Poverexic in NYC

Today I received a drool-inducing item in the mail: the rehearsal dinner invitation to J’s wedding over New Years.  There was a return envelope enclosed, and I thought it was an RSVP card but NO!  It was a list of entrees for the rehearsal dinner — ‘please initial your entree.’  GASPPPPPPPPPPP!!!  On the list were the following:

• Asparagus, cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs and fava beans in puff pastry with hollandaise sauce
• Pave of salmon with vegetables tian, pomme chateau and sorel cream sauce
• Cilantro and cornbread stuffed quail and grilled petit filet with madeira sauce and vegetable julienne galette

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY CRAP.

I have no friggen idea what the first two items are, and I have no idea what madeira sauce or vegetable julienne galette is, BUT I SURE KNOW WHAT CILANTRO AND CORNBREAD STUFFED QUAIL IS.  THAT’S RIGHT.  IT’S DELICIOUSNESS.  Rather than initials, I put a huge teethy smiley face and 5 exclamation points next to entree #3.

😀 !!!!!

If this is just the rehearsal dinner, I can’t even imagine what the wedding food will be like.  Crossing my fingers it’s like Thanksgiving.

This was the best long weekend I’ve had since college.  I am completely stuffed.  And I barely spent a dime — SUCCESS!!!  Since Thursday I have gone back to S’s place every single day to eat Thanksgiving leftovers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the weekend was full of free drinks and free table service and free blackouts.  (Thanks to D who gives me free stuff every time I see him, like drinks and raw almonds and granola bars.)

So, I am trying to see how many consecutive days I can go off Thanksgiving leftovers.  I’m on day 3 so far, and today S let me take a huge tupperware of turkey, corn pudding, green bean casserole and sausage stuffing.  Just as Cheryl David does not respect wood, S and the rest of the ibanking world do not respect leftovers which is why I feel as though I am doing a good deed by taking his leftovers which would have otherwise just gone down the trash chute.  Like the entire tray of oyster stuffing that I found out today that S threw out because I forgot to put it back in the fridge after I ate from the tray yesterday, and S thought the oysters would have already gone bad.  YOU DID WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  What is that about?!?!?!?!?!  Everyone knows that once something’s cooked, it can go unrefrigerated and still remain edible for at least 3-4 days, especially when it’s wintertime and the apartment is cold to begin with.  (NOTE: The only time this rule failed me was that one time I left the beef fried rice stuffed up in my room overnight and it turned into gooey goo the next day when I tried to eat it for lunch.  That sucked.  But that was the only time.)

Anyway, I’m over it.  I am all sunshines from the weekend, and I’ve got my humongous tupperware, which I predict will last me at least half way through this work week if not the entire work week.  It gets better.  I later came home tonight to a fridge full of leftovers from roommates L&M’s Thanksgiving in Boston, including turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and a delicious homemade apple pie.  SUCCESS!!!

Thanksgiving is the best day on earth.  It’s so much better than Christmas.  Last night was 3rd consecutive year spending Thanksgiving at S’s place, and this year’s menu really topped the other years, only because this time S was cooking for 6 people, which meant that in his mind he was cooking for a Mormon family of 15.  This meant that as always, the 6 guests barely made a dent in all the surplus of food that S had prepared, which means that I will be going over to S’s today, Saturday and Sunday, and most of next week for free leftovers.  YES.  Actually for lunch today, roommate K and I had already taken an entire tray of leftovers when we left the festivities last night, but we’re going back to S’s later today for dessert since that didn’t fit on our tray.

Here’s what was on the menu:

Turkey (of course)

Sausage Stuffing

Oyster Stuffing

Green Bean Casserole

Corn Pudding

Potato Gratin

Sweet Potatoes

Crumbs Cake

Berries Cheesecake

My Plate

My stomach was so overwhelmed after this meal that I literally immediately had to go take a 2-hour nap during the Cowboys’ game, and when I woke up, to no one’s surprise, S had completely blacked out and was snoring mouth-open on the couch.  This allowed each of us to sneakily steal a whole lot of leftovers while S was passed out; meanwhile, the girls were in the kitchen being good housewives and cleaning up the entire place and doing the dishes.  To make a feminist statement, roommate K and I stubbornly remained on the couch eating more food and refused to help out in the kitchen.

Got the best email ever today from ManBear S, who is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.

All,

I am very excited for this Thursday. I hope the feeling is mutual among all of you. Wanted to write and give you all details for the big day.

