Tag: nuts

Time crunch, crunch time

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I had very important hotel breakfast plans this morning.

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I hopped out of bed at 7:30, threw on some running gear, grabbed an expandable bag (hotel buffets and I get along very well) and went for a nice and easy jog (1.3 miles, 15 minutes, 128 calories, average heart rate 154, max 165) up to the Holiday Inn Express where my mom and stepdad were staying so I could join them for the breakfast buffet.

While there, I had a packet of instant oatmeal with 1/2 of a chopped banana and a couple splashes of skim milk. It looked so plain that I considered sprinkling froot loops on the top for color but then thought better of it and crumbled some cranberry muffin and warm cinnamon bun (thanks for the idea, Brandi!) on top.

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On the side, I had an interesting egg (it almost had a pancake texture, so I bet it the egg batter had flour or something in it as a thickener) that was folded in half with velveetaish cheese inside. I unfolded, removed the cheese, and gobbled up the remaining eggcake:

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The dazzling spread:

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I stuffed the other half of the cinnamon bun (plus one more for luck!) into a travel cup to bring home 🙂

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Yummm, I predict more cinnamon bun oatmeal on the horizon!

Obviously, the cinnamon bun was not all I brought home. With mom’s help, I stuffed the expandable bag with more oatmeal packets, mini-muffins, oranges, apples, lots of bananas, milk, and yogurts. The buffet did have hard-boiled eggs, but I passed on them since I have enough eggs already!

Once my mom and John got all packed, they drove me (and the goods) back to my apartment, popped in for a glass of white peony iced tea and some biscotti bites, and then continued on their way back up to Massachusetts. An endless trip for them (Massachusetts to Georgia and back … in the car!), but a pleasantly short and sweet visit for me 🙂

I recently (as in four days ago) realized that the final paper for one of my classes is due a week from tomorrow instead of at the end of May (panic panic panic panic), so researching for that was first on my agenda as soon as the fam took off. Of course, I kept finding other things to do, like sweep the floor. (Sweep the floor??? I NEVER sweep the floor. Obviously, I’m desperate.)

At some point, I got hungry again. I considered my new “groceries.” I’d brought four Dannon fruit-on-the-bottom yogurts back from the buffet. I don’t really like flavored yogurt, so I opened each of the containers, extracted the “plain” yogurt part, and combined all the syrupy fruit parts in one container that went into the freezer for a future project. I mixed the still-sweet-berry-tinged “plain” parts with my authentically plain homemade yogurt to decrease the sweetness and sugar content per serving.

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For my first lunch, I had 1/2 cup of the resulting yogurt mix with the rest of this morning’s cranberry-orange muffin crumbs and a dollop of the PB & Co. crunch-time peanut butter that Vani “forced” me to take home from her lunch yesterday.

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On the side, I had an orange:

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With white peony iced tea:

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A little while later, the next installment of lunch was due. I had just cooked a bunch of brown basmati rice to mix with the leftover coconut seafood curry that my mom and John brought me yesterday (I’ll be using this curry for the week’s lunches). I had about 1/2 cup of the cooked rice left, so I mashed in half of the overripe banana mom brought yesterday along with cinnamon, nutmeg, and a splash of soymilk.

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I topped my banana rice pudding with a dollop of part-skim ricotta and another dollop of Vani’s pb.

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And, because I was trying to do some work for school and also trying to avoid doing it, I got “hungry” again very soon. I had three little rye toasties topped with sofrito sauce and a sliced air-damaged cheese stick that mom left behind for me. Five minutes in the broiler took care of the damage 🙂 I topped my crispy sofrito-cheese toasts with freshly ground black pepper and cayenne pepper:

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Then I brought a slice of healthy cheesecake out of the freezer to let thaw. Well, I actually didn’t quite let it thaw before I started in on it.

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I did keep it up on the kitchen counter though, forcing myself to eat it slowly, one bite at a time, over the next hour every time I got up to do something else.

