Lunch Break Notes

   Time and time again people comment at my size and weight. Usually the comments come in the form of either mockery or in a way to make me feel inferior to the larger person spitting the insult. The comment is not always meant as an insult but either way it makes me step back and feel pretty bad about the size I am and have been for the past 10 years. I am 5'and 5", weighing in at 120 pounds. This may sound ideal to most but for someone like me, it's not where I am comfortable being. Have I accepted this size? Yes, of course, I have no choice. I'm Hispanic with a high metabolism. I eat to gain weight and it vanishes overnight. I can only work out so much before I start to burn more weight. Not what I like especially since I work in a field where I deal with macho type personas that try to show dominance by size. Just like in the animal world where a larger male will show dominance over a smaller male. Larger guys don't scare me but they like to think it does.   ...

Getting your kid to try new foods at a young age can be quite difficult. It must be scary for them judging by how our daughter reacts when we try to offer something as simple as mashed potatoes or even jello. My wife discovered an incredible tactic that has yet to fail. Now, all kids are different so chances are it will not work for everyone but for us, it was a, as the Doctor says, Bingo! When offering a new food that she is weary of we simply bring the whole pot out, or in some cases, like ours the other night, the whole bird. We found that she is more open to trying new things when she is able to see right where it is coming from. Most of the time it will be out of a pot or a box. If we were to just try and give her a piece of meat she would push it away. We discovered this when we brought vegetables out onto the table one night and rather than enjoy the same vegetable in front of her, she wanted the same ones that were in the pot. What can I say? Our kids weird. ...

As I get older I find myself falling more and more in love with fluffy, sometimes crunchy and always welcoming doughnuts. As a kid I was never too fond of them but here I am in my thirties and damn... I love them. I have no idea when it happened but now that the obsession is here, it's here to stay. Years back, I would wake up early enough to head to the store and gather around the Entemans table with all the other old timers trying to decide how we would choose the treat ourselves. Now, I'm not an old timer by any means but I know how pastries draw in those with silver caps.  Me and my wife have been known to travel for great pastries and I wish we could do the same with doughnuts but with there being no shoppes that make "normal" doughnuts, it's tough. We have on place near where I live now. Broad Street Dough Co. I enjoy a good old fashioned type. I'm not so keen on the places that pride themselves on how many toppings they can pile on a single doughnu...

So as you can imagine, my mind has been quite a wreck lately. So many thoughts both good an bad going through. With my mom passing, there was a lot of stuff to take care of still. There was so much to go through. A lot of the left over stuff was given to me. There was one item in particular that was given to me. This item caused my relapse. I am not proud of what I did. Did I feel better after wards? Absolutely! Who wouldn't? Even as stayed away from the stuff for going on over a year I couldn't say no... i was not strong enough... it tasted too good! I ate ham... c'mon guys get your head out of your asses, I'm not that weak. My mother had a ten pound smoked ham stashed away for the holiday that was near it's expiration so rather than see the poor guy tossed away, i took it home with me. Tonight was the night that my wife cooked it up and boy was it marvelous. The pineapples and the glaze were just too much for me. I started out saying to myself, I can stop af...

It pains me to say...I have failed as a vegetarian. I lasted longer than  i ever thought but not as long as I hoped. Reasons for my change back come from all over. I found it very tough to stick to vegetarian while my wife was not. We have opposing blood types me and her. My blood thrives on the vegetarian diet while hers does not. My wife is also the best cook i know and I'm not just saying that. The girl is a magician in the kitchen and its nor fair to either of us when she prepares her favorite dish roasted chicken with vegetables. Oh man...it really is something. She works very hard to prepare each meal, minus breakfast...sometimes, that we eat. She takes a lot of pride in sourcing her ingredients to ensure the quality of the meals. There were some health points that popped up as well. One major health issue was my hair. That stuff was coming out like crazy. Found out it was because I was not getting enough vitamins or something like that. Once I started ...

This weekend was a sad and infuriating one for these two Chinese food loving kids. Like most New Jerseyans, we order Chinese food about once every two weeks, sometimes more depending on how the weather is. It's sort of our ritual. We get wine, we get out our special Chinese food bowls and ALWAYS eat with chop sticks. Me and my wife are serious about our Chinese food so much that after we got married we took a trip up to the first major Chinese restaraunt in New York City. No, not P.F Changs which by the way, created General Tso's Chicken, the way that Americans know it anyhow. We have traveled far and wide for any place on anyones radar that seems worth it. I tell you this so you can get a sense of the disappointment that we faced this past weekend. We noticed lately that the same food that we have been ordering for about six years has begun to cost more. The prices have not changed so why has our total? My wife wanted to get to the bottom of it and in do...

Some people might read the title to this and think...WHAT!! A Hispanic that doesn't eat meat!!!. Others may think it's no big deal. Another group will suggest that I am pushing my own agenda, which I am not. Becoming a Hispanic vegetarian has not been easy, especially since my Hispanic heritage is more so the Puerto Rican type. Meat is such a huge part of the culture and diet of Hispanics and Latinos all over the world. Although the change has not been easy, the choice was simple. I recently discovered my blood type, A positive. For those that do not know, an A positive blood type has a specific dietary need as do all blood types. Your blood is specific to your overall bodily system and how it functions. Mine in particular is a vegetarian based diet. A positive types were the original harvesters and thrived off of what could be harvested, not hunted. There are a few meats that are good for me such as mutton and lamb. Nowhere in my blood types requirement does it say that I s...