The Girl Who Ate Everything

cashews

The cashews are gone. Because...I ate them. (Were you expecting something else?)

What's the moral of this story? Don't buy cashews. I'm not saying you can't buy cashews, but me? I? Er. The purchase of cashews or any other nut or seed should be relegated to times of absolute necessity, although I can't think of a time when one would have to eat nuts or face death. A desert island? One that only has nuts? What kind of island is that?

...SATAN'S PLAYGROUND! I'd eat so many nuts I'd turn into one. Besides that I'd be a really fat, human shaped nut, I'd be mentally nuts also. The nuts, they shall attack all.

Wow, that sounded kind of dramatic. I don't actually like all nuts and seeds. The ones I don't like include pumpkin, macadamia, sunflower, brazil, and pea (although that's not really a nut). The ones I like the most include cashews, almonds, and pecans. I like the taste of hazelnuts but not the nut itself as much, although I have cracked open hazelnuts (which is a real bitch; you should try it!) and toasted em for some deliciously unseasoned hazelnut goodness.

My nut obsession began when I decided to eat as high of a percentage of raw food as I could stand. I'm aware that some nuts aren't truly raw since heat is required in processing them, and are labeled raw to separate them from roasted nuts, but I ate those anyway. (How picky can one get? You can buy all your nuts from Nature's First Law to ensure that they're TRULY RAW, ZOMG!!!)

Nuts became my grain replacement. You've probably noticed that my relationship with grain products (until recently) was akin to that of an alcoholic and ...um, alcohol. Sure, it wasn't as bad as that but I've definitely had issues. If you've new to my blog, I reduced my wheat/grain consumption (for a Chinese person, I probably have a low rate of rice consumption) to see if that would ease my asthma. My asthma has been much better since then, although I can't say for sure that grain caused it. Perhaps excessive bread and cake consumption was a problem, *cough*. Interestingly, the biggest asthma trigger I've come across lately is talking to my roommate for an extended period of time. No, I don't have any problems with my roommate, nor is she a source of pollen, but I guess asthma can tell me things (like sources of stress) that I wouldn't otherwise identify. Because I'm a moron!

First off, check out the photography on this page: minimiam. For a non-flash look, go to design*sponge. I love these cr�me br�l�e men (because I love cr�me br�l�e).

Want some wine with your fast food? As someone who doesn't particularly like wine or fast food, this doesn't help me much. But it's interesting.

Have you ever thought, "I wish there were a restaurant dedicated to SPAM!" I didn't think so. It's too late, because the horror is real and it comes weilding nefariously puzzling cream sticks (spam and cheese): SPAM CAFE. Manila's where it's at when it comes to Spam, apparently.

So, onto the "things Robyn digested" part of this post (prepare to be horrified). On Saturday I went to Shopsin's with Amy and Allen. Although Amy thought she knew what she wanted beforehand, she changed her mind upon actually looking at a real life menu. She ended up getting hush puppies and a fluffernutella crepe. After much intense thought that would've been better used on something else (like homework), I decided on a fluff and nutella French toast sandwich (the other choice being some kind of French toast pile) and Allen got blueberry French toast. Observe:

hush puppies

blueberry French toast

French toast sammich

fluffernutella crepe

So for my first meal of the day I had pieces of bread fried in egg filled with an oozing marshmallow-esque substance and chocolate hazelnut spread. If it makes you feel any better, I at least walked to Shopsin's from my dorm, which took about 35 minutes. It probably burned one bite of the sandwich off. And if you're wondering what the sandwich tasted like, surely you could figure that out. How could it NOT taste good? I found no fault with the sugar content, of course. ;)

Allen finished his French toast and Amy ate most of her crepe (remember, she also had the hush puppies). In true Robyn fashion, I ate the part of her crepe she couldn't finish. Of course, I finished my sandwich. Even though it was probably super-dense with calories, volume-wise it wasn't especially filling.

For the price, you would be better off going to a different restaurant. (Our final bill was around $42 and my sandwich was $11.) But you go to Shopsin's so you have the opportunity to indulge in a French toast sandwich amidst a...uniquely decorated environment (random retro toys, weird art hanging on the walls, a shelf full of candy). Our waiters were affable; upon seeing Allen and I photographing our food, the guy told us to stop playing with our food. ;D I accidentally dropped my knife on the floor (not that you'd do it purposely) and the female waitress picked it up and gave me a new knife just as I realized I dropped it. I couldn't tell if they were family members but my guess is that they were?

