winter sucks

so yeah i haven't felt like saying much about food over the past month because i've been depressed and haven't had much of an appetite. that's the best kind of depression, actually, if you're like me and have the luxury of losing a few pounds. one of my best friends was going through this last summer but did not have the same, shall i say, girth as me so ended up looking like karen carpenter.



i actually look amazing right now, besides all of the puffy bags around my eyes from the excessive crying.

but don't feel too bad for me. the fact that i'm writing this means that i'm not depressed anymore so you lost your window for sending me cheerful notes and bouquets. (not that i would dissuade you from sending me bouquets for no reason at all other than just to spread cheer...i actually got a cookie bouquet around august when i was moving to my current place from a work friend that really did make me feel awesome. the same work friend sent me a flour sifter when i had mentioned on the phone that i didn't own one and for whatever reason never got around to buying one. she's really good at gift giving.)

that doesn't mean i haven't eaten AT ALL. i mean, c'mon. this is me we're talking about here. i just now got back from smoke joint with the heehaw. max wrote a story for inc. about twitter where he says:

there are lots of cautionary tales about Twittering gone bad. (I had such an experience when, en route to an unfortunately named barbecue restaurant, I Twittered, and then hastily deleted, this gem: "Walking to Smoke Joint.")

for lunch today i had a delicious turkey sandwich with avocado and cuke that i made from stuff i got at the pathmark this morning. it was dire times in my kitchen last night when i got back from dc and only had some tortellini in the cupboard and half an onion in the fridge. i made do, though, and whipped up a dressing with olive oil and basil. i think one of my roommates threw away my dead rosemary tree. yesterday in dc i started the morning with kriston at the greasiest possible spoon down the street from where he lives called florida avenue grill. seriously, i'm SHOCKED it has a website. AND i am now discovering, a facebook page. my how things have changed. i mean, this is a place with pig foot on the menu. pig foot costs $3.60. i did not have pig foot for breakfast, i had grits and ham and two eggs over easy and biscuits with sausage gravy. and i felt sick the whole bolt bus ride back to new york. trust me, you do not want to go in there. the bus bathroom, i mean.

i can't entirely blame F.A.G. i had a kimchi dog the night before with many many beers, and the night before that i had a handful of nastily perfect nachos at the black cat with many many beers. so, you know, what comes out is about the same as what goes in. i do not know how the object of my affection eats pizza and chex mix bold flavor and cheesesteak sliders and chicken in a biskit all the time and survives even barely. we had some good times in silver spring, maryland, though over presidents day weekend. we went to my favorite restaurant in the universe, red lobster, and i had my favorite food in the history of food, crab legs. why have i not attempted to steam some crab legs at home? i ponder aloud. we also went to a brunch at the club house at this senior citizens's community his mom lives in called LEISURE WORLD. click on that link. i want to live there. they have a bridge club and yoga classes and theatre and a pool and afore mentioned sunday brunch at the clubhouse. one night, i made a gigantic lasagna from a recipe i googled: http://mylasagnarecipe.com/. the meat was ground beef mixed with sweet italian sausage. brilliant! and so fun to squish together. it took 4 or 5 hours, however, from start to finish, so i would only advise making this lasagna if you are at your boyfriend's mom's house in the middle of snow covered maryland for three days.

a few weeks ago before anna went to berlin, we had a drink together at big bar, which hahaha is actually very small! and then went next door to this brand new filipino bar called krystal's that was celebrating a grand opening and had a full free buffet plus $2 drinks. it was not delicious but i was starving and totally psyched to stumble on free food. it hit the spot but i don't recommend it. plus it goes by the same name as the object of my affection's former object of affection (god i hope former), so, you know, be a bro and hate it.

okay i've bored you enough for one night. chow!

seagull steals chips

Xi'an famous foods western chinese cuisine

88 E. Broadway @ Forsyth

fry daddy style

i finally replaced the cord to my frydaddy that i had neglected to pack up and bring with me when i moved out of williamsburg back in may 2008. that was a rough time for me, friends, what with my grandmother dying and my bed getting pissed in by my roommate's friend's friend (who everyone thought was "too nice" to pee in someone else's bed) and that girl sending me a myspace message calling me a homewrecker and my bike being stolen and that woman i moved in with on st. james in clinton hill who i ended up having to take to small claims court because she wouldn't give me back my security deposit after she proved to be a crazy ocd bitchface and thief. oh, didn't i mention any of these things on fattractive? well, of course not. this isn't the place for that.

