The Annoying Side of Restaurants

People ask me all the time how I deal with having a lot of restrictions on what I can eat. A lot of people say "I would just eat cake anyway, even if it made me feel sick!" I personally think a lot of people think this but don't quite understand how *not* fun it is to feel really terrible all of the time. To be completely honest, a lot of good has come from me having IBS. I have got SO much healthier about what I eat. I have tried so many new foods I probably never would've bothered to try. I have learned to cook for myself. I have learned so much more about nutrition and what is really healthy. I would say 90 % of the time, if not more, I don't even miss most of the stuff I can't eat and when I do it's often the healthy things that I miss the most.

However, there are 2 times that my stomach issues REALLY piss me off. #1- when I eat out, #2- when I travel (directly related to #1). When I cook for myself, I add only ingredients I know I can eat, and there is very rarely a problem. After about 2 years, I finally have figured out where and what I can eat and eating out is relatively successful now. BUT, when I travel things get a lot more complicated. Suddenly I am faced with all new restaurants, and eating out almost every single meal. Immediately my stomach usually rebels against this and I end up feeling horrible the rest of the trip and considering how much I enjoy traveling, this puts a major damper on the whole idea.

The NUMBER ONE reason why eating out is such a problem is because of the overall inflexibility and lack of understanding among restaurants. My family trip to California was a great example of this. I thought Northern California was practically KNOWN for being healthy, so I thought I'd be all set. Except that when I got there I found out that a "dry" sandwich apparently means lather the bread in butter, and it is considered perfectly acceptable to list something on the menu and not list MAJOR ingredients so I get a surprise cheese stuffed in my chicken or fish dripping in gravy. It became a joke in the family how often I had to send back my food. And I HATE to send back food, so most of the time I ended up just eating whatever I was served and then feeling horrible afterwards.

At one restaurant near my house I asked for chicken and veggie rolls steamed instead of fried. The chef actually came out to ask me if I realized "how that was going to look." Honestly buddy, I could care LESS how that looks as long as it tastes good and does not make my stomach hurt. And frankly, even people without IBS should probably steer clear of fried food so I don't see why we don't all order food steamed instead of fried. I realize I am not a chef. I cook only to feed myself budget-friendly and healthy food. I know that to chef's food is an art and you want it to present well. But in my opinion, this should not be at the expense of health.

One of my good friends has troubles with her stomach as well (and with that, lots of food restrictions). She told me a long time ago that she tells restaurants she is "allergic" to things she shouldn't be eating because that's the only way people seem to get it. I agree with her completely, as I've found people immediately start to care when I mention allergy. However, I have a lot of trouble this because my troubles are NOT an allergy and I will not have any serious health problems if I get a tiny piece of cheese mixed in my pasta. Also, I find it annoying that restaurants cannot just accommodate whether it's an allergy or a preference! Some people do not WANT unhealthy foods (or even healthy ones) mixed into their food and they are paying good money to have it how they want!

Oddly enough, I have found that the most helpful restaurants are often chain restaurants. I wonder if it's because they have chefs that may not be as into creating a special product? Just a thought...One of the BEST restaurants for allergies and intolerances is Outback Steakhouse. They shock me with how helpful they are, and after I did some research I read that the owner of Outback has a wife with Celiacs! Yay for him (and her) for taking one step towards making eating out a better experience for those of us with tummy troubles. I love going out to eat too much to give it up, so I will continue to plow through and hopefully get a bit better at advocating for myself.

What has your experience at restaurants been? Have you ever tried to change or alter your order to make it more healthy for you?

Eric and Kelly Do Boston

I think writing about how time consuming football coaching was yesterday was good luck because Eric came home yesterday with good news, he had today off! Yay! After about 10 different plans we had fell through we decided to just spend some quality time together (especially since it's infrequent now). We went into Boston to eat in the North End at a place called Piccola Venezia. For those of you who don't know, North End is the delicious Italian section of Boston and definitely my favorite place to go for food. I've been going to Piccola Venezia since I was in college. It's nothing to write home about, but it is good Italian food for relatively cheap. After our early dinner Eric and I took a Sunset Cruise in Boston Harbor. Here we are:

Eric and I LOVE to do touristy things, even if we are only 20 minutes away from home. It was an hour and a half cruise and we got to see the airport, the USS Constitution, some of the harbor islands and of course an amazing view of Boston.

