My Next Boyfriend Part 2 (Electric Boogaloo!)

After hearing the news that President-elect Obama is kind of a picky eater, I decided to update my list of what my next boyfriend will be.

My next boyfriend will NOT be a picky eater!!!!!

I hate men who are picky eaters yet I always seem to end up with them. They are no fun to go out to eat with. And forget about cooking for them!

My ex-husband wouldn't touch seafood. There he sat at some of the finest seafood joints the West Coast had to offer... eating steak. He couldn't even get that one right because he ordered it well done. Ugh! Why not just chew on a leather shoe?

My live-in ex-boyfriend had issues with his food touching. He would order Chinese food but eat the rice separately. I once bought him one of those plates for little kids with the separate compartments. My joke went awry when he actually started using it.

My favorite was a guy that I once went on a date with to a Mexican restaurant. I noticed he barely touched his meal so I asked if everything tasted okay. He said that he was upset about his choice of a chicken and cheese quesadilla. What were all these pesky peppers and onions doing in it? His bright idea was that is should have been advertised as a chicken, cheese, onion and pepper quesadilla. False advertising, dammit!

Did I mention that was our first and only date?

I am not a picky eater (the size of my hips can attest to this) so men who freak out about food perplex me. I am not fond of either carrot cake or mustard. But if I were a guest at some one's house who served mustard braised chicken followed by carrot cake for desert, I could manage. I will try anything once. Bad Wolf and I once went on a culinary binge at a street fair where we sampled everything from Polish food to cow brain burgers. Desert? Chocolate covered grasshoppers.

Well, except for pickles. Those things are just nasty! If one even touches my sandwich, I consider it tainted. Try as I might to get over this, I still retch at the mere smell of a pickle.

*** I have to give a shout-out to CKD for dredging up the memory of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo from the dark recesses of my mind. Thanks to you, anything second in a series will now be referred to as Electic Boogaloo!

Zen And The Art Of Beach Jogging

After tying one on a little too heavily on Halloween and spending all day Saturday on the couch recovering (why is a 30 year old even trying to keep up with Marines in their early 20s?), I made a resolution to do something constructive this Sunday. Give the old homestead a cleaning: check. Laundry: yup. Pay bills: complete. Back up hard drive: done. Catch up on all the TV shows stacking up in my DVR: mission accomplished... other than Survivor. I just can't get in to this season.

All that hard work resulted in me having a massive Taco Bell craving. I tried to ignore it but the demand for processed spicy chicken and Fire sauce could not be suppressed. "Fine," I bartered with myself "but only after a jog." I drug my lazy ass across the bridge to Emerald Isle and parked at the closest public beach access before I could talk myself out of it.

Damn if it wasn't the best thing I did all weekend. Weather was perfect, mid-60s with little wind. It was right at 5 PM so the sun was starting its descent. No Ipod necessary when I have a symphony of waves and seagulls. This shit beats running on a treadmill in a crowded gym any day.

All my talk about moving here so I could be close to the beach, and yet I really haven't been taking full advantage of it. This week's goal is to get out there as much as possible, even if it is for a quick walk after work.

And, yes, I still indulged in greasy, nasty Taco Bell. And it was good!

Farewell To Old Friends

After a weekend of gorging myself on fried seafood, cheesecake and Hardee's breakfast (in my defense, my folks were in town), I have decided to tighten up the diet again and start hitting the beach for some running starting tomorrow morning. Monday mornings suck but they offer up a tabula rasa of sorts. But since it isn't Monday yet, I used the excuse of "cleaning out my fridge" to indulge in the ultimate gastronomic pleasure.

Hellooooo, old friend!

If you have never had English sticky toffee pudding, search the dessert menu of your local English or Irish pub. It is a must have. Over Memorial Day, Bad Wolf, Momma Bad Wolf and I almost fought over who got to lick the plate after we shared a plate of it at an Irish pub in Louisville. No pub nearby? This Haagen-Dazs version is an awesome substitute (Thanks for the heads-up, Bad Wolf!)