this is the place for me to tell you that i finally made deep fried mac and cheese balls. i used all of the cheese in my fridge, some cheese i had bought, and all of my neighbor's cheese, and it still wasn't as much cheese as the recipe called for. it was more than enough, turns out, and i still have a ton of mac and cheese in my freezer because you can only eat one or two of these things before you immediately feel like you've gained 300 lbs and sprouted 3 new zits. in fact, half way through me eating my third, charlotte actually said to me "how do you stay so thin when you eat so much crap?" and i was like I'm not that thin and she was like, "well you used to be a total fattie bom batty." or something like that. maybe she said something more like i'm thinner than i used to be, but really, i'm not. i swear. friends say this to me all the time. if they haven't seen me in a while, they'll remark on how much weight i've lost. but the thing is, i've maintained the same weight since i was a freshman in college... which was over a decade ago. my hypothesis is that i have a round face and people think of me as being round when they remember me, so when they see me after a long absence, i seem thinner than their mental image of me. i don't really help to dispute that, having a blog called fattractive and all, but i guess it amuses me more than offends.

i also made some southern fried chicken on last saturday night, which was really delicious when it was the cutlets (i put fresh rosemary from my tree into the flour mix) but unfortunately the drumsticks wouldn't cook all the way through. must figure out how to combat that problem next time. i didn't try anything else after that. you can only really take so much fried in one weekend.

the night before, we tried to go to rye for heehaw's birthday dinner, but the wait was too long so we went to walter foods the next street over instead. and boy howdy am i glad we did. heehaw had the hangar steak, la gay had the nicoise, yours truly had a yummy porkchop with a cinnamon dipping sauce ftw, and daneekz ordered the $28 filet mignon plus two extra glasses of bubbly after we killed the bottle. i only mention that last part obviously because we were splitting the check 3 ways.



brunch yesterday was killer. my main squeeze lives like 2 blocks away from little giant and had a hankering for biscuits and gravy at like 9 in the morning. so i threw on my walk of shame outfit and skipped all the way there because i'd read some real nice things about it in the times only a couple of weeks ago. we were not deceived. he had what he came for plus another piping hot plate of mac and cheese and i had the cauliflower/truffle/pumpkin seed salad with an extraneous poached egg on top. everything was delicious and overpriced. when the server asked if we wanted bacon in the mac and cheese, he looked at me questioningly and i said, "do you even really need to think about that?" which we all thought was sooooooo funny. then the check came and my little comedy act cost us an additional $9. really? (snl weekend update voice) $9 to add bacon? really?

unremarkable cobb salad at sixth ward the night before...oh! how could i forget. on thursday, sue took me to see vetiver at the bell house (which is in a super scary rape alley in gowanus). we met before the show at frankies 457. she said it looked a lot like the venue she's chosen for her WEDDING and that it was one of the most enjoyable dining experiences she's had in ny (which is a big deal because she eats out the whole time she's here every time she visits). the food/service/atmosphere was all ****. dinner at georgia's earlier this month with the squeeze was also highly recommendable.

whew. that's a lot of eating out. i seriously spent way too much money this month. if i had to add all that up, i could have gotten some sharp new duds from banana republic. i wouldn't have had as much fun, though.

and finally i cannot stop listening to this song

• Remember The Time by Michael Jackson

More Michael Jackson music on iLike

donut lean on doors

due to pasadoughnuts prodding, i am posting something today.

i digress already: every time i'm on the subway and see the sign "do not lean on doors," i read it in my head as "donut."

speaking of, have you had a treat from doughnut plant, yet? there's one near my man's apartment and one about to open in chelsea ("more of a doughnut lounge")...here is an excerpt from a convo i had with heehaw sauce the other day about it (we were first talking about porn mags for girls because of this launch party we were going to later that night):

me: yeah i'm just disgusted by male strippers

Heather: they are so gross

me: i mean, i want a photo spread of someone cuddling me and buying me doughnuts

Heather: hahahahaha

me: which he did on saturday morning, btw

Heather: i want someone to buy my thinly sliced italian cured meat
ok gross

me: at the doughnut plant on grand in the l.e.s.

