Feb. 27
Breakfast: the much anticipated reprise of dinner! Leftover collards, leftover pork, and a leftover biscuit with butter and honey. The biscuits aren't as good the second day (maybe I should have warmed it up), so recommend stuffing yourself with them while they are fresh and still Perfect. I believe Reese said the same thing.
Lunch: 2 slices of toasted baguette with mascarpone and honey, toasted hamburger bun with butter and jam, more collards (because they are the only ready-to-eat fruit or vegetable we have in the house).
Dinner: For some reason, I suggest to my husband that we go eat Italian food. I almost never choose Italian food, because, though I like it, it seems kind of boring. I want to go to Whole Foods later, so we choose a restaurant in downtown Silver Spring, Olazzo. It was kind of boring. The restaurant had lovely, trendy decor and was so long and narrow that I felt very badly for the servers there-- they were constantly having to navigate around people and tables, as well as up and down a narrow and rickety set of stairs with their plates. The restaurant where I work is cramped, but this was worse. Plus, unlike in my restaurant, those servers had to sustain some kind of illusion of grace and class. The food came with amazing speed and was only okay. Tiny green salad with cucumber (my husband gave me his cucumbers too) and red onion, dressed indifferently (I could have done better at home with just some olive oil and lemon); bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip it in; and a penne dish with shrimp and lump crab in a "rose" cream sauce. Man, that sauce was heavy. There was much too much of it on the pasta, no bread or anything left to soak it up (they didn't offer us more), and no vegetables of any kind in the dish. I didn't finish mine; also, my husband didn't finish his (basically the same dish, but with chicken instead of seafood), which is even more remarkable. We did take them home.
When the pasta arrived on the table, my husband tasted his, then announced in a loud voice, "Microwaved!" I shushed him. It might have been true. The shrimp definitely tasted weird. I don't know.
Shopping (at Whole Foods after dinner): 3 rolls toilet paper, Lactaid 1% milk, house-made minestrone soup, house-made white bean soup, house-made whole wheat sourdough bread, Tom's of Maine mouthwash, big jar of cherry pie filling, quart of Brown Cow vanilla cream-top yogurt, 365 honey clusters cereal, little tube of Shikai hand lotion, 2 individual Oh My Yog yogurts, 2 avocados, 5 cara-cara oranges, tangerine lip balm, organic bananas, brussels sprouts from the hot bar. $78.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. 2 kona coffee-flavored mochi-covered ice creams for dessert when we got home after shopping, while watching TV.
Feb. 28
So, I had this nightmare about my restaurant. The owner had entirely stopped selling Korean food and turned the sit-down service area into a more traditional diner that only served burgers and shakes. Meanwhile, he had constructed a large food court around the perimeter of the restaurant, with stands selling everything from burritos to bagels. I thought this was a series of terrible business decisions, and I told him I was going to quit (and warned that the rest of the staff would as well). He remained unmoved, and when I looked over at the faces of the cooks I'm fondest of, I immediately regretted my threat to quit. In the morning, I wanted to go to the restaurant for breakfast, just to assure myself that it was still there and all was as usual. It was.
Breakfast (with my husband at my restaurant): tofu and avocado omelet (with chili paste on top!), cold broccoli with sesame oil, english muffin with butter and strawberry jam. Decaf coffee, strawberry-banana yogurt smoothie.
Dinner (very early--5:00, because we needed to drive to Alexandria to see stepson's girlfriend in a play-- also daughter's very quiet girlfriend was over and joined us for dinner. She--daughter's girlfriend-- is vegan and so dinner was vegan): choice of Whole Foods soup (I had minestrone); whole wheat sourdough bread (I had it with butter, which wasn't vegan); Whole Foods brussels sprouts, which had sun-dried tomatoes and mushrooms in them. Once again, the brussels sprouts were good. The soups not so much. One of them was overseasoned (the minestrone), the other one badly underseasoned (the white bean). Oh well. Girlfriend quietly choked everything down without comment.
Snacks: for some reason I was really hungry during the day, even though I had a large breakfast about 10:30 and dinner was coming at 5:00. 3 other cups of coffee, 2 regular, 1 decaf, with half and half. A leftover biscuit with butter and honey, then the rest of my pasta from last night, during the afternoon while my husband was napping. Banana when we got home from the play at about 10:45 pm.
