Poverexic in NYC

Happy Halloween!  Boy was this a disastrous weekend.  Pencils of Promise Halloween Party at M1-5 on Friday night destroyed everyone.  In true poverexic style, I didn’t want to pay money for a different costume this year so I naturally reused my Sugar Baby costume from last year — I’m trying to get as much use out of this costume as possible, like how I re-purposed it this year also as my birthday suit.

Sugar Baby

Yes, it’s as short as it looks — it hardly covers my ass, and I also can’t wear underwear with it because the back is see-through.

But Friday at work we had a Halloween party, and people were encouraged to dress up, so I just put some black leggings underneath my costume and it instantly went from “what a slut” to “omg so cute!!!”  I got so many compliments at work on my Sugar Baby.  Little do coworkers know I normally do not wear leggings with this outfit, which would have gotten me from “omg so cute!!!” to “you’re fired” instantly.  But yeah, Halloween party at work was great — we had trick or treating around the office, and we were all supposed to bring candy to put out on our desks, but I “accidentally forgot” to bring candy, ie I’m a person who takes, not gives, hello.  So I lost nothing and gained an entire trick-or-treat bag full of candy that I’m going to save up for the month of November, yessss.  Also at the party were ‘Hallowinis,’ pumpkin beer, tons of different kinds of cheeses with bread and crackers, grapes, chips/salsa, homemade brownies, homemade pumpkin pie, etc etc.  It was the perfect amount of dinner to start my night — don’t want to eat too much but want to eat just enough dinner to not black out before 10pm.

Well, I didn’t black out before 10pm so that was a good sign.  Roommates and I pregamed at home before heading out to this open bar party — I had a good time at the Pencils of Promise Halloween party last year, so I knew this year would likely be a blast as well.  Besides, it’s always a bunch of Brown dudes (college not color of skin), and they typically know how to have more fun than Harvard dudes.  We of course got to the party promptly at 10pm to take full advantage of the all-night open bar (and also because L’s friends were throwing the party), and there were only a handful of people when we got there.  What is wrong with people that they wouldn’t come right on time to an open bar party.  So anyway we went to town on the bar, I couldn’t keep track of how many rum-and-cokes I had, and before I knew it I was dancing feverishly with an elf and a Dutch “maiden” with fake tits full of booze (but it was a guy, not actually a maiden) and lost everyone I came to the party with.

I’m not really sure how I got home, but the next morning I woke up to a bbm from C being like “Ready for today’s pub crawl, girl?!?!?!”  No, I was not ready for the Halloween pub crawl.  I had a splitting headache, I had a humongous bruise on my right knee from falling on the dance floor last night and ruining my yellow Sugar Baby costume and destroying my legs, and I overheard roommates L and K ordering Tasty King in the living room without me and I wanted to die.  But I knew I had to rally.  It was Halloweekend after all, as C says.  I whined, turned over and kicked T out of my bed, ran out of my bedroom into the bathroom to put my head straight in the toilet, ordered me some Chinese food, then showered to get ready for Halloweekend Round 2.  Boot and rally, L, boot and rally.  So I met up with C et al at Finnerty’s and crawled around to some East Village pubs and just drank a shitload of $2 Bud Lights all day/night long.  I felt awful, I’m not going to lie, but still had a good time at Halloween bars with guys who appeared hot underneath layers of costume and also a bunch of Gator fans.

My Sunday, though, went downhill when roommates K/L and I got into a fight over whether or not we were going to allow trick or treaters to knock on our door this year.  Last year Halloween was the miserable day when we moved into our apartment, and I literally had to push little kids and obnoxious parents out of the way with my boxes because there was a Haunted House going on in our building downstairs.  Worst nightmare ever.  I actually physically knocked one kid down and I thought the mom was going to kill me, but that kid fucking deserved it, and he probably should have gotten aborted anyway.  Needless to say I was not looking forward to trick or treaters this year, and so I was dead set on putting up a sign “KIDS, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM OUR DOOR OR THE ABORTION FAIRY WILL COME AND GET YOU IN YOUR SLEEP,” but when I said that out loud I thought roommate K was going to cry and have her entire year ruined, so I agreed to let trick or treaters come under three conditions:

1. I would never get up to answer the door.  Never.  Ever.
2. This was not going to disturb my Sunday night TV watching.  I was going to put the volume high enough to drown out the doorbell, and I would not pause the show to let K or L go get the door.  There was not going to be any pausing whatsoever.
3. I would be allowed to take as much candy as I wanted.  And that includes for stocking up.

