For the background info, you can check out the story here: http://bit.ly/9fY2F.

The first week of the new school lunch routine was pretty dang successful. The girls liked the salads I made for them, they dug the cut-up fruit, and they were really good about packing their own stuff and actually bringing back the plastic containers and ice packs they went to school with. Woo-hoo!

The week after that (aka last week) was slightly less structured. They still had good healthy food, but I didn't go through all of the prep that I did the previous Sunday. Things were slightly more chaotic in the mornings because we had to pull together some things, but all in all it wasn't bad.

But I preferred the first week. It was so great to just have all that stuff ready to go and just be able to tell them to go pack up what they want. Yeah, I wanted to recreate that for this week.

That's all well and good, but I bit off a little more this week and I kinda wish I wouldn't have. This week I wanted to have sort of an Asian-themed set of food for lunches. I had one salad I knew I wanted to prepare, and wanted to have some things that would work well with that. So I picked out another salad, and decided that it would be a great idea to make some dumplings to go with those. Bad call, bucko.

It's not that they were all that difficult to make, but with the other two salads and fruit prep it just took too much time.

So here's what's on the menu for this week. There's some good stuff in these!

Sesame Brown Rice Salad w/Shredded Chicken & Peanuts:
I have to thank @mikeonline for pointing me to this recipe (thanks, Mike!). It comes from Cooking Light and it was really easy to make. I actually cooked the rice like I did in this recipe, because I really like how that works for a salad (and it's a whole lot easier). I didn't actually measure out the lime juice, and I think I went a little overboard on it. It's way limey, but the girls will probable love it for just that reason. For the chicken, I substituted Morningstar Farms Meal Starters Chik'n Strips and it seem to be pretty good in it. I generally like the MS Farms products, but this one you sort of have to chop up or the texture can be a bit off.

Dang Cold Asian Noodle Salad:
This is a Guy Fiere recipe, and it's pictured up at the top of this post. I think I'm going to like it a lot once the flavors come together. The dressing is super-good (although slightly heavy on the rice wine vinegar - which I'm hoping mellows slightly), and I just used the veggies that I had on-hand (subbing fresh spinach for the napa cabbage and cucumber for the bean sprouts). I'm looking forward to tasting this tomorrow.

Vegetarian Steamed Dumplings:
This one's Alton Brown's. I'm actually confused by what happened here. The recipe has a yield of 35-40 dumplings, and I went 50% larger on it. You'd think that would give me 50-60 dumplings, wouldn't you? Well, I ended up with 28. I don't think I was overstuffing them (I mean a won ton wrapper will only hold so much!), so I'm not sure where the difference was. Ah, well, at least they're good. They may be a little salty for me (but I don't like a lot of salt), but it should be ok since I won't be sending any dipping sauce for them.

The fruit:
Well, I didn't have it in me to make a huge fruit salad by the time I got through with everything else. I did cut of a whole seedless watermelon, so that should get us through pretty well. My honey even suggested using some of it to make a granita, and I'm thinking that's a pretty awesome idea...

The kitchen is all cleaned up, I've blogged about the experience, and now I'm worn out. So what will I make myself for dinner after all that? I'm thinking that the frozen pizza that I've had for a couple of months is looking pretty good right now...

Hello, Friends!

I've decided to go public on Twitter. No more picture of food on plates - this is going to be all me.

I was trying out a few pics when my tweeps @drpoling, @juliegraphics, and @TucsonMeetYrslf suggested I have my tweeple vote! Always up for a good competition, I decided that was an awesome idea .

So here are the pictures. Just leave me a comment on which one you like best. In order, the pictures are BeerFace, WineNose, and ProfileGulp. Voting will go on for 12 hours, after which time I'll tally things up and post the winner. Thank you for your vote!

UPDATE: It's been 12 hours and the results are in! Here's the breakdown of results left as comments here or tweeted:

WineNose: 7
BeerFace: 4
ProfileGulp: 1
None: 2
My Blogger Profile Pic: 2

It looks like WineNose it is! Thanks to everyone who voted - this was fun!