My overall impression is that the food isn't great or bad, and it's kind of expensive, but it's a cute place and the menu begs to be explored. I'd go again this year (once, haha) so I can try something else.

That was lunch. More fooding happened after that. MORE. YEAH. You didn't think it would end there, right? Good.

Allen and I trotted off to Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven since it was nearby. As I easily navigated the streets, Allen seemed somewhat aghast that I just knew where places were. ;) Actually, I don't know the west side area well at all, but all you need to know is that there's a giant chocolate shop on Hudson Street. There are only so many chocolate shops, yes? As for how I find food related places, I usually search for them online, but in some cases (like Myers of Keswick) I happen to pass by and keep track of them. So note to self: must check out Myers of Keswick at the risk of buying biscuits.

But chocolate. Well. I wasn't in the mood to get anything (just wanted to bring Allen there) but after watching a video about how chocolate is made, conveniently forever looping inside the store to make people crave chocolate (as though the sight and smell of it isn't enough), we split a milk chocolate bar with hazelnuts. Mmmmm...good stuff if you like milk chocolate (I like most chocolate, even white). Smooth, pretty sweet but not overly so, and lumpy with large hazelnut pieces. MM, LUMPY!

And then off to the Donut Pub. Because you know, after you eat chocolate, you want...donuts?

oreo muffin

Not being a big donut fan, I went for the oreo muffin instead. I am a muffin person, yesm. As usual, the Donut Pub failed to disappoint in its line of non-donut sweet wheat-filled items. Their muffins are easily one of my favorite muffins in NYC, the other one (ONE) being the muffins from Bueno Pane (or something like that) at the Union Square Greenmarket. It's just my preference, but I like muffins that are soft, not crumbly, and somewhat airy (not pound cake-esque). I've had many not very soft muffins or one that just crumbled into muffin dust (sob) but after touching the Donut Pub's muffin and doing a quick "squishability test" (rating: highly favorable), I knew it was a good one.

Alas, a pause occured in the fooding. Amazing, eh? I got some fruit from the greenmarket and parted with Allen in order to read...stuff. For school. Oh yeah, school, almost forgot about that. Not long after reading some of my cookbook did I get a call from Carol to do stuff, "stuff" most likely involving food, in this case of cow origin.

ice cream

Amazingly, I never knew there was an Uncle Louie G on MacDougal Street. I haven't walked on that street very often but I HAVE walked on it and to completely overlook an ice cream parlor is almost sacrilegious. We chose to walk down the street since it was crowded (yes, that sounds illogical)...due to a commercial shoot. I've never been to Uncle Louie G before and even though Carol is somewhat lactose intolerant, she risked an unhappy digestive tract to assist my ice cream tasting endeavor.

So...the ice cream! The top is birthday cake and the bottom is black raspberry. Quite different flavors, but I can't say which one I liked more since they were both great (figuring you like cake and raspberry). Actually, I don't even like raspberries that much, which made me more surprised that I liked the ice cream. Carol and I shared the regular sized portion for $3.

As for whether this ice cream is good quality, well...I liked it. After reading up about ice cream, I've found that my tastes may be labeled as plebeian. For whatever reason, I don't like super smooth ice cream/gelato that has no bite (I'd say Cones is an example of that, and the gelato in Ferrara), so while a lot of people probably hate stuff like Coldstone, I don't have much of a problem with it (besides that it's expensive). I do have to try Il Laboratorio del Gelato though.

That was the end of my "day of eating out". I went to Urban Outfitters to look for a pair of pants, which wasn't very fun since shopping for clothes when you're semi-fat is not the most uplifting activity. Gee, could that have had anything to do with the French toast sammich and the muffin and the ice cream and EVERYTHING I EAT EVERY DAY, HOLY CRAP THIS SENTENCE SUCKS KILL IT?

Yeah.

I need a pair of jeans (I didn't say "new" pair because at the moment, I don't have a pair of jeans...that fits). I should probably lose weight first but that doesn't seem reasonable at the moment. Food studies major speaking, remember? I have my first cooking session on Wednesday. Oh. Crap.