Friday/Saturday I was Sugar Baby.  Sunday I was Evil Bitch of the West.  Disastrous weekend, but oh so fun.  Heart Halloweekend.

Went to a Recent Harvard Grads Happy Hour last night because M promised it would be a good time based on the last happy hour that I failed to attend because I thought it would just be a bunch of Class of ’10ers who were way too overly excited to be living in NYC.  But apparently the last happy hour was packed and I missed out on a really good time, so I wasn’t about to do so this time around.  Unfortunately M fell ill with Bieber Fever and decided to stay at home and miss out on the happy hour, so K and I went by ourselves and met up with S who frequents the Club.  I had to have either K or S with me to enter because I had recently deactivated from the Club because why am I paying $300+ in dues when I am poverexic.  I have no idea.  And especially because dues went up to $500+ this year now that we’re 5 years out, I was like fuck that shit.  I don’t need to be a member to get into the Club.  I am perfectly happy being Guest for the next 10 years until I’m actually wealthy enough to afford my own dues.

K/S/I decided to start out with a drink downstairs at the bar, and I realized I had never really explored the Club during my years as a member — I had no idea they had an entire chips/pretzels/crackers bar in the other room next to the bar!!  Fantastic, I hadn’t eaten dinner so this was great.  I helped myself to an entire plate of potato chips, cheetos, doritos, ritz crackers and cheese whiz, thinking this was just an appetizer to warm up for the “reduced-price drinks and light fare” that was promised in the happy hour invite.  I also helped myself to a big dirty martini extra dirty with extra olives just the way I like it since S offered to get it on his tab.  hee hee

Once we got upstairs I was expecting a full on PAR-TAY and instead we get up to the happy hour, and there are literally two other people present, and the host is way too excited to see us because we just more than doubled the party.  “Oh fantastic, welcome, welcome!” and he motions to us as I give M a virtual glare over bbm for hyping up this event.  I had dressed up and put on makeup and put in my contacts and everything for this.  What a fucking waste.  But then he says something after that that brings the twinkle back to my glarey eye: “Our ‘reduced-price drinks’ just got even more reduced to… FREE!”

G-A-S-P.  YES.

I run over to the bar with my half-finished martini and decide to double fist some red wine as I search the entire room for this “light fare” they were talking about.  Um.  Except there were none.  All I saw were the same fucking potato chips and some unsalted peanuts but SANS RITZ/CHEESE WHIZ.  Ugh, they had better food options downstairs.  I mean I’m not complaining about the open bar, but if it was going to be free drinks and negative fare then they should have just said that instead of promising “reduced-price drinks and light fare.”  They probably would have gotten a larger crowd by telling the truth.  By “light fare” I was expecting butler-style hors d’oeuvres like shrimp cocktail shooters and sushi and thick apricot cured ham slices on crostini.  I mean this IS the Harvard Club, not a frat.  What was up with Lays Potato Chips at the H Club.

Anyway K and I were bored and the only guys there so far were ethnic, so we decided to just fully take advantage of the open bar like smart people.  In a few minutes though, more people did show up, but the only good looking guy there was married.  Why does this always happen.  Either way we still had a good time, I must admit, chatting it up with some 04ers and consuming a dirty martini, 4 glasses of red wine and some punch.  I’m not quite sure how I made it home by public transportation after this event, but next thing I know I’m passed out on my roommate’s bed and she is dragging me by the arms being like GET OFF MY FUCKING BED!!

So I guess that happy hour was pretty fun after all.  Next one is November 18… get ready.

New girl started at our office yesterday, which means I finally have another person under me to push my excess work onto.  More importantly, though, I get an email from boss L on Monday morning being like “Are you busy today??  Can you take the new girl out for a welcome lunch today??”

Ummm YES.  Opulence — I don’t haz it.  Which means I do like savings de money.  A lot.  So when boss L asks me to take A out to lunch on the company’s money, I JUMP IN IT.

I was soooo excited this meant a free lunch for me.  I debated all morning yesterday where I should take A out for lunch — I contemplated Blue Water Grill, Rosa Mexicano, etc…. but I decided to go with Steak Frites since that’s where boss M took me out for my welcome lunch on my first day of work, so it had sentimental value.

