thai turkey meatballs.

I'm running a 5K in six days. I thought I'd share how I am preparing for this, as I consider myself an elite athletic guru.

1. Don't run for several weeks. In the meantime, stay up late both because you are hanging with yo buds and because you overcommitted yourself, so you have lots of responsibilities to take care of.

2. Make lots of tasty treats, like german vanilla cake. Also, don't hold back on dem Thanksgiving mashed potatoes and gravy.

3. Randomly force yourself to run one day. Run so much after such a hiatus that you feel very sore (but good sore) the next day.

mini falafel bites.

Ever have those times where you just want to eat everything?

I tend to be fine during the day, but as soon as night comes .. my ability to gauge proper food portions and my self-will are completely and utterly destroyed. Tonight is one of those nights. I just had chocolate cake with dulce de leche (excellent combo .. also, that dulce de leche is not going anywhere anytime soon, there's a lot of it), a huge thick chewy chocolate chunk (> chip) cookie, and whatever skim milk was left in the container. There's something liberating about drinking milk straight from the gallon carton sometimes.

Or maybe I just need to do more spontaneous things.

tomato jam.

For my 17th birthday, my aunt told me she was taking me to a restaurant of my choice during New York Restaurant Week. Previous to her bringing it up, I had never heard of any Restaurant Weeks. So imagine my surprise and joy at finding out that, for a limited period of time in whichever city (there are Restaurant Weeks in Philadelphia, Boston, etc.), you can dine at a high-class restaurant for a prix fixe? Heaven.

Anyway, we ended up at Spice Market. It is a gorgeous restaurant, albeit dark, with the drapes and candles and other exotic decorations everywhere. Jean-Georges Vongerichten caters to people who desire a Southeast palette, and the food captures aspects of Thai, Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese food. I am not going to do a total review right now (maybe another post), but one of the more memorable of the 7 (or was it 10?) courses was this tomato jam, served with papadam. I was intrigued by the savory jam, a concept I had never given much thought, and dug in.

It was spicy.
It made my eyes water. It made my throat burn. I downed my water. I remembered water is useless and ate papadam as discreetly as I could in this sophisticated, elegant restaurant. That was a fail. I fanned my mouth with my hand ... and stopped as I noticed my aunt laughing at me.