Birthday Week RECAP

As promised, the entire list of what Birthday Week entailed (some didn’t make it to a post):

Saturday night: Whole pork butt at Momofuku with assorted appetizers and side dishes.  Afterwards, Veniero’s for dessert (tiramisu cup, anyone?).

Sunday: the Bronx Zoo outing
Sunday night: My brother in law made surf & turf.

Monday afternoon: The infamous Dumpling Tour.
Monday night: Dinner at La Esquina de Listo el Pollo.

Tuesday: three bao (yes, three!) from Fay Da Bakery on 34th.  Lunch at Tealuxe.  Dinner at Union Oyster House.  Dessert at Finale.

Wednesday: Breakfast at Al Capone’s.  Um, snack (at HB’s behest, I swear!): Whopper Jr. before heading to dinner, the Ippudo seasonal ramen preview.

Thursday: I tried to stop eating because I hadn’t felt hungry in days, days, days, but I had the leftover pork butt from Saturday (I can’t stand waste!) and leftover wonton mein from Monday.  Then for dinner, because I felt sick (even though this probably makes no sense to you whatsoever), I had root beer and ice cream.  Sometimes together.

Friday: Grilled cheddar & Fuji apple sandwich for breakfast.  Took my nephew trick or treating so I had some candy.  My sister’s friend gave us huge slices of cake, it was good and I couldn’t say no because she made it.  Then dinner with my family at Canton Gourmet, and we had soup, rice, Chinese style steak, salt/pepper pork chops, salt/pepper octopus, pea shoots, tofu/fish bowl.  I stuffed myself silly because I rarely have Chinese food anymore.

Saturday: I had lunch plans with HB but I had to bail because I felt so disgusting still.  But BF was hungry so we went to a diner and I had chicken wings with blue cheese, waffle fries, and some tuna salad, cole slaw, pickles.  Almost right after, I went to girls’ night in and we played Wii (which really, really hurt physically later), and ordered delivery from Szechuan Gourmet – pork belly with leeks, more pork belly with leeks (we ordered it twice), shredded pork with miso, bok choi, dumplings, tan tan mein, and rice.  THEN we had apple pie for dessert and I couldn’t say no because one of the girls was like it’s so good, you have to try it. 

Sunday: missed out on dim sum with my friends because it was in Brooklyn and I got home at 2 (3) the night before and dim sum was at 10:30.  I woke up at 9:30.  So I ate some leftover fried rice (cleaning out my fridge, had to throw away so much stuff), cleaned a bit, then met up with my friend to do makeup shopping and bought bao for the week, but then we went to meet up with our other friend who was at a nearby bar watching the Giants game.  I said I wasn’t going to eat but I felt weird being the only one not ordering so I ordered a Caesar salad which was HUGE and I ate it all because it was good.

For those of you who wonder “How do you eat so much and stay so thin?” the answer is really quite simple.  I’m not thin!  I just look like it because I refrain from posting pictures of me where I look like the whale I sometimes am; the profile picture is from 5 years ago, taken in Mother’s of New Orleans; I am genetically predisposed to having super skinny forearms, which is mostly what you see in photos of me (my upper arms long ago lost the fight to the dreaded JIGGLE); and my face is naturally round, so even when I’m at a low point in my weight, my face still looks round, so it doesn’t change TOO much when I gain weight. 

To recap briefly: I had a wonderful, amazing, awesome birthday week, and I wouldn’t change one damn thing about it.  My friends are awesome, amazing people who showed me “Yes, Yvo, there really is something better than your 15th birthday,” my boyfriend helped it all happen, and my family, of course, aided in the fantastic eating adventures. 

28 started off with a bang, let’s hope it continues this way 🙂

~I am truly a blessed, lucky, privileged person to have the life I lead.  I won’t say I don’t deserve it, and I won’t say I came by all this wonderfulness easily, but where I am is where I wouldn’t trade with anyone, for anything in the whole world, even the bad times~