-TFD

Ah, children.

Without them, we'd live such normal lives, wouldn't we?

Enter the previously-posted-about vegetarian teenage daughter. Tomorrow is her 15th birthday, which is strange because I just don't feel all that old... But I digress.

So we had the annual birthday dinner at the restaurant of her choice. When first presented with the option, she said she wanted to go to Red Robin. Yep, the chain burger place at the mall. I have nothing against the bird, in fact their zucchini sticks are pretty dang good, but I sort of had to call her out on that. I mean, she always subs a Boca patty for the meat, but she's in a club to push local and organic ingredients at her school. C'mon!

We did a little research and decided upon Govinda's at the Hare Krishna temple. It's a 100% vegetarian buffet, and I wasn't entirely sure how thrilled I was about the choice. I've been there a couple of times, but those visits were probably 10 years ago (or more...). Plus, I was a vegetarian myself at the time (for a total of 8 or 9 years, I think), and really dug it. Now, though, I like me some bacon.

Before I go any further, I'm going to say straight up that the food was really pretty good (with a couple of exceptions). My expectations were a little low, but I walked away full and having tried a few things I wouldn't have expected.

It was the ambience that was really sort of surreal. The grounds are nice - there are two aviaries, one with parrots, one with peacocks and.... chickens? I'm not an ornithologist, so I couldn't say for sure. There's also a koi pond with some of the biggest examples of those fishies that I've ever seen.

To get into the restaurant, you walk through the two-room gift shop and up to the host. You pay for your buffets (8.95 for adults and 4.00 for my 12yo), drinks ($1.50ish), and any add-ons (whole wheat spinach tofu samosas $1.50). Then you get your paper plates and dixie cups (I'm not kidding) and load yourself up. And whatever you do, don't forget to grab a tray. I wasn't sure if the host was trying to be nice by insisting that I take one, or if I was being reprimanded for not having one.

As for the food, the salad bar veggies were really good, not too many choices, but what was there was very fresh and tasty. There were several kinds of dressings including cashew (slightly sweet with a not-surprising nuttiness) and one that was miso-based. The entrees were a chickpea ball in a sesame sauce and some very mushy ratatouille. Side dished included steamed veggies, two kinds of rice, and a curried rotini pasta dish with tofu. Oddly enough, I thought that was the best thing on the whole buffet.

Then there was the seating. They have two rooms: one with tables and chairs where you keep your shoes on, and one where you take your shoes off and sit on the floor. Can you guess which one Emily chose? If you read the title of this post, you probably can.

I have never been a floor-sitter. Even when I was in my teens I found sitting on the floor to be uncomfortable at best. But, being an awesome papa and a darned good sport, I went with it. I think the net result was that I took one less trip to the buffet because I didn't want to have to go through the process to getting up and down again. Did I say earlier that I don't feel that old? I rescind that statement.

I suppose that the take-home message is this: the food was pretty good - even some of the things I was a little leery of, but the ambience was a little bizarre for me. Maybe had we been sitting in the room with chairs or if I didn't have to go back throught the buffet line in my socks it wouldn't have felt that way.

The good thing was that Emily loved it, and it wasn't about the quality of the food, or the presents* or the unusual seating arrangements. It was about her feeling that she made a strong choice for herself and her ideals, and got to share it with her family. I'll sit on the floor anytime for that.

Well, it might have had the tiniest bit to do with the presents.

-TFD
* Speaking of the presents she absolutely loved the Twilight-themed bracelet that I got from @kismet1990 on Twitter. Her shop is here: bit.ly/19xbPl and she's a pleasure to work with.

Second note: regarding the picture with the post - it's not about Em (even though she's super cute!), but about the surroundings. You can get a feel for the room we were in, including the Christmas garlands and ornaments to the right of Emily's neck. Who knew that the Hare Krishna's celebrated Christmas? And in August, even!

My friend Travis called me last night to clue me in on an event happening this Saturday. Nana's Kitchen Mexican restaurant is having their one-year anniversary celebration! Congrats Teran family!

