Category Archives: Food

Getting One Nice Dinner In With Family (or Finally Bringing My Parents To My Favorite LA Restaurant)

Posted on May 18, 2022 | Comments Off on Getting One Nice Dinner In With Family (or Finally Bringing My Parents To My Favorite LA Restaurant)

When my parents come to LA to visit me, we don’t usually do fancy meals. We do tend to eat out at restaurants since my old kitchen was so small and tough to cook in (hopefully I can start making more meals for my parents in my nice kitchen!), but we don’t go out to anything super nice. We’ve done a lot of simple meals like ordering salads or going to a cafe or casual restaurant. But it’s rare for us to go out for a nice meal since we are usually busy with other things.

But for my parents’ trip this time, I knew we wouldn’t have a ton of things we had to get done so I decided we should go out for a nicer dinner one night. And I wanted to finally take them to my favorite LA restaurant: Wood & Vine.

I have only gone to Wood & Vine for dinner once that wasn’t a time I was also going to a musical and had a specific time that I had to be out of there. So I knew we’d be able to relax and enjoy our time there. And I also knew that we would probably be spoiled because the manager Wally always sends over things for me to try that either I didn’t order or aren’t on the menu yet.

We went to dinner on Saturday on the earlier side, so we didn’t have too much traffic to deal with. And we lucked out into a parking meter that was just a block away, so we didn’t have to pay too much for parking. And since we made our reservation for when they opened, there weren’t a lot of people there when we arrived and we had the patio to ourselves!

We ended up ordering most of what I got the last time I was there. We had the spinach dip, caesar salad, risotto, and short rib. All of those were amazing and just as delicious as they always are. And my parents agreed that everything was so good!

And we got one off the menu dish sent over for us to try. It was oxtail served over potatoes and had spicy greens on top of it.

I don’t know if I’ve had oxtail before, I don’t remember having it but I might just not remember. But this was delicious (but a bit spicy for me) and I am so glad I got to try it because I don’t know if I would have gotten it if I saw it on the menu.

And even though we didn’t order dessert, we were sent some. We got this incredible dessert plate with ice cream sandwiches, chocolate mousse cake, and ice cream.

We were all so full with everything we ordered, but of course, there is always some extra room for dessert so we tried a little bit of everything on the plate. We all were so full and probably ate too much, but it was worth it! I always love everything I get at Wood & Vine, and this time was no exception. And I’m so happy my parents enjoyed it as much as I did.

I don’t get a lot of chances to share some of my favorite LA things with my family, so I’m glad we got to do this when they were here this past time and have a nice celebratory dinner after doing all the random work we did in my new place.

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Default ThumbnailThe Bodyguard and Bone Marrow (or An Amazing Dinner At Wood & Vine) Default ThumbnailGetting Spoiled At Dinner (or Another Musical Night) Default ThumbnailAnother Dinner And A Show Night (or Classic Musicals And Yummy Food) Default ThumbnailPart 1 Of A Family Visit (or Letting My Parents Relax A Bit) Default ThumbnailBelated Birthday Dinner (or We Don’t Mind It’s Not Totally Free Anymore) Default ThumbnailBook Of Mormon and Marrow (or Another Night Out At The Pantages)

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Getting Spoiled At Dinner (or Another Musical Night)

Posted on May 5, 2022 | Comments Off on Getting Spoiled At Dinner (or Another Musical Night)

I’ve been so happy ever since the musical season started up again. It’s been a bit weird to be in big crowds, but I’m getting more used to it and I’m grateful that the theater has some protocols in place to try to keep people safe. And since I don’t really go out a ton right now (which I know I need to change), I do try to make these nights at the show fun nights out.

The rest of the delayed 2020 season is still happening for my tickets and I still have a few more shows to go before the next season. And I’m thinking I might try to get tickets for the next season with a different friend since Dani won’t be in LA for the shows. But I have time to think about that for a bit. For now, I’m just enjoying each show I get to see.

