Access to the g-friend’s parental unit mobile (parent’s car), combined with a basic lack of essential nutrients, led me to spend over $100 in an orgy of food shopping on Saturday. I even used a grocery cart, which I usually contend feels too domesticated and gluttonous, rather than a hand basket.
Was the sig. other’s turn to visit this weekend and we stumbled across a small Japanese restaurant next to the theatre downtown Friday eve. Starving for food and on a budget, the sandwich board outside hooked us: dishes from $6-$8. Didn’t know how to pronounce half of them, but through the foggy windows could make out a decent number of Japanese and middle-aged Anglo clientele inside. I had a sweet and sour chicken soup with what could vaguely be considered imitation crabmeat; the girlfriend had the beef equivalent. The decor of the place was overall mom-and-pops: plastic table cloths, kitchen in view and a virtual wallpaper of hand-written, felt-marker, neon signs informing us of every special on the menu from Mondays to Sundays. Big portions. Tea incl. If you’re hungry and cheap, recommended. But not highly recommended.
Anyways, Saturday’s trip to Thriftys broke my vow to Eat the House Dry. This project periodically pops up when my income is slim and I feel the urge to purge my cupboard of misc. foodstuffs that have been accumulating since high school. Items like canned bamboo shoots, frozen hash browns, taco seasoning and discount mayonnaise. The sort of items that sneak into your possession from mass-mail sample packs, after BBQ potlucks, during moments of questionable appetites or adventurous forays into cook books. So I become determined to Eat the House Dry before I swipe the card at another grocery store.
But after a month of beans and rice seasoned with salt, I cave. Eating whatever is on hand gets depressing.
And the Sat. martini party at a co-worker’s fine house in the Jubilee area was well worth the walking and busing there. Arrived at the very suave hour of 11 with literally a straw lattice picnic basket, of which contained:
- 2 wine glasses (tried to find real martini glasses at Value Village to no avail)
- 1 litre cranberry juice
- 1 litre pineapple juice
- 1 small container lime juice (in those cool little squirt bottles shaped like a lime)
- 1 plastic coffee tumbler (for mixing)
- 1 plastic measuring cup (taken from my protein powder)
- 1 mickey (west-coast mickey) vodka
- 1 mickey Triple Sec
- 1 6-page print out of directions to party and martini recipes
Spent the next 2.5 hours smoozing with fellow co-workers, their friends and their roommates. There was also an 11-year-old black pug (dog) named I think Jessabel that took to the girlfriend more than I. Was officially made a member of the Buffalo Club and ate some yummy garlic cheese bread. We (g-friend and I) were the last to leave.
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