My New Roommate, Part IV

That’s right, I’m bringing Roman numerals back to the blogosphere.

I take having roommates very seriously. My family and friends are welcome to stay with me whenever they want, but houseguests are one thing, and roommates are a completely different matter. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve never had any horrible roommate situations, but now I’m at a point in my life where I prefer living alone. I don’t want a roommate, I don’t need a roommate.

But there are always exceptions. And that brings us back to the Roman numerals.

Two New Fruits

Last weekend, I tried a delicious fruit that I never tried before: the sumo tangerine. This weekend, I ended up trying two new fruits… how my heart races just typing that sentence!

FRUIT #1: Cara Cara Oranges. I picked these up last weekend at the farmers market. Cara Caras are a variety of navel with a bit of a mysterious past: they’re likely a cross between two other navel varieties, but only one, the Washington navel, is known for certain. Cara Caras were “discovered” in Venezuela in the mid 1970s, and have only been available in the United States since the late 1980s, so they’re a relatively new fruit to the fruit scene. The new fruit on the block:

The distinguishing characteristic of a Cara Cara is that the flesh is pink, as opposed to orange. My Cara Caras weren’t overly pink – I’d say they had a pinkish hue, as opposed to being fully pink, like some pictures I’ve seen online. Even so, the flesh is a very pretty color.

They’re tasty, too. I’m not enough of a citrus connoisseur to describe the taste in too much detail, but they were very sweet and less acidic than other oranges I’ve tried. Oh, and very juicy, too. I bought three Cara Caras, and I ended up eating one, and juicing the other two. And because I busted out my little juicer, I ended up juicing two other pieces of citrus I had lying around…

BONUS FRUIT! Blood Oranges. I’ve bought and enjoyed blood oranges before, and they are a gorgeous piece of fruit. The name is fitting – the insides are the color of blood!

My two blood oranges were tiny – the size of large limes – but I juiced both of them, as well as the two remaining Cara Caras, and ended up with a delightful little blend of fresh-squeezed OJ.

One of the best glasses of OJ I ever had!

FRUIT #2: Mini Kiwi. There’s a Trader Joe’s right next to my new gym, and after my Saturday workout (5 minutes warm-up on treadmill, 45 minutes lifting weights, 16 minutes adaptive motion trainer), I wandered in to purchase some pre-hard-boiled eggs as my post-workout protein fix. I wandered TJ’s a little, and stumbled upon this package, which immediately caught my eye:

I didn’t think twice before buying these guys! They’re cute little buggers:

When I held them in my hand like that, I couldn’t quite imagine what the insides looked like, so imagine my surprise when I started slicing them open, and…voila! They looked like kiwis!

How cool is that?!? I love these things! They taste like kiwis, too, and you don’t have the hassle of peeling them, like you do kiwis. I did a little research, and found a great article about their history. They’re native to China, and they were first found in the 1800s, but they were never cultivated very widely as a crop, because they were difficult to harvest, didn’t ripen consistently, and spoiled quickly, which made transportation a bitch. But scientists in New Zealand worked on it, and they’ve cross-bred mini kiwis to be hardier and easier to pick.

I definitely recommend both the Cara Cara orange and the mini kiwi… I wonder what new fruit I’m going to find next?

Keep it up, David!

What’s In The RediSetGo? Part Thirteen

Well, folks, it’s been about a month and a half since we last played What’s In The RediSetGo?  You can thank my desire to buy a new RediSetGo as the reason for the hiatus – and I still haven’t purchased a new one yet  – but tonight I envisioned a meal that I didn’t want to make any other way.

So shut the blinds, lock your doors, and turn your cell phone to ‘vibrate’, because it’s go time.

If you want to squeeze in some practice rounds of What’s In The RediSetGo? before continuing, go to My Favorite Posts – the first twelve parts are archived there.

Are you ready?

WHAT’S IN THE REDISETGO?