Arrive: 2:30; we’ll probably eat around 3:15; Cowboys game starts at 4:15; Texas game starts at 8 (all are welcome to stay at my place for the entire marathon, there should be plenty of beer/cocktails/leftovers)

Menu:
Roasted Turkey (perhaps two of them)
Oyster Stuffing
Sausage Stuffing
The Ultimate Potato Gratin
Green Bean Casserole
Sweet Potatoes
Sweet Corn Bread Pudding
Cheddar / Asiago Cheese Popovers

*Notice, there are no desserts listed here. This is what I will call on everyone else to bring for the feast.  B, if you can make a chess/buttermilk pie, then I will love you forever. Also, if anyone has any dietary concerns (beyond the caloric intake) please let me know and I’ll work around them.

GASPPPPPPPPPPP HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS OYSTER STUFFING TELL ME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is my 3rd consecutive Thanksgiving with S, and I just know this will be the best one.  This year promises especially good things as S has invited over 4 of his male coworkers to join in the Thanksgiving feast.  YES.

Looks like I’m not the only one who’s in the spirit of Thanksgiving — D is too.  I love how everything revolves around pumpkin around the Thanksgiving holiday.

D:     I’m making pumpkin bread tonight
and turkey pumpkin chili
me:     GASP
how are you making it
how did you come up with that
why do you cook
D:     ground turkey, pumpkin puree, peppers, jalapenos, onion, garlic, tomatoes beans

TURKEY PUMPKIN CHILI WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Turky Pumpkin Chili

Pumpkin Bread

What better way to start off Thanksgiving week than with the following all-staff email sent through this morning:

SUBJECT: Breakfast this morning in the café – a gift from our colleagues in our OC/Irvine office

Every year, when a New York sports team makes the playoffs, the head of the office bets the head of the opposing team that our team will win.

Because the Yankees beat the Angels in the playoffs this year, we won a bet and this morning, our colleagues from Irvine are paying off…

Please stop by the café for some delicious fruit from California and some other treats.

GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Bagels with strawberry cream cheese and apples and clementines!!!!!!!!!!  Another great reason to be associated with NY.  We would win food every time.

Later that day I scored some serious veggies when I found a leftover broccoli pizza in the kitchen and it was absolutely DERICIOUS.  It was packed full of greens like the broccoli density found in an order of Tasty King chicken and broccoli.

Speaking of serious veggies, check out the super healthy salad my roommates M and L made the other day — it is literally just a head of lettuce with balsamic dressing and bits of real bacon.  It was INCRED.

Lettuce Salad

Did I mention the time I accidentally actually said “rettuce” in public to a person who wasn’t Asian and then immediately corrected myself to “lettuce” and nearly died.  “Dericious” and “dumprings” must end soon or this could get really bad.

Harvard-Yale is always a very counterproductive weekend for the poverexic one.  I always think I’m going to score so much free food at the tailgates and get super excited over the thought of crashing class of 1971 tailgates with steak and oysters galore, and then I never do because I get too blackout and feel like hurling the entire time and can’t stomach anything for the life of me.

The festivities commenced on Friday night when roommates L, M, K and I got smashed at home on really strong bloody marys, wine, beer and shots of hot sauce and vodka (our version of the bloody abortion) before heading out to Superdive to run into some faces that were good to see and others that were awkward to see.  At least I didn’t pay for any of my drinks on Friday, but I knew I was in trouble when I came home that night to immediately puke up all my bloody marys.  I had to wake up the next morning to make an 8am party bus, and I knew I was fucked.

I felt like death when I woke up at 7:30am the next morning and puked another three times right as I was heading out the door.  The hurling did make me feel slightly better though, at least okay enough to stomach the $4.50 bottle of champagne that I had bought for myself in the spirit of keeping up our HY tradition.  The party bus was fun but the worst part was that finishing the champagne bottle over a game of 13 completely destroyed me and I didn’t even touch any of the freeflowing food that was available on the bus, and out of all the tailgate food that was in my face all day, I only ate one tiny hamburger and one hot dog, didn’t drink anything the rest of the day, and blacked out at 2:30pm.  GO CRIMSON.

Last night was so incred I blacked out before I could write about it on poverexia.  I had texted roommate L earlier in the day asking if we could eat the last of my birthday steaks for dinner.  I was so psyched.  As per the usual I came home prepped with one of those humongoid bottles of Frontera red wine (which we subsequently finished all of, hence the blackout).

I was expecting just a standard classic steak with just butter sauce and BOY WHAT A SURPRISE I GOT INSTEAD.  When roommates L&M’s powers combine………. you get MINI BEEF WELLINGTONS!!!!!!!!!  They were absolutely adorable, like little round steak dumprings.

Mini Steaks

Just like dumprings

Mini Beef Wellingtons

As you can see from the above, roommate K’s muffin pan has come in handy on more than one occasion.  I give roommates L and M credit for coming up with multiple creative ways to utilize this pan.

