that you could throw together to make a salad.) Well, this evening I went to the grocery store while I was hungry and I'm willing to admit that I deserve whatever jokes he throws back at me.

Here's what I bought:

• 
  Frosted Flakes (a huge box. And I hate sugar-y cereals)


• Saag's British Bangers (the only time I've ever had bangers was in London. I've never even considered making them, yet somehow they ended up in my basket. Oddly enough I bought no potatoes to make them into bangers and mash.)


• Frozen rolls (because buying fresh rolls would have meant the oven could stay turned off and why would I not want to heat up my kitchen when it's only 100 degrees outside?)


• Corn Pops (I don't think I've ever eaten Corn Pops. But it came with a free glow in the dark Indiana Jones spoon!)


• Frozen Fish Filets. Actually these didn't make it home with me. Somehow my brain kicked in and I put them back, because eww.


• "Fresh" Tortellini. This was the only thing that made any sense as I actually had stuff at home to make this a legitimate dinner.


• 2 Bottles of SoBe Lean. They were on sale! And who doesn't love fake sugar beverages?

Jparks is never going to let me hear the end of this. Although he may see the sugar-y cereals and forgot about the rest of the crap. That boy sure does love him some nutritionally void foods.

i scream, you scream

Recently I've noticed that my kitchen is starting to resemble an ice cream parlor. (or is the correct term scoop shop? ice cream bar? ice creamery?) It started slowly with some vanilla to top a cobbler, expanded into some small pints of extra rich haagen-dazs, grew a bit more when someone left hot fudge and caramel toppings at my house, and now it must end because I can't handle the line of people on my porch that are demanding better mixins or else they'll find another ice cream emporium to frequent.

How much ice cream is too much for one house? 2 large cartons, one square carton, 3 pints (in all fairness, 2 of those pints are soy cream, ice cream's bastard child from her one night stand with that vegan she met at a Phish concert), one pack of skinny cow peanut butter ice cream sandwiches, one box of skinny cow fudge dipped ice cream bars, one jar of caramel, one jar of crushed pineapple, 2 jars of hot fudge, one large tub of cool whip, and a jar of maraschino cherries. And honestly, I don't even like ice cream enough to warrant that much of it in my freezer.

Don't get me wrong, I like ice cream a lot, but mostly if it's paired with something, like a brownie, some pie, or cookie dough. It has to be an earth shattering flavor for me to go for it all on it's own (a perfect example is gelato from Whole Foods, but only the flavors they make in store. Hello avocado gelato, I want to mouth kiss you)

So here I am with a enough ice cream to easily make me 3 clothing sizes bigger and a strong desire to not just throw it away. Aren't we in the middle of a global food crisis? It would be criminal for me to waste all of this frozen cream. I think my best disposal option is an ice cream social. You in?

And, in case you want proof of ice cream before committing, here ya go (click through for notes if you can't locate all the ice cream in the pictures, which I bet you can't do. Some pints are hiding better than Waldo):

please don't let them be spider eggs

Last night I ran my five miles, drank a ton of gatorade, and ate dinner. Then I spent the rest of my night puking. Seriously, WTF people? Didn't I spend a night puking just the other day?

The good news was that I had a pre-existing doctor's appointment this morning. The bad news is that the doctor felt that my puking was the result of bad food from last night. After telling him that I only had salad he suggested that I had probably eaten bug eggs. B.U.G.E.G.G.S. I ate them. They were in my belly. Kill me now.

Why am I the one that always get sick? Why doesn't jparks ever wake up at 3am to empty the contents of his stomach into the toilet? Why doesn't he ever eat bug eggs? Life is not fair.

warning, this post is bad for your cholesterol

Serious Eats (a fun food blog. Go check it out, I'll wait. Hi, welcome back) has a running set of posts called Paula Deen Is Trying To Kill Us. Today they featured The Lady's Brunch Burger. I shit you not, when I saw this burger I freaked out. I started checking my list of online friends, desperate to share the link to the recipe because I felt God whispering in my ear "Spread the word about this burger." And who am I not to follow God's orders?

So what would have to go on a burger to make it so majestic that I'm dedicating a whole post to it? Two words: doughnut burger. Topped with a fried egg. And bacon. Have you fainted from the joy of knowing that such a burger exists on this earth?

Now let me state that this is not a burger I would want to eat on a regular basis. And that I would be fine leaving off the fried egg. But it is something that I really really want to try at least once. And it is something that jparks can live his whole life without eating. I know what you're thinking and the answer is yes, he is really a man and not a little girl.