A TUNA BURGER is in the RediSetGo!

I picked these up at Whole Foods the other day – I had never tried one before:

The back of the box says that each burger has 130 calories and 5 grams of fat.

Before I get into what I did with the burger, I have to switch gears for a while, as one of the other elements to the tuna burger meal needs some explaining.

Remember all the produce I picked up at Whole Foods the other day?  There was one vegetable I left out of the photo.  I could hardly believe it when I saw it at the store – it’s yet another type of radish!

I thought I must have surely found all the varieties of radishes out there.  Besides the common red radishes, I’ve blogged about Easter Egg radishes, and then I found black radishes and French radishes, and, the other day, I found these:

Anyone know what they are?

They’re called watermelon radishes.  I had never seen them or heard of them before, so, naturally, I bought two.  Here they are washed, and with their ends cut off:

This is when I really got intrigued, because every single other radish I’ve tried, whether is was red, purple, white, pink, or black, was still white in the center.  These, however, were a lovely shade of pinkish red!  I cut more slices because I was so curious:

Beautiful!  I was hesitant to eat a slice, because it could either taste delicious, like regular, easter egg, and french radishes, or be completely unedible in its raw state, like black radishes.  I closed my eyes and took a bite, and… delicious!  And the radish taste was more subtle than in regular radishes – these guys are winners!

OK – back to the tuna burger.

I wanted to make a really incredible (and healthy) sandwich, so I cut a whole-wheat pita (155 calories, 0 fat) in half and toasted it.  I added a handful of spinach, then put down the cooked tuna burger, then a few slices of radish:

The green sauce is actually a brand-new salad dressing that I bought for the first time:

I’ve been meaning to purchase this salad dressing for literally months.  It was recommended to me way back in October from my friend Penny, who told me about it in a comment she left on this blog post.  I love cilantro, and I haven’t been impressed with many of the salad dressings at Whole Foods, where I’ve been doing most of my shopping lately, so yesterday, while running errands, I finally picked up a bottle at Trader Joe’s.  Damn, I should picked it up months ago, because it’s delicious!  I might be my new favorite dressing, and I’ve only eaten it once!  Oh, and it’s 45 calories/3.5 grams of fat for 2 tablespoons, but I only used about 1, so we’ll say it had 25 calories/2 grams of fat.

Sidebar about Penny:  I know Penny because she’s one of my sister’s best friends.  I don’t see her that often, but I got to hang out with her for a few days back in December, and in addition to being smart, witty and fun to be around, she is one fit lady, which impresses me so much, as she’s the founder and owner of a booming cupcake bakery in Washington D.C. (check out Hello, Cupcake here).  She is literally around thousands of cupcakes every single day – that’d be a recipe for disaster if it were me.  I don’t know how she does it!

Anyway, I devoured the sandwich in a matter of minutes, if not less.  The cilantro dressing and spinach went great with the fish, and the radish added a little spice and crunch.  Including the pita, the sandwich added up to 7 grams of fat and about 320 calories.

Keep it up, David!

On the Road Again

I hit the streets earlier today.  There was lots of pavement that I pounded.  It was because I went jogging!  It’s been over two weeks since I’ve gone a-runnin’ – since October 16th (read about it here) – and over a month since I’ve gone during the day – since September 27th (a jog that was very eye-opening – read about it here).

One of my closest friends, Kristy (a fantastic musician – check her out here), came up to go jogging with me, and we had a great day together.  This is the second time we’ve gone jogging together, and the first time marked a major milestone in my jogging progress (read about it… you guessed it… here).  I promise I’ll stop with all the links.