This past weekend, the musical was “Tootsie”. I am pretty familiar with the movie and while it is a bit problematic I was curious what they would do for the musical. I asked around to see who wanted to take Dani’s ticket, and my friend Jodi was able to come with me again. And since we had so much fun at Wood & Vine the last time we went, we decided to meet up for dinner before the show again!

I am very lucky that I have gotten to know the manager at Wood & Vine and he tends to spoil me and my friends whenever we are there for dinner. I never assume that will happen, but every time I’m there for dinner there are more things that I want to try than I know I have room for in my stomach.

We decided to order the spinach and artichoke dip, short rib, and vegetable risotto. But we were surprised when we started getting a bunch of food that we didn’t order along with what we did order.

We were sent some things from the upcoming menu to try out before they were available. We tried a fried chicken slider on a charcoal bun, a beet and goat cheese salad, and a summer peach and candied nuts salad. They were all so good! The slider was spicy but not too overpowering. I don’t really like beets, but the dressing on the beet salad was delicious. And honestly, the best thing was the peach salad. It was so fresh and flavorful. I hope it’s on the menu soon because I want to make sure I order it again the next time I’m there! I’ve never had anything bad at Wood & Vine, but I swear they keep getting better and better and I’m loving all the new things I’ve been able to try!

After dinner, we headed over to the show at the Dolby. I do miss the shows being at the Pantages because it’s so much easier just to walk across the street after dinner instead of having to drive to a second location. Normally, it’s not a big deal. But this time, we were just hitting all the lights wrong and there was a line of traffic to get into the parking lot. This ended up being the first time I’ve ever been late for a show. We arrived just as the doors closed and we were able to watch the opening number from the TVs in the lobby so we didn’t completely miss the beginning. But it was frustrating that we missed seeing it from our seats. But as soon as that first number was done, we were able to go to our seats and enjoy the rest of the show from there.

They did make some changes to the show that went into some of the problematic things from the movie. But it still has some things that made me cringe a bit. It’s not a bad show, but it just has a few moments that really took me out of enjoying it because it didn’t sit right with me. But the performances were really good, especially with some of the supporting actors. I loved the actor who played the roommate. He was so funny and did a great job with the lines he had that called out the situation of the show.

I think Jodi and I felt the same about the show. It wasn’t bad, but it felt a bit dated because of some of the themes. But we still both enjoyed it. And going to a show still feels like a treat to me.

I have a few more shows to go for sure, and then I’ll have to decide what to do about the next season. But I think even if I don’t get the full season next time, there are friends who want to see some of the shows and I’m getting better about coordinating things so I don’t miss seeing things I want to go to. And even if I only go to a handful of shows in the next season, I know I will appreciate each one I get to go to because they really are special nights for me.

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Another Unexpected Part Of Moving (or I Don’t Know Why I Didn’t Plan Better For This)

Posted on April 22, 2022 | Comments Off on Another Unexpected Part Of Moving (or I Don’t Know Why I Didn’t Plan Better For This)

As I’ve written several times now, I’m finding a lot of things about moving that aren’t the way I thought they would be or how I remembered them from before. And I know a lot of these things are also related to how I’m doing my move. I’ve been taking my time and slowly getting things from one place to another. I have done a majority of the move within the last week, but it’s still been over multiple days instead of doing everything at once. And maybe this wasn’t the right way to do things even though I thought it would be easier because I keep finding random things that I wasn’t exactly prepared for. And this one is one I found out after I started mainly living at the condo this week.

At my old place, over the last few weeks, I tried to be pretty careful with what I got from the grocery store. I didn’t want to have a lot of food I needed to move over with me, especially if they were frozen items or things that were going to be opened and potentially make a mess. So the last few weeks I have been very conscious about what food I already have and was trying to make more meals from that instead of going out and getting more stuff. I still have some food at the old place I need to move over this weekend, but I got things down to only a handful of things left.

And when I moved my furniture on Sunday to the condo, I wasn’t sure at the time if I would sleep at the condo or at the old house. So I wasn’t really prepared with food at the condo. But I figured that would be easy enough to deal with so I got some takeout food for dinner that night. But because I hadn’t planned, I also didn’t have food for Monday and I wouldn’t be able to get to the store until after work. So I had to order some delivery food (I got a bowl from Chipotle) for lunch that day until I could go get a few groceries to get me through the week.

