Poverexic in NYC

HAPPY ST PADDY’S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The greatest thing about holidays is free food and free booze.  Like today, we had a St. Paddy’s party at the office featuring traditional Irish foods such as chips and guac/queso/salsa, blondie bars, chocolate chip cookies, green cupcakes, Swedish fish, and pineapple punch with a splash of Cruzan Rum.  I was stuffed and happy as a frog.

The only thing that dampened my mood all day was the fact that I forgot to wear green, which I realized with a DAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO this morning when I was walking to work and noticed drunk middle aged old couples wearing all green with beers in their hands.

I think this is the first year since 1989 that I forgot to wear green – last year I was all green bartending at the Kong, serving my “green clovers” and green Bud Lights, wearing my green top, green Senor Frog’s beads and “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” four leaf clover headband.

This year, I wore a gray top, jeans and glasses.  I’m such a loser.

With SS visiting NYC for the first time, I was excited to show her all the cheap eats of the city.  Must-eats included hot dog off the street, halal food, black-and-white cookie, Crumbs cupcake, knish, hot pretzel, Sunday brunch and Artichoke pizza.  Good thing we had two whole days to check all those off the list.

Then on Saturday night, I had a reunion dinner at Industria Argentina with my friends that I had studied abroad with in Buenos Aires.  AP and SS came with me, and I was really excited to see everyone that I hadn’t seen in forever.  The dinner was ridic – we ordered 3 bottles of wine, 2 orders of empanadas and 2 orders of choripan for the table.  AP and SS and I were a bit nervous after looking at the menu and seeing the $$$ (SS is also poverexic), so we decide to share one order of empanadas ($18) among the three of us – you do the math.

Three hours later, everyone is finishing up their dinners, and SD and LH next to me are splitting an incredible-looking sirloin steak and frites.  From the relatively slow rate at which they were going through the steak/frites/greens, I could predict with pretty good accuracy that there would soon be leftovers.  Of course I was right, and SD offered me the rest of her sirloin steak, greens and frites, except that as happens way more often than it should, the waitress tries to take away the frites before I’ve finished going through them (biggest pet peeve ever).  I practically yell CONCHA DE TU MADRE!!!!!!!!!!!!! shaking my fist at her to get her hands off that plate.  Again, IF THERE IS ANY FOOD LEFT ON A PLATE, YOU AS A WAITER ARE SUPPOSED TO CLEARLY ASK “ARE YOU DONE WITH THAT” BEFORE YOU PUT YOUR HANDS ANYWHERE NEAR A PLATE.  GET IT RIGHT.  Nothing enrages me more.  Although I was quickly calmed by the fact that DF was apparently taking care of the entire tab for our table of 10 (which must have been $700+).  Que ridiculo/generoso/wtf!  My friends are too kind.

The night quickly turned sour when I realized at the end of our night that I had forgotten my keys, and roommates G and L were probably not coming home for another several hours (or not coming home at all), and apparently our building has a $50 lockout fee (I mean, REALLY???).  SS wanted to kill me.  After texting my entire phone book, SS and I decided that we had no other choice but to pass out in the hallway (which was strangely reminiscent of college) and patiently wait for someone to save us from humiliation.  After 1.5 hours of sleeping outside my door with me hugging my purse for dear life, the only kind savior was A, who lives all the way up in the UES, who came to our rescue at 3am.  We felt so bad and this was probably somewhat embarrassing (or AWESOME) for A, whose doorman must have thought he was scoring a threesome that night.  Anyway, really the most upsetting part of the night was when I immediately ralphed in A’s bathroom as soon as we got inside — I was so sad to see all that Malbec and bits of sirloin steak go down the toilet 😦

This was a great weekend, full of poverexic success.  I ate so much and drank so much and spent so little.

The successful weekend started with roommate L cooking one of his delicious dinners for me on Friday night — this time it was fried shrimp and ribeye — INCRED.  It was one of the best dinners ever.  L had bought 2 cuts of ribeye and we shared one, saved the other for later.

The fun continued through the night with my friend-since-we-were-four (SS) visiting me in NYC for the first time.  So I took her out for a good time with M and O and O’s friend J in the West Village and then to Gatsby’s, where M and J bought us drinks the entire night.  My stomach was full of free ribeye, fried shrimp, red wine, beer, and vodka sodas, and it had never been happier.

After a fun night of groping and dancing, S and I come home at 4am to find L in the kitchen.  We seem to have caught L off guard because when we walk through the door, he somewhat nervously goes “oh hey! hey hey heeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyy what’s up guys.”

me: What are you doing L …

L: Oh hey! Oh nothing, I was just —

me: IS THAT THE OTHER RIBEYE STEAK *RAW*???????????????????????

L: Oh, um, no, I mean, yes.    ……    I was hungry.

me: You’re eating RAW STEAK?!??!??!?!?

L: It’s actually quite delicious.

Despite my initial gross reflex and concern that L might get salmonella, I was actually quite intrigued and completely empathized with his urge and secretly wanted to try one of the leftover chunks.  I didn’t have the appetite to ask this time given that I was about to hurl my cheap beer and vodka soda, but next time, I want to try some raw steak.  Just like carpaccio.