I was trying to be healthy to balance out all the candy I’ve been eating lately in preparation for Halloween, so I got their seared tuna and grilled shrimp salad, which was delish:

Steak Frites Salad

I was unfortunately still starving after I finished my salad, so I asked for 2 additional rounds of bread, which did the trick until I got back to the office, and then I helped fill up the rest of my belly with half the office candy jar of Hershey Kisses, Almond Snickers, Twizzlers, Twizzlers Pull ‘n’ Peel, Milky Way, Hershey bars, etc…… for the past several consecutive days my diet has consisted of healthy salad + a pound of candy.  Gotta prepare my sweet tooth for Halloween.

This past Saturday I got to do the East Village Eats for FREE because I had to write a review of it for NearSay.com.  How did I get this gig, you say?  Well roommate M was really supposed to do the review, but he forgot he was out of town this weekend so he told the NearSay folks that his roommate (ie, me) blogs and will do pretty much anything for food, and they were like ok sure.

SCORE!!!  I was really looking forward to this eating tour of the East Village — I mean this tour was literally 15 restaurants around NYC that were offering food for free, which is pretty much the best thing I could have ever imagined and the best present roommate M could have gifted me.

Since this was a self-guided tour and I didn’t want to eat at 15 restaurants by myself, I forced S to come with me on this Saturday morning starting at 11am.  It was a beautiful day for an eating tour, and I was psyched… but my excitement soon turned to disappointment and annoyance as the hours went by.

Here’s my review.

The first place I dragged S to was the MUD Truck on 4th Ave at Astor Place.  I thought I was being clever by going out of order from what the tour dictated to avoid the hungry crowd, but apparently there were several other clever people on this tour, namely a bunch of Asian tourists.  Seriously, everyone we saw who was holding one of these food maps was Asian.  They were everywhere.

So #1: MUD Truck.  Got a free 10oz latte which was nutty and delicious and I guess you can say better than Starbuck’s for the plain latte that it was.  Very frothy (that’s what she said) and almost tasted like a mocha, and I downed this in 2 minutes.

MUD Truck

Good start with #1.  8 pts for MUD Truck.

However, we go to the next stop on our list, Faustina at Cooper Square, which looked all fancy and nice from the outside until a short little lady approached us being like “Oh are you on the food tour?  I’m sorry, the food isn’t ready yet.”

WHAT?!?!?!  What do you mean the food ISN’T READY YET.  The tour started at 11am and it was 11:30am, and if an event starts at a certain time I expect all participating vendors to be ready at that time.  -10 pts for Faustina.

So we go to stop #3 on our list, Hecho en Dumbo at Bowery and 4th, and THIS ONE WASN’T READY EITHER.  Omg.  I was about to shoot someone and S who had actually paid $45 for his ticket and was dragged out of bed on a Saturday morning to tour with me was really starting to hate on me.  -10 pts.

So we move on to stop #4, Bond Street Chocolate on the other side of 4th and Bowery, and at least this place was open, so that’s an automatic 2 pts for them.  The tasting here was 2 different kinds of dark chocolate bark — one with something something chili pepper, and another with szechuan peppercorn??  I literally asked the lady to repeat what she just said 3 times and it still sounded like she was reading something off a Chinese lunch special menu rather than something out of a chocolate shop, but either way, I gave up on understanding what I was eating and just went for it.

Bond Chocolate Bark

I couldn’t really taste the difference between the two since all good chocolate is good chocolate to me, but they were both very deliciously spicy and peppery and I could really taste the szechuan peppercorn bits, whatever that was.  Upside: Taste.  Downside: Size. (That’s what she said…… we really need to stop saying that so often in our apartment… it’s affecting every way I think.)  6 pts for Bond St Chocolate.

Stop #5 was Cucina di Pesce a few stores down on 4th St, and this place was really a winner in terms of quantity.  This is what I was expecting from every single restaurant.  They sat you down, poured you some water, got you some beer, and came out with an entire plate full of food — tomato mozzarella and sundried tomato spread bruschettas, tomato and mozzarella caprese, and portobello mushroom stuffed with goat cheese and roasted peppers.

Cucina di Pesce

The pitas were nicely crispy, the food was fresh and well plated, and the waiters were very  nice and gave us 1/2 price off on beers, which is a great deal anywhere in NYC before noon.  8 pts for Cucina di Pesce.

Stop #6: Nomad on 2nd Ave at 4th St.  This place was nice and quick and gave us each a chicken skewer with warm pita slices and a little dollop of hummus.

Nomad Chicken Skewers

The chicken was nice and tender and I thought it was great, but then later throughout the day we heard other people on the tour complaining about how the chicken skewers at Nomad were raw and severely undercooked.  Well I certainly didn’t notice and still give it 7 pts.

