So I'm sitting there in a Dominick's cafe, sipping on some bottled iced tea, minding my own business when . . . lo and behold, I see something that makes me want to laugh and cry and laugh a little more.
At the table next to me, a small, quiet Asian lady sits eating her lunch. But not just any lunch. She's eating a whole rotisserie chicken! And she's determinedly going at it with her fork, paying no attention to anyone around her. My gosh, I was so full of joy and amusement at the sight. Such gusto, such courage. I would've hugged her were I not a fairly sane individual.
Note to Self: Go to grocery store for lunch one day, buy whole rotisserie chicken and large side of macaroni and cheese, proceed to eat it in public, pat big belly, enjoy life.
CATEGORY: Soondubu
Chicago: Eh
LA: In all my soondubu-eating years, I've never finished the whole thing (even in NY, which has some of the best). But I devoured this entire pot at Cho Dang Tofu House.
WINNER: LA!!
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CATEGORY: Fattie Burger & Fries
Chicago: Our choices are kind of limited-- there's Mickey D's, Burger King, Wendy's, White Castle, eh.
LA: Dude, In-N-Out uses the yummiest cheese, and they throw all this gunk on everything. Ha.
WINNER: LA!!
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CATEGORY: Fruit Bubble Tea
Chicago: Joy Yee's has some of the freshest, most yummy fruit bubble tea ever. Everything tastes good!
LA: Really? Is Boba Loca JY's only competition? Man...talk about artificial and overly sweet. Bleh.
WINNER: CHICAGO!!
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CATEGORY: Pizza
Chicago: Please refer to last post. And the beautiful specimens above are from Lou Malnati's. Ah, such goodness.
LA: Yeah, of course there's thin crust and then there's deep dish, and that's kinda like comparing apples to oranges . . . but there's really no contest against Chicago-style pizza. Haha.
WINNER: CHICAGO!!
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In summary, I guess every city has some foods they're better at than others. The fun comes in trying to find the winners. And I certainly do like trying to find the winners. ;)
Me: Random thought, but . . . I seriously love Chicago-style pizza. Haha. If we didn't live here, I think we'd both have a void that only this pizza would fill. Sad to think we might never have known it had we lived in Boise or Charleston or something.
The Brother: weirdest most random e-mail ever.
Haha. I was so sure he would share in my Chicago-style pizza love, but he must be having an off day. Oh well. The sentiment remains. :}
After I eat, I follow a ritual that I’ve been doing for years. I take out my mirror, I smile and look at my teeth, I take out whatever bits might be stuck in my teeth, I check to see if there are any crumbs on my face, and then I put on some lip gloss/balm. On the most part, this ritual is usually just check-up and rarely procedure.
So yesterday, after eating a scrumptious turkey sandwich with cheddar and romaine on toasted wheat bread, I proceeded to carry out my ritual in front of I. He was looking the other way as I opened my mirror. So I smiled and looked at my reflection and, with horror, noticed the bits of brown toast pieces and dark green lettuce pieces in practically every crevice imaginable. I shut my mouth quickly just as I lifted my eyes up and realized he had seen everything.
*sigh* Needless to say, there was a lot of laughter on his part and a lot of clean-up and horrification on mine. Bleh.
So everyone around me is sick-- either with a bad cold or some sort of flu. I have a fairly good immune system, though, and I take vitamins and wash my hands all the time, so I haven't been too worried. I felt a little worried this morning, though, because my throat feels very very mildly sore, and I can't tell if it's a sign of sickness to come or if it's from the tea that burned my throat this morning. Anyway, just to be on the safe side, I took my bottle of water, poured a packet of superdy duper vitamin C mix into it, and shook it up. I did all this on my way to the bathroom, for the sake of convenience.
Minutes later, I walked out of the stall, bottle in hand, and headed to the sink. I ran into one of my older lady coworkers and after she smiled at me, her gaze shifted down to my bottle of yellow liquid. I have no idea why, but I felt like a deer caught in headlights. I'm pretty sure I looked it too. She quickly averted her eyes, finished up her hand-drying, and walked out. *sigh*
I never really experience the lunchtime “rush” in my workplace because I generally like to eat really late (around 2 or 3). Lately, though, I’ve been eating a lot earlier (around noon) and I’ve started bringing leftovers from home. So, of course, use of the microwave has become quite necessary.
All I have to say is that, around 11:55, it becomes an all-out war for the microwave. I was in there the other day heating up some pasta. After two minutes were up and the microwave beeped, I realized that the noodles were still a tad bit cool. So I popped my pasta back in the microwave just as a man ran in with his Tupperware. He looked peeved that I was still using the microwave, so he loudly left his Tupperware on the counter and walked out. Um . . . okay. Yesterday, I had just finished heating up some leftover pizza (and the dreaded microwave had just loudly announced to the world that it was no longer in use), when a lady ran in with her frozen dinner. I wasn’t sure if the pizza was quite hot enough yet, but she was already breathing down my neck before I could even take my plate out. Yuppp . . .
So anyway, today, I started heating up my food at 11:50. That’s right. I went in early! And . . . I popped the microwave door open right before it could start beeping! It was great. No one was waiting on me. No one ran in the second the microwave beeped. It was really wonderful. I felt so free . . .
There's obviously something wrong if I've been eating carbs all day and all I want as soon as I get off work is a Chipotle chicken burrito and a Quarter Pounder w/cheese with a vanilla cone on the side. *sigh* I think I'm feeling the summer transition to fall blues. Wake me up when September ends . . .
