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Plain Jane Baked Potato

April 30th, 2009

Circumstance drives me to Jason’s Deli many times each year and I always order the salad bar. I don’t know what it is about their fixins that makes their salads so good, but I just can’t resist.

Now everyone knows the best thing about a salad bar is you get to put whatever you want on it. I suppose my salads are “salads” in the technical sense: they contain traces of lettuce and were assembled under sneeze guards. But my salads are manly salads. They’re topped with shredded cheeses and adorned with bacon bits, cashews, and other crunchy things. At least two hard boiled eggs always find their way into the mix. I avoid vegetables at all costs.

But this week I tried something a bit different. I got the extraordinarily innocuously named Plain Jane Baked Potato. “Potatoes are healthy, right?” I said to myself. “Especially a nice plain one. Besides, this is Jason’s Deli: the restaurant positively awash in organic and healthy propaganda. They wouldn’t steer me wrong.” So I ordered it.

So imagine my surprise when this son of a biscuit eater showed up:

I know photos can be deceiving, but trust me this was one big freakin potato. Here’s a different image to better help you gauge its size:

And did I say, “one big potato?” No, it’s actually TWO potatoes surgically attached into one big frankenpotato. And did my eyes deceive me? Did the menu actually call this the plain jane? What kind of “plain jane” potato comes covered in a pound of cheese, bacon bits, sour cream, and a giant wad of butter?

The Point of This Post
This is the “No Help Here” category where I attempt to help you. We’ve discussed hidden calories, dangerous restaurant menu items, and topics of this sort before. And I’ve always said, “C’mon, people … this is obvious stuff. We know what ‘bad’ food looks like. No one should ever have to tell you to NOT eat ginormous platters of food.”

But I must admit that even I, the Snarky Wonder, was taken aback when afterward I decided to look up the damage on the organic this, no artificial that, healthy potato at Jason’s deli.

So, brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your strength, read no further…

Hey, at least it offers nearly a full day’s worth of calcium. I’m just glad I didn’t order two of them. But, as painful as it is for me to admit it, this tasted goooood. I mean, how could it not? Just look at this puppy. I can only redeem myself here by saying: at least I followed my senses and split it into two meals.

So! Who’s up for dessert?

Posted in No Help Here | 13 Comments »

Alternate Reality #3

April 29th, 2009

In November 2008, I mused a bit about what I’d like to be when I grow up. We dream about things as kids and precious few of us ever get the chance to play out our dreams in real life. Sometimes that’s actually a good thing. As exciting as it sounded at the time, I don’t think my true calling was in waste management. Other times, perhaps it’s not. So I thought I’d take a few posts (not in a row) to explore some of the possibilities in greater detail. Welcome to Alternate Reality #3, and the first Alternate Reality which relates to food.

My dad and I had our mid-life crises at the same time. And by that I don’t mean, “When we were both forty.” I mean at the same time. He was forty and I was about thirteen. His love of food and cooking finally led him back to school to study hotel and restaurant management. (Sidebar: the world really missed out when he never got the opportunity to start his own food blog.)

As he began to take classes and dream of opening his own restaurant, I got the idea in my head as well. “Hmmm… you know, it might really be cool to open a restaurant!” I said to myself. “I mean, how hard can it be?”

I love how the thirteen year old mind works.

My thirteen year old mind started picking out names (like … wait for it … “The Golden Spike”) and drawing pictures of what the restaurant might look like (exactly what you think “The Golden Spike” would look like) and actually plotting out this entire career path. It sounded really cool. What a great dream for a kid to have at that age. And a “dream” restaurant is exactly what I would have opened.

The dream restaurant is popular. It’s packed every night of the week and has people lining up outside on weekends and holidays. It serves great food. It has no staffing problems. Food critics love it and people write home about it. There would be nothing to complain about.

There’s just one small problem. We don’t get to open restaurants in alternate realities. We have to open them here, in the real world. And even if successful, sooner or later, that mid-life crisis would roll around anyway. It’s just human nature. Nobody’s immune. (I’m sure even J.K. Rowling said, “If I have to write another bloody Harry Potter book, I’ll scream. I should have been a veterinarian.”)

If I had actually followed this path, I’m sure my restaurant would have struggled. The critics would not have been impressed with the Reese’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Donut Jelly sandwiches. And eventually all my kids would have quit the waitstaff. I would have spent nights worrying about red ink and dreaming of an alternate reality where I only made Reese’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Donut Jelly sandwiches at home.

Not that I, um, have ever tried anything like that myself.

Posted in Leftovers | 8 Comments »

Shin Bowl

April 28th, 2009

About a year ago I had an “interview” with Michy Devon. It wasn’t so much of an interview as it was her mailing me a list of standard questions and me replying with answers I stole from her previous interviewees. Just kidding. She got my usual snarky answers, which you can see if you visit the link.

