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pondering my finances

Weight Watchers is coming to campus. They are having meetings every Tuesday – at a time (11:30am – 12:30pm) I can actually attend, even with my crazy work schedule. Starting November 13th. The initial sign up is less than half price, if you start either of the first two meetings, and then each week is $14 after that.

  • Can I afford it? Yes, but I could be putting that money toward credit card debt
  • I’ve done Weight Watchers before… and I thought it was one of the more sensible diets out there but
    • I wasn’t invested in being thin (beyond a certain weight, I started feeling cold and getting sick a little more frequently)
    • I got tired of obsessing over food quite that much
  • My household isn’t set up for it
    • I often pick up leftovers from my mother that aren’t going to be measured or made in a particular way
    • I guess I could still make large meals and save portions, but it’d call for a lot of tracking and calculating
    • there are, less with Weight Watchers than other programs, a lot of cheats to coming to the right amounts that require buying pre-packaged stuff (especially WW’s mysteriously light bread product), and I’ve been moving farther and farther away from artificial food products. It used to be that I couldn’t tell much difference between regular sour cream and diet sour cream – but now I can spot the carageenan and other texturizing agents right away, so I’d be doing more cutting things out than substituting 🙁

Skate America and a Wedding – and all I’m telling you about is the food

Skate America 2007 was in Reading, PA
The plan was to get to Reading, PA in time for the 9am start of the ice dancing practices. Hah! I found out later, though, that because they were practicing for their compulsories that getting there on time would have meant listening to the same short piece of music played eighteen billion times, but by missing it, I was able to not kill anyone during the actual competition.

Here is the schedule – warning, PDF

Also, missing it meant that I hit the patisserie in the turnpike rest stop just as the chocolate croissants were coming out of the oven. MMMmmmmm!

But, woo! Skating!

One of the joys of parking in the farthest lot: having walked past a real restaurant

dinner
We were kicked out of the rink after the practice sessions and weren’t allowed back in for another 2 1/2 hours, so [redacted] (did I mention she was the one to hook me up with the awesome last minute tickets?) and I headed off for the only non-fast-food restaurant in walking distance of the rink (or so it seemed), which I had passed on the walk from the parking garage.

The Ugly Oyster looked like your average Irish pub, but the food was quite tasty. I had possibly the best fish & chips I have ever eaten (all really crispy and flavorful on the breading and absolutely melting inside), and the chips were greasy and hot from the fryer and all kinds of lovely. And I’ve had fish and chips in the UK and Boston and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor – these really were the best.

Wedding – Saturday
After the ceremony, my coworkers and I went off to get drunk – and since the bar was organized by my friend, in addition to wine there was good Belgian beer which I didn’t even get to because there was incredibly tasty hot cider (spiked with apple jack).

I wandered out to enjoy the grounds and the view and was soon joined by all of the other guests who also worked in the library – and we giggled about how the ceremony was very typical of our friend. We also giggled about our friend’s brother who had been given money to buy a suit for the wedding but hadn’t managed to take all of the tags off (we were betting whether he was just unaware or planning to return it – turns out both, he was thinking that the label with the designer’s name would be kinda classy to keep on, but he took off one of the other tags).

Then there was food (tasty, but completely barren for the vegans (including the bride’s ex-girlfriend) who had been invited). I ended up sitting next to the photographer and his assistant/girlfriend. I did my best to bond and ask whether he usually did photography for wedding or other artistic purposes, but he ended up not admitting to me that he was a fetish photographer (which the bride told me later).

When she had first been deciding on favors for the table, I had suggested little mice from Burdick chocolate, but her mother had wanted to do something more arts&crafts – so they ended up getting small wooden boxes that would just fit little jars of jam, 2 shortbreads, and a little spreader. But there were also chocolate truffles from Burdick’s for every table. Oh, man! After people started leaving, I went around checking to see which tables had left these behind – because they were worth dropping a little dignity. And there was wedding cake. And someone, who couldn’t attend the wedding, had sent homemade italian cookies dipped in insanely rich chocolate, but that was far less impressive than the tasty coffee and tea with whipped cream & chocolate shavings.

Sunday
Back in Philadelphia for some Yum Cha
6 people this time.

So I had hopes for trying to chicken feet this time, since I’d missed them last time, but there weren’t any to be found.

We did have tofu skin wrapped dumplings that were dubious looking, but tasted yummy.

I don’t think there was anything I didn’t like – well, maybe the sweet and sour pork because I had trouble finding any meat around the bits of bone.

I’ll have to remember to get the taro rolls next time, they hadn’t caught my eye before because they looked like room-temperature pastry. And it ended up being incredibly affordable. Group consensus: we are so doing this again!

Roman cooking

I’ll be teaching a Roman cooking class at my place this Sunday. Ancient Roman.

The plan is to start noonish with stuffed dates and then prep a pork roast and get that in the oven.

While the big hunk o’meat is cooking, we’ll make sauces for it and I’ll let people look through my cookbooks and we’ll make anything that looks intriguing.

I’m thinking there should be lentils and chestnuts… or maybe just lentils (those chestnuts are a pain to skin).

And there’ll be nibbling all the way through.

Green papaya

I made an impulse purchase of a huge, beautiful green papaya, and now I am figuring out what to do with it.

Seriously, the thing is big enough for more than one meal.

I’m thinking 1/4 of it can go into soup.
This recipe is simple, but it’s the most promising one I’ve found so far.

Here is a Filipino recipe for Green Papaya Chicken (Tinolang Manok)

Here is an indian side dish. It says that I can make it without the dal and it’ll just end up looser, but if I make the rice drier, it should all balance out.

OOoooo… or I could make spring rolls! That’ll only happen if it lasts until the weekend and is vaguely ripe when I cut it open, but aside from the herbs and a cucumber, I have all the other ingredients.

I think I do not want to make a chutney or a cold salad-type dish.

But I am certainly open to other suggestions and links.