I didn’t get anything too crazy since I knew this week would be hectic and I would want things that would be easy and fast to have. So most of what I got was prepared items, things I could microwave, or shelf-stable items. Not necessarily the healthiest or best options, but I knew this would just be for now and not the way I would continue to eat.

And for the most part, this plan has worked ok for me. I’m having some weird food issues right now and I’m struggling to eat at times, but I do go through those phases occasionally and I think this is also just the stress manifesting itself in my body. But the issue I’m running into now is that my kitchen really isn’t set up for making food if I wanted to right now.

So much of my stuff is still in boxes. I know that I need to work on unpacking more, but I also wanted to plan out a bit where I would want to put things. But I might have to wait on that and just get things unpacked for now and work on the organization later. But also, not everything is here yet. I didn’t think too much about which boxes I was moving on which day since I knew I would eventually get everything over here. But until yesterday, I had no pots and pans. I was missing bowls until Wednesday but had plates. I didn’t think to bring stuff from my spice rack until later in the week. Honestly, I have no clue what parts of my kitchen are still in the old place and what is in boxes here at this point. I really need to work on getting stuff put away or at least where I can figure out what I have so I can start planning normal meals and not just what is easy to grab.

Just like everything else stressing me out with this move, I know this is temporary and I will have all my kitchen things soon and I can start cooking in my new and amazing kitchen! And I’m excited to cook in this kitchen since everything is new and will work properly. Plus, I have so much more space to prep so I won’t feel as cramped as I try to make things that involve more ingredients or steps.

And if I’m having some not-so-great food days for right now, I know it’s going to be ok. I need to allow myself to be a bit off from what I know I should be doing while I’m in the process of settling in. This doesn’t mean I’m going to go crazy, but I’m also not going to stress myself out more if I end up having another day where I need delivery food for lunch because I still don’t have my kitchen together.

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My First Challenge of 2022 (or Trying To Get Back To Better Habits)

Posted on January 4, 2022 | Comments Off on My First Challenge of 2022 (or Trying To Get Back To Better Habits)

The past few years I’ve been setting monthly challenges, and I’m going to continue doing that this year. I think it’s good to have daily, weekly, monthly, and annual challenges to help me accomplish quite a bit during a year. And I’ll be going over my goals/challenges for 2022 later this week, but I wanted to start with my January challenge since I think this is something a lot of people are doing.

But first, a quick check about my challenge for December. I challenged myself to speak up more for myself. I knew I needed to do this for so many aspects of my life, and I’m proud to say that I feel so much more confident speaking my mind and not fearing things. I do know there can be consequences for speaking up, but the things I’m speaking up about have consequences that I think are ones I’m willing to accept. Like with dating, speaking up means I might not have a date or a second date because I won’t tolerate specific behavior. And while I am trying to be ok with this idea, I at least can speak up more. I might be sad to not have as many dates because of this, but this is about quality over quantity. I don’t need to put up with someone who says something that is offensive or that doesn’t want similar things to what I want.

Obviously I can’t speak up quite as freely in all aspects of my life, but I am finding ways to make sure my voice is heard even when I have to do it less directly. And it’s reassuring to see positive outcomes when I do speak up so I have less fear each time I have to do it.

My December challenge was a bit more of a mental one, and my challenge for January is a bit more about my physical health (and maybe a bit of my mental health). And it’s also a modification on a challenge I did a few years ago. Several years ago, I challenged myself not to order delivery food for a month. And while I would love to say I won’t order delivery food for a month, with my crazier schedule I know that might not be possible. So I had to add a bit more of a challenge one way to reduce the challenge another way.

So for January, I want to try to limit both my delivery food and take out food as much as possible. This means that I don’t want to do pickup or drive thru options either. Sometimes, if I’m out running errands after work and I see a short line at In-n-Out, it’s just easier to get a hamburger than to go home and see what I can make for myself. But I’m slipping into bad habits again and doing this more often than I would like. I am not doing delivery food too often, but I know I need to cut back on that too.

