05.02 - Trip Down Fatty Lane

"I" and I had dinner the other night with our friends J & R, and they asked us if we eat out a lot. I told them that we don't since we're generally broke and trying to be more healthy and frugal. I just finished looking through my phone right now, though, and I realized that maybe I was kidding myself. There are all sorts of delicious (and unhealthy) pictures in my phone of our eating adventures. I guess we're a bit more indulgent than we'd like to make ourselves believe, but it's so hard to stay away from such delicious food. :) 

For documentation's sake, here are our various stops down fatty lane in the past few months:

hot, flaky, comforting chicken pot pie from Claim Jumper

beautiful, delicious birthday cookies by KJV Baked Creations

tallest burger ever topped with applewood smoked bacon, Danish blue cheese, grilled onions, and a fried egg) + sweet potato & parmesan cheese fries from The Counter

fancy wine and fruit/cheese platter during a work meeting hotel stay 

(it sure pays to know the right people)

adorable Irish sugar cookies by KJV Baked Creations

pig's ear with crispy kale, pickled cherry peppers, and a fried egg from The Purple Pig (in honor of our dear friend RAC)

rich, decadent bone marrow and herbs with buttered bread, also from TPP

overly indulgent poutine: pork belly, braised veal cheek (which I personally couldn't stomach for emotional reasons), cheese curds, truffle mayo, foie gras mousse, gravy, and sunny side egg from BadHappy Poutine Shop (thanks to my wonderful friend Q who knows my heart and clued me in on this place).

Please don't let all these pictures make you think we've gotten over our health kick (completely). We still consume a good amount of fruits and vegetables on a weekly basis . . . but sometimes we just need to be a little bad happy. :)

02.22 - Health Kick Fail

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been on a bit of a health kick recently. Actually, "I" and I decided that our eating habits were pretty awful last year, so we decided to up our fruit and veggie intake this year. We've been eating like health nuts for the last couple of weeks, and we're definitely seeing and feeling progress. We also watched this movie "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" which inspired us to actually start using our dusty juicer at least four or five times a week. This is what our fridge looked like last week, and all that was gone within five days.

It's actually been a lot of fun eating so many different kinds of fresh produce, and it's scary to say that I'm really starting to enjoy vegetable-dominated meals. Ha. Anyway, for lunch today, I prepared the both of us some lemon rosemary roasted chicken breast and parboiled broccoli. I was actually excited right before lunch, thinking about the delicious and healthy meal that awaited me. Fast forward to ten minutes later, and there is a trail of fart smell (pardon my language) coming from the kitchen microwave all the way to my cubicle. *sigh* We're talking about 40 feet of fart smell here. As if that wasn't bad enough, imagine my mortification when a few of my giggly coworkers came over and asked me if everything was okay. *heavier sigh* Apparently, broccoli gives off a sulfurous odor when overcooked. This explains why it smelled wonderful last night and very not wonderful this afternoon. Please keep in mind that I've never been a big broccoli fan and all of this is news to me.

In my sad attempt to remedy the situation, I asked my sympathetic coworker for her air freshener. (She keeps air freshener at her desk for the days she brings in fish for lunch . . . which is often.) So I stealthily began spraying a misty trail of lavender and lilac from my desk to the kitchen. Unfortunately, I ran into two very important people along the way. I'm sure you can imagine the look on my face as I awkwardly stopped spraying and tried to hide the air freshener behind my back. Fail and fail again. Needless to say, cooked broccoli will not be coming to work with me ever again.

02.20 - Wholly Moley

I haven't posted in quite awhile-- not because I haven't been eating or because I love food any less, but I guess I've just been preoccupied. Anyway, I was out with my two fattie friends N and Q (along with mini adorable monster godson friend K) tonight, and we indulged in some delicious Mexican food. N is also the reason I'm posting today because she reminded me that I have been boring and lazy. Ha.

But back to the food, I was especially pleased because this restaurant redeemed two dishes that have generally disappointed me at other places: fish tacos and fried ice cream. First off, each fish taco came with a whole fillet of nicely seasoned, pan fried tilapia. Mmm. Secondly, the fried ice cream wasn't just a ball of vanilla ice cream rolled around in crumbs. The coating was a complete shell of some kind of warm, wonderful, lighty sweetened coconut pastry which blended so well with the cool ice cream inside. Sooo good. I totally went against my healthy eating habits from the past two weeks (I'll go more into this later), but it was so worth it.

Note to self: Don't even think about using the elevator at work today. Stairs, woman. Stairs!

Eatery Info: Wholly Frijoles, 3908 W. Touhy Ave, Lincolnwood, IL 60712