Leftover desserts and a cautionary tale

April 16, 2009February 6, 201518 Comments

Gina sent Kate and me an urgent message Tuesday that she needed help with desserts left from a family event this weekend. Kate and I are loyal friends, so we came to the rescue last night after salads 😀 We each had a slice of tiramisu and a slice of chocolate chocolate cake:

These desserts came with a story from Gina (as does pretty much everything when it comes to Gina!). In fact, because these desserts sent Gina into such an extreme state of expansion on Saturday night, her husband dictated that her punishment should be to confess the gluttony here for everyone to see. Since I’m clearly not one to censor tales of expansion and I’m completely in favor of using indulgence-induced discomfort as a learning experience rather than as a source of guilt, I agreed to assist. Without further ado, here’s Gina’s cautionary tale:

I arrived in downtown Philadelphia late Saturday afternoon with Chris’s whole family. We had plans to go to dinner with my brother and my parents at Maggiano’s at 7pm. Here’s how the restuarant describes their style on the website:

“It’s true that we’re not exactly shy with our portions here at Maggiano’s Little Italy®. But that’s because we love for people to share a taste here and there. However, if you really want to experience an Italian-American tradition, order from our dedicated family style menu. Everything is priced per person, and the plates won’t stop coming until you’re done. There’ll be plenty to go around and everyone gets to sample a variety of delicious, Chef-prepared dishes.”

I was feeling a bit hungry around 5pm, but I knew that a big dinner was in store so I didn’t eat anything. We went to our hotel happy hour around 5:30 pm, and they had a little booklet of all kinds of fun sounding drinks, all for only $5! I picked out a Raspberry Mojito and proceeded to have two before we left for the restaurant. That was mistake #1: two Raspberry Mojitos on an almost empty stomach!

Once at the restaurant, we opted for family-style dining and got to pick out two appetizers, two salads, two pastas, two main entrees, and two desserts! My dad and I were the designated food selectors, making me even more excited. Of course, I selected all things I would like: mistake #2 … although there’s not much I don’t like! We picked fried calamari and mozzarella marinara for appetizers, Caesar salad and Maggiano’s salad (Iceberg and romaine lettuce, crumbled bleu cheese, crispy Prosciutto, red onions, tossed in our signature House Dressing) for the two salads, Rigatoni D (Rigatoni pasta, herb roasted boneless chicken, mushrooms and onions, tossed in a light Marsala cream sauce) and Baked Ziti and Sausage for the pastas, and Chicken Parm and Chicken Francese for the entrees (anything besides chicken cost extra per person).

When the food came out, OH MY! I really should have taken pictures. They brought out HUGE portions of the salads and appetizers first. I had some of everything. The pastas and entrees came out shortly after we were done with the appetizers. I, of course, took some of everything! I think more time in between courses also would have helped me. Again, there were two platters of each chicken and I think one big bowl of each pasta. The Rigatoni D was my favorite so I had second helpings of that: mistake #3! By the way, they gave us so much, we couldn’t eat it all, but if you do finish one thing, they happily bring out more!

We waited to pick the desserts until after we were finished everything else, but again, the dessert selector was me! I was so full from all that food, but who can pass up dessert when it comes with the meal? I selected Chocolate Zuccotto Cake (chocolate cake layered with Sambucca chocolate mousse; iced with chocolate frosting and dusted with cocoa powder).

And Tiramisu.

You should have seen the size of the pieces of cake! They brought out two plates of each dessert! I had a pretty large hunk of chocolate cake and some tiramisu.

Almost immediately after I finished dessert, the trouble started! My stomach was WAY OVEREXPANDED and started to hurt really badly. I had to get up and move around! I started making those overexpanded groans and told everyone I needed to head back to the hotel immediately. Luckily, the hotel was only a block away.

I was in so much over-expansion pain — I literally made myself sick from this meal! I do believe those Raspberry Mojitos played a part in this overexpansion tale … along with the three to four glasses of wine I drank during dinner. Alcohol plus overabundance of food led to a sick Gina! I had to stay in the room for about an hour while everyone else was downstairs in the hotel bar again, having drinks and socializing. UGH, What a mess I made of myself!