And the Zakim Bridge. And by the way, does anyone know what happened to the awesome blue/purple lights that used to be on the bridge? I liked those and they are gone!

There was a bar on the boat so we had to get a drink to celebrate Eric's day off :)

It was a lot of fun. I wonder if Eric and I will ever run out of random stuff to do around MA. I hope not!

Today we did a lot of relaxing and headed over to the Natick Mall for some PF Changs. I haven't been to that mall in years and they added this whole crazy wing to it with tons of high end stores. They actually had a whole store dedicated to Vera Bradley. I was so overwhelmed by the awesomeness of it that I didn't actually buy anything haha. I'll have to be more prepared next time. Or maybe it's better for my wallet if I am not.

Now we are watching I Love You Man haha...interesting so far. Last week we watched Seventeen Again and I have to say, there have been some WEIRD movies out lately. Or maybe we just pick weird ones...

Tomorrow!!!

I've officially made it to the Cape and I am relaxation pre-triathlon mode! I am definitely concerned about my physical preparation for this race, which of course affects my mental preparation but I am just counting on adrenaline to push me through :) Tonight my sister and I are driving to Falmouth to pick up our race materials and check out the course a little bit. Then we are eating a yummy dinner and heading to bed early. I still have a few more errands to run today but mostly I am just going to relax. I was wishing this triathlon was on Saturday so I could get it over with but it's rainy and the water is rough so I'm glad it's tomorrow now!

Yesterday on the way down I stopped to check out my wedding site in the summer. When we booked it, it was the winter and it looked a lot different. They were setting up for a wedding and all the flowers make it look even more beautiful. Here are some pics:

I really hope I have this beautiful of a day for my wedding next July because if I do, it will be really gorgeous!

Last night, I went out with the fam to an amazing Japanese restaurant called Inaho. If you are ever in Cape Cod, I highly recommend trying it. It's in Yarmouthport on 6A. You do need reservations but you can get them earlier that day if you are willing to go early :) Here are some beautiful pictures of the sushi.

I had shrimp dumplings and chicken teriyaki which did not look as fun, but did taste delicious. Actually the shrimp dumplings would probably make a good picture but I wanted to eat them, next time I promise one :)

I hope everyone has a great start to the weekend! I'll try to do a Pre-Race report tonight and definitely update you on how it goes tomorrow.

Biking Buddy!

I had an amazing weekend and the only reason I'm not completely depressed (still semi-depressed) that it's over is that I'm hoping this is the only the beginning of fabulous summer weekends ahead and Ash is coming back in a month for Katie's bachelorette party! We are so lucky she is such a willing traveler. 

We started off the weekend with a trip to the North End (Italian section of Boston) for a yummy dinner at Trattoria Il Panino, a wonderful restaurant I went to a few weeks ago with Eric, Tiff and Ronnie. I ordered the same thing I got last time so I didn't bother taking a picture (I know, I'm a horrible food blogger, I'm not going to pretend otherwise). I did take a beautiful picture of us though...

On Saturday my biking dream came true! I had a biking buddy!!!! Ever since I started triathlon training and began biking I have been complaining to everyone who will listen about how bored I get biking without a buddy. Many people have suggested headphones so I have started putting one headphone in one ear and leaving the other one open to hear people passing me etc (don't worry I don't bike on the road with headphones on). That has helped a little but not as much as having a biking buddy! Ash borrowed Caroline's bike and we took off on the Minuteman Bikeway all the way to Bedford. It ended up being about a 12 mile bike ride, which may not sound like much but it was more than I had done without a buddy so I credit Ash. It was far more entertaining to be able to catch up with Ash than just stare at other bikers passing me :) We did get a bit sprayed with mud (that's what happens when it rains for 3 days straight before you go bike riding) but other than that it was a very successful trip. It is my secret dream (and by secret I mean I'll tell everyone!) that Ash will match in Boston so we can be biking buddies every weekend. Well that and I can hang out with her anytime I want!

