The One With the Melting Pot

The title of this one sort of sounds like I went on some kind of psychadelic drug trip.  But I did not.  Just went to dinner.

The Melting Pot, if you don't know, is a fondue restaurant.  I've heard about people going, and there's another blogger that I read that loves it and goes as often as she possibly can (mostly for the chocolate), but it's. . .ridiculously expensive, so I've never been.  However, last week or the week before, Groupon had this deal where you could pay $20 for $40 worth of food.  Obviously, I bought one.

 My friend, Faith, is getting married in a couple of weeks, and my friend/her roommate, Andrea, suggested we go out next week for a bachelorette-party-dinner.  (Meaning, you know, just going to dinner.)  We're going to the Melting Pot (with Groupons!), so I decided to take D out on a rarely-utilized Date Night as to go with him for the first time before I go with Faith and Andrea.  (What an awkward sentence.)

We got all gussied up and headed over to The Melting Pot. . .except there was an accident on the highway involving a car being stuck under a tractor trailer, so we had to re-route, thus making us late for our 6:30 reservations.  (I called to make sure we'd still have a table.)  So that was the first thing.

When we arrived, we were seated by the manager.  We were seated in this area with tiny booths for two, which had a curtain that you could close to. . .assure you had privacy, I guess.  (The couple in the booth adjacent to ours was making good use of the closed curtain, if you know what I'm sayin'.  And I think you do.)

I felt sort of awkward, going into a nice place and whipping out a Groupon page, but then I figured, if they were going to judge me for cheap(er) food, they shouldn't have put up a Groupon.  It said on the print-out to give the Groupon to the waiter upon arrival, so we did.

The waiter explained how the whole process worked, but he spoke fast and had an accent and didn't enunciate, so I had a hard time understanding exactly what was happening.

We ordered the spinach and artichoke cheese fondue which took. . .a long time to get there.  I'd drained my Diet Coke (as I do), and kept burning my mouth with nothing to drink except pilfered water from D.  (I realize that there is that expression about even dogs waiting for their food to cool, but we'd been waiting a long time, and I was hungry.)  We finished that up and sat, patiently waiting, for our Caesar salads to get there.

And we waited.

And we waited.

And then our waiter came by and told us they'd forgotten about our salads.  Which is awesome.  Especially the part where he told us they'd forgotten about us.  (This happens. . .constantly with both D and myself.  We both have a tendency to slip through the cracks, so when you put us together, we're basically invisible to the naked eye.)

Then the salads came.  Caesar salads, which were actually very good, if not a little small for $7.

Then we waited.

And waited.

You might think that, at this point, we were mad and yelling and all that, but. . .we were actually having a lot of fun.  We go out. . .never, and while everything was happening against us, we were having a really good time being a couple, if that makes sense.  The waiter came by, and D mentioned that we'd been there for an hour and a half and were still waiting for a meal, and we'd like to speak to the manager later.

So our 'entree' got there.  We decided to split one, because, you know, $23 dollars.  There was a little bowl of vegetables, 4 pieces of chicken, 4 shrimps, 4 pieces of steak, 4 pieces of sausage, and several sauces.  I have to admit, I was a little bummed out that the food was so. . .sparse.  But then, we were splitting one, so maybe it's different if you eat the whole thing yourself.

There was also a pot of hot broth, where you. . .cook your own meat.  We were puzzling over this when the manager came over, but we sent him away so we could eat.

We sat there, trying to figure out if the two-and-a-half minutes the waiter indicated would actually cook this meat.  We were going to put it in a little at a time, but ended up just dumping everything in the broth, like a soup.

Two-and-a-half minutes passed quickly, and the meat didn't. . .look done.  So we discussed paying this much money to cook your own meal, and then pulled some of the meat out again.  It still didn't look done, but it was dark, and it was hard to tell.  D ended up pulling out the flashlight on his phone, and we were dying laughing about how ghetto the whole thing was.  But the meat was done, so we ate.  It was really good, but there wasn't much there.