But I am doing things to make this challenge a bit easier on me. I’m making sure I have easy to make meals at home. Frozen dinners aren’t the best, but they are better (and cheaper) than going out to eat or bringing food home. And this is a way to do a little bit of meal planning without putting too much pressure on this idea.

I do want to work on my eating habits and what types of food I eat, but I know I need to do baby steps because I can revert to old habits easily. And if something doesn’t seem too extreme, it’s a little easier for me to maintain. So that’s why I’m going a bit easier on myself and not saying I have to completely eliminate this from my life. I just want to limit it. And I think that is a good way for me to set myself up for success with this first challenge of 2022.

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Another Low-Key Thanksgiving (or Doing Some Of My Traditions)

Posted on November 26, 2021 | Comments Off on Another Low-Key Thanksgiving (or Doing Some Of My Traditions)

Since my family celebrated our Thanksgiving early, I didn’t have things to do with my family on actual Thanksgiving Day. I wasn’t sure what I’d do for that day, but I knew I’d have the day off of work so I wanted to make some plans for myself. And even though this wasn’t my traditional Thanksgiving, I think I did a pretty good job for myself.

I allowed myself to sleep in. But since I’m so used to getting up so early every day, sleeping in for me now is closer to what time I used to get up before the pandemic when I had my old schedule. But it was still nice to have extra sleep and I also was able to be lazy in bed for a while instead of rushing to get things done.

Next I went to a workout at Orangetheory. I had my family workout 2 weeks ago, but I didn’t want to miss my Thanksgiving day workout. I’ll write more about this in my workout recap, but it was a nice thing to do that felt like a normal Thanksgiving to me. Last year, I did work out at home, but going to the studio is so different and I’m glad I had the chance to do that this year.

The next thing I did was to go over to my condo to do a bit of work. I am going to be selling some appliances, so I needed to get good photos I could use to list them. And I wanted to try to do a few other tasks around the condo that helps to prep things for the renovations that will be coming up. But since I was going to be at the condo for a while and I knew traffic wouldn’t be too crazy, I asked my friend Robert if he wanted to come check out my new place. I hadn’t had any friends come over to see my condo, so it was exciting to have someone see the place I’ve been talking about! And since his background is in design, he and I were working on some ideas for how to arrange my furniture. I’ve already been excited about my new place, but having a friend come over and be excited too took my excitement to a new level!

And the last part of my day was to cook and have a bit of some Thanksgiving food. I didn’t make as much as I did last year and I didn’t want to go too crazy. So I made green beans with shallots and bacon (one of my favorites). And instead of doing a big turkey breast like last year, I found turkey breast cutlets at the grocery store when I was seeing what options I could make. And while I was at the store, I looked for some recipes and found a simple one that only required a few extra ingredients. So I made that too and had a pretty basic Thanksgiving dinner, but it was still delicious!

And after dinner, I just relaxed and watched tv before going to bed. I didn’t do anything crazy or fancy, but it was still a nice day for me. And since having a full day off of work is rare for me, even just that felt like a luxury and I was happy to have a chance to relax.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving doing whatever you did! And if you cooked, I hope you had success like I did!

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Returning To A Birthday Tradition (or A Rare Meal Out)

Posted on August 17, 2021 | Comments Off on Returning To A Birthday Tradition (or A Rare Meal Out)

I’ve had my birthday tradition of eating at Truxton’s with my birthday twin for a long time now. I say every year how much I love having this tradition of going to dinner with Joanna because we always set aside this time for each other each year. We don’t necessarily get to hang out as much as we’d like to over the year, but this time is sacred and we will always make sure we find a way to have this dinner.

Even last year when things were so unclear with the pandemic, we made it happen. We might have had a picnic instead of what we were used to and we were both being so cautious and careful about everything we did, but we still had our dinner. And at that point last year, I was seeing so few people that any real face-to-face time was special to me.

