A Case of the Runs

I got to cross off a " Bucket List " item recently. It reads: " Get food from one of those trendy food trucks " Living near Los Angeles, these trucks are VERY popular.  I've had food from one of those old school "roach coach" taco trucks, but in recent years, food trucks serving everything from cupcakes to pancakes have been rolling around the streets in Southern California. Even after all this time (a couple of years?) since they became popular, I have not engaged in trendy-food-truck-eatage.  I've had a couple close calls, but no dice. Close call #1: Kogi came to my work.  Yes, it came STRAIGHT to me, but the line was off-putting, and I needed to get back to work! Close call #2: I was driving home from work one day and saw this one called Buttermilk on the side of the road.  I pulled over, hoping for some of their red velvet pancakes.  No such luck... they weren't open!! So I pretty much gave up on the whole food truck idea, unt...

This is generally a place for games (e.g., skee ball, arcade games) and sports-watching, so you can imagine that reviewing a place like Dave & Buster's is definitely weird. But, to the few people who would consider eating a full-on meal here, this is some of what they have to offer: Above: Grilled chicken with greens, blue cheese, apples, raspberry vinaigrette, and candied pecans. I'm not a fan of blue cheese, so really I just liked the pecans. Above: Philly cheese-steak eggrolls. I didn't try these, so I don't know what it tastes like, but an interesting concept nonetheless. Above: Chicken tenders and fries with a chipotle sauce. Fries with dipping of most kinds are favored by me! Above: A cone of sweet potato fries with ranch/honey mustard/ketchup. I found these fries too sweet and not crispy enough. But anything dipped in ranch... = :$ I don't eat this type of food all that often, so it's nice once in a while! P.S. Happy birthday to my mom ...

Inspired by some almond bars I ate recently , I was on a quest to find a recipe for an almond bar. Well, I wasn't having much luck on Google , so I settled for ANY kind of almond bar I could find. I finally found one at Allrecipes.com . This was my last baking endeavor of 2010, poorly documented because I had a breakup to tend to (not mine!) and a puppy to take out to potty. Above: I actually rounded up everything before I started... for once! Ignore the oil, pepper, and salt in the background... those are definitely NOT a part of this recipe! By the way, the "pork fu" container actually contains sugar. Above: I wish I had taken a picture of the bars before cutting them (it came out beautifully clean), but this will have to do. I put them in clear treat bags with curled ribbon for "The Ukrainian"'s family. Above: This was my camera 's best attempt at getting a shot of the texture. I was a bit stunned at how pale these almond bars are, but they ...

Thinking about LA Marathon and my past experiences with that race, I increasingly fixate on the following goals that I have for this race: 1. 4:30 or better (my PR is 4:19) 2. No injuries. 3. "The Ukrainian" getting 3:30 or better (he says he'll ideally hit 3:20, which is his PR) -- and yes, his goal has become my goal, because if he does not achieve it, I'll be hearing about it again My training has been admittedly less than it should be , but I have come to realize that "less is [probably] more." And frankly, I don't think I can handle any more than this. Last week, I fell victim to a mysterious case of extreme fatigue and lack of appetite toward the end of the week. Given that I HAVE been eating/sleeping better than usual and had no other symptoms, I figure I just ate something and got a bug of some sort. Combined with work/finding a job stress, begging people to participate in my dissertation research, vamping up for classes again (YUCK), a...