Stop #7 was Mono+Mono also on 4th St, and in hindsight I think this was probably my fav stop of the tour.  This place had delicious Korean fried chicken, and I would say it’s better than Boka except what makes Boka amazing is the fact that it’s right under Sing Sing Karaoke.  So, hard to beat that.  But this place had really good fried chicken, the skin was a perfect crispiness, the BBQ taste was just the right sweetness, and it was really perfect all around.

Mono+Mono Fried Chicken

Better than KFC Double Down?  I’m not sure.  But what I know is that this place was the oddest Korean restaurant… didn’t have a Korean vibe at all except for all the Asian waiters (except they were all wearing bow ties which was a weird sight) and they were also playing 1920s jazz music so not sure if that sets the right tone for fried chicken, but hey, the food was good and I probably could have eaten an entire bucket of that friend chicken, so 9 pts for Mono+Mono.

Stop #8 was Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches on 2nd St at Ave A.  I was really looking forward to this place because I’ve been a huge fan of Vietnamese sandwiches ever since G gave me a bite of his at a Gossip Girl viewing several years back.  This place was pretty good – I got a porkchop sandwich on a toasted baguette with marinated carrot, fresh cucumber, jalapeno and cilantro.

Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches

The only thing I scowled at was the fact that they were cutting these sandwiches into thirds for this tasting, which I was like WTF about.  S and I were both getting the porkchop sandwich so I naturally asked if they could just cut it in half rather than thirds and they shook their heads at me.  Dickheads.  But I have to say the meat was very moist (that’s what she….), and S was impressed by the fact they have Cafe d Monde coffee shipped from NOLA.  So I guess 7 pts overall.

Stop #9 was Supper next door, and this place was just plain awful.  All they served, literally, was some mushrooms on bread.  And the presentation was horrible.  The mushrooms were falling off the bread, it was difficult to eat, and the taste was just blah.  It was like they didn’t even try; they literally didn’t give a shit about this tour.  Here’s what I got — I mean, just look at it.

Supper

This is certainly not what I want for Supper.  -3 pts.  I mean, seriously?

Stop #10 was a little bit better — Tuck Shop on St. Mark’s.  They gave us these pork/sausage/sage rolls that were tasty and had good spices/seasoning but were the smallest things ever.  I finished this in one bite:

Tuck Shop Rolls

Whoever said size doesn’t matter was a 5’3″ dude with a microscopic dick.  Size DOES matter, and that was really the theme of the tour this Saturday.  Food was good for the most part, but bigger was really what impressed me most.  And smaller just didn’t cut it.  4 pts for Tuck Shop.

Stop #11 was Xi’an Famous Foods, and this place was also pretty awful.  The noodles were really pretty looking and the tofu in it was actually pretty good, but it was so fucking spicy that I literally could not eat it.  I mean, there are some spicy foods that are ridiculously spicy but somewhere beneath all that spiciness you can still tell that the food is really good.  That was not the case with these spicy Asian noodles.

Xi'an Noodles

Look how good they look.  They look awesome.  Taste: Not so awesome.  My mouth was burning up so much that I was forced to purchase this fascinating-looking chrysanthemum tea that again, looked awesome but taste was eh.

Chrysanthemum Tea

There were flowers at the bottom.  Really pretty tea.  But 1 pt for Xi’an.

Stop #12: Luke’s Lobster, or as I like to call it: Ruke’s Robster.  This place was PACKED, and they were handing out their Maine shrimp rolls for the eating tour, which were actually incredibly tasty.

Luke's Shrimp Roll

This would have probably been roommate K’s worst nightmare since she hates seafood — this was a lot of raw little shrimpies on one very buttery roll, a lot of little shrimpies packed in, kinda reminded me of that scene in The Little Mermaid where Ursula is applying lipstick by bursting those sea creatures onto her disgusting lips.  But let me tell you, the taste was incred.  Roll was so soft and buttery, shrimpies were so soft and buttery, maybe a little on the raw side, but raw has never stopped me.  7 pts for Ruke’s.