So even though things have taken a turn for the slightly worse with the pandemic recently, we knew we would still have our birthday dinner. We didn’t decide until the day of what the final plan would be. For me, I really did want to eat there if possible, but I wasn’t sure how Joanna would feel about it. But since they had tables outside that were set pretty far apart from each other, we agreed that eating there would be nice and safe enough.

We ended up arriving at the restaurant within about a minute of each other, and since there was nobody sitting outside at the time, we were able to be seated quickly. Since the pandemic, I’ve rarely gone to eat at a restaurant. I’ve gotten take out and delivery, but this dinner was only the 3rd time since March of 2020 that I have sat down at a restaurant and had a meal. Even if this wasn’t our birthday dinner, that alone would have made this feel so special.

Even though we have been going to Truxton’s for a long time, we always still see what is on the menu in case there are new things. And I’m not sure if they changed things earlier but last year it was a limited menu or if these were more recent changes, but there were so many new items on the menu this time!

We pretty much always get monkey bread to start and then share a dessert, plus we each get our own entrees. But this time, there was a new burrata grilled cheese sandwich that sounded so good to both of us! So we decided we’d get 2 sandwich meals and then each take half. So we got the grilled cheese and the turkey avocado club (which is a sandwich that I have gotten before and really like).

And I’m glad we split the sandwiches because the grilled cheese was so good but so rich! I never could have the entire thing myself!

Besides enjoying a nice dinner out and having a good meal, of course I loved getting to catch up with Joanna too. Both of us haven’t had a ton going on because of how we are being careful, but there is always something to update each other on. I was filling her in on some random dating stories that happened recently and she was telling me about a trip she was going to go on soon. Despite all the craziness going on in the world around us, this dinner was a nice sense of normalcy that I feel I don’t get to have that often. And while I can’t escape thinking about everything happening in the world, it was so nice to have just a bit of time to focus on something else that is more positive.

And yes, it was almost a free meal. The completely free meal isn’t really an option for us, but that’s ok. It ended up being about $5 each after our discount and we each left $20 (so our server got a $30 tip). The meal was beyond worth the $20 each!

And considering that our last 2 traditions (our birthday last year and cheesecake around the new year) had to be done in an unusual way, getting to have this almost normal dinner tradition was really one of those things that made me hopeful and grateful that more normal things might be coming soon.

I have no clue if by the end of this year or the beginning of next year things will be normal enough for us to have our cheesecake dinner the way we are used to. Worst case, we find another way to do it like we did the last time. But at least for our birthday dinner, we did get to return to an almost normal way of us celebrating.

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A Return To Wood & Vine (or Feeling Even More Like Things Are Normal)

Posted on May 6, 2021 | Comments Off on A Return To Wood & Vine (or Feeling Even More Like Things Are Normal)

There are so many things that I haven’t been able to do for the past year. Sometimes it’s because I didn’t feel safe doing them and sometimes it’s because the place was closed or there was no way to get there. But recently, things are starting to slowly open up and I am feeling a bit safer about going out and not being just in my own little bubble at home. And one of the things that I haven’t really been able to do in the past year was to go out to dinner at a restaurant.

I’ve gotten takeout and delivery from restaurants, but I haven’t been going to restaurants to eat there. I know so many places have outdoor seating and have even been able to expand their seating to fit more people, it’s just something I haven’t done. But when I got an email from the manager at Wood & Vine that they were going to reopen, I knew I had to make a reservation to eat there!

Wood & Vine had been closed since things shut down. Even though they have a great patio space, they decided to stay closed until they knew that they could make it safe for both the guests and the staff. I really did respect that choice. If they had opened before I felt safe to go back, I would have supported them by buying a gift certificate or getting take out if they had offered it. But the timing worked out perfectly for me being fully vaccinated and their new opening date. So of course, I was going to go!

My friend Dani came with me since she and I were usually there together before a show at the Pantages. The theater isn’t open yet (right now, it’s looking like they will be back in October), but I was excited to have a nice dinner out at a restaurant I love and making that the main event of the evening.

While Wood & Vine was closed, they did some renovations on the restaurant. We were seated on the patio and they did a beautiful job making it look amazing! And even though it meant they had to reduce the number of seats available, they really made sure that the tables were at least 6 feet apart to keep everyone safe.