Breakfast: the much anticipated reprise of dinner! Leftover collards, leftover pork, and a leftover biscuit with butter and honey. The biscuits aren't as good the second day (maybe I should have warmed it up), so recommend stuffing yourself with them while they are fresh and still Perfect. I believe Reese said the same thing.
Lunch: 2 slices of toasted baguette with mascarpone and honey, toasted hamburger bun with butter and jam, more collards (because they are the only ready-to-eat fruit or vegetable we have in the house).
Dinner: For some reason, I suggest to my husband that we go eat Italian food. I almost never choose Italian food, because, though I like it, it seems kind of boring. I want to go to Whole Foods later, so we choose a restaurant in downtown Silver Spring, Olazzo. It was kind of boring. The restaurant had lovely, trendy decor and was so long and narrow that I felt very badly for the servers there-- they were constantly having to navigate around people and tables, as well as up and down a narrow and rickety set of stairs with their plates. The restaurant where I work is cramped, but this was worse. Plus, unlike in my restaurant, those servers had to sustain some kind of illusion of grace and class. The food came with amazing speed and was only okay. Tiny green salad with cucumber (my husband gave me his cucumbers too) and red onion, dressed indifferently (I could have done better at home with just some olive oil and lemon); bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip it in; and a penne dish with shrimp and lump crab in a "rose" cream sauce. Man, that sauce was heavy. There was much too much of it on the pasta, no bread or anything left to soak it up (they didn't offer us more), and no vegetables of any kind in the dish. I didn't finish mine; also, my husband didn't finish his (basically the same dish, but with chicken instead of seafood), which is even more remarkable. We did take them home.
When the pasta arrived on the table, my husband tasted his, then announced in a loud voice, "Microwaved!" I shushed him. It might have been true. The shrimp definitely tasted weird. I don't know.
Shopping (at Whole Foods after dinner): 3 rolls toilet paper, Lactaid 1% milk, house-made minestrone soup, house-made white bean soup, house-made whole wheat sourdough bread, Tom's of Maine mouthwash, big jar of cherry pie filling, quart of Brown Cow vanilla cream-top yogurt, 365 honey clusters cereal, little tube of Shikai hand lotion, 2 individual Oh My Yog yogurts, 2 avocados, 5 cara-cara oranges, tangerine lip balm, organic bananas, brussels sprouts from the hot bar. $78.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. 2 kona coffee-flavored mochi-covered ice creams for dessert when we got home after shopping, while watching TV.
Feb. 28
So, I had this nightmare about my restaurant. The owner had entirely stopped selling Korean food and turned the sit-down service area into a more traditional diner that only served burgers and shakes. Meanwhile, he had constructed a large food court around the perimeter of the restaurant, with stands selling everything from burritos to bagels. I thought this was a series of terrible business decisions, and I told him I was going to quit (and warned that the rest of the staff would as well). He remained unmoved, and when I looked over at the faces of the cooks I'm fondest of, I immediately regretted my threat to quit. In the morning, I wanted to go to the restaurant for breakfast, just to assure myself that it was still there and all was as usual. It was.
Breakfast (with my husband at my restaurant): tofu and avocado omelet (with chili paste on top!), cold broccoli with sesame oil, english muffin with butter and strawberry jam. Decaf coffee, strawberry-banana yogurt smoothie.
Dinner (very early--5:00, because we needed to drive to Alexandria to see stepson's girlfriend in a play-- also daughter's very quiet girlfriend was over and joined us for dinner. She--daughter's girlfriend-- is vegan and so dinner was vegan): choice of Whole Foods soup (I had minestrone); whole wheat sourdough bread (I had it with butter, which wasn't vegan); Whole Foods brussels sprouts, which had sun-dried tomatoes and mushrooms in them. Once again, the brussels sprouts were good. The soups not so much. One of them was overseasoned (the minestrone), the other one badly underseasoned (the white bean). Oh well. Girlfriend quietly choked everything down without comment.
Snacks: for some reason I was really hungry during the day, even though I had a large breakfast about 10:30 and dinner was coming at 5:00. 3 other cups of coffee, 2 regular, 1 decaf, with half and half. A leftover biscuit with butter and honey, then the rest of my pasta from last night, during the afternoon while my husband was napping. Banana when we got home from the play at about 10:45 pm.