My style of eating has always enabled me to stay trim, I don’t eat three big meals a day. I graze all day. It’s my prefrence, I don’t like feeling that “stuffed out full” after a meal and will only eat until I’m not hungry anymore. However, the things I’ve been eating aren’t exactaly good for me. I’m a constant soda drinker and have a penchant for easy snacks (aka junk snacks). Added to the fact that Large Tunamy boyfriend ‘s mom lives with us and she’s an AWESOME cook but she’s old school and everything is fried, re-fried, spicy and full of fat and grease. Suffice it to say this has been hell on my digestive system.

Unfortunatly she’s so proud of her cooking that if you don’t eat it she gets offended and even downright pissed off at you. Trying to communicate to her that I can’t eat homemade refried beans tortillas and red chili every night because although it’s delicious it makes me feel like hell is a moot point. There’s a lot of walking on eggshells with her on this subject.

Large Tunamy boyfriend is the same way except he actually has his doctors orders to keep his food under control. So there is a constant onslaught of delicious but deadly foods being set in front of me and I know in my heart of hearts that if I continue to eat like this down the road if not now it will have a negative consequence on my body. I have enough problems with not feeling well in my soul due to my mental state but I can’t have both my mind and body feeling like crap all the time.

I don’t know how I’ll deal with this situation, but I know I want to feel good, energized and well and if I don’t make an active effort to take better care with what’s put in my body then it’ll be my own fault when something goes wrong.

Let me re-phrase that…when I drink I’m more of a beer girl never dug the citrus-y/tequila-y taste of margaritas. Then someone made me quite possibly the most wonderful drink this past weekend and now Large Tunamy boyfriend and I have purchased all the ingredients to make these concoctions at home! So, without further adieu here is the mix:

2 parts “Simply Lime” juice
2 parts Hornitos Reposado Tequila (gold)
1 part Grand Marnier
1 part Chambord

I prefer mixed over crushed ice…not blended…but I’m sure it’s all the same to the clam.

Cheers!

I’ve been researching this dream trip of mine for quite a few years now, everytime I find a new website of something I want to see I have a special folder in my bookmarks call ‘The Sex and the City Trip’ that holds all the links. Last night while messing around online I found something that totally fits right into my trip itinerary which I didn’t even know existed. Walking Food Tours NYC, you actually pay someone to take you out into the city and they show you the best food spots the Big Apple has to offer!

I fell in love with this idea because well, I like love to eat and they have a Greenwich Village Food Tour that includes a stop for cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery made famous from Sex and the City! Can you say AWESOME!?!

Vacationing vicariously though a t.v. show may be a little nerdy but when the day finally comes that I’ll step off the plane and step into Manhattan I know it’s gonna be one helluva trip! I just did a little evaluation of all of the links I have saved and if I tried to do everything that has caught my eye my vacation there would have to be for 3 months *chuckle* A girl can dream though can’t she?

In our house a “cake” is defined as something flat and rectangular or round-ish that I attempt to smear frosting on, make a piss poor attempt to write a heartfelt message of love and affection then throw sprinkles on the damn thing load it down with candles and torch the s.o.b. It’s a very Git-R-Done process that produces some of the ugliest cakes on the planet….so I thought.

Until I discovered Cake Wrecks.

Tacky frosting jobs, hilarious misspellings, freaky subject matter, and snarky commentary, uh, puts the icing on the cake (sorry I couldn’t help myself).

Seriously hang out over there for a bit and read the archives, the writer is HILARIOUS!

I now feel better about my lack of skillz with confections because even with my shitty cake making techniques I have to admit even I couldn’t produce the piles of crap some people are passing as professional cakes.

Once you’re done L’ing-your-FAO and whatnot check out Mike’s Amazing Cakes to see some really fuckin’ amazing cake-work

The Hotness’s daughter works there and they love her, and they love me so it’s gonna be good. Management has agreed to work with my hectic schedule and even though I’m making only half of what my “real job” pays it’ll be nice to have a few extra dollars every couple weeks.

Mind you, I’ve had to totally re-think my schedule and it’s actually a good thing because now I can shift around projects and family to make all of this a little easier on me. Now, I have yet to fit school into this little clusterfuck I call a life so we’ll see how that turns out, but I think I can swing all of this shit…

I hope.

Anywhoot, enough about my retarded spur of the moment decisions…earn yourself some karma points and free shit by visiting TrueLemon and requesting a free sample of their crystallized lemon substitute. Why you ask? Well for every person that requests a free sample of their goods they send 10 packets of TrueLemon to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan!

Pretty nice of them eh? I know for a fact those folks drink a LOT of water over there and eventually they’ve got to be sick to death of it’s taste. So go get it here and then pat yourself on the back for brining some lemony goodness to our brave men and women

But I digress. This year I’ve made it a personal goal to at least attempt to cook meals that require more involvement than just “set Power Level to High”. So, that being said…

Got any recipes that you’ve made that actually taste good?

After careful consideration of the package, taste, consistency and color all I really think of the whole hullabaloo is:

I chew gum to get rid of coffee breath. Why the fuck would I want to intentionally get it by chewing gum? Not to mention it’s brown. Brown gum. Ew.