And now, I’m trying to take slow and deep breaths and tell myself that I will get all my work done in time. I feel on the verge of insanity, so a fresh air break may be in order. We’ll see.

Is your crunch today coming from food, stress, or both?

Nuts, balls, and freebies

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So last, night, even through I was all caked up, I managed to have one last little snack before I went to bed: the last 1/2 cup of my chocolate peanut butter frozen yogurt (unfrozen) from a couple nights ago.

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So so so so so so delicious. And there’s not even anything junky in it! Maybe I need to start having chocolate peanut butter frozen yogurt at every meal …

This morning, I woke up at 6:30 even though I had time to sleep until 8. I love waking up to sunlight because it’s so easy — I just wish the sunlight didn’t arrive until at least 7:45 on weekends! Around 8, I made a too-much-cake-upset-tummy-settling bowl of oat bran:

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On the stovetop, I whisked 1 egg, 1/4 cup soymilk, and 1/4 cup water over low heat until it thickened custard-style. At that point, in went 2 tbsp oat bran, 1 tbsp ground flax, cinnamon, nutmeg, 1/4 cup pumpkin, and a chopped Medjool date. Once it got “mealy,” I immersion blended to make it creamier:

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Around the outside is 1/3 cup of yogurt mixed with 1 tbsp PB2 (and sprinkled with unsweetened coconut):

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With soymilky celestial seasonings almond sunset tea:

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After breakfast, I headed up to Physique 57 for for the first of my two free classes with the coupon that Melissa handed out at the blogger brunch last month. I was quite a bit nervous for this class because I’ve been reading the reviews of it by some of my other NYC ladies — Ashley, Diana, Dori, Missy, Sara — and they scared me with their talk of quivering thighs and name-brand designer gym clothes! But, the class ended up being much more manageable than anticipated. Granted, I had sweat running down my face and I was certainly quivering at points throughout (I was also convinced my legs would burst into flame at any moment) but always had time to recover — and no one laughed at my four-year-old gym clothes from Target 😀 The instructors were helpful, patient, and encouraging, and I really enjoyed the class. I’m going back next Saturday for #2. Thanks, Melissa!

From Physique, I headed up to meet Vani at Penn Station, where we had planned to collect Danielle from the NJ Transit for our lunch date. Collection was successful, and the three of us enjoyed a summery (apparently, there will be no spring in ny this year??) 30-ish block walk from there to Peanut Butter & Co for lunch. Now, I’ve always wanted to eat at PB & Co. … yet I’ve somehow never managed to do so despite living in the city for nearly nine years, four of which were spent within a five-block radius of the darn place!

It was so airy and bright and cute inside:

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We ordered our food and then took pictures of it (though I think the best part of this picture is the random crazy child in the background) 🙂

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I got a The Heat Is On sandwich with whole wheat bread, spicy pb, pineapple jam, and pieces of chicken breast:

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The sandwich came with chips and carrot sticks, but I don’t like chips so I got it with extra carrots instead:

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Mmm, simple on the outside but full of bite and zing on the inside. I kept offering Vani bites by accident and then forgetting she was vegan. Even though I couldn’t share with Vani, she shared some of her sampler platter with Danielle and me:

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What a great deal — all 8 flavors with plenty of extra to take home! I had some on a celery stick:

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And some on a melba toast:

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When we finished at PB & Co, Danielle requested we make a pit stop at Tasti-D since she’d never been. While there, I had a sample of their peanut butter flavor (because there’s no such thing as too much pb!).

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Vani and I spotted some balls across the street, so we raced over to get in on that action. I ordered an unsweetened almond milk tea. We posed with our treats:

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Next, we made a super-exciting stop at CVS so I could buy a box of band-aids since my feet were struggling to adapt to their first flip-flop experience of the season. Once I applied about 30 bandages, we were off again … this time to the Union Square Greenmarket. Somehow, I managed to get my hands on a million samples as we strolled the grounds. I don’t know how that happened. Scoring samples is very unlike me 😛

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Vani, caught in the act:

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All in all, it was a super fun day full of sunshine, perfect company, and peanutbuttery food.

