August « 2009 « Healthy and Sane

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Israel – first day back in Kfar Saba

August 31st, 2009 · 8 Comments · Israel

I lived in Israel for 3 years (during middle school) but haven’t been back in 5.5 years. It’s kind of surreal being here. I feel like so many things are familiar. I know where things are in relation to my grandmother’s house, yet my Hebrew is practically gone (so embarrassing!) which makes me feel like a tourist. The best part is definitely seeing my friends, though. We used to be so tight in middle school and we picked up right where we left off 5+ years ago. All my girls even look the same… I hope we can say the same thing in 10 years

Upon arrival at my grandmother’s place we were greeted with a small feast. Despite having fabulous airplane food (that’s sarcasm btw), I of course could not resist to have a little taste. My grandma was really hesitant to keep the oil out of most dishes (as per my request), but for the most part did quite well. What you see here is a mashed potato/ground beef (fried) patty (she just couldn’t resist to use oil in at least something) + some veggies (roasted red peppers, eggplant/tomatoes, carrots).

After a short nap, I enjoyed a little dessert

Then it was time to meet with my friends! I was super excited We walked around town a bit and decided to sit down for “a drink.” This to me means alcohol but apparently they meant smoothies and milkshakes. I stuck to mineral water to save calories for the good stuff. I told the girls about my blog and they thought it was funny that I took a picture of my water… so I had to pose with the bottle too

Now that I have a hard time reading Hebrew, it almost looks exotic. What do you think? Isn’t this bottle kind of cute? We then hopped to another cafe. I was on a mission – I wanted “toast” – my old favorite. It’s basically a hybrid between panini and pizza on an Israeli bagel, which is nothing like American bagels… definitely bigger but lighter. Again, the menu was a bit overwhelming to me, but I was also getting a kick of being back in Israel!!!!

The cafe (called very creatively “Cafe Cafe”) was pretty cute too

I split a “toast” with my friend Zoya. This guy had mozzarella, tomatoes, red sauce and green olives, and came with a side salad.

My portion:

I’m not going to lie – I was not impressed with the toast (the salad was the best part). Maybe white over-processed bread with red sauce is just not my thing anymore, or maybe this was just not the right place to get it. My sister had the same craving and went to a place in Tel Aviv with her friend and had the opposite experience. She was talking about her toast all morning. I may give it another try on my next visit

We had a really fun time, though. There was also a bit camera playing (I SO want a super fancy one now!). Here are my 2 friends taking pictures of me, taking pictures of them. We’re such dorks

All 4 of us, just like the old days

Oh yeah, I also had a glass of cabernet with dinner. Apparently this is very not Israeli. Oh well, I like wine

Have you ever reunited with a childhood friend? How was it? What about eaten an old favorite dish? Was it as good as you remembered?

I’m a day behind in my blogging, so I can tell you already the next post will be full of fabulous eats. Hope you have a great day. What day is it anyway? Hehe, I love vacation!

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Getting to Israel

August 30th, 2009 · 17 Comments · Uncategorized, running

I’m finally in Israel! I’m using dial-up internet (eek, blogger’s nightmare) and the time difference is making me slightly zombie-like, but I’m happy to be here. Even the flight was surprisingly easy, thanks to all the “entertainment” I brought with me:

The personal tv screen that was in front of me was pretty awesome too. I’ve never seen this kind before. You could start and pause movies, shows, music and even computer games any time. I watched Duplicity and The Soloist at some point, which killed over 4 hours right there. Sweet

What else was sweet? This crazy mullet on the guy we saw in line for check-in in Newark:

Why would anyone in their right mind want this haircut? Beats me I was trying to be all undercover taking this shot, so I snapped a photo of my sister and she did the same for me:

The food was the airplane special – kind of bluh, with a few edible items:

I never touched the dinner “entree” portion of this meal. The chicken did not look appetizing (and my sister bit the bullet and tasted it for us… it got 2 thumbs down), and the pasta around it was soggy and nasty. The salad was surprisingly yummy. Not sure what the grains in there where, but the peppers on top made everything super spicy and we both loved it. Combine that with a bread roll and a brownie, that was my Saturday night dinner. Nice, heh?