Heather: oh shit i heard that place is amazing

me: http://www.doughnutplant.com/
it is
am
a
zing

Heather: did you try to cremem brulee doughnut?

me: i had a coconut cream filled coconut doughnut and a marizipan and he had a peanut butter glazed filled with blackberry jam and a plain glazed. they were out of creme brulee but we both wanted one. there were so many flavors i wanted to try

but they're like 3 bucks each

so next weekend

and the next weekend

and so on

i've had a lot of food situations so far in 2010, actually. this morning, my upstairs neighbor slash new good friend kristy had a little brunch party for me, anna, and charlotte. mostly for charlotte since she just got to ny for a work visit after a long four month absence. okay really it was mostly for kristy because she loves to host brunch parties and has been tearing me a new one for weeks because i spend most of my weekends with the man who buys me donuts. (i mean, wouldn't you?)

she made this delicious fluffy sausage casserole thing that she calls eggstrada. i should have taken a picture. when i get the recipe from her, i'll share it (just don't tell her).

i brought a cpl bottles of ten dolla bubbly and a gallon of oj. then we went to the awesome new flea over in this former bank building. omg. the building is breast taking. i mean, breath. sorry. charlotte and kristy spent most of the morning talking about their double d's, so i have a LOT on my mind. i had a fourteen dollar lobster roll, which means i ended up spending more on myself than on other people like i had first bragged (only 25 cents more, though, if you're counting. two onesies for my friend's boobs twins at thirty five bucks total, in case you're wondering who benefited from my selfless giving this time.) then, we went to pequena for bean dip and margaritas. yes, i know they were closed down for health code violation a few months ago, and no i don't care. it's too cute in there. it's like they peaked into my interior design dreams and puked up kitschy flower shaped xmas lights and wooden dragons hanging from the ceiling. besides, i only had some tea because i was still stuffed from the too soon lobster roll post brunch.



thursday, i had lunch at the random house cafeteria with my lovely book designer friend bella who was a little torn up about a certain someone who just broke a certain piece of shitty news to which i advised her to CUT THAT MOFO LOOSE. as i had done with another friend last weekend, my favorite piece of wisdom to dole is to walk away. i don't always practice what i preach, and i think most of my life my pride has taken over any deep seated understanding of how relationships blossom and move forward. but i'm trying this time to work a little harder. to bella, though, i'm sticking to my guns. he's not worth your time, girlfriend.

wednesday night, i had an 8 oz perfectly succulent strip of skirt steak at this totally cute argentinian restaurant azul that came with a heap of mashed potatoes and a glass of malbac, and on tuesday night i had dinner with my roommates at good ole' maggie brown. at the first, i dropped fifty bones (the meat didn't have any) and then spent almost as much at maggie brown even though i only had a sampling of sides! new york prices are stupid.

i guess this post ended up longer than i intended. but, you know, i'm glad i could give you more of me. (about 25 cents more)

tomatometer

so there's this website http://www.rottentomatoes.com that shows how good a movie is based on a percentage of positive reviews from "approved tomatometer critics." recently, said tomatometer was employed to prove that fattractive has shitty taste in comedies from the 80s. (in my defense, i love many of the movies from this era and just by the fact that they made me fall in love with them do i believe proves they are good. but whatever. apparently, not everything can be as beyond reproach as foxxhole radio. (don't worry if you don't understand that reference--it's obviously meant as an inside joke.)

i only mention the tomatometer because, for one, the word tomato is in the word tomatometer, which makes it worthy of fattractive coverage. tomatoes were in the veggie burger i had for lunch today and in the tacos i made for dinner sunday night and in the sauce in the can i used with my wheat spaghetti with month old andouille sausage i whipped together from the ghosttown of a fridge i came home to after my 2 week stint in south america. oh, what? didn't i tell you? i went to buenos aires! and montevideo! and colonia (for about 4 hours at this one, but still! tres adventure!)! why am i wasting time talking about tomatoes!

