Uncle Tubby

To borrow a tag from my friend Heidi, I'm Uncle Tubby. It just means I *try* to eat well, but have a general lack of self control and indulge in whatever I damn well want.

To that end, under a challenge from my wife, I've joined Weight Watchers to see if I can make any headway.

Surprisingly, it's highly customizeable and thank Jesus they have an iPad app, otherwise I'd have an issue here at the start where I need to track everything passing these sweet, kissable lips of mine.

Original goal here is 30 pounds. Sure, in the words of Al McGuire, it's like a deck chair falling off the Queen Mary, but at this point, my fat arse needs to start something.

Indian updates

Okay, so I have plenty in my journal that I need to transcribe to take you all on my Indian journey but I had to laugh heartily at getting THIS today from Groupon.

Fantastic! And for a restaurant we love to go to for lunch at work.

But someone let the owners get creative with writing their copy for the daily deal.  Lost in translation?  You decide.  Here's the text that came with the offer today:

"Indian food is quickly becoming one of America's most popular ethnic cuisines, as evidenced by the upsurge in new restaurants and the nationwide fervor over chutney trading cards. Get a seat on the bandwagon with today’s Groupon: for $20, you get $40 worth of Indian cuisine at the Indian Harvest Restaurant, located in Naperville.

The restaurant's expansive menu takes taste buds on a tour of India’s famous, mouth-drenching dishes. Rev up jowl bones with appetizers, including dahi bhalla, soft lentil puffs soaked in spiced yogurt and topped with coriander leaves ($4.95), or vegetable samosas ($3.50). Lamb specials such as gosht chili masala, cooked with hot spices, herbs, and green chilies ($13.95), and tandoor -roasted items that include tandoori chicken ($14.95), let patrons use their canine teeth for more than snarling at mail carriers. Herbivores can dive into vegetarian dishes, such as the eggplant-rich baghara baingan ($10.95), and employ naan ($2) as a makeshift visor while catching scenic lake views from the dining room."

Now, I need to know what this nationwide fervor over chutney trading cards is!!  Also, given my weight, I'm not a fan of the world jowl but hey, I get what you're groovin'.  But when you start digging into my canine teeth, I need to stop you right there because I only snarl at the mail carrier when he delivers me bills.  I'll leave the rest of the time for snarling by my beloved golden retriever.

Lastly, I've been to this restaurant several times and unless the scenic lake views are new paintings on the walls, there's only a retention pond across the street by the Wonder Bread outlet store.

I love it.  So there is the arc in my blog.  Two entries ago was about the Groupon craze and I've brought a little bit of India into the mix.

Therefore, "Look with your glazing eyes soon to the wondrous words of a babbling idiot who will beautifully summarize his daily, mysterious adventures in the homeland known as India.  It will be material you can sink your molars into like a masticating big black bear in the open spaces of Montana"  ;-p

International Travel & Food Adventures, Part II

Well, unfortunately my last evening in the UK had me going down the burger route again.  The problem with staying at a hotel literally inside of Heathrow is that there's no where to go without spending a fortune on taxi fare, so alas, we ate here in the Sheraton Hotel.

I'm assuming that the custom-made burger craze (here), (here) and (here) is starting to gather some steam outside of the US, however the execution of that fails miserably amongst the business traveler hotels.

1. I didn't get any choices, the "create your own" was already done on the menu and there were about three options in total.
2. This concept fails when you have chuk-chuk the caveman burning the burger, the base of the creation, to it's miserable death back in the kitchen

That said it had the makings of a good idea especially if you are on the Atkins diet.  Burger, topped with a chicken breast, topped with bacon (English bacon, so basically Canadian Bacon), topped with cheese all on one of those Bap buns (see yesterday's post or click on link).  I took it upon myself to top it off with some brown sauce.

Sadly the burger was dense and medium well/dry as hell.  Everything on top of it was stellar.  How I was yearning for a Lamb Kofta burger again!

So anyway, I catch the shuttle bus into the Heathrow Terminal in three and a half hours and then it's breakfast inside the airport.  I have high hopes for that and will report back later.

International Travel & Food Adventures

Although I'm in the midst of a 4-week travel hell tour of the world (only being outdone by friend Tom Paul who will earn airline status in a period of 4 weeks!!) the one thing I always love about traveling internationally is the chance to experience "new foods" or rather foods that I normally wouldn't see on an American menu and that tickle my fancy.

The last two nights have seen some fun choices which I'm happy to share with you.

Last night I had a starter called "Duck Pancakes".  I threw caution to the wind and didn't even ask what they were.  One could envision big American style pancakes with duck embedded but what arrived was really a 'build your own' taco/wrap with pulled duck breast meat, small pastry type 'shells' and a wonderful Hoisin sauce to dip them in.  The only knock was that the wrap was too doughy and broke up too easily once stuffed with the ducky goodness and dipped into the sauce.  All in all though, a really nice surprise and a good contrast to the typical Fish & Chips and mushy peas that I ordered.

Tonight, I tried a Lamb Kofta burger which was the bomb!!  It was a great re-purposing of what traditionally is a kabob.  The seasonings were done just right.  Normally a kofta has things like garlic, ginger and cardamom but I think I tasted some clove in there as well.  One of the drawbacks of it was that the bun was a really dense Bap bread.

Stupid me now has a phone that can take pictures but did I take one (of EITHER food)??  No, so here are two images, one of a Bap bun and one of Lamb Kofta.  You do the photoshopping in your head okay?

The frustrating thing about this is that when I get back stateside I end up having a craving for something like this and can't find it worth a lick.  This happened in 2004 when I had pleasure of eating a combination of two of my most favorite foods, Indian and Italian with a Chicken Tikka Pizza in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Call it a desperate cry for decent food when the local fare isn't that hot, but I've been talking about that pizza ever since!!

Can't wait to see what my final night brings for dinner!  Tomorrow I'm heading back to London as my flight home is ridiculously early in the morning on Friday.  London opens up many doors, unfortunately, I'm housed right next to Heathrow and so that'll limit anything of true quality, maybe...