Today was full of interesting and exciting emails.

Received the following email from E this morning in response to yesterday’s post.

G and I went to Brick Lane with some people last year.  It was a stupid kinda-forced coworker contest in which a bunch of us were going to prove what competitive folks we were by eating the world’s hottest curry.

What a disappointment.

Six of us completed the curry.  I’m convinced that it’s possible to eat a reasonable quantity of anything if one is committed to doing so.  But the phaal wasn’t even that difficult.  Honestly, it wasn’t even that HOT – I think there’s a point of numbness at which the tongue is completely saturated with hot pepper oils and anything else just slides through like it was never there.  Like how only the first 6 donuts consumed within a 3-hour period count, and the body raises the white flag and doesn’t even try to digest 7-12.

Anyway, the Phaal curry was just horrific.  It had absolutely zero taste to it – it didn’t even have hot flavor, exactly (probably too little salt), just essence of hot (which, again, wasn’t horrifically painful but was thoroughly unappetizing).

The rewards for completing the “Phaal challenge” were a small certificate, little satisfaction, and a few hours’ worth of gastrointestinal distress.  G and I didn’t even submit our names and photos to the online Phaal of Fame so that we would not be responsible for perpetuating this scam.

In conclusion, I request that at some point you alert your loyal readers that Phaal curry is enthusiastically not recommended.

If folks are interested in a hot-food challenge, I suggest throwing back a shaker full of red pepper flakes at a pizza joint.  This classic of high school sports team freshman hazing is a) cheaper, b) quicker, c) involves a greater sacrifice (taste buds deadened and mucus flowing freely from the soft palate for a week!).

Then, I received this lovely email from roommate L later this afternoon:

As promised…your birfday gift.  Part of this gift is that I will cook these for you at any time of your choosing in any method you see fit. If you come up to me this weekend and say “L, I want to have a steak tartar sushi banquet on my naked body, Japanese business man style, your wish will be my command.

DERICIOUS STEAKS

Followed by the following dericious email:

This is waiting for you when you get back home

Bloody Mary with Bacon

… and yes that is a bloody mary with bacon in it.

Today roommate K and I were watching our fav TV show, Man V. Food, and watched an episode with a dericious looking curry place in NYC with the hottest curry on the planet.  We immediately got the biggest craving for Indian food and Googled the place and FOUND IT!  Brick Lane Curry House right near us at 6th and 2nd.  While we weren’t brave enough to try the hottest curry on the planet, we were curious to read its description:

Phaal
An excruciatingly hot curry, more pain and sweat than flavor, for our customers who do this on a dare, we will require you to state a verbal disclaimer not holding us liable for any physical or emotional damage after eating this curry. If you do manage to finish your serving of curry, a bottle of beer is on us.

In the episode, you see the chef wearing a gas mask.  Why, Adam Richman asks?  Because the curry is so flaming hot that the fumes would literally choke you to death without the gas mask.  In the episode, though, of course Adam finishes the entire dish.  Man always wins V. Food.  Pretty disgusting though.  I don’t even want to imagine how much his ass must have hurt the next day.  As much as the free beer on the house is tempting, I think I’ll pass.

Yeah, so we decided to go for the mildest curry on the menu, good ole Chicken Tikka Masala and Chicken Korma.  We go to the delivery section of the Web site and realize to our horror that this place is PRICEY.  Dammit.  $14 curry.  Ugh, that’s nearly 3 times more expensive than Tasty King lunch special.  But we just HAD to do it.  We were both dying to have curry after that episode.  Damn you Man V. Food, why are you so good.  I decided that because it was still technically my birthday weekend, that I would splurge on this $14 purchase and charge it to my father’s credit card.

HOWEVER!  When we were nearly finishing the delivery, K punches in her info on Delivery.com and we realize she somehow got an $8 DISCOUNT!!!!!!!!!! AMAZING!!!!!!!!  We literally yelped with joy.  That makes our order SO much cheaper!!!  I decided this was something I myslf could afford without my father’s aid.  Either way, the curry was sooo worth it.

This morning I puked green bile.  Usually the bile I puke is neon yellow, but today’s was lime green.  Not sure what made it that color.

My Sake Bombitzvah last night was incredible.  New Ashiya is the best place on earth that has all-you-can-eat sushi and all-you-can-eat beer/sake for $30.  SAKE BOMBBBBBB WOOOOO COLLEGEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!  The best part, though, is that this all-you-can eat sushi includes ANYTHING on the menu, INCLUDING ALL THE SPECIAL ROLLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And all their sushi is SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am so full of sushi and sake bomb.

