akaemi.com

They say opposites attract.  And when it comes to eating preferences, that is so very true of the husband and myself.

If I eat the same thing too much, I start to hate it.  I can’t even force myself to eat it, it makes me gag.  I don’t know if there is a “name” for this tendency (it’s not really a condition or disorder, per se, just an oddity).  I tried a little googling but came up empty.

When I was 8, my family moved to Washington state from Arizona.  It was a 3-day car trip, where we had potato chips to snack on.  We ate a LOT of potato chips.  All 6 of us, in the station wagon, munching on chips.  Halfway through the third day, I hit my breaking point.  I was sitting in the middle front seat, we were in Oregon, had just passed a sign for Ashland, and I realized if I ate another potato chip, I would throw up.  I didn’t eat a potato chip for years after that.  (I am now happily back on potato chips. 

When I was 11, I made a list of all the foods I hated and posted it on the refrigerator.  Tacos, spaghetti, and potatoes made the list.  Why my mother didn’t beat me for that little maneuver I still don’t know, but most everything on the list was the dinners we ate most frequently.  She didn’t change her menu planning, but she made sure there was always bread available.  It’s a miracle bread didn’t make it onto my list of most hated foods …

It doesn’t matter how much I might love something - if I get over-exposed, onto the bad list it goes.  After enough time passes, it usually finds its way back onto my good list. 

I am always trying new recipes, new foods.  I like to go to new restaurants, and even at a restaurant I know, I’m just as likely to order something I’ve never had before as something I know I like.  I have thrown away many a half-eaten meal when I discover yet another thing that I don’t like.

The husband is the quite the opposite of me.  He has found a community of souls like himself on the internet, they call themselves adult picky eaters.  Basically, it seems to be what happens when supertasting meets OCD.  Thankfully, the husband is not nearly as extreme as many of the people on the adult picky eater forums; many subsist on a diet of mashed potatoes and multivitamins. 

The husband does not like to go to restaurants he’s never been to before.  We generally stick to well-known chains.  If I can find a menu online and make sure there is at least one thing on the husband’s ‘good’ list, then he will generally consent to trying it out. 

The husband has a short list of things he likes to eat for dinner.  At least, I consider it a short list.  It’s only got 2 weeks of things on it!  My list is more than twice that long.  (I just made a list of 33 things, and I’m sure I could come up with another week or two of dinners if I kept going.)

So we eat out a lot.  Restaurants provide an easy way for us to eat separate meals.  Unfortunately, restaurants that serve ‘Josh food’ don’t provide all the variety I would like.  Like Chinese, Thai, Japanese, or Mexican food!  We do get to eat at Greek and many Italian restaurants; for whatever reason, Greek and Italian places often serve burgers and grilled cheeses.

Tonight, after spending a day on the couch napping and watching tv in my robe, next to the husband who spent the day in his sweats, I discovered something even better than going out to a restaurant: Carry Out Coach.  They deliver food from many area restaurants - they’ll even pick food up at TWO different places for you!  So after a day of being miserably sick at home, I got to eat miso soup, california rolls, tempura, steamed rice and teriyaki chicken!  Every single one of which makes the husband a little ill just to think about.  And the husband got a chocolate shake, cheeseburger and fries.  Which are currently on my bad list due to over-exposure …

Admittedly, the delivery charges cost as much as our food did.  But it was soooo nice for us to each get to eat exactly what we wanted on our sick day.  (You know you don’t feel good when you don’t even put clothes on.)  We don’t quite have the budget for Carry Out Coach as often as I’d like, but it’s nice to know it’s there for special occasions.  Like when you don’t want to be bothered to put clothes on to pick up a couple of carryout orders.

I’ve always had a hard time getting in my daily allotment of protein.  In high school, I did a health project where I tracked what I ate for a few weeks - and while my calorie intake was fine, the amount of protein I ate was seriously lacking. 

