Today was steamy from the start.

Vani and I met at the subway bright and early this morning to head up to midtown for my first ever hot yoga class! Despite really wanting to love yoga, I’ve definitely always had a like-hate relationship with it. Until today, I had never taken a class at an official studio — just at various gyms and from yogadownload.com. I had afternoon plans, so Vani and I chose the morning 60-minute class (most of the regular Bikram classes are 90 minutes) which happened to be a hot Vinyasa class. I could tell I loved the place the second I walked in. The studio was so pretty with the hardwood floors, natural light, and colorful mats!



I tried my best I’m serious about yoga pose.



Yup, mostly scary. I know.

Anyway, I loved the class!! Vani and I agreed that the instructor was excellent right up until the last 15 minutes or so when her voice inexplicably changed from a pleasantly gentle encouraging tone to more of a jarring barky commanding tone, but I can overlook that. I love how I felt like I was doing something good for my body — inside and out, organs, joints, the whole thing — and felt like I was getting an excellent workout at the same time since I worked up such a sweat with the 100 degrees. I’m even inspired to go buy actual non-cotton workout attire so that I can continue … and you know the class was good if it put me in the mood to spend money!

I came back home briefly after yoga for a quick shower, change, and breakfast … at noon. I didn’t eat anything (except for a teeny spoonful of peanut butter) before I left this morning because I had been advised (thanks, Amanda!) not to eat for two hours before the class. I ate at least two days worth of food yesterday anyway, so holding off a few hours on breakfast was no biggie 🙂



Breakfast’s main course involved 1/2 cup leftover cooked brown rice and triticale berries, 1/3 cup unsweetened soymilk, cinnamon, cardamom, and berries.



Photographs of berries might get old to you, but they don’t get old to me. So I am going to show another.



On the side, I had a bit of chopped apple and pineapple with hulled hemp seed and cardamom.



Another pang of hunger hit as I walked out the door at 1:30, so I filled a baggie with more fruit to accompany me on my walk to the subway.



As soon as I stepped on the train, I spotted Kate. How convenient! We were both heading down to Marine Park to hang out with Gina. Kate lives three stops before me, and we luckily ended up on the same train and the same car for the journey! Thirty minutes or so later, we reached our destination and got collected by Gina … who inquired whether we might be up for some Mister Softee!! You should know that I consider Mister Softee my husband. I once had him make an office call when I had a serious craving at my old job. I actually called Mister Softee HQ and spoke to a man there who understood my urgent need and connected me to the dispatcher who very kindly connected me to the Mister Softee driver himself. From there, Mister Softee and I continued making arrangements directly until he had pulled up safely right outside the building. He even stood up to Bed-Stuy policeman wrath for pulling over in a no standing zone, shouting Just let the girl get her ice cream!

Anyway, after all that, the truck Gina had seen was a generic impostor.



Regardless, we all had ice cream on the brain by that point and forged ahead with the plan. I got a vanilla cone with chocolate dip and rainbow jimmies.



From there, we walked back to Gina’s house to hang out for a bit until her husband arrived with the car, a key component of our afternoon plans. While waiting, we nibbled on some carrot cake leftovers.



There’s a story behind this carrot cake. In fact, Gina and I have had an email chain going back and forth between us for weeks with the subject line, “Carrot cake!” The chain includes such gems as, “Sarah, I have carrot cake, but I’ll be out of town this weekend! Should I bring it to work so you can swing by my office and get it?” and “Gina, can you put a slice in the freezer for me until we find a time for me to collect?” and “How about you come over this weekend for a trip to the beach so that you can pick it up?” We’re serious about our carrot cake. This cake is even more special because Gina’s mother-in-law, Pat Shannon, is reputed to make the best carrot cake this side of the universe. The fates have been conspiring against me for ages because I have been out of town for every single party the carrot cake has graced since Gina and her husband got together five years ago. Finally, Gina scored some cake for me at a party couple weeks back, providing inspiration for all this fervent carrot cake plotting. My frozen slice is safely stashed in my freezer now, but the picture above is from the leftovers Gina still had in her fridge. It only took the three of us about 30 seconds to polish it off completely.

I also discovered a cup of leftover Easter chocolate on Gina’s desk.



I had a field day with these dark chocolate Nestle crunch eggs with caramel. I didn’t even know these existed, but they were amazing! Salty sweet is always the way to go.

Chris arrived back with the car shortly after the chocolate discovery, and the three of us girls were off to the waves!



It was late in the afternoon and not quite warm enough for actual bikini sunbathing, but we passed a very pleasant two hours chatting and napping on the sand at the water’s edge.



Today included the ideal sequence of events. Every Saturday should involve hot yoga, Mister Softee (or impostor in a pinch), and beachy naps. Perhaps that should be my goal for the summer.

What are your summer goals?