In your opinion, what are the three most necessary components of an excellent day?

I’m off to take a very necessary shower and get ready for dinner. My mom and stepdad are passing through the city tonight as part of their massive East coast return road trip — Providence to Atlanta and back, all driving, stopping at several points along the way to visit family and friends — and staying overnight in Brooklyn. I need to think of a good place for us to go. Hmmm …

A thousand cakes

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There was more work with eggs to be done this morning!

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I made french toast with two slices of whole wheat bread that my coworker Jessica gave to me earlier in the week and a batter that consisted of an EB egg, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a splash of soymilk. I turned the french toast into a sandwich with a tbsp of the spicy “south of the border” pistachio butter I made yesterday:

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Salty, sweet, and spicy … my favorite combination!

On the side, I immersion blended 1/2 cup yogurt, just under 1/4 cup part-skim ricotta, 1/2 cup pumpkin, the usual spices, and one chopped date. Joining the pumpkin yogurt this morning was a tbsp of ground flax and a sprinkle of unsweetened coconut:

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One at work, I broke out my Passover sponge cake and, coincidentally, Heather had brought in some farfel kugel that she had made from leftover Passover ingredients as well. Our second Passover took over the conference room. Here’s the view from my desk:

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Have I mentioned that the agency where I work was started by nuns?

Moving on, I had some Jewish cake and kugel:

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And then I had seconds of each:

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Since I sit right there, I kept taking more teeny pieces of each all day long. I don’t even want to guess how much of that is in my belly right now!

Lunch was my last serving of the mushroom agnostuff:

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And a couple of spoonfuls of Mildred’s gandules:

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And a piece of her bollo, which is made of cornmeal and milk, among other things. The texture was like polenta, but the taste was more like slightly sweet cornbread to me.

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And the piece of cheesecake flan that Vianni made and brought in yesterday in honor of Mildred’s birthday. I had asked her to save me a piece since I knew I would miss it!

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It was amaaaaazing. I shared a couple bites with Deborah, but mostly I inhaled the whole thing.

After lunch, I headed downstairs to work on an event I had helped organize. Some volunteer moms and their children came to the agency to do an art project with our families. At the end, we had snacktime with oranges and Girl Scout cookies …

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I had two plates like that … and then about four more of those little cookies in the background. Out of control, I tell you!

When I came up from the event, Mildred had put out leftovers of her actual birthday cake from her celebration at home. I know, does it ever end? 😀

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It was a pineapple cake with marshmallow frosting and sugar flowers. Maybe I’ll be sick of cake someday, but it hasn’t happened yet!

When I got home tonight, I had the final piece of sponge cake (I rescued it from its solitary perch on the conference room table as I walked out of the office) with the pumpkin banana yogurt I brought to work today but never got a chance to eat. The yogurt turned the cake healthy by association.

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And to end this post on a slightly healthier note, I did go to the gym this morning. I have special strength plans for tomorrow, so I focused on cardio today with 20 minutes on the Stepmill, 10 minutes on the rower, and 15 minutes on the elliptical (plus the usual jogs there and back, stretching, and abs). Stats: 1 hour and 16 minutes, 536 calories, 137 average heart rate, 174 max.

While at the gym, I did some interesting reading. Did you know that you would have to eat 11 pounds of rhubarb leaves in order to die of rhubarb poisoning? That’s word on the street, according to The Oprah Magazine. I had always kind of envisioned taking one bite of rhubarb leaf and collapsing unceremoniously to the ground. I guess I was wrong. Interesting fact #2 from the same magazine: apparently, the fatty acids that are stored in hip fat aid fetal brain development. So, ummmm, let’s get the fat flowing. Enjoy your cake!