We made our reservation for right after they opened since neither of us mind eating on the earlier side. Plus, we knew we were in for a great meal and didn’t want to feel rushed.

The menu has changed a bit since they closed. There were still a lot of favorites that we recognized, but there were some delicious-sounding new things too. And they currently have a welcome back special that includes a drink, fish tacos, short ribs, and dessert. While the special sounded great, Dani and I decided to pick a few things out from the menu.

We ended up getting more food than we ordered because the manager sent some things over to us! We had ordered the fried ricotta, spinach and artichoke dip, short ribs, and scallops. And we were also sent over the fish tacos and 3 different desserts! We were so spoiled!

Everything was delicious. Even just writing about it now is making me crave the food again! I wish I was a better writer so I could describe the food better. But it was perfectly cooked and with the perfect spices to make each bite so full of flavor. And all the desserts were so luxurious. The butterscotch is something we’ve had many times before and it was just as good as I remembered it. And the mousse and poundcake were so chocolately. I was so full after dinner, but it was beyond worth it.

And it wasn’t just the food that was amazing. You could tell how happy all the staff is to be back. I know that people were ready to get back to work, but you can tell that they are happy that things are safer now than if they had opened up sooner. And knowing how happy they are made me feel much better about going to dinner. If I go out to dinner any time soon, I think I might try to make it at Wood & Vine even though it’s not super close to me. I love being able to support a restaurant that really does care about its customers and staff.

And of course, throughout dinner we got to chat with the manager, Wally. Getting to catch up with him was amazing and he was telling us all about the renovations to the space and the changes to the menu. You could tell how proud he was that the restaurant was open again. And while we were there, we could see that all the customers were just as excited to be there for dinner as we were.

Wood & Vine has been a regular part of my routine for so long, and it was wonderful to be able to have that back in my life too.

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Still Doing More Planning (or Yet Another Almost Repeat Challenge)

Posted on May 4, 2021 | Comments Off on Still Doing More Planning (or Yet Another Almost Repeat Challenge)

Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing monthly challenges for so long or maybe it’s because the pandemic almost feels like a restart, but I’ve been doing a lot of repeat challenges lately. I’m ok with repeating them because it’s clear that I still have work to do on a previous challenge. And it seems like each time I do a repeat challenge, there is a little bit that is different from any other time I challenged myself to do it.

In April, I had a challenge that was similar to past ones. My challenge was to figure out what my real free time was each day. Because I had been working on scheduling things, I started to feel like I wasn’t having free time in my day even though I knew it was in my schedule. So I focused even more on making my schedule clear to me and easy to access so I could tell when I could step away from work things for the day.

I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to accomplish this, but I actually found a tool at the beginning of April that has been a huge game-changer for me. It’s a little calendar app called Itsycal. It syncs with different calendars you might have and adds a little calendar with a daily schedule breakdown to your computer toolbar. I know that I could just open up the calendar app on any of my devices to see what my schedule is that day, but having it so easy to access has been great for me. I review it several times a day to make sure that I’m planning ahead for my day. I’m able to see when I’m done with scheduled work each day very clearly. And even though I do have things that I have to do each day that are not on my calendar, it still is so helpful to see all the things that have to be done at a certain time.

I do still need to work on feeling like I can step away from my computer when I know I’m done with work. But I’m getting better about being very clear about what I have to do and what I can wait to do if I’m feeling like I need a break.

And just like I’ve been doing a lot, this month my monthly challenge is another one that I’m bringing back from the past. I’ve had a lot of different monthly challenges about meal planning and cooking. I have gotten better about cooking because of the pandemic and that is something I am proud of. But meal planning is still something that overwhelms me a bit. The idea of planning for every day in a week at once is a lot. But I recently saw something online that inspired me to try meal planning in a different way.