Anyway, one of her questions asked, “What inspires you and motivates you to write the very most?” I’m sure of all the interviews she ever conducted, I was the first to answer, “Ramen noodles.” Oddly enough, though, that wasn’t one of my snarky answers. It was (and is) true.

My love of the noodle began back in college (which is ironically the point at which most normal people develop the hate of the noodle). But, c’mon! What’s not to love? A bowl of food for eight cents? How can you beat that?

Many writers (and yes, I’m calling myself one of those for the sake of argument) have a certain routine and/or environment to get those creative juices flowing. For me, I plop myself down in my cheap Office Max clearance chair. I turn on my bulky, aging CRT monitors. And I fire up the word processor. And if I’m feeling particularly sassy, I fix a bowl of Ramen noodles.

But all this was ruined sometime in the last two years by the Shin Bowl. Technically, it too is just “ramen noodles”: dried, compressed, pasta, complete with seasoning packets containing 500% of the USDA for sodium. But it’s soooo much more than that. It’s a hot bowl of dried, compressed, love. And sodium.

It wasn’t until last fall that I realized I ruined the eight cent bowl of noodles forever. Completely out of Shin Bowls one evening, I found a package of the normal Top Ramen we’re all know and love. That’s when I was stunned to find out my noodly inspiration all these years was actually rather atrocious.

But I should look on the bright side. With inspiration now costing me seventy-nine cents a bowl, my writing should be that much better, right?

Posted in You Know What Sounds Good Right Now? | 14 Comments »

Back on Track?

April 27th, 2009

If you’re not familiar with the Four Physical Laws of Dieting, I’ll give you Law Number IV: Informing others of your progress immediately halts progress. Here’s a description from something I wrote last year:

I can’t be the only one this has happened to. You start your diet on Monday and by Thursday morning you’re miraculously down six pounds. You’re so excited you tell everyone you know, whether in person or by keyboard. But come Friday morning, you’re suddenly five pounds heavier. It’s a sinking feeling, but you brought it upon yourself. What to do: This one is obvious: never, ever tell anyone how well you’re doing. Even when you’ve lost fifty pounds and everyone asks, “Have you lost weight?” tell them, “No, I’m just wearing vertical stripes.”

But now I want to amend this law by adding, “It only takes effect when you tell someone in person.” Therefore, blogging doesn’t count, which is good news for all of us. Because if it did, I would be violating Law Number IV on a weekly basis and I would probably weigh somewhere in the vicinity of 1,847 pounds.

But check out last week’s graph. It’s rare to get a week that’s all downhill. Not a single uptick.

Week 39
Starting Weight 224.0
Current Weight 197.5
Change from Last Week -0.6
Change from Two Weeks Ago +0.9
Lost So Far 26.5

So what happened? Was it the virtual book tour? Because those things can be arduous. Probably not, but I will tell you one thing about this past week: it sure contained a lot less pizza than the prior week. In fact, I think the exact amount was … zero. And whereas my average daily intake the week before last was around 2200 calories, this week it was down to 1900, and—surprise, surprise—the weight started going down again. Funny how that works.

In fact, I might just try something crazy and do this two weeks in a row. Even if it does mean—gasp—going another week without pizza. It can’t be that hard, can it? CAN IT?

Posted in Magical Mystery Tour | 8 Comments »

It’s Venusday!

April 24th, 2009

Ask anyone what “Sunday” is named after and most are quick to correctly suggest, “The sun?” An only slightly smaller percentage might then guess that “Monday” is named for the moon. But after those two, it’s anybody’s guess where the names of the other weekdays come from. My shrewd guesses are:

  1. Tuesday is the number Two-day of the work week.
  2. Wednesday is from the Old German word “Woeden” meaning “hump”
  3. Thursday is just a contraction of Thirsty Day.
  4. And Friday is obviously the day you go to Red Robin for bottomless fries.

Turns out I’m flat wrong on all accounts. Can you believe Friday is actually named after Venus? A quick Wikipedia check states:

The name Friday comes from the Old English frigedæg, meaning the day of Frige the Anglo-Saxon form of Frigg, a West Germanic translation of Latin dies Veneris, “day (of the planet) Venus.”

This connection to Veneris is a little more obvious in romance languages such as French (vendredi) or Spanish (viernes). Even cooler (to me) is that most Indian languages call today Shukravar, which just so happens to be the Sanskrit name for … drumroll, please … Venus!

So why this common theme across so many languages and cultures? That’s easy! Friday, like the goddess herself, is beautiful. And the best part? It’s today!

So Happy Venusday, everybody.

Got plans for tonight? Do they include pizza? Or perhaps cheeseburgers? Are you going to have a beer and tell your friends, “Do you realize that today is Venusday?” When they look at you in awe and inquire what may be the font of your knowledge, just say, “I have people.”

So, my cool kids, what are your plans for today or this evening? Let me know below and I’ll enjoy one tall, cold one tonight for every five comments.

Posted in Pizza Night | 11 Comments »

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