After our fabulous bike ride (during which my knee did not hurt one bit, yay!), we decided to refuel at a great lunch place called Fresh City. This place has great sandwiches, stir fry, salads and smoothies but the absolute number 1 reason to go to this place would be their *free* cinnamon pita chips. 

I once tried to buy Stacy's cinnamon pitas (and I love Stacy's plain pita chips) thinking they would be like these, but nope, these cannot be beat! 

Today we had brunch in Boston with Katie and Gerry :) We went to Tremont 647 for the Pajama brunch (but no we didn't wear pajamas). I just got a bagel because I didn't know what my stomach would really like, but next time I am going to risk it on the french toast that Katie got, it was sooo delicious! 

I really need to make an effort to try out new restaurants in Boston more often, particularly in the beautiful South End. 

After all the fun was over I had to come home and attempt to write my end of the year report cards for my students. Of course I decided to procrastinate instead and I went for a quick run (ended up hurting my knee so I stopped very quickly) and then went to look at road bikes. I test rode a really nice one and there were some things I LOVED about it (light weight, much easier to ride). However, it was so weird to be so hunched over, I felt like I could barely reach the brakes. Plus my arms were killing me after a less than a mile test ride. 

For the bikers out there~ Did you made the switch from a mountain bike to a road bike? Did you get used to the hunched over position? 

I'm so scared to make this extremely large investment and then decide I hate being hunched over and I want my upright mountain bike back!

Finally, I made a delicious dinner tonight but this post is already wayyy too long so I will post it tomorrow night...something to look forward to. 

Don't forget to enter the Trader Joe's Giveaway! I'm trying to double my number of followers during this giveaway and I am 13 followers away from reaching that goal so if you are thinking about following, please do! 

I woke up this morning determined to get myself a new, beautiful road bike. I found a great deal online. I did the math and I could make back the money in 3 weeks with one of my tutoring jobs. Once I realized this I mentally prepared to fork over the money and I was ready. So I spend the morning cleaning the house and trying to be productive until the store opened at 12. At 12 on the dot, I stroll in the store ask for the bike and that’s when I received the news. It was slightly less disappointing than finding out my favorite ice cream was discontinued, but horrible all the same. That bike was meant for people who are 4 foot 8! No one would call me tall, but I am about 9 inches taller than that! The guy said they wouldn’t even sell it to me and if I want a road bike I am going to have to pay $400 MORE than I was prepared to spend ☹ So, needless to say I had not mentally prepared for that yet and I left the store.

When I got home, I decided to go for a ride on my crappy alignment, slow mountain bike. I felt like I was going a little faster than normal, but that could’ve just been because there were so many slow little kids on the bike trail today. Obviously, since I am a teacher I generally like children. However, little kids on the bike path can be very difficult. They tend to ride in the middle of the path and randomly swerve back and forth so I don't know how to get around them. Then, their parents, who are inevitably riding behind them, feel like they have to do something about the fact that their child is taking up the entire path. However, they always yell out, "honey!!! get to the right!!! stay to the right!!!" I'm sure it makes them feel better that they have put in the effort however, you can't fool me! I teach kindergarten and most of these swervers are 6 or younger. I KNOW these kids have no idea what their parents mean by "right." They are either going to ignore them completely or just guess which way they mean by right. This means I have to wait until they make that guess because if I go left and they decide right means left, guess who is going to crash? me! I would try to avoid times when a lot of kids will be on the bikepath but unfortunately my job means that I have the same free time as kids. It's okay though- the people that annoy me the most on the bike path are not kids, but walkers. As far as I'm concerned, walkers already have side walks, they don't need bike paths. Secondly, you particularly do not need to have 3 or 4 people walking next to each other on a bike path meaning that me, on a bike has to go OFF the trail just to get around you. Grr, is all I can say.

