Abandonment Issues

Do you abandon books?

Do you ever get two or three chapters in and decide, "This book is too terrible to endure any longer?"

Or, do you trudge through on principle?

Even though you recognize early on that the book within your grasp is not for you, still you power on for fear of hurting that poor book's feelings, or worse, for fear of admitting there was a book you didn't finish reading.

I know the struggle.

I liken my 100 Days of Real Food challenges to such book abandonment issues.

If you couldn't tell from my first post on this subject, I do take a little issue with the obsession with real food. I think it is important to eat healthy and necessary to be aware of what we put in our bodies, but I feel like the trend now is to be so concerned with healthy living that it becomes an unhealthy obsession.

I was starting to grow that way with this challenge. At the start, I said I wasn't going to be an insane stickler to the rules. Still I found myself anxious over maintaining each week's guideline. I was crossed between getting annoyed at myself for wanting to be a rebel and getting annoyed at such over the top rules including my two least favorite: only natural sweeteners and 100% whole grains.

When we went to Chicago I told myself ahead of time that there would be no Real Food concerns that week. This was with every intention that I would bounce back into the 100 Days of Real Food challenges when my vacation ended.

I could blame that week. I could say it threw me off. I could say that I'm just now getting my eating habits back together and regaining focus of the mini challenges. But instead I've chosen to be realistic.

This book stinks.

So, I am abandoning it.

While this was never a diet, I feel that too many people struggle with diets because they choose diets/ways of eating that do not match their reality. Instead of living a balanced way of eating, people are torturing themselves to follow unrealistic and unnecessary diets in hopes of results and possibly even happiness.

For me, it is about the experience, the challenge of it all. I wanted to eat healthier, so I chose to follow an extreme program, one that overall I didn't agree with and couldn't stand. I knew from the start that giving up all sweeteners was going to be an issue for me; I knew that going 100% whole grain only was going to drive my palate insane, but still I said I would do it.

Thank God I went away for a week. Was it the bakeries, the burgers, or the pizza that set me straight? I’ll never know. I just knew I wasn't going to continue with something that denied me of flavors and culinary masterpieces a moment longer.

100 Days of Real Food? Filled with rules and restrictions that could make your head explode?

No way!

Instead I’ve chosen to have a Lifetime of Good Food. This can’t be accomplished by starving yourself and it can’t be accomplished by setting insanely strict standards. Because ‘good’ doesn’t merely mean good-for-you, no it covers far more than simply the healthiness of food.

To maintain a Lifetime of Good Food, here are a few of my standards. A few noteworthy elements of the 100 Days of Real Food mini pledges (challenges) have been reworked to match a lifestyle that promotes happy healthy eating.

A Lifetime of Good Food: 

Happy Healthy Eating Habits

1. Stop eating when you feel full. 
2. Incorporate fruits and vegetables into meals as often as possible.
3. Drink mostly water, but you know you’ll never pass up a cookies n’ cream milkshake if it’s staring you in the face.
4. Try new foods! Never cooked with fresh artichokes? Grab one and try it out! Don’t feel compelled to do it with every meal, but do it as often as you can.
5. Eat locally grown/raised food when you can. Can you buy your eggs at the Farmer’s Market down the street? Do it! Does the house around the corner sell tomatoes? Buy ‘em there! But don’t go out of your way or cause yourself more stress on a weeknight shopping trip just for the sake of eating local.
6. Read labels. If there are tons of things listed that you don’t know, look for a different option.
7. Don’t read labels. If you really want Doritos, you better go buy some Doritos!
8. Plan ahead. The best way to ensure you aren't scrambling to throw something together at each meal is to plan ahead. 
9. Make good choices. Sugary drinks, decadent cakes and cookies, deep fried foods, sure they all spell L-O-V-E for me. But they also spell health problems and thick thighs. Keep ‘em to the minimum.
10. Cheat. Regularly. At least once a week. Pick one day/meal that you are going to throw care to the wind and indulge. Then get back on track with your Lifetime of Good Food habits.  

Note: This post is not meant to condemn anyone who is a fanatic about eating healthy. It is simply meant to lift the spirits of quitters like myself who are seeking the best plan for their lifestyle. This is my best plan. And even this plan, as simple and lacking of every possible get fit quick formula there is, requires dedication and determination.*

*And the occasional bag of Doritos.**

**Sorry, I desperately wanted to further emphasize the alliteration I started there.

Butter, NYC

A restaurant named Butter, no question about it, is going to be out-of-this-world, write home to your momma amazing. Add in that the head chef is Alexandra Guarnaschelli, famous Iron Chef and Food Network chef, and guaranteed, it will be a meal to remember.

