Poverexic in NYC

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.

Well I’m back, after my week long hiatus caused by the fact that I was getting fucked up the asshole at work (though on the bright side, I didn’t have time to think about food for a week).

The fabulous thing about today is that after a week of hell, I am now in sunny SF with bff K, and traveling is the only time I treat myself and splurge.  And by splurge I mean today I bought myself a $2.37 Burrito Supreme from the Taco Bell at DFW airport during my 239487374 hour layover, and it was the best burrito I’d ever had in my life.

Taco Bell Burrito Supreme

My splurge continued after that when I did something I would never do in NYC: bought myself another meal after I had just eaten.  I just couldn’t help but buy myself a Smoothie King which brought back fond memories of HS cross country when I used to have a Smoothie King Angel Food (with strawberries, mangoes and protein) after our workouts every day.  But that was back in the day when I used to be rich, i.e., financially dependent on my parents.

While I absolutely hate flying because Dubaku scares the shit out of me, I do love the fact that I can order as many drinks as I want for free on flights (though I hate that every domestic airline has gotten rid of free meals – that’s why I love traveling internationally where they serve wine and dulce de leche desserts with every meal).  So today on my flight I started off with a glass of orange juice and another glass of water for breakfast, then got the flight attendant to bring me a can of bloody mary mix with a lime (my usual flight drink), then got her to bring me a Coke to go.  I really stocked up on the flight.

From: E
Date: Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 7:06 PM
Subject: yo
To: L

I think i may have mentioned this that one nite at Underbar, but I am really into poverexia.

I have been living this way for years.

When I worked for the collectible figurines store, I packed myself a lunch every day.  It consisted of:

– Thermosful of coffee (1qt), brewed at 6am every morning because they CHARGED us for coffee.  3 cups just had to be enough.
– One PB&J (Wheat Wonderbread), eaten at appx. 11am.
– One half PB&Js (Wheat Wonderbread), eaten between 2pm and 4pm.
– Option of two Sunshine fruit bars ($1.79 for 8 from KMart) or two additional half PB&Js for 6pm and the train ride home.

After several months at that job, I had lost an alarming amount of weight, which I discovered when I needed a picture for my Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader contestant application and realized that I looked like an AIDS patient in anything taken over the previous few months.

While I tutored, I was:

– Fed by the nice Jewish families for which I worked
– Fed by the banker / then-consultant roomies’ leftovers.
– For dinner on days when I didn’t have work, or for lunch, I generally had “salad.”

“Salad” = iceberg lettuce ($0.99 at the Associated sometimes – was ALWAYS $0.99 at the Met in the East Village near where I used to live) + “dressing” (combination of White Rose mayo and Super A hot sauce ($1.79 for a BIG bottle!) + sometimes Baco-Bits, if i had them.

Also, if you eat enough Kashi GoLean ($3.59 – surprisingly cheap – at the Whole Foods. Whole Foods is a closet discount store if you skip anything for which they hawk free samples or have a dedicated display and manage to fight your way through to the very back of the store) – if you eat enough GoLean, you feel sick enough that you won’t want to eat anything else for a while.  This works even better with GoLean Crunch.

“Poverexia” also reminds me of drunklemia, a technique that I perfected junior summer when i was living on D’s couch involving a little finger-throat action before bed anytime i got hammered.  Still by FAR the most effective method for avoiding hangovers that I’ve ever encountered.

Anyway, keep up the good work on the blog,

E

8:07 am

Coworker P is my partner in crime at work.  We keep each other very closely in the loop and alert each other immediately whenever we suspect there’s free food in the office.

This morning I’m coming to my desk and pass the kitchen, when I see this entire bag of mini bagels that someone has left out on the kitchen counter.  I really spotted them half an hour ago, so per my standard protocol I wait 30 minutes, at which point I make the decision that someone must have left them out for others to take, not that they forgot and left them out by accident (because in that case, it’s really just their fault for being careless).  I mean, we work in a very fast-paced industry; you gotta act quick around here or someone else will beat you to it.  And I’m the queen of competition when it comes to food, or anything else for that matter.

So I sneak around to grab P and whisper “P, come here for a sec.”  We both tip toe over to the kitchen and I point and inform her, “Look!  Those have been out on the counter for half an hour (I’ve been timing).  Do you think we can—

P:  OMG THOSE ARE MINE, L!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

me:  Oh.  WELL P, WHY’D YOU LEAVE THEM OUT?!?!??!??! YOU KNOW PEOPLE LIKE ME ARE LURKING AROUND EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P:  I KNOW I FORGOT I CAN’T BELIEVE I DID THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

me:  P!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I NEARLY TOOK THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P:  DAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! …  Do you want one.

me:  Yes.

2:32 pm

I’m heating up my canned split pea soup in the office kitchen, when I spot out of the corner of my eye what looks to be some rice in the trash can.  I slowly turn my head in disbelief to find an entire container full of leftover fried rice (looked like pork fried rice to be specific) and I gasped.  Coworker D walks into the kitchen at that time and asks what’s wrong.  I simply point to the trash can.  “L, don’t pick it out of the trash.  Just walk away.  Just walk away,” says D.  I let out a cry, then slowly and sadly take my green soup out of the microwave and walk back to my desk.

5:45 pm

L makes a wonderful discovery for me — looks like this is the way to go moving forward:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5161137/your-iphone-is-now-a-kitchen-thanks-to-cooking-mama

Your iPhone Is now a Kitchen Thanks to Cooking Mama!

You might not have time for breakfast before getting on the 8:15 train to work, but you can regain part of the experience by making virtual bacon and coffee en route to the office. Cooking Mama on the iPhone looks graphically similar to the Nintendo DS iterations, except that you only have one screen, and now you use your finger to control the action (notice the control overlay).

8:32 pm

I had a proud moment tonight.  Roommate L walks through the door proclaiming, “I’m going to follow in your footsteps and become poverexic!  I realized today how easy it is to skip dinner and save $10 a night.  I ate a big lunch today at 3pm and I’m not hungry at all!”

I was a proud mama!  I am SO happy for you L!  You will soon learn that you will save SO much money by skipping one or more meals a day.  I was determined to convert all the rest of my friends, one friend at a time.  Next target is other roommate G.

8:36 pm

L:  I caved.

me:  What?

L:  I caved.  I couldn’t do it.  I ordered some scallion pancakes.

me:  L … I am so disappointed in you.

L:  I know… 😦

me:  Can I have some when it comes.