I’ve been spearheading our Thanksgiving team lunch that’s scheduled for this Friday.  I am mainly spearheading it because ‘spearheading’ consists of choosing what foods to order for this meal.  So I asked admin A to browse around Whole Foods and Fresh Direct and see what turkey-sides-dessert combo she can come up with for $100 ($10/person) and I would review the order.

Unfortunately it turns out both Fresh Direct and Whole Foods are quite pricey ($60 turkey?!?!??!?!  KILL YOURSELF) so we decided we needed to come up with some alternatives.  Coworker M suggested we get rotisserie chicken instead of turkey, so I of course immediately thought KFC.  I guess I accidentally said that out loud (and by ‘out loud’ I mean I mass-IMed everyone) and apparently I was the only person who was enthusiastic about the idea.  Here are some other reactions I got when I suggested we buy our Thanksgiving chickens from KFC:

B: SICK
A: sick.  i really wouldn’t want that
K: no way

I guess I got shot down.  Not really sure why everyone’s so against it.  Could you imagine how much food we could get at KFC for $100?!?!??!  We could probably feed all of Africa.

Anyway, I was discouraged by that, but luckily I had this tonight to cheer me up:

HAPPY 16 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO EQUINOX 19TH STREET
JOIN “AMERICA’S HEALTHIEST GYM” FOR ONLY $16 INITIATION*

WHERE EQUINOX 19TH STREET
WHEN TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17
WHAT Live music by DJ NEPALM, complimentary Spa chair massages, special body composition event by Personal Training, Patricia Moreno’s IntenSati Sweet 16 Dance Party, assortment of food courtesy of Pita Grill, cold beverages provided by M2 Ultra Lounge.

GASP!!!!!!!!!  ASSORTMENT OF FOOD AND COLD BEVERAGES!!!!!!!!!  Forget the $16 initiation fee, I am going there for the FOOD AND BEVERAGES.  And boy were they good.  They had wraps, chicken and beef satay, summer rolls, sandwiches, pita and hummus, jambalaya, agua de coco, etc etc etc.  I am so happily full, thanks to my Jewish mother A who invited me to this incred event that apparently happens on like a monthly basis.  Really good to know I am guaranteed free food at least once a month.

I have the best boss in the world — got this email from her this morning:

SUBJECT:  These turkeys…

BODY:  are coming in to see you when I get back to the office.  Yum!

Turkey Cookies

YUM IS RIGHT.  E is one of my fav bosses ever, and her kid T is prob the only kid in the world that I like.  Maybe I wouldn’t harbor such hatred for small children if all of them cooked and baked for me on a regular basis like little T does.  One week it’s cookies, another week it’s brownies, last week it was pumpkin bread and this week it was turkey cookies.  THEY WERE SO DERICIOUS.  They reminded me of the sugar cookies I used to make with my mom until I grew some brains and learned that it was my mom’s job to cook/bake and my job to do my homework and get into Harvard.  I haven’t touched an oven since.  I have, however, continued to enjoy baked goods made by the hands of others.

Literally all my roommates and I did this weekend was eat, sleep, drink, eat, sleep, drink.  This was a weekend full of sodium.  And oddly enough we were all on the same odd sleeping schedule.  On Saturday we woke up at noon, ordered Tasty (I got lunch special sesame chicken with white rice and a diet Coke), then went back to sleep until 6pm at which point we watched about 3 movies on HBO before going out to Loreley which has amazing wiener schnitzel.  I hadn’t had dinner yet (per the usual) so I took a slice of bread from M and stole the rest of O’s wiener schnitzel, sauerkraut, french fries and salad while I distracted him with talks of gang bangs and good porn.  I don’t think he even noticed I took all his food he was so engaged in conversation.  But I knew he wasn’t going to eat it, so it was okay in my mind.

On Sunday we woke up at noon, ordered Tasty (I got combination boneless spare ribs with pork fried rice and an egg roll), watched a few movies, then went back to sleep until 4:30pm at which point we ordered yet another meal from Big Daddy’s because roommate K really wanted some fried cookie dough and pecan waffles with bananas, I really wanted a Hangover Helpler smoothie, and roommate L really wanted a chicken licken sandy.  After filling our bellies we went right back to sleep until 9pm at which point roommates M and L ordered some dericiously prump soups from Prump Dumpring, and M gave me his leftover dumpring soup including 2.5 dumprings.

My usual strategy behind sleeping all day is that when you’re sleeping, you aren’t hungry and spending money on food.  Unfortunately that was counterproductive today, given the sleeping this weekend made us even more hungry and made us order 3 huge meals every 4.5 hours.  Growing up, my mom used to always tell me that if you go to sleep right after eating, you turn into a cow when you wake up.  Thinking back on this now, I realize that she may or may not have been telling the truth.