AND!  A showed up with the best bday present ever, a Whole Food’s gift certificate!!!!  This means that all the bday gifts I received this year were food — chocolates and chocolate cake from my office, Benihana’s gift certificate from my managers, Chipotle’s gift certificate from my sister, and Whole Food’s gift certificate from A.  HAPPPYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Birthdays are a poverexic girl’s best friend.  They really really really are.  Today is the happiest day ever.  My managers today all got me flowers, chocolates and a huge chocolate cake (which I had for lunch), then they brought me into their office, gave me a bowl of Dum Dums and told me that was my birthday present.  I was really excited and thanked them with all my might when they shook their heads and said, no no no silly, dig deeper.  I reached my hand into the bowl of Dum Dums and THERE WAS A $50 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO BENIHANA’S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I HAVE THE BEST MANAGERS IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THEN!  This afternoon I get the best Facebook post from roommate L:

Indeed it is your day of Birth
And so I wish you caloric mirth
For a finer roommate could never be found
The queen of Poverexia has surely been crowned
But what would befit this lass for a gift
When Grandiose means have been replaced by thrift
There’s vino, there’s certificates, or maybe a cake
“Here’s my roommate Luke…and my better roommate Steak”
Those words did echo and an answer decided
And so unto our fridge some bovine will be provided

Followed by the most incred gchat conversation:

L:so here is my question to you. Would you rather have a bunch of medium quality steak…or one incredible meal of absurd steak

—–

IT GETS EVEN BETTER.  I came home from work to the most incredible array of Magnolia cupcakes gifted by roommate K, along with an envelope in the mail from my sister with a $35 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO CHIPOTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY CRAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPP THERE IS A CHIPOTLE RIGHT NEAR MY OFFICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Roommate K's Birthday Present

And P.S. check out the awesome Fashion Week pink cupcakes with a cell phone and purse.  Nice find, K.

I then receive a phone call from my dad who wishes me happy birthday and tells me he will pay my credit card bill for the month of September.  I think he felt bad for forgetting my birthday last year.  Anyway, you know what I will be spending my credit card on — TASTY KING FOR FREE EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF THE MONTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I seriously have the best managers, roommates and family ever.  Surprise!  I’m fabulous!  And the weekend has not yet even begun.

Well, I got in from the airport last night circa 1am, was up uploading photos onto Facebook and updating my blog until 2:30am, then had to take up at 6am to prep for an all-day client meeting from 10am-5pm where I had to actually dress up, put in my contacts, wear makeup and look nice for work (which I never do as I don’t have anyone I have to impress at work since PR is all girls) and wanted to fall asleep all day.  The greatest thing about our client coming in, though, was all the free flowing food that was available throughout the day today.

Free foods I scored today include the following:

• Fresh fruit and pastries with coffee for our morning session with client
• Free lunch today at Aqua Grill in Soho where we took our client out and I ordered the freshest cod ever and steamed vegetables with Chardonnay
• Leftover sushi (California, tuna, spicy tuna, salmon avocado) from some other client meeting going on today, which I immediately grabbed before anyone else saw the leftover sushi tray
• Roti canai that I ordered towards the end of the day and expensed since I was at the office today from 6:30am to 9:30pm
• Roommate L’s homemade dinner of pasta with sundried tomatoes and sausage with Negro Modelo

However, I realized that my friend’s Saturday of free food totally beat my Wednesday of free food when I received this email from him this morning detailing the most delicious sounding wedding ever.

The wedding was super fun and the food was absurd. The first night we got there they had a clam bake which was all you can eat of the following:

1. 1.5 lb lobsters

2. Steamed clams

3. New England Clam Chowder

4. Two kinds of pasta

5. Mozzarella and tomato salad

6. Hamburgers

7. Hot dogs

8. Fried Chicken

9. Grilled Shrimp

10. Fillet of Sole

And perhaps most importantly incredible Argentine red and white wine and 4 different uncommon beers. I was in heaven, and decided to make everyone very uncomfortable by donning 2 lobster bake bibs and going back to the buffet line 5 different times for 5 very adorable lobsters which are now residing comfortably in my belly.

J, this one’s for you — I am expecting #1-10 at your wedding in January.

I’M BACK from a fabulous trip to visit my Panamaniac in Panama City.  It was a great week full of fun and anti-poverexic activities like spending lots of money because I was on vacation.  And by lots of money, I mean spending $20 on dinner which is way expensive in Panama because usually food is like half that price (and because I am used to usually only spending a quarter of that on my Tasty King meals).

