Poverexic in NYC

Went to the LSU alum annual crawfish boil yesterday with S.  Though I do love crawfish I was hesitant to go as the event was $60, and given the Belmont is next weekend (also a $60 event) and also a $60 booze cruise coming up, I knew I would have to pick and choose all these $60 events, i.e., only go to one of them.  But S really really wanted to go and apparently none of his non-Southern friends wanted to go with him, so he lured me into going by offering to pay my ticket.  Well that changes things and of course I would never say no to a free crawfishfest and open bar event, though I felt bad so I offered to pay for the cab rides there and back in exchange (still an uneven exchange).

Anyway, the event was incred and there was free flowing beer and buckets and buckets of crawfish.  Each person got an entire tray of crawfish, a potato, corn and jambalaya.

2009 Crawfish Boil

I just thought this event was fantastic and S and I both went back for a second tray of crawfish and unknown amounts of Abita.  I thought the crawfish was absolutely great but apparently according to S it wasn’t so good.  Though I personally disagreed I can respect his opinion as I am aware that I am not really one for distinguishing good from bad foods.  As roommate L likes to joke, I was really only born with two sets of taste buds: 1) dericious and 2) rearry dericious.

I have to say that 24 hours later I may or may not have started to agree with S that the crawfish wasn’t so great, given the massive nausea and headache I have been experiencing for the past 24 hours.  It is now 6:30pm on Sunday and I haven’t eaten anything all day as I am pretty sure any Tasty King today will make me immediately vomit yesterday’s crawfish.  The upside of course is that I haven’t spent any money today.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMOGMOGMOGMOG

http://www.amazon.com/Baconnaise-Flavored-Spread-Regular-15-Ounce/dp/B001LUM1ZU/ref=br_lf_m_1000383191_1_1_ttl/184-5804838-0328457?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=grocery&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=091MX5BFBNPA303G81SW&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_p=478710751&pf_rd_i=1000383191

Baconnaise

Some comments I received from sending this around:

K: ew. that’s a bit much.  (what????????)

N: bacon mayo… makes me sick to my stomach thinking about it.  (WHAT?!??!???!!)

A: I saw that on Jay Leno.  (oh.)

J: the people who created this went to school with a bunch of my friends out here.  (!?!??!!???!??!?!?! SHUT UP)

me: I just squirted.  (tehehe)

When I visited my sister over the weekend I scored the biggest bag of candy I’ve ever held in my own two hands — it was like a little bag of heaven, with sour patch kids, sour watermelons, sour peaches, sour swedish fish, etc etc etc.  So since Monday I’ve been eating two handfuls of candy and three cups of coffee for breakfast.  Additionally for breakfast yesterday and today, I’ve been eating some delicious Mozart chocolates that I brought back from Vienna, along with 8-10 chocolate covered biscuits that my boss brought back from Vienna.

Then today for lunch I found two mini sandwiches on the office kitchen counter, and one of them had been clearly picked at.  To be honest the sandwich did look pretty disgusting and it had obviously been picked at, which is why I was confident that no one else would want that sandwich.  So I took it.  And then I was still hungry so I had one leggo my eggo that my boss had gifted me before going on maternity leave.

BEST EVENT EVER TONIGHT.  One of the greatest things about working in PR is getting to go to events like this:

Dylan's Un-Birthday

DYLAN’S UN-BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me just say that this party was phenomenal — SO MUCH FREE FOOD, all made of candy!!!  Apparently there was this “Top Secret Food Network Chef” contest thing where the chefs all had to create something using candy of some sort.  There were chocolate quesadillas, candy quiche, mac & cheese with candy corn (!!!), scallops with chocolate covered sunflower seeds, some sort of fish with a candy sauce, and turkey with candied fruit.  AND!!!  Lemonhead drinks with dum dums as stirrers.  It was incred.  And all you had to do was wear a silly hat — so I wore my blue sequined cowboy hat that I only wore once at our “Crossing the Border” party sophomore year when our room was Texas and the boys’ room next door was Mexico, and the firedoor was the border.  That was a good party.  Not sure if it beats Dylan’s un-birthday party.

