Low-Fat Lunch With Vogue

There's been all this brouhaha of late about this article in the April 2012 Vogue about this lady who put her daughter on a diet.  Everyone on the internet has had their knickers in a knot for days (which is like years in internet time), so I had to buy the magazine and read the article.

Let's get skinny!

I read the article over lunch.  This was probably the first time a Vogue magazine had ever been in the breakroom at work.  Amazingly, no one said anything.  That was surprising because they all made such a fuss when I brought in Of Human Bondage, the novel by Somerset Maugham.  Though Vogue only has "editorial" "fashion" pictures of bondage, rather than "bondage" in the title, which I guess makes all the difference.

Anyhow.  The article wasn't anything that anyone needed to flip out about.  But I did think it was funny that the add next to its first page showed a bride "eating" a piece of wedding cake.  I would have loved a piece of wedding cake for dessert instead of the low-fat "key lime pie" yogurt that Spousal Unit gave me.  He said "It tastes like dessert!"  No.  What it tasted like was tart artificial lemon flavouring.  And what it looked like was light yellow-green paste.  But at least it was low fat, right?

Ugh.

My "main course" was leftover lentil and rice soup.  Low fat, vegetarian and probably all of 1 point on the Weight Watcher Jenny Craig LA Weight Loss scale of food you can eat piles of without worrying about thunder thighs.

SUNOVABITCH!

My friend in the adjacent business park Skypes me to ask me if I'd like to join her for lunch at one of the fake Japanese restaurants in the area.  I'm like, sure, why not.

We get to Fake-O Sushi at 12:15.  We order something hot that doesn't even require the attention of the sushi chef because the guy is swamped making what appears to be a zillion take-out orders.

The losing meal.

We get our miso soups and we figure everything is going well.  Then we wait.  And wait.  And watch people who came in after us get served.  At around a quarter to 1, my friend starts fretting because she has to get back to the office.  She's got a 1:30 meeting.   I get up and ask the waitress about our order.  She says, "It'll be ready in 2 minutes." 

Two minutes come and go.  We get complementary spicy salmon hand rolls.  That's awesome, but I tell the waitress that we'd rather have our HOT meal than the complementary sushi. 

My friend doesn't like spicy salmon, so I give her hand roll to the guy next to us who's also been waiting.  He came in after us.  He got served about two seconds after I gave him the hand roll.

It's now 1pm.  My friend is like, "I gotta get back."  I go see the waitress again.  She says that our food is now ready.  That's fantastic, but we have to leave.  I ask to get it to go.

Meanwhile, someone's come to pick up the zillion take out orders.  She gives me a dirty look as I'm telling the waitress that I need the meals to go.  I tell the take-out order woman that we've been waiting almost an hour for our food.  She replies, haughtily, that she put in her order and hour and a half ago so it better be ready.  I congratulate her for getting her order.

The waitress puts both my friend and my order together in the same bag.  I tell her that my friend and I don't work at the same location.   I tell her how displeased we are with the service.  I tell her that now we're late for a meeting and hungry. I tell her that this was really Not OK.  She doesn't blink.  We tell her we won't be back.  Nothing.  But Take-Out Lady is giving us dirty looks for taking too long at the cash.

I get back to work and down my soggy tempura yam rolls and chicken katsu.  It was not good.

Mac'n'cheese: The leftovers that eat like slime.

Mac'n'cheese is one of those dishes that is really tasty on day 1, but becomes a congealed mass on day 2.  Actually, it becomes a congealed mass about an hour after it's made.  You'd think that it would microwave OK, that the sauce would re-become saucy and whatnot, but no.  It just kinda gets gross and oily and the pasta turns to mush.  It's not my favourite leftover.

Less than satisfactory lunch.

Now, if you fry leftover mac'n'cheese, it's a totally different story.  A nice crust forms and you get a lovely crunch out of it.  But, you know, the break room doesn't have a stove top or even a hot plate and I'm guessing that keeping one at my desk would violate some fire safety policy or something.  Which means that I won't be having fried mac'n'cheese at work.

For "dessert" I had one of those low-fat Greek yogurt thingies that promise a decadent, creamy texture without loads of fat, gelatin or cornstarch.   I gotta say that it wasn't bad, but it still lacked the fatty mouthfeel of full fat yogurt.  But I probably shouldn't be eating full fat yogurt.  Or at least the guys in the office tell me I shouldn't.  Apparently even though they down Wendy's burgers for lunch, they are very health-conscious.

So It Has Come to This: Business Park Bulgogi

I used to work in a building that boasted its own shitty cafeteria/diner on the ground floor.  The place started off awful and then, by the time I left that job, was remarkably OK.  One of the things they served "special" on Fridays was dumplings.  It was Dumpling Fridays.

At the time, I didn't know that business park cafeterias depended on this kind of predictability to keep the business of the business park denizens.  But now I know.

It was Friday and I did not want to eat the revolting Friday fish'n'chips from the cafeteria/diner in the building next door.  I wanted something else.  I was wondering if it would be bad form to drive to my old business park for Dumpling Friday. 