After looking up the menu beforehand (because that's what true foodies do, right?) Hubby was dead set on ordering the Homemade Ricotta Crostini as an appetizer. He told me about it as we were driving into the city and was instantly annoyed that I didn't share his excitement.

"It has crispy Brussels sprouts!" he said.

"And ricotta…which you don’t like.” I reminded him.

                                  

Nevertheless, we ordered it.

If you have never experienced crispy Brussels sprouts, make it a priority to try them today! Brussels sprouts aren’t exactly a popular vegetable; to me they are highly related in taste and smell to cabbage. In this appetizer, they are transformed from an icky vegetable that gets avoided on the dinner plate, to the star of the show. I was curious how ricotta would blend with earthy Brussels sprouts, but the crispy sprouts, the creamy ricotta, and the crunch of the bread beneath it all married together beautifully. It was like a bite-sized vegetarian flat bread.

Here is how much we loved this appetizer. The next weekend, I recreated our dining experience at home by following Alex’s recipe. 

For dinner, Hubby ordered the Creekstone Farms “Butter Cut” Beef Filet with a side of Gnocchi Mac and Cheese. Butter Cut is the right word choice when describing this filet. It was tender, juicy, and smooth as butter. Turning gnocchi into mac and cheese was clever, and delicious.

I ordered the Roasted All-Natural Chicken Breast with sautéed sunchokes and black truffle butter. It was the sunchokes that really decided my meal. You might recall how I first met and fell in love with them during our Valentine’s Weekend (LINK) in NYC. However, I almost didn’t order the chicken for fear that the chicken wouldn’t be cooked properly. The last two or three times I have ordered roasted chicken (at different restaurants) I have either received super dry chicken or chicken that simply lacked flavor. Thankfully, Butter does chicken right. The skin had the necessary crisp to it, and the chicken was juicy and had absorbed the sweetness of the sherry it cooked in. The sunchokes continued to impress, but I couldn’t finish them because I had lost all self-control and also ordered a side of Roasted Red Norland Potatoes with rosemary sea salt.

We decided these potatoes also needed to be recreated at home, so I dug around and found a super simple recipe that in the end matched almost perfectly to the presentation and taste of Butter’s potatoes.

The desserts certainly were tempting. I was particularly intrigued by the Frozen Toasted Marshmallow “Mallomar”, but we decided to refrain from ordering.*

*This could possibly be because we had popped into Magnolia Bakery only an hour before dinner and grabbed a few cupcakes. It could also have been because we had plans to head to Le Pain Quotidien for French Crème Donuts.

Butter was exactly the kind of restaurant I want to spend the rest of my life with and in this case, I’m not so sure if a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Don’t get me wrong, the food was what overall made this place a winner, but there was something about the name mixed with the atmosphere and environment when joined together with the food that made it perfection.

Along with an alluring name, bite, and décor what I loved most about a place like Butter is that from street view it gives off the facade of being a hole in the wall. A plain, seemingly small entrance with the word “Butter” can be easily missed, but behind the door lays an underground dining experience perhaps not meant for the entire world. Thankfully, we had the opportunity to partake in it.

A Burger on Every Corner

Chicago is not lacking for burger joints. Beforehand we had chosen a few recommended by Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, but soon realized that each burger joint we encountered had something special to offer. After all, burger joints aren't just about burgers. They're about the kind of meat used, the fixings, the French fries, and my personal favorite, the milkshakes.

Every other street we went down had a different burger place...the key word there is different! There wasn't one burger chain infecting the entire city. Instead every which way we turned we had a wide selection of enticing burger choices. If we hadn't planned our meals beforehand (remember, we are over planners here!) we wouldn't have suffered for lack of burgers or for lack of quality.

In fact, our first burger stop, The Butcher and the Burger ended up being a not planned lunch. The original lunch plan was Kuma's Corner (more on that in a minute). But after a late start, a morning spent shopping Armitage Avenue  and eating pastries we found ourselves not thinking of lunch until 1:30 pm. It would have taken us at least 30 minutes to get to Kuma's so we decided to try something right where we were.

Why hello, Butcher and the Burger!

First at all, how adorable is that name?

I'll tell you. Stinkin' adorable.