Put the crumbs to use

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When I got home from class yesterday afternoon, I had a few kitchen projects that img_8592needed addressing.

My sunflower seed butter having ridden into the sunrise with breakfast yesterday morning, I determined that it was time to inaugurate my Everybody’s Nuts “south of the border” pistachios. I sampled a few to make sure they passed the test:

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Oh my goodness. These are delicious. Mildly hot, mildly sweet, and super-spiced with chilli powder and cumin. YUM. I shelled a pile for the coffee bean grinder:

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And then ground away:

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Beautiful, right? I can’t wait until I have a real-live, sturdy, food processor someday. The thought of making more than 3 tbsp of nut butter at a time is mind-blowing.

My coworker Mildred’s birthday was yesterday, and since I wasn’t there due to my Thursday class, I wanted to bake her a cake to bring in today. Mildred doesn’t like chocolate (crazy), so I thought some Passover sponge cake would be just the ticket, especially since the recipe called for seven eggs and I had all that potato starch left from Passover. I obviously enjoyed the cake batter immensely. While baking, some “unfortunate” leakage occurred:

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The leaks conveniently doubled as taste-tests to make sure the cake was not poisonous:

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All clear. Phew.

Finished with a drizzle of the homemade black raspberry jam Wife gave me in Charlotte last weekend:

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I had both broccoli and smoked salmon (still from Tuesday’s egg event) on hand, so I set out to recreate one of the appetizers from Saturday’s wedding buffet for dinner.

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I’m so gourmet, right?

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For dessert, I knew I needed to incorporate all of these cake crumbs from the sponge cake I had just baked:

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I made chocolate peanut butter froyo with plain yogurt, part skim ricotta, unsweetened cocoa powder, PB2, ground flax, and chopped dates. Immersion blend, freeze for 20, stir, freeze for 20, stir, and then it’s done! Here’s my cake and ice cream bowl topped with coconut and pieces of chocolate-caramel-nut easter candy:

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Ahhhhhh, so so so so good! Even better than the Tasti-D I had earlier in the day, if you can believe that. (I also may have gone back and had several more bites of that Easter candy).

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When do you prefer homemade over store-bought?

Sample questions answered

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But first, a quick(ish) rundown of today’s food!

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Since I’m rich with eggs right now (to say the least), I whipped one french-toast-style with soymilk, cinnamon, and vanilla and cooked it in a canola’d pan like a crepe. That became the base of my breakfast rainbow.

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Next up, I had 1/3 cup of prune groatmeal left last night, so I mixed it with 1/4 cup BRM Extra Thick Oats and a chopped Hershey’s Kiss, flattened it to rest in the fridge overnight, and came out with a breakfast cookie this morning. That went on top of the egg.

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Third was a thick layer of pumpkin cream cheese icing. Fourth was a half cup or so of fruit salad. Finally, my last tbsp of sunflower seed butter plopped itself right on top with a sprinkling of unsweetened coconut.

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Pre-breakfast, I did 10 reps of this excellent inchworm exercise that Olga recommended to me to help with my leg drama. I loved it! I also did *most* of the 20-minute Morning Flow #1 class from yogadownload.com. I have so much trouble sticking with it once I get to the lying down part at the end! The to-do list starts racing through my mind, and I have to get up and move. Thursdays are my usual run outside days, but my glute/groin issue was giving me grief yesterday. It’s been a month since I injured it, and the pain is still not all the way gone, so I decided to stop pushing the running when it hurts. Hopefully, it just needs some rest.

I had to head up to Hunter early today for a child abuse workshop, so between that, class, and group advisement, I was up there pretty much all afternoon. And I was so munchy that I had eaten all my lunch and snacks by 11! I began with an orange and an apple banana just after the workshop started at 9:

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An hour or so into the workshop, I pulled out my 1/2 cup fresh yogurt mixed with the last 1/2 cup fruit salad and sprinkled with golean crunch.

