Our very good friends Matt and Chris came from Minneapolis to stay with us for the weekend. We treated them (and of course, that’s using the word treated rather loosely) to a relatively non-touristy, almost normal New York weekend.

We ate at our Chinatown staple New Green Bo and Matt decided to get the fish in chili sauce:

If you look closely, you can see its eyeball. I ate that eyeball. My very first eyeball ingestion ever, actually. And it wasn’t bad; it tasted almost like scallops. The fish was good, but had many, many bones. The sauce came back to haunt us several times the next day. We also ordered a lot of soup dumplings and ate every one of them.

We also went to our favorite Big Buck Hunter bar, Alibi. I’m pretty sure those guys in the background are talking about how good Ben is at hunting Big Bucks.

And then, to top off a proper trip to Bed-Stuy, we visited our local bodega for after-bar beers. Here is the man who had to help us.

This has probably been one of the best vacation weekends I’ve had in a long time. Most of my work is done on my big summer web-type jobs (and now it’s time to start on your sites, Ben and Bradley!) - and my 29th birthday was on Friday, so starting Thursday evening I decided to take a few days off (and that meant no emails, no internet, and NO WORK).

How soup dumplings and a Bessa-R makes Ben feel

Thursday night started with drinks at Double Happiness, a hard-to-find underground (literally) bar with a happy hour that helped ease the slightly expensive drinks, and then dinner at Joe’s Shanghai for soup dumplings - which rivaled New Green Bo in tastiness. It was pretty touristy, but still seemed pretty authentic. After that, Ben and Amanda had me over for some delicious Basil Hayden Bourbon.

How a little too much Basil Hayden’s makes Justin feel

Most of Friday I napped. With the air conditioner on, even! (I figure I get one day a year, I’ve rationalized, to lay in a climate-controlled stupor - at Con Edison’s highly unreasonable rates, we can’t really afford more than one or two days of coolness.)

Then Friday night Tessa and I went to our favorite Indian restaurant, the Raj Mahal, and then back over to Brooklyn for the rest of the evening at Barcade, an old video game and beer bar. I got to sample about 8 different beers (that I remember) including one called Blithering Idiot from the Weyerbacher Brewing Co. that was awfully delicious. I also sampled a cask ale (Hooker’s Irish Red, the Dogfish Head Indian Brown (which is one of my favorite beers now), and more that I don’t recall… (I was also bought shots, and I believe that may have led to a memorable, but not rememberable evening). There was also Asteroids, Arkanoid, Spyhunter, and a couple games of Super Mario Bros.

On Saturday, we went to see The Bourne Ultimatum, which, despite the title (seems almost like a parody), was a very entertaining film with a really good fight scene in it. Then, I met up with Michael, Andrea, and her brother Ryan (who is visiting from Nebraska), for some Thai food and then drinks at one of our favorite places, Port 41, which is one of the strangest (and sometimes bizarrely scariest) bars in NYC.

Then today, Tessa’s friend Anna flew in, and we ate hummus and babaghanouj from Zaytoons at Fort Greene Park.

I had so much fun I am now absolutely exhausted, and actually ready to get back to work.

We also have an important update to our apartment which will be posted soon!

On Thursday night, we made pot pies (as always, one meat, one non-meat [you’d think one of us would give, huh?]). Pot pies are one of my favorite things to eat - anything that is all mixed up already and that contains large hunks of roast beef with gravy is probably always going to satisfy me. However, I have realized that my very favorite food looks suspiciously like dog food the next day, reheated:

On Saturday, I was in the darkroom all evening, and just drank a lot of coffee. I ended up over at Ben’s house, and did eat some cheeses (a really good bleu/cheddar striped cheese, and I even tried one that was purple!) and a copious amount of “asian snack mix” (my favorite are the peas - not as good as wasabi peas, but still good to eat while drinking). But I forgot to take a picture of it.

So, that was one week of dinners. Let’s evaluate:

Sunday: salad
Monday: salad
Tuesday: lasagne
Wednesday: lasagne
Thursday: pot pie
Friday: pot pie
Saturday: asian snack mix, weird cheeses, whiskey

I see a sort of pattern developing here. (Tonight, when I got home from the darkroom, I discovered a new batch of lasagne that Tessa had made, so I’ve got food at least until Wednesday!)