Some poverexic activities I engaged in included the following:

• Buying 20 packs of cigarettes for $14 which I hope will last roommate L and me a lifetime (or, two weeks)
• Eating $1 McDonald’s french fries every other night before we went out
• Having my Panamaniac host bring me a Panamanian breakfast in bed of Panamanian tortillas, carimanolas and salsichas while I was doing work work on my vacation
• Eating $5 ceviche de corvina every day which is my favorite thing in the entire world (although I have to say the best ceviche I have ever had after having tried them in 8 Latin American countries is Peruvian ceviche)

Ceviche

Some anti-poverexic activities I engaged in included the following:

• Buying afternoon drinks at an expensive hotel just because we were exhausted and dehydrated after having gotten our nails done and gone tanning in those awesome stand-up tanning beds
• Buying a really expensive meal at the Panama Canal restaurant just so we could get a good view of the boats going through the Canal

Panama Canal

• Buying 3 bottles of champagne, 4 bottles of wine and 1 bottle of vodka for 3 girls for 1 day at the beach (we finished it all)
• Going to lunch at 3pm, then going to Bennigan’s for pre-dinner appetizers and drinks at 7pm, then going to a dinner at 9pm where we acted like children instead of paying attention to what we were ordering

Napkin Dick

• Going to dim sum for the first time ever (odd that my first dim sum experience was in Panama but apparently there are a lot of my kind over there) and spending $25 on dim sum because we were starving and I was about to head to the airport and didn’t know when I was going to eat again

I guess 4 poverexic activities vs. 5 anti-poverexic activities isn’t a bad ratio.  All in all, I had a great time in Panama with my Panamaniac.  In the words of Shakira the Shewolf, AUUUUUUUU!!!!!!

GASPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  THE MOST AMAZING KFC INVENTION EVER TO BE MADE BY MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh_JXJoV2Yo&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efacebook%2Ecom%2Fhome%2Ephp%3Fref%3Dhome&feature=player_embedded#t=47

The past 24 hours have been magnificent.  Last night I worked until 11:15pm, so my boss and I split an order of fried calamari and I ordered myself a huge hamburger with fries for dinner, except I got so full off the fried calamari that I didn’t even get to the hamburger/fries — which meant I had all of it leftover for today.  I meant to eat it for lunch but just didn’t have time to eat today because I was scrambling in between work and personal errands to run before my trip to Panama this week.

At 6:15pm today I finally got around to unwrapping my leftover hamburger and fries and had just microwaved it when I get a call from roommate L asking when I was coming home.  Oh no L, are you locked out?!?!??!?  “No, I was just wondering when you were coming home because I’m making some sour cream and onion Pringles encrusted chicken for you guys tonight.”

SOUR CREAM AND ONION PRINGLES ENCRUSTED CHICKEN !?!?!??!??!??!??!??!??!??!??!??!?!?!

HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I nearly lost it at work.  I had to get home.  I rushed home as soon as I could and this is the dericiousness that I came home to, beautiful chicklings cooking in a comfy nest of crushed Pringles:

Sour cream and onion Pringles encrusted chicken

HAPPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the greatest thing is I still have that hamburger and fries for tomorrow, and tomorrow is my last day in the  office since I’m leaving for Panama first thing Thursday morning.  And then I will be bathing in Panamanian sun and eating cheap Panamanian dericiousness and drinking Panamanian liquors with my one and only Panamaniac.

FINALLY!!!  The past 24 hours was what I had been waiting for ALL WEEK.  I was walking home from work at a reasonable hour last night when I get a call from the roommates that they are making JUICY LUCY’S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

So Juicy Lucy’s are this incredible discovery we made through Man v. Food with Adam Richman — basically you take two hamburger patties, put a bulk of cheese in between them and squish the edges, then cook the burger so the cheese melts inside and oozes out the burger.  We put blue cheese in ours and it was incred.  It’s called a “Juicy Lucy” because apparently the first person who ever tried it yelled, “Well now that’s a JUICY LUCY” when he bit into it and the cheese squirted out.

Mushrooms and Bacon

Juicy Patties

JUICY LUCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WELL NOW THAT’S A JUICY LUCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then after we stuffed ourselves with Juicy Lucy’s, we went pregaming, and then I had a real juicy lucy.  Speaking of juicy and Jamba Juice, this reminds me of a nice email I received from friend D yesterday morning at 10am:

♫ I’ll be your Pomegranite Pick-Me-Up and then make sure we Mango-a-go-go all night long until you are in Blackberry Bliss and we each Peach Pleasure each other. And then I Cu-Cum-burrrr on your face.

Today, I had canned split pea soup with ham with half a bag of freezer burnt veggies that I had completely forgotten about that had been sitting in the office freezer since spring of last year.  When I opened the bag, literally half of it was pure ice and the rest was disgusting looking colors of I don’t know what.  But I was quickly running out of food and there was no free food at the office and this was one of my few options left, along with some Japanese balls of sugar that my mother gave me for the holidays.  So I figured if I heated the freezer burnt veggies in the microwave for 5 minutes on high, everything would be fine, and then I would mix it in with my canned soup.

I guess that worked.  Wasn’t so delicious.

Thank god later in the afternoon we had an office birthday celebration where there was stale popcorn and sun chips and chocolate cake and bottles of water, which became my dinner.

I am so hungry.