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In the 30 seconds between the workshop and class, I heated my mushroom agnostuff and promptly ate it at the start of class, thereby putting myself significantly ahead of food schedule (the only schedule I can follow, apparently) by eating lunch at 11 am:

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A Kraft LiveActive chocolate raspberry bar (I was in a rush packing this morning!) quickly followed the ravioli:

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And that was the end of the food I had packed, the horror! And I still had four more hours before home, yikes. Luckily, I was pretty satisfied after all of that … except that I kept thinking about Tasti-D. As class went on and on about brief treatment interventions, my mind was screaming: tasti-d tasti-d tasti-d tasti-d! I downed an entire roll of Newman’s Own Organics peppermints in my restlessness.

The moment advisement ended at 2, I beelined straight to 86th St. to answer the call. The sample gods were watching because a tasti-d girl had just come out with tray full of them! I grabbed a peanut butter fudge taste:

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And then ordered a small peanut butter fudge and cake batter swirl with rainbow and chocolate sprinkles:

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Not only was the spot hit; it was obliterated 😀

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A lesson in SAMPLING

Speaking of samples, you all seem quite curious about my sampling, errr, “habit.” How do I get stores to give me samples? Do I make up stories about how much I’ve always wanted to try a certain food? Do I pretend I’m in the market to buy? How do I transport the samples out of the store?

It’s really not nearly so complicated!

Years of hunting down food in the city have clued me in to the locations that typically have samples out for the taking. I operate on the belief that, if a store has put samples out, they are for eating. I generally don’t ask to taste things that are not already displayed as samples (unless I’m in an ice cream store where flavor perfection is critical).

Some of you seem to feel a sort of moral hesitance to sample foods if you are not planning to buy them. Frankly, I never sample with intention to buy (unless, again, I am in an ice cream store). The stores that typically have samples available — around me, it’s Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Union Market, Butterfield Market, Citarella, among others — are out of my food budget range. One of the few perks of living in NYC, I suppose, is the plethora of teeny gourmet food shops; if you live here, you can undoubtedly identify one of these stores at a glance and walk in pretty confident with your knowledge that there will be a pile of fancy cheese and toothpicks waiting, if nothing else.

As much as I love samples, however, they can be dangerous. If I hit one of these stores at the right time, I could eat an entire meal’s worth of food (or more) just by browsing the aisles. For this reason, I transport samples out of the store whenever possible. Eating samples as part of a meal, rather than absentmindedly on-the-go, increases satisfaction tremendously. As much as I would love to whip out my tupperware containers and start filling them with samples, however, even I have to draw the line somewhere and use my best judgment to determine whether that is appropriate (and sometimes it is). I don’t want to get myself blacklisted!

In the case of cheese samples, I do get a bit crazily schemy. For example, you may have noticed that every Monday night, I stop into Butterfield Market on the way to class to pick up manchego cheese samples as a dinner supplement. I generally have an empty snack baggie somewhere in my possession left from lunch, and I put that in my coat pocket. I walk into the store, stab a few cubes of cheese with a toothpick, and stroll through the rest of the store considering “potential purchases” while I deposit the cheese into the baggied pocket. On the way out of the store, I grab one more toothpick and do the same.

The rest of the time, however, I just gather the samples in my hand in the little plastic sample cups where they usually reside and walk out of the store with them. If it’s not a messy thing, I slip the cup into my pocket to free up my hands, but I don’t try to hide it. Occasional squishing may occur, but I’m not one to turn down food due to shape disruption.

The bottom line is that samples are for sampling, and you’re under no obligation to purchase if you decide to partake. Chances are, none of the staff in the store will even notice or care that you’re taking samples; if they do, they’ll be thrilled that their marketing strategy appears to be working. And if they’re grumpy or rude, they’re obviously unhappy in their line of work, and it has nothing to do with you. Sample away!

What is your moral stance on food sampling? Have you ever gotten negative feedback from a store employee regarding said sampling?