So I recently decided to work on my protein intake (yeah, yeah, 10 years late …)  I googled how much protein I need to eat, and got all kinds of answers.  The most official answer, though, seemed to be 65-70 grams.  Yikes.  Over the last few days, I’ve only managed to hit 45-60 grams a day.  And that’s with me trying really hard. 

I’d like to not have to cheat by eating 3 protein bars every day to get to my desired protein intake.  So I need other tricks and tips on increasing my protein intake.  Preferably besides eat more meat - I order happy meal burgers because I will not eat an entire quarter pounder.  I promise.  If I get a quarter pounder, I will stop half-way through.  Oh, and also besides eat more dairy.  Even with lactase pills, great amounts of dairy still don’t, um, go unnoticed by the ol’ digestive tract.

And also - I haven’t died yet, so do I really need all that protein?  I mean, I seem to have a natural aversion to lots of meat.  And my body has decided that dairy is for the cows.  Is a 50/50 mix of carbs and fat really all that bad?

The husband and I were both cranky after getting home late (he from work, me from the Ford dealership), so we decided to go out to eat at one of Ashburn’s finer establishments.  That’s right, the Buffalo Wing Factory.

After enjoying our dinner, we were shocked with a bill for $11.42.  Because, well, we both ate dinner.  At a restaurant.  A sit-down restaurant with menus.  I even had a lemonade.  (shhhhh, don’t tell my dentist …)  Turns out, though, that the husband’s grilled cheese (which I was informed today is NOT a SANDWICH, I should call it a GRILLED CHEESE) came from the kid’s menu, and my wings were half-price, on account of it being Monday. 

So, if you’re looking for cheap eats, look no further than the buffalo wing factory on a Monday night.  Assuming you want wings.  Or a grilled cheese. 

So, with the discovery of my 9 cavities, I have stopped drinking sugar.  (To be honest, I’ve had a lemonade, a cranberry grape juice, and two sprites in the last few weeks …)

Which means I must drink water.  At first, it really wasn’t my favorite - but then it started growing on me.  Yesterday, I drank 64 ounces of water.  And I went to the bathroom about 20 times.

And now, I’m thirsty all the time!  Always for water.  My new fridge with the water in the door has never been so appealing.  It takes that Ashburn taste right out of the water.  (I supposedly live in one of the richest cities in one of the richest counties in the richest country on the planet - and my tap water tastes horrible!  I should be able to pick the flavor of my water …. just sayin’ …)

So it seems that I might just be able to stick with this change.  At least until I get all those cavities filled ….

Ok, so I didn’t really have bad sushi - it was just bad leftovers.  I  will call it a ‘meat and potato pastry’ because the real name for it is often mistaken for stripper-wear.  I figured it’d still be safe, I made it on Sunday ….  And I did nuke it, though probably not quite to germ-killing levels.

It doesn’t take much to upset this stomach of mine - I’m like the canary for bad food.  I’ll be in the bathroom … well, in the bathroom … long before anybody else is aware of any badness. 

I once went with friends to Bennigan’s, and, yup, I was in the bathroom revisiting my dinner before we even left the restaurant.  Afterwards, during games back at my apartment, everybody else was moaning and laying on the floor.  I felt great!  Nothing bad in my system anymore!  While they were all finally feeling the effects of, what we suspected was, bad grease.  None of us had eaten the same thing at dinner, but we had all had something from the fryer - Monte Cristo (which to this day, I still can’t eat …), chicken fingers, french fries.

It was really bad timing, too, because I was supposed to go to a mock service tonight for a new restaurant!  They sure coulda used this canary stomach of mine …

I remember, as a teenager, having a discussion with a friend out eating kiwis.  She said you could eat the skin.  I maintained that you couldn’t - because, well, eating kiwi fuzz burned.  Even if it only touched your lips.  She looked at me like I was a freak, and that’s when it hit me:  perhaps I had a kiwi allergy.

But eating just the fruity insides was fine, I convinced myself.  Since it didn’t cause pain.