We decided to jog to the Burbank airport.  There’s a great spot that’s only 2 miles from my place that puts you right at the end of one of the runways, so you can watch planes land literally right over your head.  Next time I go I’ll try to capture the sensation on video (we’ll see how that goes – both my camera and my phone have video camera features, but I’ve never really used them before) – but for right now, believe me when I say that it’s very loud, and pretty awesome.  Kristy will vouch.  You can see the planes approach, getting lower and lower, and when they fly right over head, they’re only a couple hundred feet off the ground.  Then, a few seconds later, they’re on the ground, a few hundred yards behind you, and you can feel the rush of wind that they create, and hear the resistance that their flaps generate as they roar to a stop.  They’re so close you can make out the airline (today we saw two Southwest jets, one American jet, and a private plane land), and thanks to some internet research after the fact, I can say with some certainty that those Southwest jets came in from Phoenix and Las Vegas, and the American flight came in from Dallas.

Kristy and I walked a few blocks at the beginning to warm up, but we ended up running 1.9 miles to get to the airport, in 22 minutes.  We watched planes land for about 20 minutes, while doing other exercises right there on the sidewalk, like jumping jacks, lunges, these twists that work your oblique abs, and something that I’m forgetting.  Our roadside exercising garnered honks from two passing cars and one passing school bus, which I’ll accept as compliments, thank you very much.  Then we started jogging back, but because I was tired and hot (the tempurature was in the high 70s), we walked the final .8 mile.  We completed the 1.2 miles we did jog in 14 minutes.

Time to number crunch.  If you add up both parts of the jog, we went a total of 3.1 miles in 36 minutes, for an average MPH of 5.16!   WHOA!  That’s my fastest pace yet!  I’m sure it’s inflated due to the 20 minute break in the middle, but I’ll take it!  Time to update my jog chart, which I haven’t done in a while:

• 9/21/10: Distance: 3.1 miles.  Time: 41 minutes.  MPH: 4.53
• 9/27/10: Distance: 3.3 miles.  Time: 45 minutes.  MPH: 4.4
• 10/5/10: Distance: 3.2 miles.  Time: 40 minutes.  MPH: 4.8
• 10/12/10: Distance: 3.8 miles.  Forgot to note time and MPH
• 10/16/10: Distance: 2.9 miles.  Forgot to note time and MPH
• 11/1/10: Distance: 3.1 miles.  Time: 36 minutes.  MPH: 5.16

Regular blog readers know that my big jogging goal is to run past all 6 strip clubs in my neighborhood without stopping (new readers can read about that here – I’m seriously done with the links now), so I think for my next jog, I’ll try to up my distance and go 4 miles for the first time ever.  That attempt may not happen until next week, but be sure to come back to the blog and check it out!

After we finished the workout, Kristy and I caught up on the final two episodes of Thintervention, the Jackie Warner weight-loss show on Bravo that had its finale last week.  Jackie’s assistant trainer on the show, Craig, has been training Kristy and her hubby Mike for some time now, and it’s always fun to see people you know on TV (I haven’t met him yet, but I hope to at some point).

I also made us a quick, easy, and healthy lunch, and since it was a salad, I took some photos.  I know y’all love my salads!

There’s the Dole romaine salad mix I picked up yesterday, 1 roma tomato, cucumber, radish, scallion, garbanzo beans (also purchased yesterday), and a special addition: seasoned bamboo shoots.

Yeah, I can’t read the label either.  It’s in Japanese.  I picked up the jar in Little Tokyo about a month ago.  I know it’s seasoned bamboo shoots because tiny print on the back said so.  They’re tasty!  It’s basically bamboo marinating in a soy sauce blend, so they were a little salty, but I kept it to about 1 serving size for each of us, and that equaled 10 calories, 0 fat, and 220mg of sodium (9% of your daily value).  We topped it off with Sesame Soy Ginger dressing from Trader Joe’s – which is also fat-free.

Keep it up, David!

Is This Day Over Yet?

The past 24 hours have been a drag.  I haven’t felt like myself.  It’s not that there have been big things in my life that went terribly wrong, and I’m not physically sick or anything, it’s just feels like… something is off.  Have you had days like that?