Lessons learned:

1.) Do not drink Raspberry Mojitos on an empty stomach.

2.) Do not let me pick out all the food at a family style restaurant.

3.) Ask for a smaller plate so I don’t eat such large portions of the family-style meal. Or at least exhibit more self-control over the portions I serve myself!

My brother would not stop making fun of me for the rest of the weekend! I recovered by Sunday morning, thank goodness. Anyway, that’s my cautionary tale of expansion. Hope that it never happens to you!

OK, I’m back!

Gina, thanks for sharing your tale and your lessons! I love Gina’s tale because it is such an honest account of her evening and how she felt. We all sometimes eat to the point of discomfort and, rather than responding to the expansion by making deals with herself to “run it all off” or “eat only vegetables for a week,” Gina reflected on what she could realistically do differently next time to (1) continue enjoying special food events while (2) maintaining physical comfort! In my opinion, Gina’s approach is the healthiest way to recover from extreme expansion, and it will have more significant and long-term benefits than a pity party or a crash diet. Gina, congratulations on a successful expansion recovery!

P.S. Unlike Gina, I was not yet desserted out last night when I got home and was desperately craving more chocolate. I heated the rest of the morning’s almond sunset tea and pulled two cookies out of the freezer for dunking:

The cookies hit the spot and left me perfectly satisfied 😀

What is your cautionary food tale?

Phew, that was close!

April 12, 2009February 6, 201520 Comments

Today had the potential to be yet another monster of an expansion day, but my tummy is kind of relieved that it was not!

When I got up this morning, I went downstairs (ohhh, to live in a multi-level house again …) to the living room so I could do my Self Challenge 2009 workout. What can I say … I’m serious about fixing my legs! I can feel my poor little muscles getting stronger again, too, and I was able to do some of the exercises that hurt too much to do last week, yay!

My dad picked me up a bit after 11 am, and we headed over to LA Roberts, a NaMA (that’s coolspeak for North Attleboro, MA) restaurant, to enjoy Easter all-you-can-eat brunch with Rae Ann (my stepmom) and her family.

Some background on LA Roberts: it was the fanciest place in town in 1987. In 1987, I distinctly remember that the all-you-can-eat brunch included yogurt because it was the only thing I would eat. The famed LA Roberts brunch seems to have devolved over time because there was no yogurt this morning, hmph. Nor was there cereal, toast, peanut butter, or jam.

The brunch did, however, come through with lots of lukewarm serve-yourself buffet platters full of foods that are not my favorite: ham, sausage, hash browns, other potato things, scary quiche. Because I’m good at scavenging, however, I put together a lovely little big spread.

Let’s play a game. I’ll show you a picture of the item, and you see if you can guess what it is. I’ll provide the answers at the end.

Item #1:

Item #2:

Item #3:

Item #4:

Item #5:

How do you think you did?

The answers, clockwise from the beans: (1) baked beans (I found them in a tin between the maple syrup and the whipped cream, hmmm), (2) broccoli (I spooned out all the broccoli from a giant vat of chicken penne alfredo), (3) fruit salad topped with apples in syrup (I found this teeny bit of fruit salad on a table by itself in the corner, floating in a flood of its own juices … or the juices of its originating can), (4) piece of berry scone (yes, the scones were pre-cut into fourths, but that ended up being fine with me since it was actually too sweet, if you can believe that coming from me, the cake queen. I ate half and gave the other half to my dad), and (5) the star of the show, a slice of French toast with thawed frozen strawberries.

I think I managed to do pretty well for myself, and I was pleased the the food was good enough to eat but not good enough to lead to further expansion.

The company was also quite enjoyable. My step-uncle (?) David brought bunny ears for everyone to wear. My dad was serious about arranging his perfectly. It was clearly a multi-step process:

As soon as we finished eating and the bunny ears were properly arranged, we all headed back to my dad and stepmom’s house to relax for a few before I had to leave to catch the bus. I received some fun Easter goodies that will surely be making an appearance quite soon.

At 2:15, dad and I left to go pick up my mom so they could both take me to the bus station in Providence. I heard through the grapevine that, after the big drop-off , my mom went back to my dad’s house to hang out with my stepmom’s family and they all passed a lovely afternoon together.