I went with a classic grass-fed beef burger, with the Chicago steakhouse spice rub, a split-top butter egg bun, and all the American style fixings. Hubby mixed it up a little by adding bacon and egg.

The burger had the perfect char to the outside, yet magically maintained the light pink center I love. While the burger was packed with flavor and culinary mastery, it was the bun that was the showstopper. The bun was soft, sweet, and what I want to eat burgers on for now and forever.

Most days, by the time we decided to eat lunch my hunger demon was already on the rise, causing me to only be able to respond to questions in grunts and making my vision a swirl of grays and reds. Thus was the case when we entered Big & Little's. Relieved is a poor choice of word to explain how I felt when I realized that Big & Little's wasn't a proper sit down restaurant, and that they had items ranging from $2.65 tacos to $5.95 burgers and burritos. For a little more they also had po boys for $6.95. With a menu of this sort, and the appetite building within me, I was ready to order one of everything.

This is the way to do food, I'm convinced. Small portions with bold flavors--it's the only way I want to eat anymore!

On our last day in Chicago, we wanted to squeeze in one more burger joint. We thought Kuma's Corner would be the perfect choice. A place with burgers named after rock and roll groups had to be legendary, right?

The second we walked through the doors, the answer glared in our faces. Head banger music was blasting, no, correction, it was screeching at a decimal level that would've prevented any discussion from occurring during our meal. The place smelled like burnt burgers, not charred--burnt. In my world, that isn't a good thing. Still we went up to the hostess and asked to be seated. When we were quoted a 45 minute wait, we paused to catch our surprise and then turned out the door.

Thank goodness we did. Because if we hadn't we never would have experienced the burger joint that is DMK Burger.

We wanted to go to DMK on our first day in Chicago but because of just getting our bearings of the lay of the land, we weren't able to enjoy their burgers on that particular day.

We started with drinks and I don’t think I landed from the high the food gave me until somewhere in the air between Chicago and Trenton. Joel ordered a Pineapple Basil Soda, Lance ordered a Vanilla Ginger Soda, and I ordered a Peanut Butter Shake which I forced Mallory to share with me.

I don’t ordinarily drink soda, but these are the kinds of sodas I can get behind. The flavors matched to their names perfectly and the blend of sweetness wasn't overpowering at all.

I was a little too excited about my milkshake to give the boys’ drinks anymore attention after my first sip. Ordinarily I don’t order peanut butter milkshakes because Hubby strongly dislikes peanut butter.

But today, I was so, so glad I went with my gut. DMK’s peanut butter milkshake is heaven. The flavor of peanut butter is there, but it isn't thrusting itself obnoxiously in your face. It blends beautifully with the ice creams used. I could have downed the entire thing before our burgers arrived, but I’m so glad Mallory and Joel helped.

Jealousy overcame me, and I ordered a burger topped with an egg…and I was so glad I did. But even better than my over easy burger were the French fries. We ordered Wisconsin Cheddar and Scallion fries and Parmesan and Truffle Cream fries. We go big, and then we go home here! My favorite was the Parmesan and Truffle Cream fries. The Truffle Cream was a fun dipping sauce alternative to the standard ketchup.

While the bakeries of Chicago were my hands down favorite part of the trip, the burger joints of Chicago are something I’m going to long for on nights when I’m craving a burger made to perfection. We don’t have non-chain burger joints on every corner in New Jersey, and that simply will not do.

A Night of Authentic German Food at Chicago Brauhaus

I said it in my bakeries of Chicago post and I’ll say it again. Food has an extraordinary way of bringing people together. We all have to eat, right? We might as well eat and have a good time, too. That seemed to be the philosophy at the heart of Chicago Brauhaus.

Joel described the restaurant best by likening it to the lodge/pub that Gaston frequents in Beauty and the Beast. Even though I have not a strand of German in me, I felt like I was home. The atmosphere was welcoming, laid back, and familial. Our waitress, who if I had to guess was probably in her sixties, spoke to us with tenderness equal to a paternal grandparent.

After a few minutes of looking around the room, I would estimate that half of the tables had a boot of beer at them.

Boots. Not mugs. Boots.

Before I proceed to tell you whether or not a boot wound up at our table, let me tell you this; Hubby hates beer. Over the almost eight years we have been married he has continuously tried all the popular names, and each time his reaction has been the same: “It tastes like dishwater.” I’m inclined to agree with him, although there are a few brands of which I can manage to endure an entire bottle.