Ultimately, the manager came back and comped our entree and one of the salads, so we had money for dessert, which was a pot of melted milk chocolate that came with marshmallows, bananas, strawberries, Rice Krispie Treats, a piece of cheesecake that. . .wasn't very good, and pound cake.

The chocolate was amazing.

(I realize as I'm telling this story that I'm not conveying how hilarious that whole situation really was.  I don't really know how.)

Then the waiter came by and asked if we wanted coffee.  I didn't.  D did.

A few minutes after that, the waiter came back by to let us know the coffee machine was broken.

All you could really do at that point was laugh.

The waiter brought us our bill, and it came out to $36 something. . .except he hadn't factored in the Groupon I'd handed him at the beginning of our 2-and-a-half hour ordeal.  Instead of laughing, all we could do then was shake our heads.  He came back a while later and was like, "Oh, yeah, you had a Groupon."

So he brought the bill back, and it was the lovely number of $0.00.  So we left a tip (really, we did) and left.

All things being said, I'd go back, but not if I was paying pull price for anything.  The food was good, but there wasn't nearly enough of it and it was WAY overpriced.  But we had a great evening, and I'm looking forward to going with Andrea and Faith next week.

The One with Some Food

I was going to talk about this article, about how Obama's swing states don't like Biden, and that could be a problem, and as I was typing, I was like, "This. . .is. . .boring." 

The blog, not the article.

So I told my cousin, Carrie, about my issue, and she was all, "I'd personally like to see more food recipes and things with food, since I know that's what you're interested in.  If you're interested in it, your readers will be interested."

I've tended to avoid food talk, because I'd started another blog with the express purpose of talking about food, you know, in case someone around here doesn't. . .like food?  Or wasn't interested.  I wanted my "personal" blog and my "food" blog.

Well, seeing as to how I let this blog sit for months at a time with no use and my poor food blog hasn't gotten any love since. . .um. . .December 8, 2012, I think I'll allow the use of food here.  And I'll cross-post with my other blog, so if you're JUST into food, you can follow that one, and if you can go either way, you can follow this one.  Or whatever. I may post stuff over there that I don't post here (Menu Plan Monday, anyone?)

I'm trying to get back into blogging regularly, and talking about food may be just the way to do it.

So while I'm not sharing any recipes at the moment, I just wanted to let people know what to expect.

I'm sure I'll still have my boringish articles, but, you know, we have to eat!



The One with the Produce Box

I love food.

I think if you know me, even marginally, you know how I feel about food.  I like eating it, cooking it, looking at it, talking about it. . .food has so much potential.

The problem, though, is that a lot of food, especially food you don't cook at home or that you do cook at home, but that somes pre-packaged, isn't food at all.  It's a "food product." 

I drove to D's hometown last week and listened to an audio book I'd picked up sort of arbitrarily.  It's called "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan.  Sometimes, when I'm listening to audio books on the way to the mountains, a 4-hour drive, I get restless and bored.  This book, though, kept my attention the entire way, and I wanted to keep getting in the car to listen to it further.

He talks about how much extra crap is put into food, how the "Western Diet" is most likely causing "Western Diseases" like Type 2 Diabetes and Heart Disease, and how people can eat the way they're meant to.  (The whole book is based on seven words:  "Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants."

One of the examples he used involved Sara Lee Whole Grain White Bread (which. . .I don't even know how that's a thing.)  One of his points is that people should try to eat things made with 5 ingredients or less.  Bread, at its core, has 4 ingredients:  flour, water, yeast, and salt.  Some people add a little sugar, others a little butter, but you really only need 4 things to make a loaf of bread.