What a whirlwind trip! It’s relatively easy to get to MA from here, but I so rarely have the time and it always ends up being very rush rush rush. I hope I can go back for a more leisurely visit this summer!

As you know already, my bus came equipped with Wi-Fi. So excited that Peter Pan is moving with the times! If only my computer could have lasted longer without a charge …

On the bus, I ate my packed “snunch” of 1/2 cup matzo muesli with 1/2 cup plain yogurt and a cup of fruit left from yesterday’s chocolate fountain. Pardon the blur. We had some bumpy roads, and I wasn’t about to wait for smoothness to dive into this!

I got back to my apartment just before 8 and made a little snacky plate while I raced around to get ready for the week. The plate included the final two pieces of pumpernickel baguette with cashew-almond butter and coconut, a pile of peanut roasted chickpeas, and some overflow fruit salad from home that I couldn’t fit into a container for the fridge.

I also had this itty bitty piece of a slice of my mom’s birthday cake.

She saved and froze (now you know where my dessert-freezing compulsion comes from) the slice for me from her birthday celebration with my step-dad’s family. Wallen, step-grandpa (I’m realizing I’ve never had to explain these family members in writing before, so I’m suddenly having to concoct labels I’ve never actually used!), makes the most amazing chocolate fudge frosting from scratch, so my mom requests it on yellow cake every year.

I’m in bed now and it’s wayyyyyyyyyy past my bedtime — not how I wanted to start the week! — so I need to hit the sheets stat.

What is your favorite activity when traveling as a passenger in any kind of vehicle? Sleeping is mine.

Don’t forget about the pistachios!

It’s raining chocolate

April 12, 2009February 6, 201518 Comments

Happy Easter!

I’m blogging live from the Peter Pan bus back to NY … as long as my battery lasts (which is probably not much longer). What an exciting new development for the world of bussing.

Yesterday seems like about 10 years ago, but I’ll try to remember. It would be a tragedy to leave out any details. I got home from dinner(s) with my sister on Friday night around 12:30 and spent the next hour or so packing. After four whole hours of sleep, my alarm went off at 5:40 am, and I crawled out of bed to get moving so I could catch the 7:30 am bus up to Providence from Port Authority. At 10ish, I had my packed bus breakfast with 1/2 cup matzo muesli soaked in 1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk overnight:

Doesn’t it look like cat food?

I dumped a cup of fruit salad (strawberries, pineapple, plum) on top:

My dad picked me up at the bus terminal in Providence at 11:15 and dropped me off at my mom’s house. As soon as I walked in the door, she instantly stuck one of her just-baked famous kitchen sink muffins into my mouth. It was obviously delicious even though I was still stuffed from all my dinners the night before.

I spent the next hour sleeping blogging, and we headed off to my aunt and uncle’s house for our seder at 1:30. I snacked on two teeny pretzel sticks before we got started:

After some chatting time, we all took our (assigned) seats to carry out our super abbreviated version of a seder. We’re pretty informal in my family, and now that there’s a new generation of babies around, we have to move quickly! Here’s some of the Haggadah we’ve been using since I was teeny. I think my grandma wrote it all out way back so that it would be easy for young ears to understand. It’s very cute:

Here’s the seder plate (decorated by my cousins in their younger years!). These foods are all there for symbolism, so we don’t actually eat what’s on this plate. It just sits there taunting us the whole time 😛 There’s charoset, maror, karpas, an orange, a hard-boiled egg, and a lamb shank:

And of course, we had some Manishewitz going. It’s the only type of wine I like!

As we went around the table reading the Haggadah, we pinky-dripped wine drops onto a plate to represent each of the 10 plagues, plus a list of modern plagues we added in to keep things relevant. Here’s my cousin Joshua pinky-modeling:

As I mentioned, each food has a meaning, and we finally get to start eating each thing as we get to it in the Haggadah. Here’s the legend:

Charoset is my FAVORITE part (well, maybe tied with my mom’s matzo balls) of Passover. My Aunt Sherye makes it each year — basically mashed up apples, honey, wine, walnuts, etc. Once we hit it in the Haggadah, I always end up inhaling pretty much the table’s whole bowl. So consider this photo a small token of my pre-meal meal of charoset.