This person had created weekly meal plans to pick from each week. They designed a full 7-day meal plan (their plan may have just been dinners, which is probably what I’d do too) and added it to their collection. Yes, it’s a lot more work upfront than regular meal planning, but after they created all these different weeks it was easy from then on. When they were getting ready to grocery shop for the next week, they picked one of the weekly plans they already created. Other people commented saying they had 6 or 8 weeks planned out and they just rotated from one week to the next so they didn’t even have to think which week to use.

It might still be overwhelming to create weekly meal plans, but I do like the idea of having them ready to go when I’m done with that initial work. I don’t know if I’m going to create enough at first to just rotate through them without needing to make more, but that is a nice goal to have in mind.

So my challenge this month is to at least get started on creating weekly meal plans. I want to see what I can pull together that will make grocery shopping easier and that will allow me to plan a bit more in advance. I don’t feel like I have to be super strict if I create these plans because I do want to have some room to get delivery food or go out to eat with a friend. But to me, the goal of a meal plan isn’t to be perfect but to have a plan in mind. I don’t want to be looking into my fridge or freezer with no clue on what I want to have for dinner.

Hopefully, I can take advantage of some of my newfound free time and get at least a few weeks planned out and maybe start implementing this idea!

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A Virtual Cheesecake Dinner (or Not Letting Anything Stop A Tradition)

Posted on January 14, 2021 | Comments Off on A Virtual Cheesecake Dinner (or Not Letting Anything Stop A Tradition)

As I’ve written about for several years, I have 2 traditions with my friend and birthday twin, Joanna. The first is our birthday dinner at Truxton’s. And the second is our cheesecake dinner around the new year. We turned our birthday dinner into a picnic, but we still got food from Truxton’s. While it didn’t feel exactly the same as what we normally do for our birthday, it was still fitting into our tradition and it made me happy.

When we were together for our birthday, I think we both thought by now things would be a bit more normal. So we assumed we would be having our cheesecake dinner the way that we are used to doing it. But as we all know, we are still very far from normal and it’s even more dangerous to be out with others now. We had decided to order from Cheesecake Factory to have our dinner, but we decided to not have a picnic. It was just safer for us both to be eating at our own homes. But we could still video chat so we could be together.

So we set it up so our food should arrive around the same time. It didn’t quite work out like that, but it wasn’t too bad. My food was to me sooner than Joanna’s food, but I ordered a salad so it was ok to wait a bit. And her food arrived at her house soon after.

It was a little weird to be eating on Zoom, but we both found it easier if we turned off the self-view on our screens. I don’t think I could have eaten while watching myself eat. I knew that Joanna could still see me eat, but somehow that’s different. We both also tried to do a little bit of nicer lighting so we could see each other, but it was nice to be a bit more casual than we normally are when we go out to dinner (for example, neither of us dressed up).

And while it wasn’t the same as being at dinner together, I’m so glad we did it. It was so nice to get to see Joanna and catch up like we normally do. And even though it was a bit odd to eat while on camera, it’s been a while since I’ve had a meal with someone else. So even virtually eating with someone so I wasn’t alone was nice and felt like I wasn’t as alone as I am.

Our conversation was like it always is. We both had a lot of random stuff to catch up on with our lives. And I love getting to catch up and hear all the crazy stories she has and I’m sure she loves my crazy stories too. And because we weren’t at a restaurant and felt like they needed our table or something, our virtual dinner was much longer than our dinners normally are! We were on Zoom together for over 3 hours! But I think we both needed the social time and I’m glad that neither of us needed to rush to something else.

Normally, I take a photo of our cheesecakes because we split cheesecake. We order 2 different slices and have them cut each slice in half so we each get half of each type. But that wasn’t possible for our virtual dinner. We both joked that we should order 2 slices to make it almost the same, but neither of us did (we didn’t need to spend the money or eat 2 pieces of cheesecake). We didn’t discuss our cheesecake choices before we ordered, but we both ended up getting tiramisu cheesecake. And we took a photo over Zoom to be our photo for the dinner.

Even though having a virtual dinner is better than skipping our dinner (we never would have skipped our tradition!), I still wish we could have had dinner together. We both are trying to be hopeful that by our birthday, we will be able to be having a meal in the same place. I don’t know if restaurants will be open (and safe) by then, but at least feeling safe going for a picnic with our food or maybe eating at my house. Just something so we can be in the same space.

