Poverexic in NYC

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.

Well I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again — the greatest thing about working 16 hour days is that I have no guilt whatsoever in expensing dinners and cabs galore.  I mean really.  Anyway, tonight I wanted to cry as I was approaching hour 14 and our office Starbucks machine was broken and our water machine was broken and I mean REALLY!??!?!??!  You’ve got to fucking be kidding me.

So I went and did what I’ve been wanting to do since 3/18 (see entry 3/18) and ordered myself one of those incredible looking steak and pepper sandwiches from Mooncakes that roommate L and I discovered on scanwiches.com two months back and have been salivating over ever since.  SO I DID IT I ORDERED IT YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And it was the most incredible thing ever.  $7 for this:

Dericious

My life was complete and I closed the two-month loop and I didn’t even have to pay for it and only expensed the client $7 (plus tax and tip)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It was really something.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/05/06/dining/20090506-burger-interactive.html

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090430-tows-kfc-coupon-download

Had delicious Diablo Royale leftovers today for lunch, which consisted of half a Chipotle burger, soggy fries, harded cheese grits, and soggy cinnamon chips.  It was incred, so good.  I had this lunch post 2pm and that usually fills me up for the entire rest of the day, but for some reason I was ravenous when I got home post 8pm.  Luckily kind roommate L gave me his white rice from yesterday’s takeout from Plump Dumpling (or as we like to call it, Prump Dumpring), rival to Tasty King for their dericious (prump) dumpring soup.  I ate all of L’s white rice with glee, but then I started getting worried.  Roommate L has been vomiting his food after nearly every meal for like the past week (though otherwise perfectly fine) — while some may see this as signs of bulimia, I see this as signs of the swine (though in L’s case it is more likely to be a cause of a lifetime of “wine flu”).  I guess we’ll see how I feel tomorrow for cinco de swino.

Went to Sunday brunch for LP’s birthday today at Diablo Royale.  Good brunch deal of cinammon chips, entree and cheese grits for $11 — I had the Chipotle burger with diablo fries which were really delicious.  Of course I’m always the last to finish my meal, and by finish I mean I’ve only eaten half my burger and half my fries and a bite of my grits, when everyone else at the table is already done with their meal.  I don’t know why I’m so slow at eating considering I grew up in a household where every meal was literally a race because otherwise my dad would eat everything.

Anyway, I digress.  I decide rather than making everyone else watch me finish the rest of my brunch over the next 30 minutes, I should just take it home with me so I have a nice dinner to look forward to.  I ask the waitress for a to-go box and I start to pack up my half burger and fries when the waitress tries to take LP’s full plate of grits away.  AND YOU KNOW HOW MAD I GET WHEN WAITERS DO THAT.

HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY EXCUSE ME I’M TAKING THAT TOO.  And I literally grab it out of her hands and shove the cheese grits into my to-go box.  “Okaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy……..” mumbles the waitress and I see her rolling her eyes out of the corner of my eyes and I am just like BITCH and leave her a shitty tip.  And then I take all the rest of those cinnamon chips with me.