things you should know about argentina and uruguay:
1. people eat mostly meat and make fun of americans and their salads. don't listen to them. you can buy fruits/vegetables at many grocery stores (mostly run by chinese people).
2. the ice cream will BLOW YOUR MIND right out of your SKULL. seriously, it's delicious. i went to a heladeria once a day, practically. the first time was at this place called veikka a few blocks away from fem fat al's (with whom i was staying) in the las canitas neighborhood between palermo and bellgrano. i asked for the coco flavor and the scooper looked at me like i was loco because i didn't ask for two flavors! everyone around me had like a pint size tub of several scoops. it's like that movie with al brooks and meryl streep Defending Your Life where you can eat all you want and never gain a pound or get uncomfortably full.
3. empanadas are everywhere and slide right down your gullet with the help of the local beer quilmes (which is essentially pbr en espanol...the local beer in montevideo is called patricia, which we shouted many times in lieu of cheers [which by the way is pronounced by our bolivian friends as "chairs"]).
4. why would anyone try to acquire the taste of mate when cafe con leche is top notch no matter where you go? i stopped to order one about 3 times a day, and without fail, the waiter brought me a perfectly brewed cappuccino with some variety of pastry and a tiny glass of water, all for about 6-8 pesos (<$2USD).
5. alfajores are like moonpies but with dulce de leche. bring a lot of these back home with you. i am kicking myself for not taking my own advice here.
6. learn the phrase "la cuenta, por favor." live it. love it. they will not bring you your check unless you beg for it. otherwise, the service is uniformly friendly and attentive, which makes you feel even more guilty for only tipping 10ish%.
7. my friend morgan told me that everyone in argentina loves these sandwiches called migas that basically are anchovies and hardboiled eggs on bread with the crust cut off although the one deli we went into to buy one had no idea what he was asking for. i had a bite (after he told them how to make it), and it wasn't bad. the real winner in the sandwich pageant, though, is the CHIVITO in uruguay, which really is on all of the menues. it's like a total dagwood concoction of steak, ham, lettuce tomato pickle hardboiled egg olives and whatever else. i bought some steak at the store this weekend and shall attempt to recreate this cholesterol la bomba very soon.
8. there's not really a lot of fish on the menu although you'd think there would be since you're surrounded by water. it's river water though and the water is brown. i don't know if either of those facts i just shared have anything to do with the scarcity of fish, but there you have it, elizabeth.
9. that reminds me that i also bought a fish in chinatown this weekend that is currently getting less fresh as i type this. also, please ignore that elizabeth line unless you are in on the inside joke as earlier in this post.
10. we also had some amazing arepas when in montevideo because our host is venezuelan and a total doll. she introduced us to some lipsmacking pumpkin jam that i brought back a tub of (don't tell customs!) and took us to the most fun fun bar i've ever been to, baar fun fun. i danced all night with a woman 3 times my age and half my size. fem fat al says that argentinians call heels tacos, and michelle (a brooklynite we ran into at malba who'd just snagged a pair of super cute booties) says, "these tacos were made for dancing!"

that's what i got for now. another installment another day. te veo despues, aligador.

best costume award goes to the tequila bottle with a mustache

this is what i actually made. the mummies were a huge hit! they were gone in like 15 minutes. second most popular were the brownie witch hats. nobody ate the apple/almond toothy grins. and i forgot to take a picture of the pretzel cheddar broomsticks, but they weren't that awesome since i ran out of time to tie the cheese on. the halloween trashcan punch also disappeared quickly, but i'm pretty sure that's because there was a lot of alcohol in it. the first batch was a careful concoction of mango juice, campari, sparkling wine, and vodka, but then shit got hectic and we just started dumping tequila and peroni and peach nector and tropical v8 splash and whatever.

there's a mustache stuck to my living room floor and i have 6 new zits from all the olive oil floating around the house from eli's epic hummus and lily confit production (which by the way blew my mind right out of my skull). hello november. halloween 2009 sianora.