Stop #13 was Souen East Village on 6th St.  Let me tell you about this place.  First, when we went inside they kicked us out and made us form a line outside.  I was like what is this, 2nd grade?  Then, they were only seating one table at a time, so you can imagine how slowly this was going.  So I snuck in with S along with the previous party, then when the waitress called us out on the fact that we weren’t actually with them, I just asked her if she could just put the dumplings in my hand and we would be on our way.  After giving me a little snarl, she agreed, brought us 2 tiny dumprings each and hustled us so much that I couldn’t even get a picture.  I had to just shove the dumpring in my mouth and leave.  And the dumpring wasn’t even that tasty — it was actually pretty bland I must say, probably because they were wheat dumprings with wheat gluten and cabbage and some other non-tasty ingredients.  -5 pts for Souen.

For our next stop S and I decided to go back to #2, Faustina, for their garlic knots.  Given they weren’t ready on time, I was expecting some serious shit out of Faustina… but nope.  That didn’t happen.  The garlic knots were cold, they weren’t crispy on the outside the way I like them, they were mushy, and I just wasn’t impressed.

Faustina Garlic Knots

But I guess as S said, at the end of the day, it’s still a garlic knot.  Just like pizza’s still pizza.  Point taken.  Anyway, so I guess that takes this place up to -5 pts instead of -10.

After the garlic knots we hit up #3, Hecho en Dumbo, which was finally open.  This place had really amazing braised venison with pico de gallo-type thing on top of tiny quarter-sized tostadas.  Lots of flavor, just the right amount of spices with a serious kick at the end, the venison was tender, and it really was incred.

Hecho en Dumbo Tostadas

The only thing wrong with it was the size.  WAY TOO SMALL.  I mean what is this, an amuse-bouche tour?  NO.  So I took two.  Anyway, the venison raised Hecho en Dumbo up to -1 pt.

Stop #14 was Tu-Lu’s Gluten Free Bakery.  I mean the name itself should earn -10 pts.  Why would anyone go to a gluten free bakery unless you have Celiac disease.  Well, their mini red velvet cupcakes were pretty good but yet again TINY.  This was like a mini mini mini cupcake.  For a midget.

Tu-Lu's Red Velvet Cupcake

The cake wasn’t very moist nor was it impressive (I wasn’t expecting it to be…… it’s gluten free), but the cream cheese icing was pretty delicious I have to admit.  5 pts for Tu-Lu’s.

Last stop was the best stop: S’MAC on 12th and 1st.  I had been dying to go to S’MAC ever since I moved to NYC 3.5 years ago.  I suppose it shows you just how poverexic I am that I’ve been dying to go to this place for 3.5 years and couldn’t just get myself to go out and get a $7 plate of mac ‘n’ cheese because it wasn’t free until now.  Well this was my chance.  They were serving their four cheese mac ‘n’ cheese, and it was pretty damn good.

S'MAC

I wanted the entire pan.  Instead, this is what I got:

Four Cheese Mac 'n' Cheese

So I asked for two.  The cheese was just so melty and the burnt cheese crust part was sooooooo tasty.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  10 pts for S’MAC.

I guess that sums up East Village Eats.  Overall pretty good and who am I to complain since I got this all for free, but my biggest complaint for sure was the portion sizes.  I mean I woke up Saturday morning starving and expected to end up with my head in the toilet by the end of this tour ralphing up half the tour from eating and drinking so much, but that was far from what happened.  S and I were still hungry and thirsty so we went over to his fav bar after the tour to continue drinking and eating bar food, a bunch of candy bars from the bodega next door, followed by a fried chicken sandwich for dinner and more beer and scotch.  I feel like my life is evolving into poverbesity.

Got stuck in a 2.5 hr conference call today, which meant I SKIPPED LUNCH. 😦  So angry.  And the meeting started so much earlier than scheduled.  We were supposed to dial in at 2:30pm, and instead we get an email from the client at 1:00pm being like PLEASE DIAL IN NOW!!!!! and then the call lasted until 3:30pm and I couldn’t even leave my desk to get lunch!!! 😦 😦 😦  By the time the call was over, I was just 1.5 hrs away from our company happy hour today at the office so I decided to just suck it up and keep filling myself up on Diet Coke until it was happy hour time.

Happy hour time came and I was so starving that I didn’t even realize how much food I was piling on my plate until I noticed coworkers M and N chuckling and whispering, and I look over and they are talking about my plate.  “Getting a little bit of everything?” they ask.  I look down and I notice that I had literally piled my plate sky high, and gave them the Reddit “FUCK YEA” face.

FUCK YEA.

I got me some strawberries, a stick of pineapple, 3 different kinds of hummus with pita and carrots, half a plate of crackers with cheddar and swiss cheese slices and an entire roll of salami, half a plate of chips (2 different kinds) with fresh salsa and guac, and a full glass of red wine.  I finished all that while talking to coworker M, so I went back and got the same amount of food for plate #2 while chatting it up with boss J.