On a more positive note, I had a fabulous weekend at the Cape. While Eric played a million holes of golf, I got wedding things accomplished and went on a bit of a shopping spree at TJ Max. I got mainly some more work out clothes, which I feel like is a good use of money since I am spending so much of my life in work out clothes these days. Although the weather was not the best, Eric and I did manage to take a walk down to the beach. Eric tested the water...
Not as cold as the last time he was in it (New Years!)
On the way home from the Cape we stopped at a place called "The Ice Cream Sandwich" (in the town of Sandwich). They had cookie dough non-fat frozen yogurt soft serve. Basically my dream come true. Clearly this will be my new favorite ice cream place at the Cape and it's right on the way home, which will make coming home a lot sweeter!
This weekend I also reunited with my old friend from Starbucks. You have to try a Iced Passion Tea. I get mine unsweetened because I think it's sweet on it's own. There is something about iced drinks that just screams summer to me!
We finished off the weekend with Japanese food. I ordered a miso soup, steamed shumai (shrimp dumplings, yum) and some rice with teriyaki sauce. If Eric and I go more than a few weeks without Japanese we start to suffer withdrawl!
I love long weekends. Any chance we could make this a weekly thing? Back to work tomorrow for the final push until June 23- last day of school. Even if I only have a 3 day break before my summer job starts, at least I'll have a change of pace :) I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!
Sorry I have not posted the giveaway yet. I am trying to do a Trader Joe's favorites giveaway but I am trying to figure out what to include. Any ideas? Right now I think I have too many ideas and I need to narrow it down or I'll be sending the winner 6 different packages!

Run for Ice Cream

On Friday, my boss sent out an e-mail reminding us to tell our class about the significance of Memorial Day before our Memorial Day assembly. Okay, I thought...
1. the OFFICIAL start of summer
2. cookouts!
3. the start of the Cape season (even though the Cape season for Eric and I is clearly year round).
Maybe not what she had in mind?
My Memorial Day weekend began on Thursday night (even though I clearly had work on Friday) at the Red Sox Game!!! It was my first of the season. Usually at my first game I am wearing 18 layers and freezing, not at this game. You can tell by the pictures I am sweating in the 90 degree weather!!!

And slightly more disgusting in this one...Oh well, maybe not the best photos but an amazing time :)

This morning I was in total wedding planning mode. I met with a great photographer, so now I have multiple that I like. I love the younger fun women, but I also have a slightly ridiculous, but slightly justified paranoia that whoever I choose will get pregnant and not be able to attend my wedding because she will be having the baby (okay, mostly psycho since that would be really bad luck that anyone would happen to be having a baby THAT particular day/week!).

After that I went on my FIRST dress shopping trip, woo! Here are some pictures of me in dresses. I can post them because I am positive I am not going to purchase either one. The first one makes my hips look HUGE (and this is not a problem I usually have because I have a pretty large waist). The second is more flattering but I don't like the lace very much.

Caroline and Tiff also joined the fun so we tried some bridesmaid dresses as well. This one is a contender:
It would be in pink though, not that peachy color. However, I'm not nearly as big of a fan of it in pictures so...probably not. Good first trip though.

And finally, in case you have not had enough pictures for the night. We went to a delicious restaurant in Hyannis Center tonight called Colombo's. Here is my delicious salmon dinner:
It had this delicious soy sauce vinegarette on the side. It was amazing. The only thing that was not amazing was that I waited all winter for the ice cream place next door to this restaurant to open because they have unbelievable soy soft serve that both my taste buds and my stomach LOVES. I was so excited about this that throughout my over 4 mile run today I kept saying to myself, "Run for ice cream! Run for ice cream!" and yet...they don't have the soy anymore :( They said not enough people were lactose intolerant. In fact, this is not true, tons of people are lactose intolerant but stupid lactate has allowed people to eat regular ice cream. BOO! Why is there no lactate for IBS? (just kidding I really don't want people who are lactose intolerant to suffer!). Anyway, I just ended up eating regular soft serve, so I feel kind of icky now but it's not the end of the world since everyone who reads this blog knows I clearly eat regular ice cream all of the time! Usually I feel kind of blah after but no excessive bloating so I figure it's worth it for my favorite food. But let me tell you, I used to feel perfect after that soy soft serve and I am very bummed about it being discontinued.