The classy grey Business Park Bulgogi Take Out Bag.

Then someone told me that the other cafeteria/diner in the other building next door had dumplings.  Off I went!

When I got there I discovered that it was California Roll Friday. Dumplings were on Tuesday:  Dumpling Tuesdays.  Wednesdays were Bim Bim Bap Wednesdays.  I don't know what Thursdays and Mondays are.  But I did find out that they have a "standing" special of Beef Bulgogi.  The lady behind me in line said it was good, and I figured it couldn't be much worse than the barely-edible fish'n'chips at that other place.

The bulgogi wasn't bad.  Apparently the proprietress makes her own marinade and it's a family secret.  Or it's from a bottle and she's trying to maintain an air of mystery and authenticity to have a one-up on the greasy spoon in the other building.  And unlike the other cafeteria/diner in the other building, this place had Sriracha sauce.  Sriracha:  The Miracle Condiment That Makes Everything Taste Awesome -- including Business Park Bulgogi. 

Floor Pancakes: Best Laid Plans

What's that Robbie Burns poem about best laid plans?  "The best laid plans of mice and men gang-a-lang-a-lay"? 

And now I've angered the entire membership of the Robbie Burns society. 

Thankfully I didn't confuse him with Robbie Williams the way I usually do.  Then I bet I would get hate mail. 

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

Actually I wouldn't because I doubt anyone from either the Robbie Burns society or the Robbie Williams fan club reads this.

It was a Saturday morning, and Spousal Unit and I thought it would be great fun to make pancakes with The Toddler.  But unlike the other weekend mornings when we made pancakes with The Toddler, The Toddler did not cooperate.  Flour went everywhere, eggs were sacrificed and pancakes were burnt.  And we ended up eating on the play mats.

Did you know that baby wipes remove maple syrup from play mats?  Well now you know.

Finally Pasta!

As a nice Italian Girl, you would have expected that I'd have posted pictures of pasta earlier or more often.  (Actually, maybe I have.  I can't keep track anymore.)  The truth is:  I eat pasta so often, that I don't think it's "special" enough for this blog.   I mean, what's the point about writing about something you eat all the time? 

Did you really think there would be leftovers?

I know what you're thinking -- if you actually exist and are reading this --, you're thinking "What about coffee?  Do you know how many stupid pictures of Chartreuse Mug you've subjected me to?"  But coffee is special!  Coffee is always special!  The mere act of preparing and drinking a coffee is special. 

I would go so far to say that Chartreuse Mug deserves its own blog.  Something like "Life According to Chartreuse Mug".   It's coming.  You don't have to read it -- and I'm sure you won't -- but it's coming.  That's what happens when you offer free blogging.


In other words:  lay off the coffee.

Anyways: pasta.

The other night we made a big vat of meat sauce.  Please note that pasta and meat sauce is not the same as "Pasta Bolognese".  Bolognese sauce is some kind of magic, voodoo, slow-simmer sauce made with pork sausage and minimal tomato.  The Bolognese people are very sensitive about it. 

What we made was ground beef, fried with garlic and hot pepper, covered in pulverised canned tomato and then simmered for 20 minutes, just to warm it up.  Yeah, it sounds lame, but it's pretty damned tasty, especially when you smother it all in ground parmiggiano reggiano and wash it down with red wine.  And who are you to argue with me, a Genuine Italian Girl Who Learned How To Cook From Her Italian Mother? 

And, most importantly, who are you to argue with the clean plates?

Finally! A Starbucks Bleuch That Doesn't Suck.

It took a while, but I finally found a Starbucks VIA bleuch that doesn't totally suck!  Starbucks VIA Tribute Bleuch is pretty OK.  I'm not going to say it's awesome, because it isn't.  The most I can say is that I didn't grimace and go "Euch" on my first sip.  I didn't get that disgusting acidic burnt flavour that is Starbuck's trademark.  It also didn't have a watered-down taste the way the Veranda Bleuch does. It doesn't taste of anything but coffee. Pretty decent, OK coffee.  In fact, I'd say that it tastes a lot like MacDonald's new coffee.

The espresso cup is amazed that the culturally insensitive mug was emptied of its contents.

Now you may be wondering why the hell I keep buying Starbucks VIA Bleuch when I obviously dislike it.  Well, it's because of all the instant coffees, it's the only one that doesn't taste absolutely hideous.  Most instants taste like coffee-flavoured syrup dissolved in water.  They have this weird, empty aftertaste that makes you question why anyone not stuck on a submarine in the South Pacific circa 1944 would agree to drink this shit.  It also confirms that instant Karma doesn't exist because the marketing geniuses who convinced people not stuck on a submarine in the South Pacific circa 1944 to drink this shit weren't automatically struck by lightning or hit by giant boulders on their ways home.

Starbucks VIA at least tastes like real coffee.  It tastes like Starbucks shitty coffee, yes, but coffee nonetheless.