Ate the rest of mom’s leftovers from the weekend for lunch today.  The yaki udon was pretty good despite the fact that it was incred annoying having to carry the takeout box back all the way from Middletown to NYC on the Amtrak, not to mention it was frying in the heat for like an hour while I was waiting for the train to arrive in the 95 degree weather.  After a while I started to get concerned about the food going bad so I tried to hide it from the heat by placing it carefully in my humongoid handbag.  Apparently that was a terrible idea when the box cracked and the yaki udon all spilled out (luckily it was in a plastic bag, but still) — I panicked and tried to salvage what was left by swiftly scooping the udon back up from the plastic bag back into the plastic box.  It turned out fine though — anything’s fine after you heat it up in the microwave for 3 minutes.

Then later that day I was still hungry after eating the yaki udon — but then I remembered that my boss had left me some food in the office fridge when she left for her maternity leave.  I was so grateful she had left me a thing of vanilla yogurt and leggo my eggo waffles (though I am saving those for later).  I had finished 75% of the yogurt when I happened to look down at the expiration date and noticed it expired on May 5, 2009.  Oh well.

After a week-long hiatus I’M BACK from my 4-day business trip to Vienna and sister’s 2-day Wesleyan graduation immediately following, and I’ve got to say that I have not eaten this much and this well *FOR FREE* for 6 consecutive days since Mather dining hall in year 2007.  I have gained 5 lbs in 6 days and they are the happiest 5 lbs I have ever gained in my life.  My stomach is so pumped with food, I am like a goose being force fed to become foie gras!!!  Such a happy goose.

Speaking of foie gras, this was the most incredible week ever in which everything in Vienna, Austria, was on the client (best first business trip ever) and everything in Middletown, Connecticut, was on my parents.  In Vienna my boss and I ate liver every single day, from calf liver in some delicious sauce to foie gras to this beef broth soup with the biggest ball of liver I have ever seen in my life.  Such a happy goose!!!!!!  And not to mention schnitzel and sausages and hot dogs and steak, I am like a farm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Liver ball and sausages!!!

Foie gras!!!

Hot dog!!!

And gelato too!!!

This was so great.  And while my boss and I were talking about force feeding geese, I learned the most interesting thing about how they kill turtles for tortoise soup — apparently they massage the turtle so he gets really relaxed and sleepy, and as he relaxes he stretches out his legs and then CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP!!!!!  mmm tortoise souppppp….

After the wonderfulness of Vienna, the food splurge continued as I arrived in Middletown for my sister’s graduation.  A great thing about hanging out with my parents is that my mom is like 5’3″ and 99 lbs so she never finishes any of her meals (!!!).  Perhaps this is where I learned my habits growing up.  Anyway, over the weekend I ate for 1.5 people, taking my mom’s linguine with clams, katsu-don, etc etc.

One annoying thing that happened, though, was that last night when we got takeout from this Thai restaurant (because we were too impatient to sit down and eat there), I specifically asked my massaman curry to be mild, and they clearly made it extremely spicy.  In fact, it was so spicy that I literally really couldn’t eat it.  I was so incredibly mad!!!!!!!  UGHHHH!!!!!!  Of course I, on principle, leave no soldier behind so I sucked it up, bought myself some pepsi, got my takeout box of white rice ready in my left hand, and began struggling through this spicy hell, keeping the ratio of white rice to spicy curry very high and chugging it with soda.  It was fine, I eventually finished the dish over two hours while watching “Something About Mary” at the hotel, teary-eyed and sniffling everywhere from the spices, but I finished it.  No morsel left behind.

In conclusion, what a great week.  My hope is that these 5 gained pounds will propel me through the month of June, like whale’s blubber.