I think it began last night at Latin Jam class.   The class is 1 whole hour of dance aerobics.  It’s really fun, and very tough, for 2 reasons:  It’s very physically demanding (and therefore an excellent, sweaty workout), and there’s choreography that you have to pick up pretty much instantly.  I wouldn’t say I’m rhythmically inclined, but I wouldn’t say I’m rhythmically challenged, either.  I’ve gotten good at some of the dance moves, mostly because I’ve been going to this class every week for the past couple of months, but then there’s some moves I can’t do, and don’t think I’ll ever be able to learn.  I just don’t think my hips move in all the ways they should!  Last night was just an off night.  Nothing seemed to click.  Choreography that I was familiar with all of a sudden was difficult.  I felt heavy and sluggish.  I was watching the clock, watching and counting down the minutes until it was all over.

When class did finish, I felt a little better (I’m sure even an off night resulted in at least 300-400 calories burned), and my cousin Macrae (who I go to Latin Jam class with) and I headed over to a nearby supermarket.  My friend Derek had recommended I check out Super King Market (here’s the website), because they have awesome prices on produce and lots of international items that regular stores don’t stock.  Sure enough, according to their weekly ad, they’re currently selling grapefruit for 20 cents apiece (!), fuji apples for 39 cents a pound (!!), carrots for 25 cents a pound (!!!), and green onions for 15 cents a bunch (!!!!).  One of their slogans is “Save Like A King!” which, despite tying into the name of their store, doesn’t make much sense, as people don’t usually connect royalty with discount shopping.  At least I don’t.

But I digress.  None of it matters, because Super King was already closed for the night.  No cornucopia of fresh fruits and vegetables at rock-bottom prices for me.  I can go this weekend (screw you, Farmers’ Market!), but it’s not nearly as convenient because I won’t already be in that part of town for Latin Jam class.

This morning, the slump continued.  I had trouble waking up (after being jolted awake at 4am thanks to a nightmare where I was stalked, seriously, by Freddy Krueger), was late getting out the door because I was throwing together my lunch (as I went to bed last night without preparing it), and I forgot to throw some gel in my hair, and I felt considerably less put-together and handsome.

At work, the internet was cutting in and out all morning – not good – and then, while I was filling up my water bottle in the kitchen, I saw this out of the corner of my eye in the vending machine:

SKITTLES!  I love Skittles.  I can’t remember the last time I had them, but I love them.  Especially the orange ones.  And now I really wanted them.  There was no way I was gonna buy them, mainly because 1) they’re not worth it, and 2) I only had a 5-dollar bill in my wallet, which the vending machine didn’t take.  But I thought about those goddamn Skittles all day long.  I became fixated.  At lunch time, I ate the lunch I brought from home instead:

A big ol’ salad.  Here are some of the thoughts I had while eating the salad:

• “Look, it’s colorful, just like Skittles!” (This was an attempt to get me feel more excited about my salad, and it didn’t work at all.)
• “Do people ever bake with Skittles?  I bet you could make a pretty good cupcake with Skittles.”
• “I bet somewhere there’s a cat named Skittles.  It’s not a horrible name for a cat.”
• “Remember a few years ago when you bought that bag of Chocolate Skittles?  They were terrible.  And one of the flavors was Vanilla – WTF were Vanilla Skittles doing in a Chocolate Skittles bag?”

I also looked up Skittles on Wikipedia, with the hopes they would have an interesting, illustrious history, like they dated back to 1860 and were named after an ox that pulled a covered wagon full of orphans along the Oregon Trail.  Or something.  Nope!  They were invented in the ’70s, in England.  Snooze.

Later in the work day, I did indulge my sweet tooth.  A co-worker brought around some Trader Joe’s Chocolately Cat Cookies that she was sharing.  They’re only 8 calories per cookie, but thanks to the salad, I wasn’t very hungry, and I didn’t want to seem piggish, so I only took four:

They were good, but not Skittles good.