Mid-flight snacks included these babies (the KIND bar was from a personal stash, the granola bars were available on the flight):

And breakfast close to arrival was this fun combo:

This is actually all the “side dishes” that came with breakfast. The choices were “eggs or cereal” but I thought this was enough food as is. I ate all the fruit (+ a little more that I got from our neighbor) + croissant + 2/3 of the muffin. Everything was quite yummy. Could be the 9 hours in the air though

Oh did I mention I ran 10 miles before the flight? No? Hehe. It was awesome! My sister and I ran to Brooklyn, got lost there for a bit, and then ran a little more on the lower east side. It was raining but we didn’t care. These long runs give me such a high for the rest of the day, I just can’t get enough of them!!! I hit a wall a little after 6 miles but my sister got me threw it. Since we got a little lost, there was also a bit more walking than usual (actually I never really walk during my runs) but my average was still 9:51 minute/miles and I’m cool with that. It’s not really about speed on those long runs. I’m just happy to finish strong, and that we did

Post workout fuel: scooped out whole wheat bagel with cream cheese, lox, tomato and dill. Perfection!

This post by Eve inspired me to ask them to scoop out the inside of my bagel. I thought I was going to miss the insides but I was wrong. The crunchy/chewy top is the best part of the bagel and this way everything was well contained inside instead of spilling out. I’m definitely going to start doing it more often!

Hope you’re having a wonderful weekend. Not sure how much downtime I’ll have here but I’ll definitely try to fit a few more posts in with my Israeli eats

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Sometimes all you have to do is ask

August 28th, 2009 · 21 Comments · breakfast, dessert, oats, salmon, snacks, yogurt

Hi bloggies! I am SO happy right now!! I can’t even begin to tell you how stressed out I was this morning. I’m leaving for NY tomorrow straight after work and the next day I’m going to Israel. I had so much work to do before that, I swore I could stay up all night and probably would still be unable to finish all of it. I felt so helpless and overwhelmed… I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. My boss I believe thinks pretty highly of me, and I just couldn’t handle either not meeting my deadline or handing something in that was sub-par. So I got to work bright and early and started cracking down on the work. Unfortunately the more I read, the more anxious I got. So you know what I did? I asked my boss if there was any chance I could hand my assignment in after I get back from my trip. It made total sense. There was actually no reason to rush it, except checking the box, and I didn’t want the quality to suffer. And she was ok with it! I think I felt every muscle of my body relax that very moment. It was a huge weight that was lifted off my shoulders (even though of course I’ll still have to do the work next month). Anyway, this just goes to show you that sometimes all you have to do is ask. Things may work out in your favor

Here are my eats from the last 2 days. You’re missing another piece of cheesecake, the rest of the chocolate covered brownie from the bottom of this post, and dinner from last night (to be covered in a separate post)

Banana oats with coconut, almonds and chocolate chips:

I love how the chocolate chips just melt all over the warm oats. Coconut + banana, however, is a little weird

Oikos + fruit salad:

Oh Nuts pumpkin seeds. I actually ended up eating the whole baggie I got in the HLS swag bag.

Leftover salmon + edamame from dinner at KO Prime:

Birthday strawberry cheesecake + yogi tea:

Imitation lobster:

Amazing Grass chocolate whole food energy bar:

I received this bar in the HLS swag bag as well, and I think this is the item I was the most excited to try. I knew it would be a little weird but something told me I would also love it. The verdict? Nope. This guy is not for me! I thought the chocolate coating was waxy, and the filling was fake tasting. The cocoa nibs stood out the most. I think this is what “healthy food” stereotypically tastes like, and that’s why I started this blog – to show people that healthy food does not have to be bland or weird, and can be exciting.

Something that’s healthy and I DO love: 1 Food for Life english muffin + 2 packets of Barney Butter and a large banana. Delicious and filling

And of course my obsession: 1 chocolate chip Paradise Bakery cookie + tea:

I hope to be able to blog from Israel but I don’t know what the internet situation is like there. We are staying with my grandmothers who supposedly have internet, but we’ll see if it’s workable. I may also finally try to figure out Ecto to make it all happen. Do you use Ecto? If you do, how do you bulk resize your pictures? I can’t figure it out for the life of me!

