Play My Cards Right » Food

Perception

Luke — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 16:21:49 +0000

I’m beginning to believe that my perception of my physical self changes radically based on my workout and eating routines, regardless of actual, physical changes.

Bistro 19

Luke — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 02:57:37 +0000

Tonight was date night and we had a chance to visit Bistro 19 in Mt. Lebanon. To sum it up, upscale suburban? The menu was decent enough but there seems to be no real focus. Some chicken, some veal, some fish, a …southwestern barbecue salad? We split a pear and plum salad that had candied walnuts and blue cheese and it was pretty good, though I would have liked a bit of oil and vinegar to sop up with the dry bread they gave us. My almond chicken with brie sauce and risotto was quite good, but came with the saltiest side of spinach I’ve ever eaten. Dawn had the Bistro burger, which was a decent size and overall a nice burger. Wine doesn’t really interest us and that is one of their pitches so I guess we can’t say we have a complete picture. For the price, I can’t say it was completely worth it.

Dinner Time

Luke — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:37:09 +0000

Sooooooo we tried to go out to dinner with Max tonight. For the first time, just Mom and Dad and Baby went out to El Campesino and we assumed, incorrectly, that Max would be well behaved. Usually when we eat dinner we keep him occupied with a biscuit and some toys and he’ll keep more or less quiet while we quickly scarf down our food. And usually when we go out for whatever reason he is too distracted to get upset. Perhaps because it was just the three of us tonight, or perhaps he’s grown out of it, he basically started yelling as soon as we stopped paying attention to him. I vowed not to be “that family” that brings out a whiney baby to dinner and keeps everyone else from enjoying their meal, but tonight I broke that vow. Thankfully it was good friday and the place was basically empty. Maybe we’ll wait a few more years.

Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Buttercream

Luke — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:37:49 +0000

Got the recipe from The Craft of Baking

Dawn Mixing the Icing

In the Oven

Fin

Melty Peanut Butter Buttercream

As usual, our icing came out runny. In this case I blame the Kirkland Organic Creamy Peanut butter we get from Costco. It is fantastic peanut butter but continues to not work for baking (peanut butter cookies excluded).

Winter Weight Gain

Luke — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:59:26 +0000

I stepped on the scale today and was pretty dismayed at what I saw. It wasn’t unexpected- between bouts of illness and Max keeping us up at night, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting back into any kind of routine- exercise or otherwise. I’ve also pretty much completely reverted to my old bad habits, but with the added negative of bingeing on carbs. I’ve always loved sugary foods but at some point during my initial weight loss, the occasional sugar binge somehow transformed into the all to frequent sugar lust.

So I’m going back to a food diary. Nothing too extreme, yet. I’ve never been one to count calories but as my last weight loss came due to routine workouts, cutting portions and eating slowly, I plan on just monitoring servings. I’m basing it off of my current PBT but probably keeping it in a spreadsheet rather than online. For some reason ease of use never really transferred when it came to food logging on Blood Team. So starting today, it begins again. Lets hope I can stick to it.

Found in the Dairy Aisle

Luke — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:17:06 +0000

Longo's Pizza Crust

Pittsburgh Poutine

Luke — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:36:35 +0000

Milk Crumbs

Luke — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 02:11:55 +0000

Over the last week I’ve been slowly assembling the ingredients to create these Blueberry-and-Cream cookies from Momofuku Milkbar. We ended up using some incredibly sweet dried blueberries I picked up at Costco. I should have gone for unsweetened because they were practically Mike & Ikes they were so sweet and chewy. We also had to pick up some powdered milk for the “Milk Crumbs,” and I ended up buying a huge box of the stuff which I will likely never use again. We also ran out of parchment paper and I substituted corn syrup for glucose. Overall they came out pretty well, but they’re also a bit burnt due to the lack of parchment paper.

Probably not worth the money I spent on them but it was a fun little experiment.

Milk Crumbs

Baking

Two Sticks of Butter, 1.5 cups of sugar

The Final Product

Oh yeah about Mallorca

Luke — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 02:40:42 +0000

They gave me this drink they called a Mallorca Coffee, the waiter described it to me but I was not prepared for what I got:

Coffee
Kahlua
Bailey’s
Whipped Cream
Cinnamon

Delicious girl drinky goodness. Screw their giant wine-list.

Also this came out for iPhone and iPod Touch today. Buy it!

Faded Class (A Visit to Pittsburgh’s Mallorca)

Luke — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:51:37 +0000

We went to Mallorca this evening to celebrate our anniversary/Valentine’s day, and while it was good enough, it had that vibe that a lot of older restaurants that have had a good reputation for a long time do: It was a dusty, dingy old place with mediocre food.

I’ve been to a bunch of these places around the city although they are by no means solely the domain of Pittsburgh. The waitstaff is well dressed, usually in service tuxes. They have a nice wine list and linens. They have valet service and a coat check. You see a lot of young, inexperienced couples as well as handfuls of older locals who seem to know the staff. The decor is wallpaper and painted wood, and in this case the paint was chipped. Around the room lights had burned out and were not replaced. The hallway to the restrooms was filled with hardware and the men’s restroom itself had that vaguely damp, shiny painted floor and unkept toilets.

When our waiter rattled off a huge list of specials, we were intrigued. Tons of seafood, wild boar, lamb shanks, duck. I had the lamb shanks and Dawn the duck, and when it arrived it was…eh. I’m not too well schooled in lamb but what I received was too fatty, not very well seasoned and just kind of blah. The duck was ok. Our salads were smothered in thousand island dressing, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was eating a Big Mac. Sides came eventually and while the rice was good, the mixed vegetables seemed thrown together and old. They also served homemade potato chips and they tasted fine but by the time they got to us they were soggy. And why chips anyway?

Ultimately, it was a fine dinner, but I was struck by how restaurants of a certain vintage seem to fall into this trap where they stop caring about how the place looks or how food culture has changed and are content to do things as they always have. They coast along on their reputation as the place literally falls apart and then one day the lights are out and the doors locked, as they’ve idled their way into oblivion.