Lastly, I forgot to bring a set of gym clothes with me, so I couldn’t go to the gym right after work, which I like to do on Friday nights (because there’s not many people there).  I came home instead, and while I could have just changed clothes and gone to work out, I decided instead to veg out on my couch, write this post, and go to bed early.

The plan for tomorrow is to wake up early and energized, and to head off to Richard Simmons’ class.  He hasn’t taught his Saturday class in three weeks because he’s been out of town, and always good to snap me out of a funk.  (See ‘Before’ and ‘Current’ pictures of me and Richard, and learn more about his classes here)

And then it’s onward and upward for the rest of the weekend!

Keep it up, David! (Not the 24-hour funk part)

My New Roommate is a Brussel Sprouts Stalk

Can you believe it’s October already?  Time is flying by.  About a week ago, I started my ninth month of dieting.  I just crunched some numbers, and with my total loss of 137 pounds, that means I’ve been averaging a loss of over 3 pounds a week.  WOW.  Keep it up, David!  I was planning on using this blog to share my September work-out calendar, and I promise I will.  But first, I need to address some breaking news.

I was getting ready to pack up and leave work for the day when I got a text from Jen.  You know my friend Jen – you met her here.  Anyway, she sent a text that said: “At trader joe’s toluca lake” and included this picture:

My heart immediately started racing.  After all, it was just yesterday that, after seeing Lynn Chen’s blog about buying brussel sprouts on the stalk at Trader Joe’s, I raced to my local Trader Joe’s in Toluca Lake, only to find out that they didn’t have any in stock at that location.  Only in a bag.  I was told that they wouldn’t stock the on-the-stalk kind until next July, but apparently they got a shipment in earlier today!  Huzzah!  Thankfully, TJ’s is just down the road from my office, so I zipped on over, and bought my beloved brussel sprouts.

With apologies to Lynn and her husband, since I recreated their photo, I present to you me and my new brussel sprouts:

I told the Trader Joe’s staffer that this was the first time I’ve ever seen a brussel sprouts stalk in person before, which I’m sure didn’t justify in his mind why I made him take a very specific picture of me with them.  But whatever.

When I got home, I decided it was so unique and beautiful that I should just display it as part of a centerpiece:

But the brussel sprouts had other ideas.  They wanted to help out around the house.  I have no problem with that.  So here are the brussel sprouts sorting my coupons…

…and loading the washing machine:

…but then the sprouts felt a little worn out, so they settled in on the couch to watch TV and flip through the new Entertainment Weekly:

I’ve thought of giving the brussel sprouts stalk a name, like Bruce or Colleen, since they became such a valuable part of my household, but decided that would be weird.  Plus, I will be eating the brussel sprouts – there’s no way around it.  And it’s harder to eat anything with a name.

Thanks, Jen, for that text!

Moving on…  Since it’s the beginning of a new month, it’s time to flip to a new page in my calendar.  I have a simple month-view calendar that I use as my planner.  I’ve tried actual planners before, but I’ve never ended up using them for more than a few weeks.  Using a month-view calendar seems to be doing the trick for now.  One of the things I note on the calendar is which days I work out.  Here’s September:

Every dot means I worked out on that day.  If the dot has a circle around it, it means I took a class at Slimmons.  If the dot has a square around it, it means I took a Latin Jam class at Heartbeat House.  I just counted the dots, and I worked out 24 out of 30 days!  In August, I worked out 25 out of 31 days, and in July, I worked out 20 out of 24 days (since I started this notation system on July 6).  Altogether, that’s 69 workouts in the past 85 days.

Keep it up, David!

What’s in the RediSetGo? Part Three

Two food-based posts in a row?  Yep!  You’re either super excited, or already thinking it’s time to check out other things on the interweb, like a super-creepy Australian obesity PSA or maybe checking out my buddy Del’s cool new website, YouTube Time Machine.  I hope you stick around (even though YouTube Time Machine is pretty sweet, but you can go there when you’re done here).

