Vegetables for Me!

I went vegetarian for about 24 hours, which I know seems like a really short period of time, but it was 5 meals! It made me feel lighter and comfortable. The challenge is thinking about meat as a side note, not the headlines, or as the captions under a picture.

The attempt to eat more vegetables came after the usual epiphany experienced after an Oprah show (no really.....) about Blue Zones.They're areas around the world where people live the longest and the oldest. They share the secrets of these places to promote good health for us fat americans. When you listen to the advice and read about their findings, you realize, oh yeah! Modern life is......I'll save you the ramblings. You realize that the advice is really how life has been lived since...forever...like making a garden gives you a close connection to your really healthy local produce, eating vegetables and eating healthy keeps you young, destressing with people you love gives you a sense of belonging and community.

A Turkey Burger Isn't a BURGER....

So while HungryHubby was talking about a local burger joint (there is 1 on every corner, no joke), I made a comment the other day while devouring a huge moutain of soft serve ice cream, "I only eat burgers like, 2x a year, so why not? Let's go get some local burger."

He says: Didn't you just have a burger last week?

Me: (Reactive, defensive, grossed-out face.) NO!

He says: Didn't we just go to Topz and you got a turkey burger?

Me: (Confused) What?

He says: Don't you always have a turkey burger at Topz every time we go, like almost once a week?

Me: (SHOCK CONFUSION DISBELIEF....pause...........

...slowly the world around me starts to fade out and my vision is unclear...i slowly lose consciousness and turkey burgers start flying over the sky whispering...you are retarded...you are retarded...)


Whatever, it doesn't count. Topz doesn't use microwaves.

This is what I was eating while strolling through Toys R Us

Why you ask would I do such a rude, weird, and tasteless thing (actually it was quite yummy). Because my husband begged me not to. I stopped at the Vietnamese grocery to grab some noodles, frozen durian, asian snacks, as well as some Nam...or as the Veitnamese call it "Nem Chua." It is basically a pork sausage made with pickled pork parts and intestines. It is somewhat raw (how raw I don't know but not raw enough to kill me). And yes, you eat it raw. It's not the pinkish pig color that reminds you of the pig that it came from that my husband hates or even the pieces of intestines that fly everywhere when you take a bite of the rubbery thing. It's the smell of...raw pork intestines mixed with a side of hot pepper...and of course the juice dripping from the side of the plastic wrap. But this to me, is like what some people might feel like (because we can have feelings of intimacy towards our food) towards hot dogs (b/c this they are also made out of shit).


But as I stroll through the aisles of Toys R Us looking for some genius Leap Frog toy for my baby, with baby in one hand and raw pork in the other, I am savoring the taste of translucent pork grinds nicely paired with the chili pepper.

Life Is Good.

And this is how I spice up my suburban life. By giving people more reasons to stare at me.

OMG I liked Applebee's!!!

So after years of crapping on Applebee's for being the epitome and flavor-less American food, I went there today with my in-laws (I go wherever I will be fed for free with no complaints). I've been indoctrinated with many commercials in the past 2 years, and lately my interest in Applebee's has become like an interest in the possibility of salvaging leftover french fries by refrying it again because you don't have much in the fridge and you're bored...it sounds like a bad idea, but what the hell.

(By the way, of all commercials on TV that I am able to deflect from my mind with my useful Women's Studies knowledge, it is food commercials that I just cannot mentally outdo....those savory-looking 30" burgers sizzling on the screen of a Wendy's commercial...I just want to order it directly from the TV, grab it from the screen, go back to my sofa, and just devour it!!! And become another fat statistic!!!! So my HungyHusband has to help me come back from food-commercial land by just saying no and laughing at me...A lot.)

So I got a Shrimp Spinach salad lunch combo with chicken noodle soup. The salad has sprinkles of walnut, just a bit of cranberries, a soft vinagrette (that might have been a bit sweet but they didn't drench the salad), and perfectly marinated shrimp that could have been a little stronger in flavor to outdo the sweetness, but nonetheless impressive enough for my tongue.

Usually I call moments like this where I succumb to suburbialand hotspots and habits as "Tyia-goes-a-bit-deeper-into-the-hole-of-self-annihilation-and-becomes-less-authentic." But today, FUCK IT! It tasted good and it was cheap. $5.99 people! Would I go there again! Hells yeah! Will I hate myself for going? Maybe if I'm in a different mood!

Here's the yummy shrimp:


(Since my experience was so positive there, I won't mention the mediocre chicken nuggets and french fries kid meal I ordered for LittleMama. Let's just say she ate my food more than she ate hers.)

I am Freaked out about Autism (and my child doesn't even have it)

From spaghetti...

My child is 18 months and I just recently became serious about researching vaccinations and its correlation to autism. So I get a schedule of all the shots she has received, and sure enough, she has taken them all. She has no signs of autism except for weird occasions when she will let older kids push her and not say anything (Man, I thought poverty would just take care of putting some rage in her...). For some reason I am still freaked out that if she shows signs of autism in the future that I could have prevented this from happening by saying no to some of these vaccinations beforehand. As I write this, I hear myself sounding like a frigan anal-retentive over-concerned mom.

But I am still researching this, because it is fascinating. They say that a change of diet that excludes dairy and wheat products can dramatically DECREASE the autisitc child's behavior. So if these foods affect children whose immune systems "may" have been weak to begin with, how does it affect children in general? Does that sound paranoid? Paranoid or not, this has inspired me to cook even MORE asian, from Vietnamese, to my Thai, to Korean, to Chinese. These foods naturally contain the least amount of wheat and diary...it's the shit I grew up with. LESS pasta, less cans, less processed, less sugar, less meat, less frozen...

To Pad Thai...(rice noodle yo)

Am I creating my own religion...(which has only 1 follower: me.)

Or I am just a little racist...(against 'white' food...since I have been eating more of it since I have moved to Michigan than I have ever in my life...)

Korean Pancakes Ymmmmm....

In a world of Coney Island Restaurants, I freak out about every little tasty find I come across in Suburbia Land. So I told my husband I wanted to go for an after dinner "snack" at a nearby Korean place. And there I found a little piece of heaven on my tongue. (yuck! sorry for the visual)

This is not like the pancake you think of- not the IHOP kind with maple syrup on top. It's actually a non-sweet flat pancake-shaped appetizer filled with green onions, oysters, calamari and chives. So to call it a pancake throws you off completely. It's like a flour-based seafood stir-fry mix.




Thank goodness for the little tasty pleasures to make me smile :) The image link also brings you to the recipe for the haemul pa jeon.