The Sara Lee Whole Grain White Bread, however, has (according to this website):

Enriched Bleached Flour [Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Folic Acid], Water, Whole Grain [Whole Wheat Flour, Brown Rice Flour (Rice Flour, Rice Bran)], Wheat Gluten, Skim Milk, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Yeast, Butter (Cream, Salt), Contains 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Calcium Sulfate, Salt, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of the Following: Mono- and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Peroxide, Datem, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Enzymes), Guar Gum, Calcium Propionate (Preservative), Distilled Vinegar, Yeast Nutrients (Monocalcium Phosphate, Calcium Sulfate, Ammonium Sulfate and /or Calcium Carbonate), Corn Starch, Vitamin D3, Soy Lecithin, Soy Flour.

Wait.  What?  Why is there both high fructose corn syrup AND sugar in BREAD?

So the point was. . .watch what you eat, because you're eating a lot of crap, even in things that should seem healthy.

This is why I prefer cooking at home.

I came across theproducebox.com, which is a CSA sort of thing.  You sign up and pay weekly, so if there's a week nothing appeals to you, you don't have to buy a box, and you get a big box of locally-grown fruits and vegetables and other assorted goodies.  (One week, we got homemade bread.  Best bread ever.)

The best part about the whole thing is that everything comes from North Carolina, and a good majority of it comes from within 60 or so miles.  It's fresh and it's local and the carrots I've had out of these boxes taste better than any supermarket carrot I've ever eaten.

This was the first box we got.  Strawberries, carrots, white sweet potatoes, kale, cilantro, cucumbers, and a type of red lettuce.  Since I like to make kale chips, I ordered two bunches of kale, thinking that one might not be enough.

This was, in fact, false.  There was so much, I ended up using one bunch of it to make kale chips and the other bunch to make kale and ricotta ravioli.

I look forward to the boxes every week, and I'm actually thrilled that I'm using fruits and vegetables that didn't come from Florida.  Or Mexico.

I would highly recommend looking to see if you can get involved in a CSA.  If not, maybe check out farmer's markets.

Because when it comes right down to it, I, personally, don't want a side of Ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides with my chicken salad.

The One With a French Friday: Cocktail Nuts

I'll go ahead and make it known that every joke, pun, and bad innuendo that could possibly be made about "nuts" has already been made, either by D or by myself, so anything I say within this entry that could possibly have "That's what she said!" after it, consider it already there.

When I made the last update I made, I commented about how I needed to get back into the swing of French Fridays with Dorie. After I finished that entry, I was going about my merry way when I thought, "Um, Sarah? TODAY is Friday." So I went through the list of Things to be Made and pulled out the easiest one: Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts.

Here are the ingredients:

Sugar, salt, chili powder, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, egg white, and nuts. Dorie suggests using perhaps a mix of nuts, but seeing as to how I'm very particular about which ones I'll eat, I went with a combination of peanuts (because who doesn't love peanuts?) (besides those people who are allergic to them) and walnuts, which I had in the freezer, waiting for just such an occasion.

First, you mix together the dry ingredients.

Then you beat the egg white and mix it with the nuts.

Then you add the spice mix. . .

And mix all THAT together.

I should mention here that I was having a tough time with some of these pictures, because I wanted an over-the-bowl shot, but while I'm already tall, I'm not QUITE tall enough to pull that off. It was at this point D built me a little step stool out of two 12-packs of Diet Coke and a large wooden cutting board.

Awesome.

I have to admit here that I didn't follow Dorie's directions exactly. She was all talking about how you needed to take each nut piece out of the bowl individually, "let the excess egg white drip back into the bowl," and separate everything "as best you can."

I saw no excess egg white. Everything seemed to be pretty well mixed, and I didn't have the patience of take each individual one out of the bowl and place it on the pan.

So I just kind of dumped everything onto the cookie sheet and spread it out.

Into the oven they went.

When I pulled them out of the oven, I saw why Dorie had indicated that they needed to be separated. What I had was kind of like a peanut brittle textured creation.

But you know what?

I kind of preferred it that way.

It was DELICIOUS.

I feel like you could break it into chunks and sell it as some kind of holiday gift basket item.

So, so good.

Chalk up another FFwD win for Sarah!