Quick Training Update: Did a 4.23 mile run today. Everything felt amazing except for my darling knee which hurt and hurts even more now that I am not running. I am going to call for physical therapy this week. I wasn't going to go but I think the pain is getting worse so I might as well see what they can do. I still find it so unbelievable that in March I could barely run for more then 3 minutes at a time and now I can do over 4 miles! I love that Couch to 5k Plan :)

Alright, early to bed for me tonight. I am exhausted!

Virtual Reality Biking Riding

Yesterday was a beautiful and relaxing day. I watched my darling kiddos play soccer in the morning- they were pretty good for six year olds! Well except for a few who enjoyed staring into space and paying no attention at all, but let me tell you- they are the exact same way when I am teaching :) At least I know it's not just me.
After I decided to try out this PB2 stuff I have heard so much about. It's powered peanut butter which I realize sounds disgusting. I probably would never have given it a second though except peanut butter is one of my favorite things in the world, but unfortunately my stomach does not agree, I think because it is high in fat. The powered peanut butter is VERY low in fat so I thought I'd give it a try.
It says you can just mix it with some water and you have peanut butter, but I decided to go for Jenna's recipe of mixing it with Greek yogurt instead. I love her blog and so many of the amazing treats she makes- but this did NOT work for me at all. I think I probably did it wrong (she might even use the chocolate version and I know she adds more things in) but plain- this did NOT work! I decided it was not the PB2's fault and that it was the yogurt's fault for needing something sweeter. Instead I had an English muffin with some of the PB2 (mixed with water). It was much better than the yogurt version, but it still tasted a little weird to me. Am I doing something wrong? Anyone have any recommendations for recipes to use with this PB2...since I still have the whole jar left?
Luckily dinner was a lot more successful than lunch. I went to a new Italian restaurant in Belmont called Il Casale. My parents went a few weeks ago and have been raving about it since. They decided to take Eric and I so we could try it for ourselves. Eric decided to order this really crazy beer that looked to me like a wine bottle!
As for the food, it was delicious. The bread (often my favorite part of Italian restaurants) was nothing to write home about, but the rest of the food more than made up for it. This is my pasta, does that look like Italy or what?
The dessert was wonderful as well. I got a scoop of chocolate chip gelato (did you really think I was going to go for something non-ice cream related?)
Today Caroline (my sister) and I got up bright and early to hit the gym. Since it was raining out this morning I decided to try out this crazy exercise bike at the gym. It was one of those bikes that needs you to steer it, and it has a big TV that shows you the scenery of your bike ride. I choose a beginner coastal route and started out down the "road." I immediately wanted to see what would happen if I forgot to steer and went off a cliff. Since I come from the video game generation, I immediately expected to go flying, have my bike fall out from under me, and crash into the ground. If anyone has ever been to Lanes and Games in Cambridge, my image was similar to the little devil guy that comes out to laugh at you when you miss ALL of the pins. Needless to say, it was quite uneventful! The bike just simply moved itself back on track and really didn't need me to steer at all! BOR----ING! I'm not sure I liked the machine anyway, it felt like it locked everytime my leg extended, particularly on the downhill. It did successfully show me HOW slow I really am- it took me 21 minutes to bike 3.5 miles. PEOPLE CAN RUN THAT FAST- I can almost run that fast! Well...maybe I can't but still shouldn't I be biking at least twice as fast as I can run?
Speaking of biking, I am headed over to the bike shop that I bought my bike from (when I was in 7th grade, haha!) to make sure everything fits properly. I am probably going to go to the doctor later in the week to get my knee checked out and I want to rule out the possibility that bike does not fit. Hopefully they don't say, this bike is way too small, what are you thinking? Because I will say- I am thinking I really don't like biking so I'd rather not drop $1000+ on a new bike :)
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend!!