Next time you hear from me, I may be overseeas

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KO Prime restaurant review

August 27th, 2009 · 9 Comments · Boston, dessert, restaurant reviews, salad, salmon

Well yesterday was another “fun” 12 hour work day and today I’m pretty sure it will be like a one billion hour work day. Who am I, a doctor or something? Not cool. This work week has been crazy because I’m going to Israel this Saturday and haven’t been able to spend as much time in the office lately due to a few little things called closing on a condo, moving, and most recently – my husband’s birthday. I just couldn’t leave him at home alone on his birthday while I work late, so instead we did something way more fun – we went out!

As I mentioned in my previous post, dinners at steak houses are an infrequent occurrence in this household but they are my husband’s favorite type of “fancy meal.” I guess most males would be put in this category. So for his birthday I took him out to KO Prime, a modern steakhouse. Their menu seemed creative enough that I wouldn’t feel obliged to order a steak so I felt like this was a fun way to treat my husband while still staying true to myself

The decor was pretty unique. The dining room was dark and almost space-like. I snapped a photo of the ceiling with the intention of getting more angles later, but my camera had other plans for me. It wanted to be recharged! What? That is not good timing!!! I hoped it would last at least for a few more shots of at least my entree and thankfully it cooperated. I literally had 1 second to snap a photo before it would shut off. Anyways, back to our meal…

Dining room ceiling:

The hubs reviewing the wine list:

Really cool salt and pepper shakers + my first glass of Cotes de Rhone (I probably had a little less than 1/2 bottle throughout dinner… Adam and the waiter kept refilling my glass so it was hard to keep track).

This is where you normally would see a picture of the bread basket. It was rustic bread (sour dough, rye); some slices reminded me a lot of the Russian black bread so I liked it a lot because it reminded me of a childhood classic. Adam was not impressed. Sorry for the lack of photo, I tried to conserve the camera’s battery for the money shots While nibbling on the bread we made our menu choices. I really wanted to keep the dinner on the lighter side, so I started with a salad. This was not just any salad, though. This guy had watermelon!

Arugula and watermelon, la quercia ham, passion fruit, and fiddlehead tomme salad

This was a very generous portion! And what you can’t see well is that the salad is sitting on huge chunks of watermelon, which is really the most unique salad ingredient I’ve ever seen. I love strawberries, blueberries, and peaches in salads, and this proved to me that really, you can put any fruit in a savory salad and it will work! The watermelon juice exploded in my mouth with every bite, and its sweetness was perfectly contrasted by the saltiness of the prosciutto and the aged cheese (I know they call it something fancy but that’s what it really was). The dressing was quite nice too – very light, perfectly coating the arugula without overpowering the rest of the salad ingredients. I really enjoyed this unique salad combo!

For my entree, I broke my own rule of always ordering the restaurant’s specialty (in this case clearly this being a steakhouse, I should have ordered a steak) and went with fish. For fish they had 2 choices: salmon and striped bass, and the waiter highly recommended the salmon. Salmon it was!

King salmon with miso, edamame and spicy onions:

I ordered this entree without the spicy onions (first making sure that this wasn’t an essential ingredient in this dish!) and I have to say it was probably a shame… at least that was my first reaction after my initial taste. I can’t stand onions, so I don’t regret omitting them, I just don’t like ordering dishes that have onions as an integral part of them. I think spicy onions were probably the unique twist to an otherwise just solid salmon (they do sound different). With that said, actually after a few bites this really grew on me. At first I enjoyed the glaze over the salmon (and thought it was perfectly cooked) but I couldn’t really taste the flavor of the sauce. It seemed to be too mild to stand up to the strong salmon and edamame flavors. But after actually tasting the sauce by itself, I realized it was a nice citrus reduction (hmm, now that I’m looking at the name of this dish, perhaps it was a miso reduction well, it tasted citrusy to me!). This really turned this around for me, and all of a sudden it all worked! I also had a few forkfulls of Adam’s side dish – the short rib mac & cheese.