By then I was pretty done with work for the day but didn’t want people seeing me leaving the office early, so I decided to go out the back entrance.  THANK GOD I DID because as I was walking out the back, I noticed an entire platter of leftover sandwiches from who knows what meeting (how did I miss that all day?!?!?!) so I slipped into the kitchen and grabbed 2 different chicken wraps (1 chicken caesar wrap and 1 buffalo chicken wrap), grabbed some salad in a paper cup, grabbed another Diet Coke, and jetted out the door.

Great dinner ……… and lunch and breakfast.

Client meeting today which can only mean one thing…….. FREE DINNER ON THE CLIENTS!!!!!!!!!  Rather, I actually think it’s free dinner on my company taking my clients out to dinner, but…. minor details.  That was all I was looking forward to all day, and then of course boss T completely forgets about poor hungry A and me and just leaves the office in a cab with the clients WITHOUT US.  WTF!!!!!!!!!!  😦  I had been emailing for like the last hour of the day being like “Ready to head out whenever you are!” “Are you still in your other meeting??” “Let me and A know when you leave!”  UGHHHHHHHH.

And then of course I get an email from boss T a few minutes later being like, “GASP I AM SOOOOO SORRY, I am so out of it today, I just left the office and wasn’t thinking, I am SOOOO sorry, please catch a cab with A and come immediately to Il Matto at Church and White.”

…………………………………. glare.

Anyway, my glare went away and turned into my normal happy squint when I arrived to the delicious Italian restaurant Il Matto.  Restaurant was very cool — they had very Alice-in-Wonderland-esque really trippy round couches that look like those dizzy teacup rides at Disney World which made me really hungry.

A and I sat down and of course bosses and clients are already on their second drink.  I had to catch up quick, so I ordered myself a nice clamato mary which was one of the most beautiful drinks I’d ever had.

Clamato Mary

It was practically an appetizer/soup — so much more substantial than a purely liquid drink!!  Plus we got a ton of appetizers that were incred:

• Il Matto Cheese selection, parma prosciutto, mustards, homemade jams
• Baby artichoke crouquettes, saffron sauce burrata and summer truffle
• Tuna tartar, black olive tapenade, cannelini beans and avocado, topped with fried leeks
• Pecorino cream brulee, red onion jam balsamic reduction and pane carasau

OMG and this pecorino creme brulee was literally one of the best things ever to hit my mouth.  Creme brulee is my fav dessert of all time, and this was my fav dessert EXCEPT SAVORY = MY NEW FAV APPETIZER OF ALL TIME.

And then for my entree I had black squid ink gnocchi with crabmeat ragout, fried artichokes (love black squid ink):

Black Squid Gnocchi

It looked delicious and tasted pretty good….. the pasta was a bit mushy, but who am I to complain.  It was a great dinner overall with good conversations revolving around bachelorette parties that somehow turned into talk about strippers and blow up dolls and dicksicles and suddenly I found myself frozen in my chair sipping on my clamato mary keeping my mouth shut in fear I’d get too carried away.  Clients are pretty open/close with us, maybe a little too open, and usually it’s ok when they initiate the conversation and get carried away but somehow becomes unclassy and unemployed when the agency folks do it.  So I let my client talk endlessly about her bachelorette party in Miami and kept silent about the multiple bachelorette parties that I had recently planned and kept it classy and finished up the leftover appetizers in silence.  Usually what happens at these client dinners is, the clients keep drinking and I just keep eating, which ultimately ends up working out really well.

In the words of Randy Marsh, SCORE!

This weekend was truly epic — K+D wedding in Santa Cruz, literally one of the best weekends I’ve ever had in my life.  This was the first time I had ever been maid of honor, and boy was I in for a treat.  I knew this weekend would be incredibly poverexic friendly, but I had no idea to what extent.  Before the weekend even began, bff K gave me my maid of honor gift, which was this:

Basket of Heaven

IT WAS A CARNIVORE PACKAGE!!!!!!!!!!!  I LITERALLY COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES.  When K first handed this to me saying it was for me, I nearly started hyperventilating, no joke.  There were more miracles in this wooden basket from Cheese Plus than I’d ever experienced in all my years of life, more than all my birthday gifts combined, better than any one present I had ever gotten from Santa.  I almost started crying I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of this basket.  In it was duck confit, sausage, chorizo, a soft cheese, a hard cheese, truffle mousse, truffle dijon mustard, red onion glaze, cornichon (which K and I demolished in 15 minutes)….