Anyway – it’s only a matter of days, I’m sure, before “What’s in the RediSetGo?” is in development at the Game Show Network.   It’s all everyone is talking about, even though by ‘everyone’, I really mean ‘just me.’  We’re playing two days in a row because when I got home from my Latin Jam class tonight, (read more about it, and watch a video, here) I felt inspired to cook.   So I made my lunch and dinner for tomorrow.  More on all that later, though, because, for right now… Are you ready to play?

What’s in the RediSetGo?

BRUSSEL SPROUTS are in the RediSetGo!

Before Latin Jam class, I swung by Trader Joe’s, as I had just read on Lynn Chen’s blog post for today that she bought Brussel Sprouts on the stalk at her local Trader Joe’s.   She also posted this cool photo of a very good-looking fellow holding a stalk:

Source

Now, I don’t know which Trader Joe’s Lynn was shopping at (although I’m pretty sure she’s LA-based), but it wasn’t the Toluca Lake Trader Joe’s, because I went there, and guess how many brussel sprout stalks they had?  None.  Zip.  Zero.  An employee told me they might not get any in until next July.  What a bummer.  I have never seen a brussel sprout stalk in person before, and didn’t even know what a stalk looked like until about a year ago.  I had never even thought about how brussel sprouts grow until Paula Deen held up a stalk on the Food Network, and I was transfixed.  I can’t remember what she made with the sprouts, but my guess is that it involved 2 sticks of butter, rendered bacon fat, bacon, fat, and at the end, was covered in cheese AND gravy.

So I left Trader Joe’s with brussel sprouts anyway, because I was craving them and I can’t remember the last time I bought them fresh and not frozen, but they were in a bag.  BORING!

The RediSetGo process was simple.  Spray a little Pam, cut about a dozen brussel sprouts in half, and let them sear and roast, cut side down.  Simple and delicious.

Meanwhile, I was working in another dish, a make-it-up-as-I-go-along version of fried rice – minus the frying.  First, I cooked some brown rice.  Then, in a skillet, I sauteed the last of my 99 Cent Store mini bell peppers, and some mushrooms.  I scooted the veggies to one side of the skillet, and poured 2 egg whites into the other side, and scrambled them.  I tossed in about 2/3 cup of the rice, mixed it all up with a little sauce (2 tablespoons of the same Satay Peanut Sauce I talked about yesterday), and after taking it off the heat, threw in some chopped raw cucumber.

I’m kinda excited for my lunch and dinner tomorrow – I don’t know what I’m gonna eat when!  Here’s the entire spread for both meals:

The fried rice is bottom right.  The brussel sprouts are top center – I added to the container some raw tomato slices and about 1/2 cup of garbanzo beans.  One tupperware of grapes and a banana, for some fruit at each meal, and I packed it all up in my lunch bag:

Food prepared for tomorrow?  Check!

Blog written about that food?  Check!

That leaves one final thing on my to-do list for the evening:  Watch 30 Rock.  Then off to bed – it’s already past midnight!

Keep it up, David!

What’s In the RediSetGo? Part Two

This game is sweeping America.  If this is your first time playing, you’ll catch on to the rules quickly, I assure you.  For the backstory on my RediSetGo, click here.

I fired up the RediSetGo last night to make my lunch for today, which I ate a few hours ago.  So… What’s in the RediSetGo?

ROASTED EGGPLANT is in the RediSetGo!

Even though I committed to eating more veggies when I started my diet in January, I didn’t really start buying eggplant until a few months ago, when I start making farmer’s markets a near-weekly pit stop during my weekly routine.  In July or August or so, I saw these amazingly purple baby eggplants at one of the stalls that were no bigger than a medium-sized potato.  A perfect amount of eggplant for one person.  Since then, I’ve bought a baby eggplant or two about twice a month, and, more often than not, throw it on the RediSetGo for quick and easy cooking.

