GOSSIP FROM THE GIRLFRIEND GATHERINGS

Learning from YOU to empower ME !

NaBloPoMo #8 – How Often Do I Eat Out at Restaurants?

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Some years ago my guy and I were visiting my mother in which other family members were there, too.   My sister questioned me about the contents of my refrigerator and my guy pulled out his American Express credit card and said “Here is her refrigerator!”   Some years later, another special guy laughed when I suggested preparing a meal for him and exclaimed “You’ll cook?  That’s funny because you eat out every night!”    The fact is I absolutely love to eat out.

We all eat at least 21 meals a week.   Currently, I eat the average of 7 meals a week at a restaurant – whether it is a full-service restaurant or a fast food restaurant.    This rate is the lowest for me.    There was a time in the past where I ate 14 out of 21 meals at full-service restaurants.    Living in the Greater Houston area, it is very easy to enjoy a variety of food at different restaurants without becoming bored.   Also, I will drive 70 miles to enjoy a fabulous Sunday brunch like the offerings at the Hotel Galvez in Galveston, Texas (http://wp.me/plATX-20).  My decision to eat out at a full-service restaurant is usually because I am attending a social event or meeting some friends and I pick up something at a fast-food restaurant because it is convenient on a day when I want to write or read after the “day job”.

I have a wonderful group of friends and we gather together to eat out and chat (thus the name of this blog site!).   The gatherings have evolved to choosing restaurants that offer healthy, tasty meals which alleviates my guilty conscience about eating out.   I am a social person who treasures variety in life so I will always eat some of my weekly meals out on the town.

NaBloPoMo #7 – Why do I Make Unhealthy Food Choices?

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I make unhealthy food choices sometimes because I am an emotional eater.   A blue mood will drive me straight to something cool and smooth – ice cream – and tensed/stressed feelings can only be salved via crunching through a bag of chips or cookies.   It took a long time for me to accept this fact about myself but the knowledge has made me cognizant of the motivation behind my unhealthy food choices – to alter my mood.

I blogged about this discovery in July 2013 “Mood and Food – A Toxic Combination”(http://wp.me/plATX-46)  and started following some of the steps mentioned in the blog post to avoid the emotional eating trap.    I haven’t completely avoided unhealthy food choices but I am making progress – one step at a time.

NaBloPoMo #6 – How Do I Balance Good Nutrition and Good Taste?

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Good looking and good tasting food is very important to me.    In my quest to eat healthier, I strive to find those healthy food items that are tasteful.   I will not eat food that is healthy but tasteless.   I am willing to enhance a food item with spices, healthy sauces, etc. but will definitely strike it from my list if I cannot make it appealing to my taste buds.   I know this attitude limits my menu of healthy meals but I would rather rotate a few very tasteful meals than have many mediocre tasteless meals on my eating plan.   I have discovered that any healthy food items made by nature (fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc.) are usually more tasteful than the “man-made” nutrition food items (snack bars, protein shakes, etc.).

Now when it comes to desserts it is very difficult for me to balance good nutrition and good taste.   I love desserts and have not found any that have been made with healthy substitutions to be tasteful.    Therefore, I choose to allow myself certain celebration experiences where it is allowable for me to have a regular dessert.

NaBloPoMo #4 – Have I Ever Invented a Recipe?

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I am an adventurous person and I enjoy tasting new dishes from friends or at a new restaurant.    Call me up and I am that girlfriend that will taste test your new dessert or try out that new pasta dish at the favorite restaurant (i.e., like that wonderful seafood ravioli I had recently at the original, family-owned Carrabba’s Restaurant on Kirby Drive in Houston – www.carrabasoriginal.com ).     However, I have not been adventurous enough to create a recipe in my own kitchen and cooking life.

There have been occasions that I have experimented with grilling beef, pork, chicken and seafood using different seasonings from one of my favorite cooking stores – Penzeys Spices (www.penzeys.com), I have added to an existing soup/entrée recipe and I have even fooled my “bake-from-scratch-only” Mom by doctoring up one of those Duncan Hines box cake mixes but I don’t think these action will count as inventing a recipe.

My life isn’t over.  I still have time.   I think I will add this to my bucket list.

NaBloPoMo #3 – My Choice?- Personal Chef or Self-Prepared Meals

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This is a no-brainer for me.   If I could afford a live-in personal chef, I would gladly hire one because preparing my meals is only a necessary task for me.   It is not something that I am very imaginative about in preparation.    I can be imaginative if I am having a party or visitors in my home but that is not often.

The generation of women in my family immediately preceding my generation were/are fabulous cooks.   My paternal grandmother was a cook for a wealthy family and all of the women in my extended family cooked / baked all of the time.   We had fresh homemade desserts every day at dinner.    They loved to prepare all types of food and I don’t remember myself, my sister, or any of the females in my generation every really being required to cook.   We were given the choice and my choice was to bake not cook.

Living the single-life now, I don’t really spend a lot time preparing meals.   I sort of “put” them together using the Deli, steamed seafood, and Café on the Run at my local HEB store (www.heb.com).  Also, I will pick up a BBQ chicken or other meat at Pappas Barbecue (http://pappasbbq.com/) and then prepare a salad or other side dish at home to accompany it.    Since I am now embracing a healthier lifestyle I have discovered My Fit Foods (http://www.myfitfoods.com/) and I really enjoy their fresh, healthy, and tasty meals.   It is now my plan to use their meals for my dinner meal and self-prepare my breakfast and lunch meals.   I believe this combination will be perfect for my schedule, my budget and my Monday-morning date with the scale.