Well, I am off to go "clean my fridge" some more. Wish me luck!

Quite The Domestic Diva, Aren't I?

Tonight was the first time I attended an event for my meetup group. The theme was Heavy Appetizer and Wine Potluck. The wine part of the equation was easy but heavy appetizer perplexed me for some reason. I really don't have any recipes for heavy appetizers in my (granted very narrow) repertoire. I was planning on making bruschetta but had an epiphany at the supermarket:

fancy-pants artisan bread $4.21
pesto sauce $4.59
grape tomatoes $5.09
fancy-pants mozzeralla $6.78
fresh basil $3.75 +
________________________
TOO MUCH DAMN $$$$$


Not to mention the time it would take to prepare and assemble this recipe. Screw that! I came up with Plan B.

I may not be Martha Stewart but at least I have cute accessories.

The apron says it all.

My secret weapon. Pilsbury Savorings $4.21 a box and only 20 minutes cooking time.

Will anyone guess my dirty little secret?

No way! Just throw them in baking dishes and act like you slaved over a hot stove all day. They even have little fork marks in them so it looks homeade.

All jokes aside, the girls at the meetup were super-friendly and probably wouldn't have cared if I stopped through the Taco Bell drive-thru on the way in.

Southern Living Roadtripper Style

FAQs concerning my move to North Carolina:

Q: Have you finished unpacking?

A: I still have some boxes here and there but the bulk of it is done.


Q: How's the new job?

A: Ehhhh. I got thrown a curve ball when I discovered that I was expected to fill a different position than what I was told. Most of the people are nice but my immediate office hasn't exactly rolled out the welcome mat for me. It is full of former infantry guys. Maybe they aren't used to a woman... or maybe they are just dicks.

Q: Have you been to the beach?

A: Not during the day yet but I did manage a nocturnal skinny dip while at an after party last Saturday.

Q: Eaten any good seafood yet?

A: Shrimp burgers, shrimp and grits... I am starting to sound like Bubba Gump here.

Q: Have you met anyone interesting?

A: I may have found myself someone to crush on. And he flirts back!!!!!

The Diet Diaries

I have been on almost every diet imaginable. Most are giant wastes of time. I hate the entire concept of dieting. This girl likes her groceries. Once upon a time, I could eat all that I wanted to without really worrying about buying bigger pants. Not anymore. It's like my metabolism saw my impending 30th birthday and decided to give me a nice "Fuck you!" as a present.

Slim Fast sucks because I truly believe that meals should be chewed, tasted and eaten... not drank. Atkins was great in its hey-day but the market for it dried up. When low-carb was all the rage, you could "cheat" safely. There were low-carb versions of pizza, pancakes, chocolate and chips. Now all you can find in the grocery store is the low-carb ice cream and the sorry excuse for bread. I tried to do low-carb again earlier this year but had to quit after I almost killed a co-worker at lunch for his french fries.

Faced with a trip to the Bahamas last year, I broke down and ordered the Nutri-System plan to shed some pounds pre-vacation. Yuck... I had better tasting food out of MREs during my army days. In addition to tasting like something that came out of an E-Z-Bake Oven, the stuff was expensive before you added all the supplemental groceries they don't tell you about in the commercials.

After cycling through diet after diet, I decided a few months ago that I would just try to eat healthy and watch my portions. No prescribed meal plans, no off-limits food, just healthy choices with portion control. Still working out a few times a week. Hell... I even started to incorporate some light jogging (Anyone who knows me well remembers that I swore I would never run again post-Army unless being chased). Great plan, right?

I got on the scale this weekend and saw a number I hadn't seen in a long, long time... and it wasn't a good one. This is serious now. No real plan of attack just yet but I haven't consumed over 1000 calories a day since Friday night. My blood is a toxicology nightmare with all the Hydroxycut I have popped. Sensible? Not at all. But desperate times call for desperate measures.