The maror is the red — horseradish mixed with some beet juice. I hated it when I was younger, but I love it now. The heat and bite of the maror mixes perfectly with the sweet charoset. Seriously, picture me eating an entire box of matzo topped with mountains of maror and charoset. Because that’s what happened.

Gefilte fish … another Passover staple that I hated when I was younger. I don’t know why I love it so much now since it’s just kind of a reformed patty of mashed random white fish. But I’m claming my love. Gefilte fish, I love you.

And mama’s matzo ball soup!! No two batches are ever the same. This year’s batch was light and fluffy and delicious … and mom is sending me home with a whole container full of them so that Passover can keep giving and giving over the next several months 🙂 I had two bowls:

And then it was time for the main meal. Because the five meals’ worth of food I had just eaten were simply teasers. We had turkey with cranberry sauce:

Eggplant parmesan:

And lots and lots of salad with balsamic and olive oil:

We took a little breather to digest. I played with my first-cousins-once-removed, Lilly and Jonah. We built things with blocks and then bulldozed them:

And then, it was time for dessert! Well, time to prepare dessert since my mom was learning how to set up the chocolate fountain she’s had sitting brand-new in the box for a few years. While the fountain’s motor was revving, we all snacked on the candy fruit slices I bought during my Jewish shopping spree the other day. I had at least one of each:

And then we got the fountain running!!

I managed to snap this picture during the 7.59 seconds it was running before the motor gave out and the chocolate fountain became chocolate fondue. We didn’t have a problem with that. Melted chocolate is melted chocolate 🙂

I had at least three huge plates full of chocolate and all the fixings: strawberries, oranges, pineapple, pears, apples, bananas, and cubes of the blood orange Passover sponge cake I made the other day:

When the chocolate got low, dipping got hard and it was time to resort to finger-swiping and licking. Uncle Jim and mom in action:

I pounced on the spoon:

And made short work of the dregs.

Once there was really nothing left, I stopped and sat for a while alternately holding my belly and playing with the kids. It was so fun to visit with my cousins and have some family time since it’s pretty rare we all get together. I wish we could do it more often!

dd_protal_07 At 6, my mom, stepdad, and I had to race out of there and head to Boston for our evening engagement: Dirty Dancing On Stage!!

I literally grew up watching
Dirty Dancing — I remember coming home from first grade every day and immediately popping the VHS in the player. I knew every word … and apparently I still do! The musical was SO TRUE to the video, and I loved it! If you have any special place in your heart for Dirty Dancing, you need to do everything in your power to go see it right now! The music, the dancing, the story … it was all perfect (except for Johnny’s native Australian accent that kept popping out every so often).

I was still stuffed from the big seder when we got home at night, so there wasn’t much more eating going on. Oh, except for when my mom offered to squirt half a can of whipped cream into my mouth while my fingers were busy typing … and I accepted. I did take photos, but believe me when I say they are totally not blog-appropriate!

Today was the big Easter buffet with my dad and stepmom’s family, so I’ll report bag later with all of that once I’m back home in Brooklyn. My battery’s going to give out pretty soon!

Did you feel expanded at any point during this weekend? Was it worth it? My expansion was definitely worth it, but I’m also really looking forward to getting back to normal eating tomorrow!

Remember, tomorrow (Monday) is your last chance to enter the pistachio giveaway. Get your entries in by 6pm!

Restaurant roundup

April 12, 2009February 6, 20155 Comments

Ohhhhhh my goodness, the food just will not stop. I can’t blog fast enough to catch it all! And I almost can’t wait to get back to normal on Monday so that I can detox from all the excess a bit. And, you know, deflate. The constant state of expansion, however delicious, is getting to me.

Anyway, if you haven’t gotten tired of reading about too much food that tastes too good, I’ve just finished posting my restaurant reviews from dinner #1 and dinner #2 with my sister on Friday night. We had so much fun — one of my biggest wishes is that I can live closer to my siblings someday!