Sometimes, I slice it into long thin planks, and after they’re done roasting, I put a little dab of cream cheese on one end, load it up with sprouts or sunflower greens, and roll it up into a little bite-sized pinwheel.  I did something different last night, though, as I didn’t have any sprouts or cream cheese.  I sliced the eggplant into rounds, and smeared 2 tablespoons of Trader Joe’s Satay Peanut Sauce over all of them.

Could have wiped away those tomato seeds before snapping the photo, David.

Anyway – the sauce is delicious.  This is my second jar, and I’m almost done with it.  And those two tablespoons only added about 60 calories and 4 grams of fat to the eggplant.  And the eggplant was delicious.

Eggplant was available when I went to the 99 Cent Store to purchase produce for my 99 Cent Store Produce Challenge, but I didn’t buy any, because they were selling two large eggplants per package, and that’s a lot of eggplant for me to consume before they turn.  Oh, and while I’m on the subject, I pulled out one of the 99 Cent Store oranges I purchased to juice it this morning, and… it was moldy.  White, hairy, and puffy – three words that are perfect to describe a poodle, but not an orange.  I’ll spare you the photo, because it’s gross, and I didn’t take one anyway.  Here’s the deal:  I know fruit turns, and it could have happened from produce purchased anywhere, so I shouldn’t hold the 99 Cent Store responsible.  And I immediately checked the other 5 oranges, and they all looked fine.  But I know this wouldn’t have happened had I had the convenience of picking my own produce, instead of picking a pre-sorted bag of produce.  I don’t know if one moldy orange is a deal-breaker or not, in terms of returning to the 99 Cent Store for produce…  we shall see.

My dinner tonight was a big ole salad, and I took a photo because I thought it looked particularly lovely and colorful:

That’s mixed greens, tomato, mini bell peppers (from the 99 Cent Store!) in three colors (yellow, orange, and red), garbanzo beans, roasted piquillo peppers, capers, and lime juice.   And soon, a 1 ox box of raisins as I heading off to Latin Jam class.

Keep it up, David!

Practice Jog #1

Last week I set my goal (to jog past all 4 strip clubs in my neighborhood without stopping) and established my route.  This evening was my first practice jog.  My longest jog so far was 40 minutes, without stopping, so I set my goal today to go at least 41 minutes.  Baby steps.  So how long did I make it tonight?  41 minutes!  Mission: Accomplished.

I didn’t really think about my route before leaving, but I ended up jogging past Blue Zebra, 1 of the 4 strip clubs, anyway.  As an added bonus, I also happened to jog past an Adult Video Store.  I’m not sure of the name, but according to the 6 signs hanging on the outside of the building, DVDs there start at $6.95.  Y’all should write that down for when it becomes time to start your Christmas shopping.

In addition to setting a new personal best for length of time, I also set a new personal best for distance: 3.1 miles, up from old personal best of 3.0 miles.  Only .7 miles short of my strip club goal!

For dinner tonight I invented a little concoction that turned out to be pretty tasty.  It started with a Trader Joe’s Vegetable Masala Burger:

It was the first time I had one, and it was pretty good – basically, a veggie burger with Indian flavors.  I recommend.  I grilled it in my RediSetGo (I’ve already made a note to myself to talk about this informercial product in a future blog) along with some bell pepper and carrots.  Then I chopped the burger up, put it in a tortilla with the grilled veggies, as well as some of the Armenian cucumber I bought at the farmer’s market and a little nonfat Greek yogurt, and rolled it all up burrito-style.  The end result:

The pile behind the burrito is the extra veggies that didn’t fit in the burrito, with another dollop of yogurt, and some carrot sticks on the side.  I was impressed with myself for creating this little improv dinner.  Definitely an improvement over the epic sardine sandwich failure.

Keep it up, David!