Unlucky for you, the Saulsbury sisters do not actually have a restaurant. But lucky for me, they’re amazing in the kitchen and they’re my friends 😀

I went over to Amanda and Meghan’s apartment last night for the second installment of Amanda’s book club, and I was treated to a gourmet dinner in their “bistro.”

To start, we had sliced cucumbers, fresh from Amanda’s boyfriend Willie’s grandma’s garden in Texas, where Amanda visited last week:



Aren’t the speckles on this cucumber adorable?!

While we nibbled on the cucumber, chefs Amanda and Meghan prepared their feast.

Meghan’s delicacy for the night was this Roasted Tomato Caprese Salad from Barefoot Contessa.

I can’t wait to try making this myself! It was soooo good, and I would probably eat it for every meal if I could.



Amanda made some perfectly-crisped-on-the-edges tilapia with rice pilaf on the side.



Here’s my perfectly balanced plate (though I had loads more tomatoes!):



After dinner, we retreated to the “lounge” for our discussion of the month’s book: No Way To Treat a First Lady. We all loved the book and had plenty to say about it, and now I’m inspired to get some of Christopher Buckley’s other books on reserve at the library ASAP!

After the book discussion portion of the evening, I got dessert ready … since dessert was obviously my contribution. Edy’s Samoas ice cream …



(I looooooooooove the consistently creamy and melty coating on this ice cream!)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand … Newman’s Own Organics Chocolate Os!



The best thing about these Os is that they effortlessly split apart to allow easy access to the creamy creamy chocolate filling.



And, the wafers still had the classic Oreo crunch to them. Mmmmmm, I love sandwich cookies.

Amanda and Meghan, thank you for a lovely meal at Saulbury Sisters! I can’t wait for for part 3 😀

In the meantime, check out these two brilliant Tales of Expansion sweeping blogland now courtesy of Krista and Laura.

What was the last restaurant-quality meal you had that did not take place at an actual restaurant?

I just ate breakfast for literally the entire work day. And now I’m about to go to dinner. But that will be another story 🙂

As I mentioned this morning, today was my department’s “monthly” (in quotes because we only do it in the months when we don’t have other events planned … which turns out to be quite rare!) breakfast. We all converged on the conference room (yes, the one right next to my desk) around 9:45 to take stock of what had arrived.

Beryl’s really the mastermind behind these events, so those are her hands cutting Jessica’s omelets over on the left. Here are my selections:

Obviously, you need a tour of my plate.

Here’s the mangu (yayyyyyyy!!!!!!) with ham (?? I always guess because I don’t actually know what kind of meat this is), fried cheese, and vinegar onions, courtesy of Belkis and Mildred:

Pancakes from Beryl:

Half of a ham omelet and half of a plain omelet, homemade by Jessica:

Nitza’s fruit salad and my pineapple:

Corn bread and coffee cake crumbs from Rosalie:

And this most amaaaaazing ever Dominican-style oatmeal — basically blended oats with sugar and cinnamon. It’s almost more of a beverage than a spoon situation, so I drank my seconds and thirds from a cup 😛

The plate, otra vez:

Obviously, because I sit right next to the conference room table where all the leftovers hang out, I had at least another giant plate’s worth of food over the course of the afternoon. Some highlights (in other words, this list is not all-inclusive!) …

More fruit:

Even more fruit, plus crumbs:

The rest of the fruit:

The last bite of mangu:

Corn bread and coffee cake crumbs with peanut butter and fluff:

Mashed together:

(Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm)

A leftover piece of bread with peanut butter and fluff:

(I know, I was really on a roll.)

Uh oh, the fluff is almost gone! How did that happen?

So I scraped the jar clean!

There were probably also some candies from the candy jar, too. Ohhhh, man. I’m still so full … but dinner is calling, so I must be off!

What a delicious delicious day!

On a scale of 1 to 5, how delicious was your day?

P.S. I also brought home Jessica’s leftover omelets. She is an omelet master, I’m telling you!

Yesterday was another all-over-the-place food day! So many random little nibbles that actually required some foraging on my part.

For example, I dug around in Belkis’ candy jar pretty soon after arriving at the office in order to turn up the last three peanuts.



The first 1.5 hours of work were nonstop with little issues that kept unexpectedly popping up, so I didn’t have time for any crazy snacking before I left for my morning visit. I was back at the office by 12 but immediately went into two other impromptu meetings before I could settle down for my lunch of the week: chicken caciatore with brown rice and triticale berries. On the side, I had this battered but delicious peach:



The afternoon had originally looked just as busy as the morning, but a visit cancelled, leaving me with too much nervous energy on my hands! Some more candy jar adventures ensued.





I probably had about 3-5 other little candies in addition to the dots, candy cane, and melon (?) hard candy.

If you’ve been following along this week, you will very easily be able to identify the components of this brilliant afternoon snack:



Any ideas?