But even if we have to do another virtual dinner together, I know we will not let anything stop us from our traditions and this proved that we are both as dedicated to make them happen as possible!

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Cooking My First Thanksgiving Dinner (or Having More Success Than Expected)

Posted on December 2, 2020 | Comments Off on Cooking My First Thanksgiving Dinner (or Having More Success Than Expected)

I got to have a little taste of Thanksgiving with some of the food my parents brought me when they came to see me a few weeks ago. I had missed an early Thanksgiving dinner with my family, and I was really grateful for the leftovers they had for me. But that was a few weeks ago and I wanted to have something special on Thanksgiving Day.

I’ve always been with my family. It’s our big gathering each year and the food is part of the tradition. And while I like almost everything that my family makes (except cranberry sauce in both the homemade and can forms), I knew that if I wanted to make some Thanksgiving food myself that I wasn’t going to make most of it. I had to decide what was most important to me and then go from there. So I thought about what I like and what seemed easiest to do in my little kitchen. And I decided I would do sweet potatoes, green beans, and something with turkey.

I wasn’t expecting to find a lot of turkey options at the store. First, by the time I was shopping, it was close to Thanksgiving. And second, I didn’t want something huge. I was hoping I could find a turkey breast or half turkey breast. But if I couldn’t find that, I knew I could find turkey meatballs and thought that would work too.

But to my surprise, when I went to the store, there was 1 half turkey breast left! So I grabbed it without thinking too much about how to prepare it. I figured it would only require the basics that I knew I had at home, and I could always go to the store again to get spices if I really needed them. Once I got all my groceries home, then I started to figure out how to make them.

The sweet potatoes and green beans were pretty easy. I baked the sweet potatoes the day before and prepared the base (everything but the pecans and marshmallows) and put it in the fridge. And I knew I would do the green beans the day of and it only required me to steam the beans and cook some bacon and onions. But for the turkey, I did a lot of research and found some pretty basic roasting recipes. So I combined those ideas and used that.

Preparing the turkey started the night before. I did a dry brine with salt, pepper, sugar, and garlic powder; and I let it sit uncovered on a platter in my fridge overnight. That was easy enough to do and I tried to stay confident that I could cook it without screwing it up. But I also kept in mind that I was only cooking for myself so if I did screw it up, I could eat a microwave burrito or something.

On Thanksgiving Day, I didn’t have to start anything until a few hours before I wanted to eat. I took the turkey out of the fridge and started to heat up my oven. I put some carrots and onions on a sheet tray to be like a little rack to hold the turkey up. And I added some olive oil to brown the skin. Then into the oven it went and I set a timer to check on it about 45 minutes later (I based the time on what it said online). 45 minutes later, it wasn’t at temperature yet so I let it keep cooking. And I started to get the sides together. I knew I wanted the sweet potatoes to go in while the turkey was resting. And I started to cook the bacon and onions since that would take time.

I was optimistic that I would be done around the same time for everything, but it didn’t work that way. I was pretty off with the timing, but this was the first time I had cooked anything like this. But it was all done at a decent time and I think that I did a pretty good job with my first Thanksgiving meal.

It wasn’t a ton of food, but it was still a lot and it lasted me for several meals. And it came out pretty great. There were a few things I would change if I made this again. The turkey was juicy, but a little salty so I think I needed to use a little less salt in my dry brine. And I forgot to add an acid to the beans, which I think they really could have used. But everything was still really delicious and tasted like Thanksgiving to me! I didn’t make gravy since I didn’t think I needed it. And I didn’t, but I still missed it. Same with stuffing. I missed it but I wasn’t going to make a ton of stuffing just for me.

It was weird eating Thanksgiving food alone, but I’m hopeful that this will be the only year I have to do that. I missed my family and all the stuff we usually do together, but at least I got some food that reminded me of Thanksgiving so I didn’t feel like I skipped the holiday completely. And I did have some family time over Thanksgiving weekend. But I’ll be writing about that tomorrow!

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