Survival

Some of y'all have been probably wondering why there hasn't been any food around here lately. That's because I've basically been doing survival eating. That means nothing too exciting. What's that you ask? Lots of refried beans with whatever is on hand. There was a couple of weeks of artichokes with hummus. (I'm telling you. Once you have tried the hummus, you will never want any other dip for your 'choke.) Tacos from the latino market near work. Fish and chips from the cafeteria near work. And I guess I'd better savor those now since it looks like the office will be moving sometime this year. But maybe more about that another time.

I do feel like I should say thanks to my peeps over at Poulet. They made it possible for an extremely hormonal me to get through this past weekend without cooking. I started off on Thursday evening. That night I picked up half of one of their wonderful rosemary-lemon-garlic chickens. And of course I needed side dishes. I was able to get the last of the roasted eggplant with string beans. Yes, I'm a regular eggplant junkie these days. Oh, and there were these divine roasted yams. Oops. Let me be truthful. The real reason I went on Thursday night was that I had called before leaving work.

"What desserts do you have today?"

"Raspberry cheesecake, carrot cupcakes..."

I know she said something after the cupcakes but I really didn't need to hear more. Because as much as I love the roasted eggplant, I love the carrot cake even more. And so yes, I went in to shop for a meal but it was really all centered around getting the cupcakes. Everything else was incidental. And the said thing is that once I ate the other stuff, I didn't have room for the cupcakes. Yes, I just used a plural. Because I bought two. I have learned from the error of my past ways.

Friday evening I felt like I had been run over by a truck or something like that. It took all my strength to force myself to eat. And once more, the cupcakes remained in the fridge.

Saturday rolled around and I realized that I would need to leave the house. Something about cat food and wanting to live. And there was the drycleaning as well. So the route was stop at the dry cleaners to drop off more stuff, over to the grocery store to get her royal uppityness her favorite food, back to the dry cleaners to pick up the stuff I had dropped off last week, and then on the way home... Yes, you guessed it. Another stop at Poulet. This time for a chicken salad sandwich. And then they had apple, walnut, and cream cheese strudel so of course I needed a piece of that. I was about to leave when I noticed the special was Buffalo chicken -- legs and wings. I asked for a combo. The sandwich got me through Saturday. The Buffalo chicken? Breakfast on Sunday. I kid you not.

And now? Back to survival eating once more. But what I really want to do is to go to Cesar. Emerald gave me a gift certificate for the place last year for my birthday. The thing is that it's too much money for just me. Because I am the kind of chick who will go to a restaurant alone if she really wants to go out for a meal. But Cesar has always been that place to which I go with others. And of course, Dumbest turned out to be just that around that time so there went the idea of an evening out with a boy. While I've gone on a few dates since then, none of them have seemed worthy of my gift certificate. And I'd ask Emerald to come along but she just gave birth a couple of weeks ago. So if any of y'all are feeling like a meal at Cesar, just let me know.

In the meantime, I'm just waiting for the right occasion so that I can use my new favorite word. I never thought that I would write these words but, "Thank you, Diddy."