Next up will be the Passover seder (best meal of the year!) recap, from which I’m still recovering (and from which I will likely continue to recover for the next month). And I can’t even think yet about the all-you-can-eat Easter buffet I’m going to with my dad and stepmom’s family tomorrow.

I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!

Theatrical tea

April 11, 2009February 6, 201513 Comments

While Emily napped yesterday (for four hours!), I took care of some business of my own … and snacked of course!

Jasmine tea biscotti bites (with soymilked yogi mexican sweet chili tea in the kitty mug):

And the last 2 tbsp of my Total Cranberry Crunch sample with splash of soymilk:

I also got this recipe for peanut roasted chickpeas (from The Peanut Butter Boy) underway after my developmentally delayed chickpeas took nearly 24 hours to cook. I’ve never had that happen before. Once the chickpeas were finally tender, the roasting took an hour and a half (twice the amount of time in the recipe!), probably because my oven is old and slow. They also weren’t tasting peanutty enough, so I added lots of extra PB2 and a big pile of cashew-almond butter.

They still weren’t all that peanutty once they were done and crunchy, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t addictive! I snacked on about a tablespoon of them. Three or four times.

I’m pretty sure there was also some straight-out-of-the-jar cashew-almond butter action 🙂

I roused Emily from her slumber around 12:30 so she could start getting ready for the afternoon while I pulled together a sister lunch for us. We started on arugula salads with Newman’s dried berries, chopped dates, fat free feta, peanut roasted chickpeas, and Annie’s Lite Gingerly Vinaigrette:

I also made us steak and spinach wraps. I made the wraps from scratch as usual (for 2: 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1 tbsp olive oil, dash salt, teeny bit of water to pull it all together). I gave the perfect one to Em, but mine got a little extra toasted — fine because I love the crunch, but troublesome because it wouldn’t wrap.

For the wrap filling, I sauteed the last 1/3 cup of leftover steak Nydia gave me on Friday with about 3 cups of spinach, 1/2 a baby onion, and 1 tbsp of the sofrito I made the other day. I split the sauteed mix between the two wraps and added a teeny bit of gouda to each, a bunch of grated homemade parmesan, and a huge pile of arugula:

For dessert, Emily and I split one of the little tangerines she’d brought for airplane snacking:

We hung around and chatted for a bit, and then we headed to Gramercy to drop her luggage off at her friend’s apartment. From there, we walked down to the Lower East Side in the general direction of dinner #1 (yes, there was more than one dinner on the agenda last night). We were running a little bit ahead of schedule, so Em asked if I’d like to stop into Whole Foods for samples. She knows me so well!

Pistachio ice cream and camembert (not in the same bite obviously):

Cranberry granola and maple granola (and unpictured similar cups of blueberry granola and berry medley granola):

For dinner #1, we met Emily’s friend Yan at Stanton Social. We ate way too much in light of the fact that we were going to head right off to another dinner, but what else is new? I’ll have a full review of the dinner and the expansion coming along shortly.

After that first dinner, we took a walk around the block to “burn it off” and, while doing so, to sample a peanut butter cookie piece and an m&m cookie piece from Sugar:

We still had about 30 minutes to kill — and I had a camera battery in need of charging — so we stopped into teany for a spot of tea. We ordered a performance by tea #33. Watch the process:

Fully charged and partially digested, we left teany around 9:30 to go meet Emily’s friends Megan (the birthday girl!) and Aimee at Apizz for another expansion-inducing festival of deliciousness. I’ll have a full review of this one coming along shortly, too. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with my favorite quote of the night. The waiter asked if we’d like more bread for the table, and Megan responded:

Why not? I’m trying to get in as many calories as possible before I turn 40 in an hour and a half!

So we got more bread 😀

I’ll be back with like 10,000 more food updates eventually, so brace yourselves.

In the meantime, what’s the most exciting tea you’ve ever experienced?

And remember to enter this giveaway by Monday for the chance to win your very own stash of safe pistachios!

Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition

A Natural(ish) Parenting & Food Blog

Tag: expansion

Leftover desserts and a cautionary tale

Phew, that was close!

It’s raining chocolate

Restaurant roundup

Theatrical tea

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