My dietary habits aren’t quite as varied as John’s dining experiences (or as colorful), and I’m also lacking in my use of the always appropriate Chicago font.

Week of dinner photographs, nights one and two
Week of dinner photographs, nights two and three

Tuesday night, Tessa and I made lasagne. Actually, I cooked some ground beef for the non-vegetarian version, and did the dishes. She did the making. And then that’s all I basically ate yesterday - lasagne for breakfast and dinner (with a bagel in between). I also ate another salad. I’m realizing that my food intake, while certainly adequate and delicious, is lacking in excitement and variation.

Last week, John mentioned something about trying to take a photograph of dinner each night for a week. So here it goes:

Last night, I ate a salad (and drank some beer). Here is the salad close up (playing with the macro on the camera around food is dangerous):

Tonight, I ate another salad.

The salad I had last night was okay (it actually looks better in the photographs, I think) but it was nothing compared to the salad I built tonight: regular lettuce and some fancy bag lettuce, a leek, a tomato, a can of tuna, a lot of olives, a lot of pepper, some croutons and my favorite new dressing: bacon vinaigrette. It looks healthy, but I’m pretty sure I ate 800 calories.

I tend to eat the same thing in phases like that - for a couple of days, and then I move on to something else. I’m hoping that knowing I’m going to photograph what I eat won’t affect what I eat, but I’m sure that it will.

John said:“After looking at the first picture of dinner above the plan was to take a dinner picture each night for a week and put them here.

After the second night I was grossed out enought to not want to know any more about myself this way.

Enjoy!”

I found myself with some frozen fish fillets today for lunch, took a picture, and then realized that I eat like a 5-year old.

I suppose if John is taking photographs of what looks like lunch for a cartoon, and Christian is taking photographs of beautiful looking sandwiches, I should also shoot what I eat. Today’s lunch was two grilled cheese sandwiches, with a lot of ketchup and pickles. I am awesome.

Also in food-related news: Tessa and I got to eat at the always satisfying Raj Mahal with my parents, who are in town for the weekend. After dinner, we went to a beer bar called Burp Castle, which had a pretty good selection of beers I’ve never heard of (mostly Belgian, mostly trappist)… delicously expensive.

I cooked my first turkey yesterday. It required a call and a visit to a butcher’s shop (Staubitz Market - my first visit to a proper butcher’s), and three phone calls to my mom. Tessa has cooked turkey a few times, but has never eaten it - and wouldn’t be eating any of this one - so I figured I should try to do it myself. It took a little longer than I thought it was going to, and some of the breast meat was a little dry (I like my turkey really juicy), but all-in-all I’m pretty satisfied with the dead bird.

I have a lot of leftovers.

We were fortunate enough to be with friends for Thanksgiving - pictured is Andrea, Michael, Emilie and Dara. Tessa was in the kitchen heating food, I think Bradley is getting some beer, and I am taking the photograph. We had enough people and hot food in the apartment to steam up the windows.

I’m not exactly sure what sparked this, but I’ve been craving Ramen all the time lately.

My most recent creation:

1 pkg. Chicken flavor Top Ramen (our selection is pretty slim at our local grocer - any mail-order suggestions?)
1/2 pkg. frozen vegetable medley (green beans, carrots, lima beans and peas)
dried onion flakes
dried parsley
black and red pepper (a lot)
jasmin rice

Cook the rice, un-freeze the vegetables; boil the water for the ramen with the onion, parsley and pepper; add ramen brick (unbroken!) cook until done (2-3 min.), dump into bowl (I like the water, so I don’t drain) and add other ingredients. Sometimes I also add chicken.

I spent a little while the other day at The Official Ramen Homepage. I realized that by most of their standards, I am not a true ramen connisseur (My ramen creations are very boring; I like “soup” instead of just noodles; I buy the really cheap stuff; I usually use the flavor packet). However, I am willing to try new (and better) things!

What are your ramen suggestions?

You reach for a bag of Uncle Jesse’s Nuts, of course!