Clearly, I’ve had a certain condiment combination on my mind for several days now 😛



Also making an appearance somewhere in the afternoon was the last (for real this time!) of my chia-tapioca pudding.



My pudding experiment has served me quite well this week!

As I was leaving work just after 5:00 to head down for my 6:00 class, something just happened to force its way onto my spoon:



And, if you look carefully in the background, you can see the announcement about today’s department breakfast. I love when we do these breakfasts because everyone brings in something different, and you know how the ladies in my office don’t mess around when it comes to food! Mmm, can’t wait 😀

On my way to class, I stopped into the market for my standard cheese samples … but they did not have cheese last night! Instead, they had a fancy French pepperoni-type thing called saucisson sec. I missed my manchego, but this was pretty durn tasty …



I had two little slices.

At some point after lunch yesterday, Jessica donated her leftover taco embellishments (cilantro, minced onion, adobo salsa) to my cause:



I thought they would mix scrumptiously with Rosey’s mom’s spaghetti that I had brought for dinner in class, and they did!



I always get so antsy in classes (especially in a 3-hour class like I will have all summer and even in an interesting class on child welfare like we had last night), so barely 15 minutes had passed post-pasta when I had to break into my cashew cookie larabar (again, courtesy of the birthday package my sister Allie sent). During a small group discussion later in class, my group-mate Rachel shared a Twizzler and hand-modeled the package:



Finalmente, I got home sometime after 10. (This is going to be a looooooooong summer of Tuesdays and Thursdays!) My first order of business was to hack two pineapples to pieces because that’s what I’m bringing to the breakfast at work today. The grocery store right next to the office has had pineapples on sale this week for $1.99. Around here, a pineapple for $2.99 is an incredible and rare deal, so I pounced on this one as soon as I saw the sign in the window. I bought one earlier in the week, and I bought the second yesterday between work and class. I very nearly impaled half of NYC walking to class with these dangerous pineapple spikes awkwardly protruding from under my arms … but no one seemed to care! They just kept heading straight at me. Sigh, New Yorkers. Willing to risk their lives in order to appear unruffled at all times.



Of course, I nibbled a hefty portion as I chopped!

And, as we all know, there is always room for Samoas ice cream soup.



That’s about 1/4 cup in the ramekin, plus I probably had at least another 1/4 cup straight from the carton. It was melty, and I had to clean the drips … with my spoon! This has to be the most incredible melted ice cream I’ve ever tasted — the texture is literally like melted whipped marshmallows (ooh, consider that a hint — if you even need it — as to the identity of my earlier mystery snack).

Today was my sleep-in day due to my late night last night, so I didn’t get up until 6:15. Because of the department breakfast coming up, and because I clearly can’t hold off until 9:30/10 for breakfast, I kept things light-ish this morning with the carrot cake (topped with the very last of my Artisana cacao bliss, nooooooooooooo!) and 1/4 cup cereal (all-bran strawberry medley + kashi golean crunch) with 1/4 cup soymilk and some berries.

Melted ice cream is my favorite summer soup. What is yours?

I just realized that my two-ish posts per day usually end up divided very neatly between two categories: work food and Sarah food. I always bring my own food to work but am flexible depending on what else presents itself (and a lot presents itself!), but breakfast (and dinner, if I’m still hungry enough) are all about what I want. And, generally, after all my treats at work, what I want is healthy.

In true HEAB eat-what-I-want-for-dinner style, I whipped up a batch of exactly what I was craving last night: spinach oats 😀 Last night’s immersion-blended mix involved 1/3 cup oat bran, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1 tbsp lucuma powder, 1 cup water, 1 chopped peach (meant for a snack earlier in the day), 3 cups spinach, TJ’s smoky peach salsa (!!), vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom. I topped it off with a spoonful of homemade peanut butter, a spoonful of cacao bliss, unsweetened coconut, and hulled hemp seed:



(Can you hear the spot being hit?!)

For dessert, I had the last couple spoonfuls of chia-tapioca pudding with 1/4 cup Edy’s Samoas ice cream (plus some renegade spoonfuls straight from the carton).



The glow is from So You Think You Can Dance reflecting on the floor, where I carried out the ice cream photo shoot.

This morning was back to the gym for 15 minutes stepmill, arms/chest, 15 minutes bike (and rainy walks to and from!) followed by more spinach oats!



This time, the immersion-blended mix involved 1/4 cup oat bran, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1 cup water, 2 tbsp unsweetened soymilk, 1 chopped apple, 3 cups spinach, vanilla, and all the spices. I topped it with blueberries, unsweetened coconut, hemp seeds, and homemade peanut butter.



And, in case you didn’t hear me go on and on enough about the half marathon on Saturday, you can now see even more pictures that actually prove I was running during the whole thing right here 😀

When was the last time (if ever) that you ate the same thing for dinner and then again for breakfast the next morning? What was your reasoning for doing so?