Another successful conversion:

N: i was caught stealing food at work

Roommate L nearly caused me a heart attack this morning:

Sometimes hard work really does pay off.  Tonight my boss took me out to a five-course dinner because she felt so bad that I was continuously working 15+ hour days, causing me to fall absurdly behind on over a week’s worth of DVRed TV shows (e.g., I haven’t even gotten around to watching the finale of “The Bachelor” yet).

I think this might actually be the first five-course dinner I’ve ever had in my entire life.  Usually “five course” for me means 1) glass of wine, 2) free bread on the table, 3) M’s leftovers, 4) K’s leftovers, 5) J’s leftovers.

Tonight it was 1) escargot, 2) scallops, 3) lamb chops, 4) salad, 5) chocolate tart, along with half the bread basket and a glass of Malbec that really made me miss Buenos Aires.  At the end of the dinner, the waiter even gave us some delicious looking cookies, which I stuffed into my purse (and my boss gave me hers too!!!!!!!!).  These will be my breakfast tomorrow.

Tummy so happy 🙂

F:turkey footlongs are now 5 dollars at subway11:06 AM before it was only select subs so i buy a footlong for 5 bucks and i split it i only get dressing on half so the half i save doesnt get soggy i eat it the next day so my lunch is 2.50 a day

Good work, F, good work.  I’ve got some loyal followers; you make me proud.

11:58 pm

I am so bloated on air that I am full.

Today I bittersweetly ended my SF trip with another one of my fav meals: the burger at Balboa Cafe.

Balboa Burger

Since I started this blog, I’ve come to realize that on the few occasions that I do buy food, I only buy one of three things: burgers, Chinese and Mexican.  You may think my food habits are quite disgusting, but really it’s all just strategy.  Clearly if I eat the most caloric foods that are available in front of me, I will stay full for a longer period of time and thus be much less likely to buy food at a later point in time during the same day.  Case in point: today after I ate the burger at noon, I wasn’t hungry for the rest of the day and was fine with just the additional OJ and bloody mary mix that I had on the plane ride back.  It is now 2:02am and I am still full.

Sometimes I feel like a grizzly bear going into hyperphagia mode and stocking up for winter hibernation.  Either that, or my body is going into Starvin Marvin mode and holding on to every bit of food/fat/calories for dear life in fear that after this, it won’t see food for days.

me???

Had my fav steak tostada today at Left at Albuquerque – although it was kinda pricey ($14), it did last me two meals, so really all I bought today was that and another thing of liquor store froyo (this time cookies & cream and pomegranate tart with yogurt chips).

Steak Tostada

As usual, I’m only half way through my tostada (see above) when K/D have already scarfed down their Yucatan chicken salad and Gaucho steak burrito, respectively.  Except I’ve been eyeing the two plump slices of tomato and sizable chunk of chicken that I notice K’s been picking around.  But then suddenly the waitress just comes out of nowhere and swoops down and grabs K’s plate, and I am like W-T-F and firmly say (not yell), WAIT HI EXCUSE ME SHE’S NOT DONE WITH THAT YET and grab the plate back.

The waitress was probably also like W-T-F, but I look over at K/D and they just shake their heads and sigh, “you poverexic you…” so at least they understand.  I smile and reach over and stick my fork into the two tomato slices and chicken and cut them up into my tostada for a little added flavor, and extra food.

I mean, I am sorry, but one of my biggest pet peeves is waiters who try to take your plate away when you’re not done with your food yet.  Like, I didn’t pay for this food for you to preemptively steal it away and throw it in the garbage.  I am allowed to criticize because I was a waitress myself, and you can trust that I would never just take a plate with a half-eaten crab rangoon away from a customer just because I assumed he was done with it.  So fucking annoying.

Anyway, on a brighter note, free foods I scored today included half a bag of tortilla chips and a banana that K insisted I eat while she was starving me earlier today while she was giving her dollhead a hair cut, and a delicious homemade pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese icing that M brought over later in the evening in preparation for our Guitar Hero World Tour night.  It is now close to midnight and I am still full – that’s always a good sign of a good food day.

My splurge continues.

Last night, K/D and I went out for some incredible burgers at Harry’s for dinner, and I had their classic burger with blue cheese with garlic fries.  It’s hard being poverexic around K/D, though, because they’re such fast eaters and they clean their plates; I don’t even have a chance to snag their leftovers because, well, they don’t produce leftovers, and they’ve already finished their entire plate by the time I’ve barely finished half of mine.  It’s like eating meals with my dad.

Today was a bit more poverexic-friendly.  As per my usual routine during my SF trips, I get my hair cut by K and get my usual Brazilian; then I realize that I’ve spent all my money on beautifying myself, so K and I decide to go for our fav cheap dinner: froyo at the liquor store on Fillmore and Union.  I swear this liquor store has the best froyo in the city, and K/D used to eat it on a daily basis – jealousss.  Tonight I had a huge tub of strawberry shortcake and pomegranate tart with my usual yogurt chips for $3.50, which sure beats the nonexistent portion of pomegranate pberry that you would get for the same price in NYC.