Now that was decadent! What’s funny was that I thought it tasted more like cheesy pasta than a “mac & cheese” but of course that’s what mac & cheese is, a pasta with cheese! I guess I was expecting little elbow shaped pasta with a nice crust baked over it. Don’t get me wrong, this was quite incredible, just not traditional mac & cheese (I guess that’s what they were going for!).

I ate 1/2 of my entree (taking the rest home) to save room for dessert. We all know here I can’t review a restaurant without trying their dessert Adam and I split the dark chocolate “s’mores.” This was a fun play on the traditional s’mores… a graham cracker crust, chocolate mousse, and of course mini marshmallows. This was perfectly complemented by the cool cherry sorbet. Oh yeah, this was gooood!

This picture looks a little puney, but his was actually a very generous portion. I usually don’t like sharing my dessert but given that it was my second one for the day, I agreed to share it with the birthday boy, and I was glad I did. If I ate the whole thing, it would definitely put me over the edge and would make for an unpleasant rest of the evening. This was a dessert that made a great last impression of this meal. I’d come back here just for it! (hmm, I think I’ve said that before… what can I say, I love dessert! )

We had a great time and I would definitely recommend KO Prime (although both Adam and I still think that Mooo, where I took him last year, is the best steak house and definitely one of the best restaurants in Boston). The bar looked pretty cool too, so we may swing by there one day just for a fun cocktail on a random night.

What’s your favorite type of restaurant?

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Sneaking out of work for lunch + blogging

August 26th, 2009 · 16 Comments · dessert, salad

I feel so naughty right now. I’m blogging on my lunch break FROM HOME! Did I mention that our new condo is a block away from my work? I don’t think this will ever get old. I just finished a delicious lunch in my peaceful apartment and now I get to blog (but very quickly because I do need to get back to work). So so cool

Thank you all again for your happy birthday wishes to Adam. He skimmed through my last post and went straight to the comments section and was shocked to see that everyone was wishing him a happy birthday. Did you tell them it was my birthday? he asked. Hehe, that will teach him not reading my posts in great detail Anyways, he loved it so thank you! I ended up taking him out to KO Prime – a modern steakhouse. I’m not much of a steakhouse person and Adam loves them but since I’m never really in the mood for one, it usually ends up being a treat for him on his birthday. This dinner was great, but I’ll have to do a separate post for it. My camera battery actually decided to die on me right at the beginning of dinner and I almost freaked out, but it held up enough to take 1 picture at a time, and completely died after a quick photo of dessert. Phew!

Here are the rest of yesterday’s eats…

Breakfast: 2 Nature’s Path buckwheat blueberry waffles with Barney Butter and Maine blueberries + iced coffee

I really liked these waffles! They did not taste cardboard-y like many whole wheat/healthy waffles taste to me, and the wildberries made the house smell amazing when I was toasting them. I think they are going to replace my previously beloved Kashi Heart 2 Heart waffles due to great taste and a superior ingredients list. The Maine blueberries were so tiny and cute. Loved them!

Mid-morning snack: strawberry chobani (the last one from my old stash. I’m sticking to organic dairy going forward)

Lunch was with a friend at b.good. I ordered my favorite salad – the southwestern chicken: mesclun, avocado, corn, tomatoes, black beans, toasted corn, chipotle balsamic dressing

The toasted corn is the best part! So crunchy and delicious!!! I need to find a way to replicate it at home

And then I decided to stop by the house to wish Adam a happy birthday in person (he was still sleeping when I left for work)… he took the day off to relax and do a little more unpacking. His parents ended up popping in at the same time and brought him a birthday cake. Sweet!

I had a slice of this delicious strawberry cheesecake. This piece was tiny so I went back for seconds

I’m so happy at this new place! Hopefully work will settle down in a few days. I need to get a lot done because I’m going away this weekend for 5 days… will share my plans with you soon! How is your week going? Mine is flying by!