They'll be having mariachis, $1.50 longnecks, $2.00 margaritas, and some great food specials.

Mention that you heard about it on Twitter and... well, it probably won't get you anything extra, but it'll make them happy!

So here's the recap:

• Nana's Kitchen, by I-10 & Cortaro
• (520)395-2508
• Saturday, August 29th
• 6:30pm until they're done
• http://nanaskitchenaz.com/ (hasn't been updated in a while - they've been cooking instead!)

Go out and help them celebrate with some great food, cheap beverages, and live entertainment!

This is the year! Change has come, and change is good - this is our manifesto!

No more shall school lunches consist of a PB&J, carrot sticks, fruit, and a granola bar of some sort! We eschew those things! This is the year of exciting lunches - power-packed with nutrients and low in the stuff that's bad for you (even when it tastes so, so good). The girls have let it be known that change would be appreciated, and here change comes...

Lunches weren't always as described above. There were a few different things in the fairly regular rotation, but it was pretty routine stuff: quesadillas, sandwiches, and the very rare wrap. There was always a piece of fruit, some veggies, and the bar. Oh, how they tired of the various granola bars - which always surprised me...

As I've mentioned before, Emily's a vegetarian, so that further complicates things. I've been looking at options and bookmarking intriguing things for a month or so now. School starts back up tomorrow (yay!), and so I've spent the last couple of hours in the kitchen.

So here's how it's going to work:

• I prepare some options
• The girls pack up what they want the night before
• Everybody's happy

For example, today I made a black bean & brown rice salad, a whole wheat pasta salad with edamame, a fruit salad with cantaloupe, fuji apple, peach, orange and jicama, and blueberry bran muffins. The girls can pick which salad they want, grab some of the fruit and a muffin and they're off. And so am I, for that matter - I made stuff in quantity, yo!

But it's not going to be all about the salads this year. We've got cool wraps, soups, chili, and other yummy stuff coming up.

And soon, I won't be the only one doing all this prep (but don't tell them yet!). I'll be having them pick out a recipe to fix and that's going to be one of the options for the week. I think this is going to be fun - a lot of work on a Sunday afternoon, but it'll sure make things easier later on in the week...

So what's your favorite lunch option for taking to work? Do you have any great recipes that might work for a plastic container snuggled up to an icepack? Let me know - I'd love to get some fresh new ideas!

Oh, and before I forget, I know I'm not the best photographer out there - I'm just a guy with a digital camera and cruddy lighting. But I'll keep working on it and hopefully my picture quality will get better over time!

-TFD

I think I'm finally healed enough to blog about this. There are some mildly graphic references to the red stuff that flows through one's veins below, so if you find that sort of thing bothersome you might want to read about something else...

Before I start with the story, I want to make a disclaimer. We had been to the gym that afternoon, so I wasn't exactly looking my best in the picture right there. Normally I look better for my mild medical mishaps.

10 days ago, Kristine and I were preparing a dinner to take to friends of ours who just had a new addition to their family (um, a baby, in case that wasn't clear). The menu was dry rubbed roast pork tenderloin, garlic mashed sweet potatoes, broccoli amandine, and chocolate chip cookies (because who doesn't love CC cookies?). This was a Weds, and we were making our delivery on Thursday, so we were just prepping.

We got the loin rubbed down and in the fridge and I was cutting up the sweet potatoes. You know how hard and fibrous those things can be, right? Well, although I was being very focused on the task at hand, the just-sharpened knife slipped.

I was suddenly bleeding - more than I thought was justifiable. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to stick my finger in a glass of cool water that I had recently been drinking (sometimes under stress, we do odd things). It looked like fruit punch gatorade in less than two seconds.

I couldn't get the bleeding to stop to see how bad things actually were, but I was under the impression that I had cut myself. You know, like a long narrow trench of suffering. At some point, though, we realized that I had actually cut off a piece of the pad of my finger. This was confirmed when we found the piece of my fingertip. Gross? Yes, very. It was a roundish piece about 3/8" in diameter - still stuck to the knife. This was the point where Kristine took control.