That said he didn't hesitate in ordering a boot of Julius Echter Weiss. While I probably wouldn't order it if a German wine was also on the menu, this German beer was far better than any beer I have experienced. Upon ordering ‘the boot’, our adopted grandmother waitress told him she would need his credit card.

I guess glass boots filled with 2 liters of beer don’t always survive until the end of the night.

I tried to help a little, but couldn't commit because I was more interested in enjoying a German wine. My choice for the night was a Riesling made, naturally, in Germany. 

We also noticed many tables getting a colossal sized pretzel as an appetizer and quickly realized these were not just pretzels, but imported Bavarian pretzels.

An absolute must in our night of authentic German food.

With the pretzel being the size of my head, it wasn't difficult to split it four ways.

Hubby's appetizer is hiding behind my delicious pieces of pretzel.

For dinner, Hubby ordered the Brauhaus special (more on that in a moment) which came with a Sülze appetizer. I was weary at first, but Hubby insisted that I taste it. In later research I discovered that Sülze is head cheese. Cheese sounds good, but this wasn't cheese. On further investigation, I learned that head cheese isn't cheese at all but rather a European cold cut. But don’t think American cold cuts—no that would be too simple. This is a meat jelly made with flesh from the head of the animal (cow, pig, sheep, etc).

Makes you feel a little better about eating hot dogs now, doesn't it?

For dinner, I couldn't resist ordering Goulash with Spätzle. Though I don’t have a lick of German in me, I am half Hungarian. My family has an amazing Hungarian goulash recipe, among other Hungarian delights including the best chicken paprika you will ever taste in your life, so I needed to have theirs to compare.

I’m going to be honest.

The meat was perfectly tender, which is of utmost importance in goulash. You can have all the flavors spot on, but if your meat isn't tender the dish is ruined. The noodles were on point and were certainly a step above the bagged egg noodles I usually use. The flavor, however, didn't compare with the subtly sweet flavor of my family goulash.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. I wanted their secret to keeping their meat tender during the cooking period (our goulash is best when it cooks for at least two hours), but I also felt a little bit of Hungarian pride as I ate.

The Brauhaus special was a sampling of German bratwurst, Sheboygan bratwurst, Kassler rippchen, with potato and sauerkraut. It was essentially everything that is amazing about Germany on one plate. It was definitely a man’s meal, as Hubby was pushing himself towards the end.*

*There was no way he was going to leave any of that delicious meat behind.

Joel and Mallory ordered what Guy Fieri ordered when he covered Chicago Brauhaus for an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. We also learned that the Triple D crew had just recently been there to feature the Brauhaus again on an upcoming episode. It will be on in May, and we’re excited to see what new tasty delights Guy recommends.

Mallory had the Rindsroualde, which is a beef rouladen. In a nut shell, it is German beef, all rolled up. Delicious!

Joel’s meal, however, would probably be my meal of choice if I find myself in Lincoln Square, Chicago again. The Suerbraten is a braised, marinated beef. Something magical happens when beef is left to sit in liquids for a few days. I found myself sneaking as many bites from Joel’s plate that my stomach would allow.

The experience of Chicago Brauhaus was not just centered on the food. Don’t get me wrong, the food was outstanding. In one meal, I experienced more of Germany than I could ever learn in the same amount of time from reading a textbook. This wasn't just a place that people go to for a quick meal. This wasn't just a place that people go to once a month. This was somewhere people went, often, to laugh, sit back, and enjoy life. This was seen by the permanent dance floor that the room was built around. By the musical entertainment of accordion, guitar, and piano, some German, some popular American songs, that adults and children alike rose from their seats to enjoy. 

As the music calmed, the accordionist slowly released the first few notes of Edelweiss and Joel tilted his head and nodded at me in recognition to the song. 

I've always loved how music can send you back to a specific time and place in your life. This simple, beautiful song sent us to our childhood. Without words or images, we were back in our parents’ living room watching “The Sound of Music” for the thousandth time. Somehow Rodgers and Hammerstein managed to make a song about a flower give all who know it a connection to family and their homeland whenever it is played.

We went to Chicago Brauhaus expecting the food to be the primary part of our night, but I would venture to say that anyone who enters their doors will find that the food, though deliciously unforgettable, is not the element of Chicago Brauhaus that keeps it in business. It is the heart, the sense of family, and the gushing of homeland pride that echoes within and spreads to anyone who crosses their threshold.