His reaction to The Lady's Brunch Burger was one of total disgust. "You would eat that!?!" might have been uttered a couple of times when I confessed to salivating over it. His final judgment on the burger was "That's a white trash burger!" To which I say "Sign me up for a double wide trailer because I'm going to eat that burger someday!"

After much arguing back and forth I finally told him "I'm putting it to the blog council!" So what say you, blog council, is the doughnut burger disgusting or tasty looking? If I were going to host a Doughnut Burger Party, would you want to come? Are you on Team Doughnut or Team Girly Man?

And for the record, my ideal white trash burger would be doughnut, meat, cheese, bacon, doughnut in that order.

while we are on a suggestion tangent

Thank you so much for the email and comment suggestions about photoshop. Perhaps soon I shall grow some balls and give them a shot.

And since I see that everyone is feeling helpful and willing to offer up such great advice I have another question for you. I need recipes. (okay, so that's not a question. my bad.)

I want to cook more at home, but the recipes that I have on file are all very time intensive and require fancy, hard to keep on hand ingredients. I don't mind using gourmet recipes on weekends, but on a daily basis I would love to have a stockpile of simple, tasty recipes.

So, (here comes the question!) do you have any recipes that I can have? I don't care if it's for a side dish, a main dish, something that has to be baked, crock potted, stir fried, or microwaved, I really want the recipe. Cookbook suggestions are also welcome.

Did I mention how pretty and/or handsome you all are? I mean really, you must have started doing yoga or something because you are smoking hot.

our father, who art in chipotle

It's been a long day today. Earlier, I was in the middle of writing a blog post when I hit save and firefox crashed. Of course, when I got firefox back up the post was gone. I was almost in tears because it was a serious post as opposed to a not serious post like this one.

Add in that I'm extremely tired today because someone was at work until 1:30 last night and repeatedly woke me up when he got home and you get one cranky girl who is thisclose to tears for no reason.

So yeah, it's been a long day which is why when jparks came home with a burrito from Chipotle for me I told him "I'm going to eat the hell out of this burrito!" And boy, oh boy, did I ever eat the hell out of it. And it was good. Amen.

I'm sick

I have food poisoning. This means that when jparks comes home from work I'm going to have him take me out back and put me down, because I do not want to continue on for another second feeling like this. I'm a pretty seasoned puker, but this is unlike anything I have experienced before. My stomach feels like it's tied in knots and even water won't stay put. I think my body has rid itself of anything that was lingering in my intestinal tract from the past ten years. Crap came out that I don't remember ever eating. Delightful, isn't?

Since I haven't moved from my bed all day, except to go to the bathroom, I've been entertaining myself with a Top Chef marathon and google searching "food poisoning". Perhaps looking that up was not the best idea since I've now learned that a common type of food poisoning comes from contamination with feces. Poop! I might have eaten poop! Oh my god, kill me now. In all fairness it could have been caused by some bad meat but my coworker, who had lunch with me yesterday and is also sick today, had beef while I had pork. I'm thinking all signs point to poop!

And to make you all feel extra sorry for me here's a picture:


All together now, "awwww"

recipe for an upset stomach

You'll need the following:

1 person
1 pizza
1 order of bread sticks
3 little to go tubs of ranch dressing
a pinch of stupidity

1. Get your person really hungry. Preferably have them do 3 hours of exercise with no snacks.
2. Order them a pizza, and while you're at it why not get some bread sticks too!
3. Have the hungry person, who is probably not thinking clearly, go pick up the food.
4. Make sure the pizza place gives them permission to take as much ranch dressing for dipping as they need.
5. Once home, allow hungry person to eat bread sticks until they can't eat anymore. Once they reach "full" remind them that they have pizza they haven't touched.
6. Watch the person eat a piece of pizza. They may seem skeptical and look like they know this is a bad idea, but that won't stop them.
7. Allow a little bit of time to go by (probably about 4 hours). Place bread sticks back in front of them. Don't forget the ranch!
8. Encourage the person to eat way more bread sticks than they even thought they could.
9. Watch as the person realizes that they have consumed almost all of the medium pizza sized order of bread sticks. Don't they look a bit ill?
10. Now point out that two tubs of ranch dressing are also missing.
11. And remind them of the greasy, gooey cheese on the bread sticks.
12. Don't let them forget that they ate some pizza too.
13. Viola! Your person should now be curled up on the floor in the fetal position, clutching at their stomach, while moaning incoherently. Job well done!

you wanna know a secret?