Kristine in control is usually a good thing, but she was a little freaked. I was kinda laughing, which didn't help things all that much.

The bleeding just wouldn't stop. I eventually gave in at about 9:00pm (about 30 mins after the unfortunate incident). We headed to the Urgent Care at UMC, which turned out to be a bad choice since they no longer have an urgent care. I really didn't want to pay the ER rates, so we headed off in search of an urgent care.

We were totally thwarted. We even had friends Brandon & Stacey looking online for evening urgent care centers while we drove half-heartedly towards St. Mary's hospital. Even with all of S&B's efforts, we ended up in the ER there. Who knew that there were no evening urgent care centers in a town of this size??

Our experience at St. Mary's was great. The people were incredibly friendly and we were taken care of quickly. We were put on their FastTrack, which meant that we'd see a PA instead of an MD. I was fine with that. I was still bleeding through everything they gave me, but didn't really think I was going to bleed out or that my very existence was in danger.

I think the kicker of the whole thing was when the PA came in, looked at it for maybe 5 seconds, and says, "I could *pause* put a band-aid on there if you want.". A band-aid. I had those at home. Nonetheless, I requested said band-aid.

The nurse came in a few minutes later with something called gel-foam that she used to actually make the bleeding stop (wonders never cease!), then wrapped it up in gauze (you can see her handiwork above). She then gave me the requisite tetanus shot (it had been 11 years, in my estimation). We were out the door after a total of 90 minutes there.

The big remaining question: how much did that band-aid cost? I haven't received the bill yet, but I'll update when it comes in.

So what are the lessons learned?

• If you're going to cut off a small piece of your body, do it during normal business hours.
• Band-aids can work wonders.
• St. Mary's can efficiently process patients.
• Sweet potatoes are evil.

And I'll leave you with that.

Oh, wait, one more funny thing: we took the small piece of my finger with us (wrapped and on-ice) in case they wanted to sew it back on. The PA: "It'll just grow back.". Silly us.

-TFD

Feast or famine. That really seems all-too-appropriate for a food blog, doesn't it? I have times when I'm not really sure what I'm going to write about, and times where I've just got so much stuff running around my brain. Right now, I'm in the latter situation.

Because of that, I'm going to cram two fun and exciting recent happenings into one post. The danger here is that this is going to be way too long and full of extraneous details. *Sigh* I'll understand if you don't make it all the way to the end.

Odell Brewing
Last night, they were in town to launch their Tucson presence. They (Kirk & J.R.) spent some quality time at Plaza Liquors, then a couple of hours hanging out at 1702 (where we were stationed), and then whisked themselves off to Old Chicago. To protect identities, I'm going to refer to the members of my party as K, S, & B.

Things officially kicked off at 6:00, but S & I got there a little after 5:00. They're right across the street from work, for cryin' out loud! K arrived shortly thereafter. Then the good folks from Odell, bearing gifts. I think we all ended up with bottleopener keyrings, t-shirts, & coasters (those might not have been giveaways - I may have actually stolen them). B came a little later still, having gone to work out first (go B!).

I was fortunate to have been Tweeting when they got there (although I think my tweets became slightly less coherent as the evening continued), and I may or may not have been tipped off to keep my eyes on Twitter at about 6:30. I did, and I ended up winning a 750ml bottle of Woodcut #2, which retails for about $25.00. I'll looking forward to popping that open sometime in the near future.

So we sampled their three beers (IPA, Easy Street Wheat, and 90 Shilling Scottish ale), and I still think that their IPA may be my favorite beer ever. I mentioned it in my Postino post, and it's just that good. The others were good as well, but what can I say? I'm an IPA kind of guy. K enjoyed the wheat, S was in agreement on the IPA (and we usually see eye-to-eye on beer), and B.... well, I don't seem to remember which she liked! I remember her really liking their yellow t-shirts (although she didn't end up with one), but I'm fuzzy on her beer preference.