Having just had a root canal on the left side of my mouth, I had been eating mostly on the right side.  The other day at lunch, after eating a kiwi, I noticed a strange thing:  the right side of my mouth was … sort of … burning.  It wasn’t that bad, and it dawned on me how if my entire mouth was burning, I might not even notice.  Like probably every other time in my life that I’ve eaten a kiwi.

On the allergy severity scale, my kiwi allergy is extremely minor:  mild burning for 20 minutes after contact.  No hives, no need for an epi-pen to open up my airways.  Still, though, I think I might pass on kiwis from here on out, because now I will be distracted by the taste of burning.

meh.

I was excited to finally go to the restaurant that I’ve heard so many people rave about, but as I sat in my booth and read the menu, I knew I was in over my head. It became abundantly clear that Sweetwater Tavern is a fancy place.

I work for a company that loves to treat its employees to fancy fare. And most would consider that a nice perk, to be able to eat at Clyde’s, The Capital Grille, or Bob Kinkead’s Colvin Run Tavern on the company’s dime. But not me - I’m more than happy with a kid’s meal and some cheesecake from Chick-Fill-A.

I ordered the grilled salmon, and was surprised when the waiter asked how I wanted it cooked - the menu clearly stated that it was grilled. When he clarified that I could get it cooked to order like a steak - medium rare, medium, etc - I asked him what was best. I went out on a limb and ordered the medium he recommended, and made a mental note that at fancy places, you don’t have to have your fish thoroughly cooked.

When my food arrived, it was arranged on my plate in a rather odd manner. My mashed potatoes were dead center. My salmon was draped over the mound of potatoes. There were 3 sweet potato chips stuck into the left side of the potatoes, where they emerged from underneath the salmon filet. And the right side of my plate was covered in mustard sauce for the fish. It was very artistic and all, but food is … food. I want to be able to eat my potatoes without disturbing the fish. And without mustard sauce running all over everything. And without having to remove sweet potato chips.

I suppose the atmosphere was … fancy … and the food was … fancy … and I suppose the food was even pretty good. But I was so out of my comfort zone, that I couldn’t wait to get out of there. (I took half my food home in a box, and had it for dinner - it was much better the second time around, in the comfort of my own dining room, after the microwave nuked that medium salmon to completely cooked.)

I have to say, though, the best food I’ve had recently is Kenny’s Barbecue. Never heard of it? That’s because Kenny is my father-in-law. Any time my husband’s family has a big get-together, Kenny barbecues up every kind of meat known to man. Chicken, brisket, pork loin, sausage in a variety of spiciness levels, you name it, he’s barbecuing it. And not only did I get to enjoy his barbecue, there’s always all the ‘fixins’ that come with it, prepared by the rest of my husband’s family: butter potatoes, rolls, black-eyed peas, bacon-wrapped asparagus, apple pie. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, Texan cuisine is something I missed out on - but I’m trying to make up for it on every trip to Texas.

All in all, I’m sure Sweetwater Tavern is a fine place. If you’re in to that kind of thing. As for me, I’ll take Kenny’s Barbecue any day of the week.

Ingredients:

• One box thin mints
• One container cool whip

Directions:

• Dip cookie in cool whip. Eat. Repeat. (For maximum indulgence, do not let spouse see.)

blech. I thought I would give it a try, especially after it was recommended by my sister, but I really don’t like it. At all. I bought the ‘vanilla’ flavor, thinking it would help mask the soy flavor, but I found it bitter. And with a really horrible aftertaste that stuck with me for hours. I had it on my cereal, so I wasn’t like I was just drinking it by itself.

So - for any soy milk lovers out there - if I stick with it, does it get better? Does it get less bitter? Did I pick the wrong flavor? Did I pick the wrong brand? Do I need to make sure it’s supa cold before I drink it? I made the switch to lactose-free milk a while back, and that definitely took some time to get used to - and it’s based on actual milk.

I should know better than to try foods recommended by family. My dad likes greek olives, my mom likes kimchi, and my older brother likes a whole host of foul smelling foods, including buttermilk, sour kraut, and emmenthaler cheese. Perhaps I’ll finally learn my lesson …