Be Your Own Personal Chef--or NOT

I had this brilliant (or so I thought) idea the other day. You see, I am trying very hard to lose a few pounds which is hard when you love to cook, eat, entertain, and go out to dinner (and lunch).I want to exercise every evening after work and have done pretty well. Typical day--get up 5:30, make healthy breakfast for Steve, get ready for work, make healthy breakfast and lunch for myself and leave for work at 7:00. I get home at 4:45, unless there is an errand to run on the way home. I start walking of the treadmill at 5:00, walk for 1 hour, get in the car, drive 5 minutes to the gym, the Body Exchange. I work out for around 30 minutes, get...

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Beef Fried Rice

Years go by and you forget, but the other day Amanda, my son's ex and mother of his child (my gd Kyndal) reminded me that food memories have a life of their own. I offered to make her a cake to cheer her up and she asked for red velvet cake (not the cake I like to make but have made it for people by request). Then, she said what she really wanted was the beef fried rice I used to make her. I'll bet the last time I made her that rice was 5 years ago or more! I make all kinds of fried rice, being part Asian and all. I had to think back for a minute to remember the particular rice she was thinking about. Then I remembered--it was the Thai style rice I made to copy the long since closed Mithsampun Thai restaurant in Azle. I decided I would make not just good, but great fried rice. I started...

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Curried Shrimp

I was craving curried shrimp this week like the shrimp I had during a trip I took to Ruidoso, New Mexico over Christmas. I was there for a deployment to work on the Mescalero Apache reservation and we were staying at the Inn of the Mountain Gods. While the inn was nice enough, the food was limited to the big buffet with so many choices nothing could stand out, although they did have a nice spicy basil seafood dish. There was also a pub back in the casino with some pretty good sandwiches and such and I managed to finally order something good–a chicken quesadilla, but nothing compared to the taste of the curried shrimp at a Chinese restaurant in town. I would never order something like curried shrimp in a Chinese place since I would normally eat curried foods in Indian restaurants or make my...

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Eating Adventures in New Mexico

I'm back in Texas finally! Our team spent a hectic last couple days when one of our members, Maurice, became ill. He had to be hospitalized for dehydration and we spent our last evening with him in the hospital. We're not sure what happened but he suspects it was food poisoning. I won't mention the last place we had a meal, but suffice to say it was the only restaurant on the reservation. For the most part, it was a food wasteland in Ruidoso, New Mexico and it shouldn't have been. Just a few hours away in Santa Fe is some of the best food I've ever eaten, but Ruidoso is strictly for the tourists/skiers who must be satisfied with quantity,...

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