Like My Food, I’m Moving At Crock Pot Speed

Just another eventless day in the life of Paulie. I’m cooking up food for today’s potluck lunch, more on this tomorrow.

George’s Is More Fun Without The Run
I arrived at George’s last night around 7:00pm. I had been hanging out at work taking care of some business and waiting for what appeared to be awful traffic to die down. My patience was rewarded with mostly clear roads and the time to stop at QuickTrip for some gas (finally, relatively cheap gas!) and some cash out of the Wachovia ATM (did you know that there is one inside every QT?).

George’s was fairly empty upon my arrival, but by the time our hashing birthday girl arrived it was bustling with activity. Not only were many of us there to celebrate Betsy’s birthday, but someone at the “reserved” table was also celebrating one. There was enough cake and brownies to make a grown man cry, or feel stuffed in my case.

ITP Flickr Pic
I just realized that I now have a laptop at work which can handle my DSLR RAW format photos. Now if I only had photos to process. 🙁

I Wish This Economy Would Pick Up, I’ve Got Planning To Do
It’s bad enough that I often times wonder how secure my job is these days, but with the stock market taking a massive downturn I’m not sure that I can purchase my Christmas gift / make 2009 travel plans with a clear mind.

The current plan is to sign up for a Great American Photography Workshop next Fall. As I’ve mentioned at least once before I am specifically thinking about taking this course in Acadia National Park next October.

The reason I wish to buy this as my Christmas gift is that if I pay for the workshop in full by year’s end I can save $150 off of the $795 workshop price.

C’mon Economy!!!!

Top Chef: Someone’s Going To Lay A Big Goose Ostrich Egg
Wednesday used to be Prince Spaghetti Day (that reference is for all of the elder, former Northeasterners in the ITP reader audience) and now it’s again Top Chef Day!

Last night we started with fifteen cheftestants thanks to the double axe which fell last week. We quickly find out that this week’s special guest judge is Donatella Arpaia, attorney turned successful restaurateur. Donatella has been a frequent guest judge over at Food Network‘s “Iron Chef America” as well as a judge on the network’s “The Next Iron Chef” contest held last year. As a bonus for all of the male viewers in the crowd we get to watch Donatella and Padma Lakshmi shove hot dogs (or sausages) into their mouths in order to judge the day’s Quick Fire Challenge. The Indian-inspired concoction was declared the winner, while we had one cheftestant have the gall to use store-bought wieners foreshadowing.

For the Elimination Challenge the cheftestants got to play for a day at the restaurant Craft, which is surprisingly owned by Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio. The cheftestants break into three groups of five, in group making appetizers, one group making entrees, and one group making desserts. One of our cheftestants, Jill — who was the one who used the store-bought wieners, decided to make a quiche using an ostrich egg. There are times and places for experimentation, perhaps the Elimination Challenge is neither the time nor the place. Jill’s quiche is ranked in the night’s Bottom Three and because she couldn’t explain why she wasn’t performing at Top Chef levels, she was told to pack up her knives and get out!

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Daily
Current Mood – cooking up a good day
Current Music – listening to the “Digital Photography Life” podcast
Website Of The Day – Here’s another Web2.0 site about cooking Cookstr.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – Marta
Exercise (b)Log – nothing

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 15 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 20 (20)
Vegetarian Days – 14
Carnivorous Days – 5
Marta Rides – 0

Ongoing
Books To Read To Earn Kindle – 4

November Goals
1) Lose no fewer than three pounds
2) Drink no soda
3) Run no fewer than 75 miles
4) Bike no fewer than 100 miles

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]