*shrug*

We decided to try the Blogs of Bravery blend first , which is suiting because The Hotness and I are pretty die-hard-stick-in-the-mud Kona blend drinkers of a certain brand (which shall not be named). So, armed with cups and a pen, we took our first brave step into the world of Boca Java coffee.

Crackin’ that bag of South American Dark and Medium roast open and taking a sniff was like smelling pure heaven y’all! That aroma was so strong that I could feel myself waking up a little more and my groggy eyes got a little wider just off the fumes. This, my friends, was an excellent sign. Turns out they have a roast-to-order process so your bag of beans (or grounds) aren’t created until you order so you are getting the freshest blend possible for your buck.

The fresh beans ground wonderfully in our grinder and the rich aroma permeated the entire kitchen…freakin’ yum. After an impatient wait around the coffee machine, our nose pleasing java was ready for tastin’. The Hotness fixed our cups up and the moment of truth had arrived. Our honest-to-god initial reaction was: HOLY HELL PEOPLE THIS IS SOME DAMN GOOD COFFEE! The Blogs of Bravery blend not only smelled fabulous but the taste was to die for. It was a very clean coffee; there was no bite to it or icky processed flavor, just a smooth flow of rich taste and a very clean aftertaste. I was worried about it being too strong but the smoothness balanced out the flavor extremely well. Good stuff folks, good stuff indeed.

I must also give mad props to the company itself for its outstanding program “Operation Million Cup”. Basically, Boca Java has teamed up with it’s customers and set an impressive goal to send 1 million cups of coffee to U.S. Soldiers who are currently deployed! For every specially discounted bag of coffee a customer buys for the troops, Boca Java matches the bag with one from the company. At the time of this review’s writing, they’ve sent out over 927,000 cups of coffee! If you’d like to get more info on how to participate in this program, view letters, pictures and cards from the troops, or send a certain troop a cuppa joe from home just click here!

Overall I’d have to say that the coffee and the company have both impressed me greatly and I’d urge you to give their goods a try. If you’d like to try and score a free bag o’ beans first, just check out this round of Win It! over in the sidebar

Eventually the topic of dinner came up. I was excitedly expecting suggestions of “a’Pizza Pie” or a good Italian restaurant (yeah I watch too much t.v. ok?). Boy fuckin’ howdy I was surprised when one of ‘em suggested Sushi. I was waiting for an uproar to come from the others, maybe a silencer or two to be pulled out, but was flat out shocked when they all readily agreed.

So shocked in fact that I completely forgot for a moment the minor detail that I really hate fuckin’ sushi. A lot. I was raised a meat and potatoes kinda girl and sushi…just…no. Tried it twice, was grossed out twice, decided it just wasn’t my bag. But standing in a room with 3 guys who could talk loud enough to rattle the windows and who quite possibly had brass knuckles tucked away in their carry-on luggage didn’t rouse me to any action of protest.

We. Were. Going. For. Sushi. Period.

Next thing you know we’re all loaded up into a brand-spankin’-new glossy black Dodge Charger…a rather ominous looking car if you ask me, and we’re zipping down Scottsdale Blvd. After parking we all start walking down the little boardwalk thingy. You know when you’re walking down the sidewalk and someone’s walking toward you and not moving causing you to move out of their way? We didn’t have to do that. They moved out of ours…fast. I could almost hear that song “The Boys are Back in Town” playing somewhere off in the distance.

We get to the sushi place called –and I’m not shitting you– “RA”. That’s it…how clever right? Stepping inside “RA” was like stepping into a very dark, very loud nightclub…with fish. What kind of nightclub I’m not quite sure because I heard everything from The Doors to Ricky Martin. Methinks that whoever programmed the establishments music was suffering from an over consumption of fish and was deaf as a rock. It was loud, confusing and didn’t aid me any in the quandary I was in.

The menus were set down on the table and lemme tell you what– hearing 3 guys from Brooklyn ordering sushi was one of the funniest damn things on the planet.

“Whadda ’bout da Crazy Monkey Roll?”

I suddenly felt like the straightest person in the joint. Scottsdale has a reputation for being a “ritzy” city by Arizona standards. Everyone in there was sporting some sort of Louis-Monolo-Chan-Dior outfit–very Sex and the City. I had on worn Wranglers, a tank top and my Ariats–very Two Mules for Sister Sarah. I couldn’t pronounce half the shit on the menu but luck was on my side, there was something I recognized as being food I could put in my mouth. So while the guys all were fighting over how many Rainbow Rolls to get and whether they “Had good California Rolls” I just stuck to the piece of baked salmon.

Then I realized the only fucking utensils on the table were….chopsticks. I have the hand eye coordination of a fucking Ox. Forks are good…usually the bigger the fork the better the chance I have of getting the food into my mouth. This wasn’t looking good for your ol’ pal Bug. After waiting forever….and I mean forever the food finally came. I reckon the waitress somehow knew that I was “one of those people” and by that I mean “doesn’t have an ounce of culture or a drop of grace in her” because she delivered my plate with a service of silverware. Bless her heart –my little saving grace *chuckle*

My salmon was pretty ‘yuck’ but I ate it anyway, it came with something called Wasabi Potatoes. Two words y’all: Hell No. The guy’s food was groovy looking but I wouldn’t put it in my mouth to save my life. *sigh* I guess I’m just a burger girl.

Do any of y’all like sushi?