To wrap up, it was a good time with good friends, good pizza, and good beer. What more does one need?

Julie & Julia
Before I start talking about the movie itself, I want to thank Arizona Public Media for the guest passes to the sneak preview. We enjoyed the movie and appreciated you sponsoring the event itself.

Kristine, Gale & I went to Old Pueblo Grill beforehand for a glass of wine and some appetizers. Steve was going to meet us at the theater because he was out buying a Volvo or something silly like that. He had chips & guacamole and the tostada sampler. The machaca tostada was a hit all around. We didn't discuss the guac too much, but it seemed a little flat to me. It could used more zip, delivered through lime juice, or even some salt...

Ok, so the movie is everywhere. You've heard all about it. You've read all about it. You know what to expect. I did too.

Some of the things I'd heard weren't entirely accurate, though. Amy Adams was roundly panned. I think it was Gourmet magazine who advised bringing reading material and a penlight for those sequences (harsh!)... She was not nearly as good as Meryl Streep, but c'mon! That's Meryl Streep she's up against! And Meryl Streep was brilliant as Julia. There were many times I forgot that it wasn't Julia Child on the screen. Some of those scenes took me back to when I was a youngster watching Julia on TV and thinking, "I could do that". Which I then did.

I found it to be a lovely tribute to her memory, with a slightly weaker story of self-empowerment thrown in with it. Of course, I'm not a film critic, and neither are Kristine & Gale, who both gave it thumbs up. I'd like to be able to say that Steve liked it too, but the whole Volvo-buying process took longer than anticipated.

Ok, that's it. I'll stop now. I think I've probably done longer posts, so I'm happy that this one is as short (and yes as lively!) as it is.

Thanks for reading.

-TFD

I’m happy to eat just about anything. I have a daughter who only eats things that weren’t once happily walking/flying/swimming around their natural (or cage-related) environment. Yep, I eat meat, and have a vegetarian daughter.

We were all vegetarians once-upon-a-time (and for 7 years), but I fell victim to a bacon incident about 3 years ago and haven’t looked back. So having spent quite a bit of time as a veggie myself, I can understand where she’s coming from and don’t feel like it’s ‘just a phase’ on her part. Holy cow, she’s been vegetarian for the last 11 of her 15 (well, she turns 15 in about three weeks) years!

She’s tried eating meat (and fish, and fowl) on a couple of times at my urging, but it’s just not working for her. My younger (12y.o.) daughter will eat meat for the most part.

If we were the type of family that just ate out all the time, it really wouldn’t be an issue. But I really like to cook. I don’t like to cook so much though, that I want to make two separate meals (or even entrees) every night. I also don’t always want to leave the meat out of dishes and mix at the table – curries and such just aren’t the same! I like tofu and meat substitutes just fine, but don’t want them all the time.

So I’m trying to figure out how to respect her decision (one that I had a strong hand in her making in the first place) yet still have meals that will make everyone happy. Do I have her make her own meatless entrée every night (making sure that it’s not a PB&J)? Do I just give up and go back to being vegetarian when she’s home? Do I force her to eat meat? Do I make her pick it out of what I make?

I’m curious if there are any other folks out there going through the same thing. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

*Apologies to Michael Pollan for co-opting the title of his awesome book, and apologies to you, dear readers, for the unashamed use of clipart in this post.

-TFD

Hi All!

In my continuing efforts to make my blog more useful (than what, I'm not entirely sure), I've decided to add a calendar of Tucson Food Happenings.

It's still a work in progress, and it may or may not work out in the long run (maintaining a calendar can be a big pain in the behind). In the meantime, though, if you hear of any food related events going on, please let me know about them. I'm happy to post things as they come up!

If this works out, I may try to expand it to include recurring events (happy hours, weekly specials, etc), but for now I'm looking more at one-time things.

So drop me a note if you know of things going on, if you have any comments/suggestions, or if you have a good source for foodish happenings!

PS: I moved the calendar down to the bottom of the blog because of formatting issues. Once I make it pretty I'll move it back up top!

-TFD