Miracles

…. AND THE B-I-G-G-E-S-T SLAB OF BACON I HAD EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE:

BACON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just have to show this one again because it perfectly captures how I felt:

OMG!!! BACON!!!!!!!!

Have you ever had the Canadian Bacon at Peter Lugar?  This slab of bacon was literally Peter Lugar X 10.  You can’t really see the thickness of this bacon in this photo, but it was literally 4 inches thick (that’s what she said).  And it was RAW and perfectly seasoned.  I think I came when I took my first bite.  It was the most delicious thing I could have ever imagined.  And half of the slab was just pure delicious fat.  I dipped some of the bacon into the truffle dijon mustard, and I nearly died.  I dipped some of the bacon into the red onion glaze, and I vowed I’d give up fucking for the rest of my life if I could just eat this slab of bacon every day for the rest of my life.

I thought the weekend couldn’t get any better, but it was really all just beginning.  The wedding festivities started Friday night at Hula’s in Santa Cruz where they served plates and plates of appetizers like chicken summer wraps and seared tuna on wontons, accompanied by Hula classics like the zombie, volcano bowl and scorpion bowl, which brought back really fond memories of scorpion bowl races at the Kong and blacking out after attempting a one-on-one scorpion bowl challenge against an unnamed football player.

Hula Wraps

And for main course I had incred fish tacos:

Fish Tacos

After-party consisted of margaritas in downtown Santa Cruz followed by one too many sweet tea vodkas with soda water.  I was surprisingly pretty sober until I started on those sweet tea vodkas, which were amazing and tasted like my fav long island ice teas specially mixed by my fav waiters at the Kong whenever they could sense I wanted to have an especially good time.

Didn’t feel so great when I woke up the next morning but felt really great after Ladies’ Luncheon hosted by K at Chaminade restaurant, where I had a deconstructed cobb salad, a side of fries and a mimosa.

Deconstructed Cobb Salad

Ladies’ Luncheon was followed by the wedding rehearsal outdoors in the perfect 78-degree California sun and then the rehearsal dinner at Michael’s on Main, a fun Mexican place with an outdoor patio and live band and dancing indoors.  The dinner was a buffet, which is clearly my style.  Unfortunately I had to wait until the very end for my turn to let all the older people go first because I am polite, which made me super nervous as I watched the amount of beef and tortillas go down, but thank god I remembered it was a buffet which means the waiters are just supposed to keep bringing out food, endlessly.  I got a heaping plate of salad, tortillas, steak strips, fish, chips and guac, and I went back for a second heaping plate toward the end of dinner when everyone was moving on to dessert.  But I wasn’t about to let the extra dinner food go to waste.

Mexican Buffet

I thought I would be disgustingly full after the 2 rounds of dinner, but I had enough red wine in me that I just felt like a million bucks throughout the entire night.  After dinner we went back to the resort and literally took over Chaminade bar where there was another wedding reception going on, but we definitely outnumbered the other party so just crashed the party.  We danced the night away to 80s and pop R&B and drank by the outdoor fireplace, and it was a grand ole time with family and friends.

I woke up the next morning incredibly excited for bff K.  We got breakfast, got ready with the other bridesmaids, took photos in the woods.  K+D had a beautiful ceremony with a very awkward officiant, followed by a cocktail hour of baked brie and other hors d’oeuvres accompanied by endless cocktails.  The reception after that was an absolute blast, and the salad and steak for dinner were incred (biggest cut of steak ever):

Steak

And for dessert was a candy table of K+D’s fav sweet treats, which I clearly stocked up on and brought home more than one bag full of candy for my trip home.  Also their chocolate ganache and carrot cake wedding cake was delish.

Sweet Treats

K+D Wedding Cake

The party was epic and I must have had a dozen drinks: their signature pomegrante martinis, dirty martinis (my fav) and champagne at cocktail hour; countless glasses of red wine, champagne, more dirty martinis and margaritas at the reception.  We were all having the time of our lives (J/M/I were really ripping up the dance floor), and this is when I met the kid celeb guest at the wedding: J. Pabst of – that’s right – Pabst Blue Ribbon.  The only other pseudo celeb at the wedding was George Zimmer of Men’s Warehouse and he’s like 70 years old, so I felt J. Pabst was an excellent target for me and just my age.