No one tell jparks, but today I bought a dozen Cadbury Orange Creme Eggs at the post Easter candy clearance. And by a dozen I mean 14. My plan is to freeze them and eat one a month for the next year. I know a year is only 12 months long and I bought 14 eggs, but I'm bound to slip at least once. Or twice. The only thing that will prevent me from eating all of them at once is that they'll need to defrost (I'm going to keep them in the freezer) for full enjoyment. Although frozen creme eggs might be damn good during the summer.

Or I could go back for more eggs and make Cadbury egg ice cream. How good does that sound? All that work I've been doing at the gym is just so I can dream of this ice cream. oh Cadbury egg ice cream, I know we've never met but I love you so. In fact, I love you so much I have composed a haiku in your honor:

Ass not big enough
So Cadbury Egg ice cream
To the rescue, yay!

living large, French Laundry style

This weekend jparks and I went for a super fancy pants meal. How super fancy pants? Well, I got a $1000 bonus on Friday and after dinner I had $96 left. Oh hell yeah, that's how we roll.

We went to The French Laundry and it was incredible. In-freaking-credible. It's a dinner that must be experienced once in every lifetime. Despite the hefty bill I begged jparks to take me back in a few weeks (we got three reservations accidentally. This is quite the feat since it's nearly impossible to get even one.) Since jparks is the sensible one in our household (how scary is that?) he said no. Maybe in a few years. Maybe for a wedding anniversary. Maybe for my birthday. Maybe when we can actually afford it.

The meal was nine courses with a few surprises at the beginning and the end. Every course was a work of art, an edible, extremely tasty, work of art. Photographic evidence of this can been seen here.

The only bad thing about the dinner was the table of four lawyers directly behind us. They were loud and obnoxious and seriously wanted me to get up and slap the crap out of them. The more they drank the more celebrity names were dropped and eventually we had to hear about how one was made to drink Chek drinks instead of real Coke when she was a kid. Can you imagine?!? How does one grow up to be a functioning adult if all they're given is Chek drinks as a child? Her parents should have been reported for abuse.

After the initial sticker shock of the bill, I decided that I do not regret spending that much "making pooh" (my mom pointed that out) and, in the future, should anyone want to come visit and go to French Laundry, I'll totally go with you. We just can't tell jparks until after the meal.

a bunch o'crap in list form

This morning I saw a man wearing UGG boots. Part of me died instantly and then was thrown up into my mouth.

I never should have started recycling my way to Blogher. My kitchen is now overrun with bags of glass bottles, empty cans of soda, and plastic water bottles that need to be brought to the SMaRT Center, but that I never get around to taking.

I'm searching high and low for Cadbury Orange Creme Eggs. If anyone sees them please buy one and send it to me. Please

I noticed yesterday that, for a non-washing day, my hair was pretty decent. I still had to wrangle it into a ponytail, but it wasn't as greasy as normal. Real Simple was right!

When I lose 15lbs (I'm at 9.4lbs lost right now) I'm getting this skirt in the granny smith variety. That skirt has been on my want list for a while now, but I had no reason to buy it. I think it'll be a better way to celebrate 15lbs lost than eating this or this.

Dear god, don't those look tasty?!? Now I can't stop thinking about them. crap

And these. They weigh heavy on my mind as well.

mmm, carrots taste just as good as fudge

I forgot how to drink

Do you guys remember that time I forgot how to brush my teeth and ended covered in toothpaste?

Well, this morning I grabbed a can of diet coke and settled in at my desk to get some work done. I lifted the can to my lips and took a sip. Except it didn't quite go like that. I lifted the can to what I thought were my lips, but what was actually the area right near my lips. I then poured diet coke all over my chin, sweater, and skirt.

I guess it's a good thing I'm wearing lots of black today and that we have hand dryers in the bathroom. I also think I'm going to order soup at lunch, as a spoon seems like it'll be safer for me to use than a fork.

I'm lovin' it

Today I treated myself to a Happy Meal for lunch. I know I'm a bit out of the Happy Meal's target audience, but they really are the perfect McDonald's selection. It's not so big that I feel all greasy and disgusting afterwards, but still enough food to fill me up. Plus, you get a toy!

What, you don't see the appeal of a toy? I find that Happy Meal toys are (mostly) the perfect thing to take pictures of. You can pose them in all kinds of stupid ways and they don't complain. You can take a million shots of the same pose and they won't get whiny about being tired.

