Archive for the ‘yummy eats’ Category

Newer Entries »

That’s a New One

July 7th, 2010 by Suzanne | 4 Comments | Filed in hilarity, mortification, yummy eats

I’m in New Jersey for a staff retreat. (Insert your own joke here, but there’s free wi fi and Diet Coke…) Not long after I checked into my room, settled on the fluffy white bed, and whipped out my laptop, I looked down. The gleaming white sole of my left gym shoe was smeared with a brown substance. My heart sank. Why had I not smelled the enormous shit blob on my shoe before? I probably dragged it all over the room.

I picked the shoe up. The smell drifted into my nostril. “Yum,” I thought. This was a first. I’d never wanted to eat shit before, although I had often suggested that others do so.

I resisted the temptation to lick it. Further inspection revealed a Hershey’s Kiss encrusted in tread. Whew.

Professor Owlie

June 22nd, 2010 by Suzanne | 5 Comments | Filed in hilarity, I love New York, I'm a natural resource producer, yummy eats

Last year, Husband told me that he was thinking about moving to Connecticut because New York state was so grossly mismanaged that he could not stand to see his tax dollars squandered any more. “But don’t worry,” he said. “It’ll only be for a few days a week and you can stay in New York.”

“Excuse me?” I said. “I didn’t get married so that we can live apart for part of the week. If you are moving to Connecticut, then I am moving with you.” I sighed. I really didn’t want to move to Connecticut.

“Fine.”

“Fine.” I paused. “If we move to Connecticut, can I have a horse?”

“Absolutely! Everyone in Connecticut owns a horse,” Husband said.

I laughed. “Will we live on a horse farm?”

Husband nodded. “Yes! That’s how everyone lives.”

“So we’ll live in a former barn?”

“Uh huh.”

“We’ll have to get a pet owl then because there will be lots of mice. Our owl’s name is Professor Owlie.”

“OK.”

“Blraghblechretch,” I said. “Yergarchchchch.”

“What was that?”

“That’s Professor Owlie throwing up the mice he ate. Owl’s eat their food whole and then barf up the bones and skin and fur. I just want you to get used to the sound since he’ll be puking up all night when we live in a barn on a horse farm in Connecticut.”

Husband tickled me. “You’re ridiculous.”

What I Did on My 3 Hour “Lunch Break”

June 2nd, 2010 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in hilarity, random, yummy eats

Once a year I go for a mammogram, and once a year I get a bilateral breast MRI. Today was MRI day. To get a bilateral breast MRI, I lay down on my stomach on the bench thing and stuck my boobs through two holes. It made me giggle. A teenage boy’s (or worse, a grown man’s) dream would be to be under that bench. Once I was settled I was sucked into the machine, where I managed to nap for 20 minutes despite the booming noises that encompassed me.

After the MRI, I had an appointment with the breast surgeon. There was not much time between the two (of course, the MRI people took me late), and it was after 1:30, so I was starving. (I wondered if my hunger made me woozy or the contrast they ran through me for the MRI.) I grabbed salad on the way to the doctors office. I also hoped that no would mind if I ate it in the waiting room. If they did, I could maybe flash my tits and blind them with the MRI afterglow…

I arrived at the doctor’s, check in, and dug into my lunch. Salad can be very crunchy. The waiting room was mostly empty, though, and no one stared at me too hard. I was called into the exam room right on time. I would suspect that was because they wanted to hide the woman with lettuce hanging out of her mouth, but every time I’ve been to that doctor, I am seen in a timely fashion. This is one of the many reasons I like her.

In the exam room, I changed into a gown, sat down on the table, and continued to eat. Then I wondered how disgusting that was. The salad was good, though, so I didn’t care. I am happy to report that I finished it before the Fellow came in. Even I might have been embarrassed to be caught chowing down on an exam table in a boob surgeon’s office.

She did her exam and pronounced me fine. Yay! I could go back to work. How efficient. Except that the surgeon also wanted to see me. Boo. I had to wait more. I read my magazine. When she came into the room, I tossed it behind me on the exam table. I again removed my gown, which covered the magazine. Then I lay on it. She said that although she trusted the Fellow, she also wanted to examine me.

“That’s great,” I said. “It’s two for the price of one! I had no idea that there were such bargains to be had!”