I started to dance with Mr. Pabst and all I could think about was shotgunning PBRs.  I thought I was having a good time until he started getting a little too annoyingly clingy and not leaving me alone when all I wanted to do was dance the night away with my best friends from high school, so I knew there was only one thing to do in order to get rid of him.  I very quickly sneaked out of the reception, dragged him back to my room, had a god-awful 5 minutes due to some inadequacies clearly not on my end, then immediately kicked him out afterward and literally ran back to the reception.

Thank god I had only missed about 15 minutes total of the dance party including roundtrip — I made it back just in time for Taio Cruz and Jason Derulo and was able to spend the rest of the night with my friends and K’s family.  We stayed on the dance floor until they kicked us out and spent the rest of the night out by the fireside, and I left the party with my friends bawling my eyes out that I wasn’t going to see them for another 6 months.

Such an incredible weekend.  K+D, I love you — thank you for an amazing time.

Today was AMAAAZZZIIINGGGGGG!!  Dreams really do come true!!!!  I walked into the office today feeling shitty after getting drenched on my morning walk over to the office (the not-so-perks of living awkwardly close to the office where it’s too close not to walk but not close enough to avoid getting shat on by shitty weather), when I discovered the most incred piece of paper I’d ever seen in my entire life — a sign with the magical words:

FOOD TASTING TODAY, 1PM, KITCHEN.

OMG!!!

OOOOOOO

MMMMMMMMMMM

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

I nearly had a heart attack.  And I nearly had a second heart attack when I checked my schedule and realized to my horror that I had back-to-back meetings from at 12pm through 2pm.  UGHHHHHH I HATE MY LIFEEEEEEEE.

I immediately ran over to coworker M’s desk (my buddy from my previous agency who is well aware of my poverexic habits… my  new coworkers are gradually catching on) and cried my dilemma to her.  “No worries, I got you covered!” she answered — she’s my fav coworker ever.

I was panicking the entire morning nervous about whether M would actually get me enough food or not.  That’s when I decided, fuck it, I don’t trust other people, I am going to take matters into my own hands.  So I left my 12pm meeting early at 12:45pm feigning that I had to go “prepare for my next call,” casually walked over to the kitchen 15 minutes early to see if perchance the food had come early, AND IT HADDDDDDDDDD.

The taste testing was catered from Food Merchants, an amazing catering place with everything you could imagine.  I grabbed two plates and immediately began piling everything that was laid out on the tables — chicken parmesan, grilled fish with cherry tomatoes and artichoke, rice pilaf, grilled green beans and carrots, roasted potatoes, roast beef with grilled onions, delicious salad with walnuts/craisins/goat cheese, chicken salad sandwich, chocolate covered strawberries, mini cannolis, chocolate mousse, fresh fruit, etc etc etc.

IT WAS AMAZINGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!  Ran into coworker M in the kitchen who took one look at my plate and was like, “Guess you got it all covered by yourself!!”  I really did.  I ate one plate for lunch and one plate for dinner, and it was no longer a rainy day.

This weekend was uneventful but somehow I still ended up having the worst hangover of my life today.  I literally couldn’t stomach anything, so I figured this was a perfect day to try that liquid cleanse I had been meaning to do for quite some time now.  I remember during my cross country days in high school coach used to talk about how good liquid cleanses were for you and how you’re supposed to do them like once a month.  Now in retrospect I’m thinking he just wanted all of us to be anorexic.  I wonder what he would think of my Tasty King diet now.

Anyway, so I figured I could try out the liquid cleanse today because I knew Tasty would not be so kind to my stomach on this rough afternoon and I wanted to go gentle on my digestive system.  I think technically you’re supposed to go gradually from thicker liquids to clearer liquids (or vice versa, I dunno), but I didn’t care that much so I decided to just get a power size acai Jamba Juice.  After downing that Jamba I was feeling so great and so healthy and much cleaner than my usually Tasty King Sundays and was really proud of myself… for a total of about 3 hours when I started to get ravenous and couldn’t stand it any longer.

Right when I was going to go get my second Jamba Juice, I hear roommate L talking about tartare and right then and there I decide to drop my liquid cleanse crap.  So, here’s what I had for an early dinner instead:

Steak Tartare

So I guess my liquid cleanse ended up consisting of one Jamba Juice and one huge plate of raw steak tartare and one big glass of red wine.  Fail.  Either way it was stupid of me to attempt in the first place, considering I have to start preparing my stomach for the intense meals that will be K’s wedding festivities this weekend in SF.  Hopefully this week will be a good food week at the office.