Chinese Food and Ice Cream = Perfect Friday

I could not be any more happy that it is FRIDAY! This week seemed so long. I celebrated this lovely Friday with a quick drink with my co-workers after work and then a nice visit to our favorite Chinese Food restaurant with Eric. If you live in the Boston area, venture out to Newton, MA (almost Watertown) to go to a place that LOOKS like a hole in the wall, but I promise it has the best Chinese food ever: Chung Shin Yuan. Of course it is cheap too so you basically cannot go wrong. Apparently they do a ridiculous lunch buffet on the weekend but Eric and I have never been because there is always a line out the door. Eric has stated that if he could only eat one food for the rest of his life he would eat the egg rolls from this place.
I like them too but my stomach does not enjoy the beef or the deep fry so I just eat a tiny bit of the end of one when we go. I order the Chicken Lo Mein and it's SO good- not greasy at all just amazing. When I tell people how often Eric and I frequent this place, I have been questioned how we are not the fattest people alive. I swear the food here is not nearly as greasy and yucky as many other Chinese places and no MSG what-so-ever. Here is my meal:
Don't worry, I didn't eat all of that. We have some yummy leftovers that Eric will probably eat for breakfast tomorrow morning :) And to finish it off-
Just kidding :) My fortune was not nearly as fitting as this. However I saw it in someone's blog recently and it reminded me a lot of my life lately, always thinking about what I am going to blog about. Unfortunately I forget which blog I saw it in and when I googled it I found it somewhere else so I can't give the original person credit- but if it was you, thanks! My real dessert was, of course, ice cream!
It was a delicious coffee mug filled with Edy's Slow Churned Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. I try to make myself feel better by eating the 1/2 the fat version. Probably would be better if I just didn't eat ice cream so often! But not as fun.
Now that I am done with my masters I am trying to catch up on all the pleasure reading I have not had a chance to do. Of course I should probably be wedding planning, but I'm still temporarily checked out from that so pleasure reading it is. I got 3 books out of the library today. I am going to start The Help first because it is a 2 week loan only. If I don't get into it pretty quickly I'll switch to one of the other books. Hopefully they will be nice, relatively-mindless pleasure reads!
I'm off to bed early tonight. I get to run in the morning (and by "get to" run I mean at least I don't have to bike or swim!) and then I'm going to watch my darling kindergarten kids play soccer. Even though they have driven me nuts all week I am still going to support them, what a nice teacher. Luckily they won't annoy me tomorrow because I will not be in charge of them. Plus, I'll get to see if they really score the 10 goals per game they all claim to!

Italy in Boston

There are a lot of places I love in Boston: Fenway Park, Newbury Street, Faneuil Hall etc. However, I think if someone told me I could only go to one part of Boston for the rest of my life, I would pick The North End. There is nothing quite so wonderful as the crowded streets, yummy Italian food and yummy gelato and canoli desserts. Last night Eric, Tiff, Ronnie and I headed into the North End and after running my first 5k I was feeling like I deserved a yummy meal. I have a couple of restaurants I want to try in the North End, but we decided on one for last night called Trattoria il Panino. I almost never stray off Hanover street for restaurants, but this one was on a nice side street right off of Hanover and had a beautiful garden area (that I will definitely be eating in next time!). I am pretty boring and almost always get some kind of pasta with regular tomato sauce, but let me tell you the quality and taste of even this simple meal can vary depending on the place. At Trattoria il Panino, it was definitely Italy quality. Tiff and Eric both got a special that was Butternut Squash and Pumpkin Ravioli. I tried it and it was delicious too.

We also ordered this wonderful bottle of wine called La Aristocratico. It's a Pino Grigio (my all time favorite) that I have never tried before and it was so good! I got to be the lucky one to taste it for the table and make sure it was good (anyone else feel like a total idiot when you do this?) and I was so happy about how great it tasted I didn't even have to fake the usual "yup tastes fine" haha. We finished up with some dessert from where else but Mike's Pastry. After, we came home to watch the Celtics. And don't worry, I did manage to get up this morning and go for my training swim. Although it did take me suspiciously long to finish the 23 laps...maybe I shouldn't have skipped my swim last Thursday. The good news (swimming wise, horrible news for every other aspect of my life) is that it is supposed to rain a lot this week so I will probably get a lot of swimming in. I leave you with a picture of Eric with the dog version of him (haha aka Tiff's dog Bruschi). Don't forget to enter to win the GIVEAWAY!