Thursday: Yes, yes, I know,

but the doctor's office I went to is reasonably close to Wendy's, and it's been a long time since I've been there. Dipping the fries in a frosty is one of the best tastes ever. The combination of the sweet and salty is delicious.

Wednesday: lazy

Since I was working until 7ish trying to figure out problems with the dark model, I decided I was going to be lazy and just get tacos on the way home. The fact that my back has hurt since yesterday due to coughing was part of the decision as well.

I figure I should be able to make something tomorrow after my doctor appointment, so I can try to get back on the menu plan then.

Tuesday: sleepy sleepy

Nothing here today, because I got home, took a two hour nap, and then made a bowl of soup and had that instead. I think my cold is making an attempt at a flanking maneuver into my left ear.  That means I probably need to buy more drugs tomorrow.

Drugs are the artillery of the Verdun that is having a cold.

Monday: needs more garlic

Sunday: Including bowling

A while ago, groupon sent an offer for La Tour Cafe. Unfortunately, like all the other groupon offers, it was largely useless (like $10 for a $20 coupon, only good on one visit, only good certain days I think), but the menu did look interesting.  Since I'm still somewhat sick with this stupid cold, I figured it would be good to go and have some soup.  I also got the turkey and sundried tomato panini (with provolone and surprise spinach). I tried to substitute the salad for the soup, but that's apparently not allowed. Odd.

The sandwich was good, as was the soup, and reminded me of a Panera, if the food was made by people who actually cared about making the food taste good.  The tomatoes were nicely ripe and flavorful on the salad as well.  My only complaint would be that the onions didn't taste like they'd been carmelized completely before being added to the soup.  More like they were softened, and then added to a soup base and allowed to soak up the flavor of that.

All the reviews talked about their macaroons, so I figured I'd get one to try it.  This was the strawberry/black currant. Strawberry cakes with strawberry creme between, with a hidden spot of black currant jam inside.  It was good, and made a nice end to the meal.

My major complaint is that this place is located inside a giant ex-warehouse, and the only parking is around the perimeter.  It's one of those places where you just have to creep around and stalk someone to get a spot.  

I then ran some errands, and eventually made my way over to bowling:

Where I got to try out my new shoes!  It is significantly better to bowl in your own shoes than to rent them and be creeped out by that fact.  Unfortunately, my continued illness seemed to distract me, so I didn't do as well this week.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Game 1	x 17	7 0 24	3 5 32	x 51	9 0 60	5 2 67	7 / 86	9 0 95	7 0 102	9 0   111
Game 2	9 0 9	1 8 18	8 / 36	8 1 45	8 1 54	4 / 67	3 6 76	0 4 80	3 / 99	9 / 9  118
Game 3	x 18	8 0 26	8 / 41	5 0 46	3 / 62	6 / 81	9 0 90	9 / 110	x 130	7 / 9  149
Game 4	1 1 2	6 / 21	9 / 40	9 0 49	9 / 67	8 1 76	7 2 85	9 0 94	6 / 111	7 2   120

Game 4, frame 1 was pretty much fucked up by a team of little league kids who were randomly shouting and screaming to try to get the girl in their group (who looked like "older sister") to mess up.  Stupid kids.

Afterwards I got ice cream for dinner, because I'm lazy. Mmm...macadamia nut and coconut ... something ice creams...

It's possible I went overboard with the berries

Menu planning: week 2

I overslept again (well, I woke up, I just didn't bother getting out of bed), so I missed the farmer's market again. Maybe if I feel super motivated tomorrow, I'll try to go to the one in Mililani. Basing the week off of my trip to WF instead:

• Saturday: Salad of some sort, then sorbet and berries.
• Sunday: I'm thinking I'm going to try to do this garlic steak, with a grilled romaine salad and roasted potatoes.
• Monday: I haven't fully sorted this one out, but I bought another steak, so I'll come up with something for it.
• Tuesday: I'm going to try the spicy Italian sausages in tomato sauce that I got too sick to make last week.
• Wednesday: Leftovers
• Thursday: Do something with fish (which I didn't buy because this is nearly a week away)
• Friday: Probably the fish again.

This doesn't seem like a really firmly established menu plan, but it seems like having some plan and changing it as I go is better than trying to make it up each day as I go along.

The Counter

I figured it was probably the better idea to eat lunch before going shopping for groceries, so I tried out The Counter which is conveniently located next to Whole Foods.  It's a build-a-burger kind of place, so I looked over the options and built this:

Third pound beef burger with gruyere, grilled onions, "organic mixed greens," scallions, bacon, with a side of a sun-dried tomato sauce. I wasn't terribly impressed with the end result.  The burger was cooked to medium, and had a nice bright pink color inside.  However, it was remarkably dry, with basically no juice at all.  The grilled onions overpowered everything, and I ended up removing most of them. The cheese and thin sliced bacon was pretty much lost in the mix. I probably won't come back for the burger anytime soon.