We laughed, she also pronounced me fine, and I went back to work. One of my co-workers speculated that I wore a forest green shirt to cover my new glowing super boobs. “Yeah, and a black bra, too!” I noted.

So much excitement in one day…

Cooking

May 31st, 2010 by Suzanne | 4 Comments | Filed in Damn, hilarity, yummy eats

The scale very rudely informed me this morning that my jeans have not been lying to me: I’ve gained quite a bit of weight. I carried this knowledge and the extra five pounds* with me to dim sum. After scarfing down everything is sight, I decided to go back to Phase I of the South Beach Diet again.

What I hate most about South Beach is how much cooking it requires. It’s really fucking hard to find super low carb items without preparing them myself. I made many faces and disgusted noises as I thumbed through the book’s recipes, then settled on poached salmon with cucumber sauce for dinner tonight. Since the recipe made six servings, at least I’d have lunch and dinner for a few days.

Grocery list written out, I went to the store. When I checked out 25 minutes later, I was pleased by my efficient shopping. Except that I forgot the fucking cucumbers. Fine. Who needs cucumbers in cucumber sauce anyway?

At home, I unpacked the goods. I reconsulted the book. I bought the wrong kind of dillweed – it was supposed to be fresh, and called for four sprigs. I hate shredded green shit in a small bottle. Fine. Who will notice if I sprinkle random amounts in the pan? Also, I discovered that the 32 oz. box of chicken broth that I bought as a substitute for dry white wine and chicken bullion cubes leaked in the bag. And that I no longer had a skillet, so would have to use a frying pan and balance the lid on it. Fuck it. The recipe will be great.

While preparing the sauce, I decided to use green peppers for the missing cucumbers. I also realized that the salmon was supposed to be served chilled. Ninety minutes later, when he Husband sat down to eat, I asked what he thought. He was quiet. Great, I thought, another tasteless fucking dish that I slaved over. He opined his dislike of chilled fish. Fine. I’ll eat the entire bland thing myself this week, I said and took a first bite. It turned out to be pretty damn tasty. Yay!

Still, I hate cooking.

*That’s the five pounds above what I thought I might have put on.

Just Call Me “Mussel Sucker”

May 29th, 2010 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in I love New York, yummy eats

When I set out to do research for my book Off the (Beaten) Subway Track in the summer of 2007, I called the City Island Historical Society to find out what their hours were.

“Oh, we just had a fire that destroyed the front of our building,” the woman on the phone told me. “I don’t know when we’ll be open again.”

I was disappointed. City Island – a tiny patch of marinas, housing, and sea food restaurants in the Bronx – is exactly the type of place I wanted in the book. If the museum was not open, though, I didn’t think I would have enough to say. I had to leave it out.

Then last year, I was looking at patterns of foreclosure in New York City. I noticed a few bungalows on City Island were for sale for under $60,000. “We should get a summer home in the Bronx,” I joked to Husband. He’s became obsessed with the idea. (He relishes telling people that he has a summer home in the Bronx.) Somehow, though, we never made it up there last summer.

Today we took advantage of today’s fine weather and long weekend to motor up to City Island. (It is also possible to get there by taking the 6 train to Pelham Bay Station and transferring to the Bx 29, which I recommend as it avoids the evilness known as the Cross Bronx Expressway, which is notable for destroying the south Bronx and have four of the ten worst bottlenecks in the nation.) The City Island Historical Society and Nautical Museum is open again. We enjoyed looking at all the marine equipment, old photographs, and historic furniture and bric-a-brac from the area. I learned that people born on City Island are called clam diggers, and that people who move there are referred to as mussel suckers. I love it.

Afterward, we ate at the Lobster Box (very tasty lobster roll sandwich, if I do say so myself and I do), and then walked the entire island. It was charming and weird. We went to a junk store that sold the junkiest junk I’ve ever seen. We passed a tattoo parlor. We poked in a Jersey Shore Boardwalk type place that had kiddie rides, video games, and picnic tables at which to eat overpriced friend seafood. We joked about the BBQs we will host in the backyard of our summer home in the Bronx.

I doubt we’d ever buy a second house on City Island, but it was a lot of fun to explore the idea. Dreaming and day trips to explore new areas are important.

Newer Entries »