something to whet your appetite

i'm writing a rather large post about my trip to the pyramids at giza, but with getting the pictures where i want it and being as humorous as possible, it's taking a bit of time, so until then... i give you this.

when i arrived in egypt, i weighed 275lbs. until jules got here, my weight didn't fluctuate because i was still living my normal lifestyle of eating out, not exercising, and drinking. when jules arrived just shy of a month ago, i was still 275lbs; this was when i joined the gym, and she started enforcing the diet i couldn't do on my own. when i finished my workout at the gym yesterday, i weighed myself, and to my surprise, i'm already down to 264lbs. it's not THAT tough, but i do have a hard time with wanting little snacks here and there. i'm dying for a mcdonald's cheeseburger. i didn't even really like them that much before my diet, but the fact that there is one right at the end of my street, and i CAN'T have it, kills me. plus, their single cheeseburger, you know, the kind you can get on the $.99 value menu or in a kid's meal is HUGE! it's probably bigger than a U.S. quarter-pounder. anyways, i've been telling jules that i'll fail my diet if i have to go cold turkey, as that is the common failure method of most diets. so, i've gotten jules to compromise that when i lose 15lbs, i get some junk food as a reward. nothing crazy, maybe just a cheeseburger or a meaty pizza, something to get rid of the craving and reward my child-like desire to receive praise and recognition for doing what most people do naturally.

until then, jules (and me on a rare occasion) is cooking dinner every night. i thought of the idea a bit too late to get all our meals, but i wanted to photograph what we are cooking. jules has looked up a load of egyptian recipes, and a lot of the time, we are just flying by the seat of our pants. this first picture is something jules made a few nights ago that was pretty much random. she has severely limited my meat intake, so she kindly offered to make me some beef. she likes "fresh" peas (which i think is ridiculous because it all tastes the same to me), so i asked if we could make cream peas. MMMmmm. she obliged and was even nice enough to add some pepper cheese, red bell peppers, and yams (which i was EXTREMELY wary of, i hate the idea of yams and sweet potatoes). the meat we have is really tough, so we simmered the hell out of it. we added stewed chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, yams (again, i was thinking ICK!), onions, green bell peppers, garlic, and at the last minute, i thought to put some red wine in it to thicken the sauce a bit. after cooking for ages, we ate, and it was magnificent. i'm still in the "fatboy" state of mind, so i'm always wanting large portions and seconds, but she is helping me to say no, and save some for lunch, etc. our dinner was accompanied by an impressive shiraz, and btw, the yams turned out to be not nrealy as nasty as i had inticipated.

the second picture is one of my creations. i'm a simple man. when i'm hungry, i'm hungry, and i don't want to wait, so my recipes are pretty quick and dirty. this day, i made buffalo chicken strips. i'm not allowed to have the breaded, fried, chunks o' chickeny goodness you find at your local BW3 or wing place. still, while working in rhode island several years ago, i found a pizza place called "nico's" that just put regular wing sauce on cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts that were cut into small bite size pieces. they were GREAT. just about the only thing i ate while i was there was those and the local deli made great subs with "hots", what they call a special mix of peppers. at the grocery store the other day, almost like a light from above, i found a bottle of "frank'd red hot BUFFALO sauce". i thought i heard angels on high, it was that good. so for dinner i made the nico special. i cut up chicken breast and parboiled it while i warmed up the sauce. i added a bit of sriracha hot sauce, heinz extra hot sauce, garlic, cayenne pepper, and a wee bit of butter. threw the chicken in the sauce, cooked a bit more, and *PRESTO* my part of dinner was ready in like 10 minutes. jules suggested we could have celery as a side, but we needed bleu cheese, so she decided to make homemade bleu cheese dressing, it was fantastic. bleu cheese, lite mayo, vinegar, a bit of sour cream, garlic, parsley, worcestershire sauce, and some heinz extra hot sauce. that meal was washed down with an egyptian-brewed american-style lager made by a dutch company, heineken, that goes by the name of stella. strangely, all the beers i found here are made by companies that are subsidiaries of heineken.

i didn't mean to make this a menu or recipe post, i just want to let you know, that despite my bitching aobut being hungry, jules starving me, etc. i am eating well. jules is an amazing cook, and we are pretty good at impromptu. that's all for now, back to finishing my pyramid post.