I PLAY WITH MY FOOD: Leaning Tower of Tuna

What’s this? A mug full of cucumber?

Yes, but there’s so much more! Underneath the cucumber are layers upon layers of other tasty, healthy things, and I planned this meal so that they’d get revealed in a very dramatic fashion.

Five Things I Buy at the 99 Cent Store

You can’t count on the 99 Cent Store to actually have anything that’s on your shopping list. Merchandise changes as frequently as I change my underwear (once a week) (kidding). That said, in the past few weeks, I’ve been going specifically to the 99 Cent Store looking for a few items, and, for the most part, I’ve been lucky because they’ve had them in stock. I’m aware that my luck with change any day now (probably as soon as I publish this blog), but that’s a risk that’s worth taking, just because nothing at the 99 Cent Store costs more than a buck.

Here’s my list of healthy items that I’ve been buying at the 99 Cent Store:

1) V8. I love vegetable juice!

I’m Over Sardines

One of my very first blog posts – before I had really even told anyone about this blog – was about my failed attempt to make a sardine sandwich.  I had liked sardines for a while – ever since reading a magazine article earlier this year about how good they are for you – but that particular sandwich was kinda gross, and it turned me off sardines for the past month and a half.

Yesterday, I tried making a different kind of sardine sandwich.  I’ll confess from the get-go that I didn’t really research any sardine recipes, but I thought I had a fool-proof plan:  to make a tuna salad sandwich, which I love, except for with sardines instead of tuna.  What could go wrong?

I drained a tin of sardines (headless, tailless, boneless, packed in water) into a bowl, squeezed half of a lemon over them to make them less fishy-smelling (based on a tip from my Aunt Annie), threw in a bunch of chopped celery, 1/4 of a maui onion, capers, 4 oz of nonfat Greek yogurt, a few tablespoons of mustard, and mixed it all up.  That, my friends, is how I make tuna (although the veggies change based on what I have in the house), and it’s gooood.

But when you make it with sardines, the whole mixture comes out gray.  Gray!

I put half of the mixture in a little Tupperware, threw it in my lunch bag, and took it to work.  I also brought along a Thin Bun – these awesome 100 calorie sandwich buns that I love.  Usually I buy the Oroweat kind (which are called Sandwich Thins, check them out here), but right now I have the Earth Grains kind (called Thin Buns):

To be honest, I couldn’t tell the difference at all between the Earth Grains and the Oroweat – except that the last time I was at the supermarket, the Earth Grains were 50 cents cheaper, which is why I bought them.  They’re delicious, and satisfy my bread cravings without being very bready at all.

But I digress.  I wrapped up a thin bun separately – I didn’t want to make the sandwich ahead of time and have it get all soggy.  When lunch time rolled around, I pulled out the bun and the sardine salad, and took a bite of the sardines before assembling the sandwich… and… it was gross.  Repulsive.  The lemon didn’t get rid of the fishy smell or taste – it seemed worse, if that’s possible.  It was even more unappetizing to taste than it is to look at.  Downright unedible.  I ended up eating the bun by itself, and the raw celery and green peppers sticks I had brought, and tossed the sardine salad down the garbage disposal (I didn’t want any lingering sardine stenches to waft out of the trash and assault my or my co-workers’ olfactory nerves).  When I got home, I tossed the other half of the mixture, and then had an epiphany:

I’m over sardines.  I’m done with them.  Even the thought of them just conjures negative feelings and a bad taste in my mouth.  They had a nice little run – I ate about 7 tins of them over the past 6 or 7 months – but I’m gonna lay off them completely now.  I’m going back to tuna for all my canned fish needs.

So what do I do with the last tin of sardines in my cupboard?

I think I’ll donate them the next time a food drive comes a callin’.

Keep it up, David!

PS.  Yes, observant readers, that is a box of Reindeer pate next to the sardines.  I picked it up in Sweden in June.  I’ll be sure to blog about that once I crack it open!