By the time I got home tonight with my new toy, the sun was setting and it was almost too dark to take pictures. Most of the ones I took came out really blurry but I did have one where I placed the camera on the ground and got a halfway clear shot. Maybe tomorrow I'll get to take Sid out for another photo shoot.

If Kirstie Alley can do it, so can I

Now that I'm back from vacation it's time to face reality and admit that I need to go on a diet. I've been avoiding this subject for a while because who wants to admit that they're carrying a few extra pounds, but one thing happened on vacation and it pushed me to see the truth. Abby, as cute as could be (except for in that picture I linked to. There she is screaming bloody murder because, dear god don't say it, we took her to Disney World and made her go see a show! Such horrible people we are, we should be tortured.) walked up to me, rubbed my belly, and asked if I was having a baby.

A moment after Abby did this I laid down on the cobblestone streets of Disney and died as Cinderella and Snow White pranced around me singing about how great it is to be a size 4. Skinny bitches. It was the smell of freshly roasted turkey legs that brought me back to life.


Now that I'm back home it's time to take action. Diet, diet, diet, but which diet to pick?

Jparks favors South Beach because you have a list and you eat anything on that list you want. If it's not on the list, you don't eat it. Simple, right? Except for the part about how you want certain things like you've never wanted them before just because now you can't have them. Beets, not on the list, but you want some. You want some so badly you would consider selling off family heirlooms to get a beet salad. Good bye Grandma's pearls, hello beets! My other complaint with South Beach is that I've never made it through the first two week phase without getting sick. I'm sure that I'm missing vital vitamins and nutrients by only eating things on the list, but who needs to be healthy if you're skinny? Look at Nicole Richie, she's doing fine.

Next diet up is Weight Watchers. Yes, I know Weight Watchers is a life style change and not a diet, blah blah blah. I'm going to call it a diet because that's easier to type than life style change. With WW you have two options: meetings or online. Online is great because you have access to tons of advice, recipes, and info that when you attend meeting you can't use. But with online WW you have no one but yourself to be accountable to. No one but you has to see the scale. At meeting you don't have all the cool online features, but you do have many other sets of eyes to watch you weigh in every week and notice if you're not slimming down. But with the meetings you actually have to go to the meetings, which means you have to find time to get there and spend an hour with women you don't know talking about being fat. (I don't honestly know what happens at meeting, the only experience I have with them is a Sex and the City episode where Miranda joins WW and meets the Over Eater) That, in itself, seems like a boatload of work.

Of course I could always just try and watch what I eat and workout more often. But really without limitations I'll eat okay one day and then horribly the next. I need boundaries, limits, rules. Rules, glorious rules! And whatever diet I finally decide on I'll workout while I do it. I know that cardio is the key to weight lose, even if I hate to admit it.

Now excuse me, I'm going to grab a cookie carrot from the fridge.

birthday menu

Tomorrow night I start working on jparks' birthday picnic lineup. So far the only things I know I'm making are cupcakes, cupcakes, and more freaking cupcakes. And cheeses. I guess I'm not really making cheeses as much as going to Trader Joe's and handing over cash for them. Same difference.

I'm thinking of also having curried apple couscous, maybe some sandwiches, and uh, I don't know, something else. The problem is that everything I make must be okay cold or room temperature. Lauren suggested a great sounding salad, but it contains tomatoes and jparks does not do tomatoes. I'm honestly kinda out of ideas. But, I haven't really looked through my cookbooks yet, so I may actually have a ton of ideas and I just don't realize it.

Any suggestions?

I think my expression says it all

This crap is foul. It tastes like watered down mouthwash but unlike mouthwash, when you drink the whole bottle you don't get drunk.

update: If you let this stuff come to room temperature it's more tolerable. I could see if you had just eaten a big garlic-filled meal how this beverage would be good. But if you didn't eat garlic, then stay away from it. Stay far, far away.

BLT, but better

According to this book you don't care what I had for lunch, but I'm betting that you do. In fact, I'm betting you were just sitting there wondering what I had for lunch and that thought was consuming you.

Yesterday I had a heavenly sandwich and I would have never thought of putting it together myself. It was avacado, cream cheese, and, wait for it, bacon! Can't you feel your arteries hardening just thinking of this sandwich?

The bacon was salty and greasy and the avacado and cream cheese were so cooling and creamy, I fell in love at first bite. I think I managed to eat both halves of the sandwich in under 3 bites and I'm not really sure there was any chewing going on. When I finished the sandwich from Heaven, I was ready for another.

I often wonder why I'm overweight. I guess it's one of those great mysteries.