Back to Reality

I have been absent, both mentally and physically. We spent four fun, sun, and wine-filled days in Ft. Myers, Florida with good friends. This is but a distant memory:

I really tried to eat fairly healthy, and, at least compared to how I would have done previously, I felt relatively successful. Wow. Just reread that last sentence. Maybe a little rationalizing? I know I did drink a bit too much wine, nibbled on too much cheese, and the half-order of fries I had at lunch one day was delicious! But balance that out with a fair amount of walking, and, well, I still ate and drank too much. I didn't weigh myself when we got home, because I remembered the words of an old Weight Watchers leader: never weigh in the day after a flight; you will always weigh more. I wonder when it's safe to step on the scale again!

So I woke up to snow and a windchill yesterday morning. Talk about an abrupt return to reality. After shoveling the inch-and-a-half snow off the sidewalks and driveway, breakfast was steel-cut oats, soy milk, mixed with chopped up mixed nuts. You really didn't want to see another picture of oatmeal, did you?

Lunch was an apple, Chobani black cherry Greek yogurt, and a chicken Italian sausage link:

I know - it looks like something you had for lunch when you were eight, doesn't it? But I have to tell you, these little sausages are delicious! And only 90 calories per link! You should go buy some right now.

A piece of string cheese (Sargento Light) was my afternoon snack because I was saving myself for what I knew would be a wonderful dinner with the Bitches. And we use this term endearingly: we have been friends for what seems like forever, and get together several times a year for laughing and drinking wine. As part of our Christmas present, Kim made dinner reservations and footed half the bill at Sage, the student-run bistro at Metropolitan Community College culinary school. I am only sorry that I didn't think to take pictures until my plate was ready to be licked (it was that good!) but maybe the descriptions will suffice. I had a glass of wine, then started with the Bistro Salad: fried sweetbreads, roasted sweet potato, George Paul apple cider vinaigrette, compressed apples, braised endive, maytag blue cheese. OMG. So delicious. I asked about the sweetbreads because I knew that was a name for some kind of organ meat - I was thinking pancreas, but it was actually thymus. Yuck, right? WRONG!! They were soaked in buttermilk, thinly sliced, breaded, and fried. (Seriously, bread and fry anything and it would be delicious!) Think about the size of popcorn shrimp, salty and crunchy. The flavors in the whole salad were wonderful - salty, crunchy, sweet, sour. It was perfection.

I ordered almond crusted halibut for my entree: with potato fondant, creamed spinach, roasted Brussels sprouts, roasted red pepper sauce, parmesan chips. It sounds like a lot, but it was a piece of perfectly prepared halibut resting on the spinach and potato fondant, with the red pepper sauce drizzled on the plate, a small side of Brussels sprouts, and a parmesan chip on the top. I hope you're using your powers of visualization. I really promise to be better with the picture-taking. (What I really need to learn is how to take good photographs of food!) Dinner was yummy, but even better was that I got to spend the evening with wonderful girlfriends!