Why am I at work on a Sunday?  Two words: FREE FOOD.  It is currently 9pm and I got to the office at 1pm.  Pretty incred.  Let me tell you what else is pretty incred — this Thai yellow curry that I’m eating for free because I’m at work at 9pm on a Sunday and I am expensing my dinner.  I mean I have never seen a yellow curry so packed full of veggies and chicken!!!  This is really great.  Definitely makes it worth working a full work day on a Sunday.

ALSO!!!  Earlier today for breakfast I ate a takout thing of white rice that I found on our living room TV stand on Friday night — I knew it was G’s because L would never leave leftovers from Tasty King, but just in case I had let it sit there for over 24 hours to make sure G or L hadn’t left it there on purpose to eat later.  By this morning, after 36 hours plus, I thought it was pretty legit for me to just take the thing of white rice because I knew if G found it later that afternoon, he would just throw it away.

GASP BACON LUBE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHO WANTS IT WHO WANTS IT WHO WANTS IT

http://gizmodo.com/5254616/bacon-lube-wont-replace-wd+40-but-it-brings-delicious-fun

Here was another 16-hour day.  All day today I was so groggy because our coffee machine was broken again.  What is up with all these broken drink machines, this is completely unacceptable.  Luckily I had some leftover KFC biscuits with gravy from Sunday night to energize me and they were mmm mmm delicious!!!  Just two minutes in the microwave and they come out piping hot like popovers.

Kinda.

No, really, though, they really were fine, which is the point I’ve been trying to get across for years now — some people are so grossed out by leftovers and there’s really just no need for such silly-poo.  As long as you heat it up, anything’s fine!  Really.

The day got so much better than my two leftover KFC biscuits.  Later in the day there were two meetings that ended simultaneously and I ate so much meat.  I was so happy.  There were roast beef sandwiches, salami, proscuitto, bacon (LUBE?!??!?!), pasta, salad and fruit.  I ate so healthy.  I stashed three plates of food and paced myself finishing one plate at a time every 3 hours at 3pm, 6pm and 9pm.  By the time I left work I was exhausted but happy as a fat chick.

Ugh all I ate today were snacks — snacks snacks snacks all day.  It was so unsatisfying.

That’s a lie.

I started off the day with coworkers bringing me a chocolate chip scone and a chocolate chip crossaint from a meeting they were in (= breakfast).  Then, we had a team meeting in the afternoon to which E brought a huge grocery bag full of treats for the meeting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So I had popcorn, pretzels, chips, sour patch, chex mix, gummy bears, milanos and M&Ms (= lunch).  Then, my preggers boss was cleaning out her food drawer and gave me everything she didn’t want before she left for maternity leave this Friday — boss = so generous!!!!!  She gifted me a Clif bar, 6 packs of popcorn, a bag of chocolates, and a gumball machine.  Clif bar = dinner (healthiest dinner I’ve had in about a year), and I saved the rest for meals tomorrow.  And the greatest thing is, I still have 2 KFC biscuits with gravy still leftover from Sunday.  Breakfast tomorrow is calling my name!!

So much KFC today.  Roommate G had bought me a bucket of KFC and potato wedges and mashed potatoes and biscuits because I got mad at him over the weekend.  So he bought me KFC on Sunday, only ate half of it, I only wanted a bite of it at the time, so I put the rest away in the fridge.  Of course no one eats it because G hates leftovers (?!?!??!?!??!?!!?) and L had four seasons with brown rice leftovers from Tasty King, so I did what I had to do and took the KFC leftovers to work two days later when it was still uneaten.

Fast food is really great because it just really never tastes bad, whether it’s hot or cold, fresh or old, picked at or not.  Just heat up some fried shit and it’s still fried deliciousness.  And apparently KFC is on steroids because today I had the biggest piece of chicken breast I’ve ever seen in my entire life, I mean I have to say it actually filled me up, and top it off with leftover soggy potato wedges and leftover cold mashed potatoes and gravy and stale biscuits and I was having a field day.  Thanks G — needless to say I am no longer mad at you.