They do have good sides.  The "fifty-fifty" allows you to split between fries and onion strings.  I went with the added parmesan fry modification, which was a good choice.  The onion strings were nicely done, and I may come back just to get an order of them in the future.  Splitting them with some regular cheddar cheese fries would be a good late night snack.

Well, that is, if the place didn't close at 10pm on the weekend. :-/

friday: leftover chili

I kind of deviated from the original menu, largely due to the fact that yesterday I woke up with a bad cough again, and progressively got worse as the day went on. Although I was able to get some stuff done at work, I left early, making a side trip by Long's to pick up an assortment of sickness fighting tools (soup, juice, cough syrup, chocolate).

So instead of making something yesterday, I just had a bowl of soup, and then went to bed. I'll try the sausages next week.

I did have the chili out defrosting, so after spending today sleeping and coughing and sleeping some more, I made that for dinner. I didn't really have any interest in making cornbread to go with it, so I just finished off the tortillas from Taco Monday and Taco Tuesday.

I'm going to try to get to the farmer's market tomorrow morning, since I expect I'll feel better then. Large quantities of juice and sleep does seem to have been an effective treatment.

wednesday: macadamia crusted mahi mahi

I took the leftover mahi mahi from yesterday, dipped it in an eggwash, and then into some bashed up macadamia nuts (plus a bit of salt and pepper). In addition, I made a quick peach chutney since my peaches are starting to look a bit mopey. It was pretty simple: warm up dried ancho flakes in some oil, add a bit of ginger and a dash of curry powder. Once it smells good, dump diced peaches and a bit of sugar, and let it cook down into a paste. It added a nice sweet and spicy balance to the toasty fatty coating on the fish.

Also mashed potatoes and asparagus (which I've almost finished!).

tuesday: fish tacos

I picked up some mahi-mahi from whole foods, and cut one piece in half, and after sprinkling it with taco seasoning, seared it over high heat while I broiled some asparagus. Add some of the salsa and guacamole I made yesterday, and sprinkle over a bit of cheese, and today's tacos were far better than yesterday's.

Monday: chicken tacos

I thought that making salsa and guacamole would be an easy thing. I was totally mistaken. My avocado was way too hard to mush, so it basically just ended up splitting up into tiny cubes. I added a jalepeno as well, but the guacamole still has basically no flavor. :-/ It has a bit of a creamy texture, but I was hoping for it to be much better. The salsa isn't bad, but it's needs a bit more salt. I kind of feel like it might need a bit more as well.

The tacos are fine, mostly because it's easy to make taco guts. Maybe after letting the flavors blend a bit better will enhance the salsa and guacamole. I did put a bit of a quick chipotle sauce (chipotle/adobo + tomato paste + garlic and some water to make it a sauce and not a paste) on the tacos, and that helped them too.

Tomorrow will be try two on these, and I won't have to spend so much time making it.

Food planning

Monday: chicken tacos, with homemade salsa and maybe homemade guacamole. Asparagus, if I can figure out a way to make it fit. Maybe roast it quickly, and then mix with a chipotle sauce?

Tuesday: fish tacos, using leftovers from previous night.

Wednesday: Spicy italian sausage in quick tomato sauce with miscellaneous pasta. Asparagus (because I have a big bunch of it).

Thursday: Leftovers.

Friday: TBD. I have leftover chili in my freezer that I've been craving for awhile. Maybe make up some cornbread and finish that off?

addendum: I really want brownies, so I think those are going to happen this week too. Maybe on friday as an end-of-week thing.

Bowling: week two

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Game 1	8 0 9	0 7 15	6 3 24	9 / 33	0 / 49	6 / 68	9 0 77	6 / 97	x 125	x 8 0 143
Game 2	8 / 18	8 0 26	7 1 34	6 / 52	8 0 60	7 2 69	1 2 83	8 0 91	6 2 99	x 7 0 116
Game 3	0 9 9	9 / 28	9 0 37	9 0 46	8 0 54	6 1 61	0 7 68	8 1 77	7 0 84	x 7 1 102

It was much busier this week than last week. I assume the three day weekend last week is the reason. Only three games this week because I pulled a muscle during game two, and it just hurt worse and worse during game three.

Yes, I am just stealing all of Julie's dinner ideas

yet again, indigo gets screwed

bowling

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Game 1	5 4 9	x 28	9 0 37	1 / 53	6 0 59	9 / 73	4 1 78	6 / 98	x 115	7 0 122
Game 2	x 19	8 1 28	9 0 37	7 / 55	8 1 64	5 3 72	7 0 79	9 / 97	6 0 105	7 / 6 121
Game 3	8 / 20	x 39	7 2 48	6 2 56	x 76	8 / 94	8 1 103	8 0 111	7 1 119	6 2 127
Game 4	x 29	x 48	9 0 57	7 1 65	7 2 74	7 / 93	9 / 110	7 1 118	9 / 133	5 3 141

The picture is from game 4, frame 7. The final pin fell over immediately after being reset. Oops.