Category: Food

Categories
Food Philosophy

The Fortune Cookie Message Of The Week Club

YESTERDAY (Wednesday) for Lunch me and my brother and my sister-in-law ate at their favourite workplace Chinese Restaurant in the neighbourhood – a nice joint in far north Dallas called ‘Great China’ (see reviews on Yahoo !).

The food was delicious, and the restaurant itself was quite a bit upscale compared to what I’m used to at my favourite Chinese Restaurant joints back home. The customer service was outstanding, but that seems to be my general experience at most Chinese Restaurants.

fortune-cookie

I nabbed all three of our great fortune cookie messages, so here they are:

– ‘Now is the time for peace in your life. Go along with other’s ideas.’

– ‘A new relationship is about to blossom. You will be blessed.’

– ‘Approach all areas of life with a bold enthusiasm this year.’

Categories
Blogging Commerce Food Holidays Shopping Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  This morning me and my brother visited a local area (Plano Texas) Walmart, and this particular Walmart was something special. It was brightly lit, sparkling clean, smelled good inside, had fully-stocked aisles of unopened merchandise, had extra wide aisles, and had cheerful and helpful employees working all around. Oh yeah – and the MASSIVE parking lot out front had no active crime scenes. So I guess that not every Walmart is just like the one that’s close to home that I pretty much avoid.

2.  Post Walmart me and my brother drove on over to Sonic, America’s Drive-In for an early Lunch. After a few years of watching the very low-budget yet very amusing commercials on television I finally got to experience the culinary delight (in my brother’s car) that is Sonic. They have an extensive menu (including Breakfast), but I selected something very basic – the Bacon Cheeseburger Toaster Combo (with fries and a Sprite). It’s was a rather delicious 1,045 calories (424 of them fat calories). I wish we had Sonic back home in America’s Riviera. Once upon a time (before Hurricane Andrew) we had two of them in the Homestead area alone. I ate there occasionally back in the day. Nowadays in order to eat at Sonic we (South Floridians) have to go north up to The Palm Beaches or north and west over to Naples. It’s just not right !

3.  39°, 40°, and 44° – Those have been the minimum early-morning temperatures thus far since I’ve been here (Sun., Mon., and Tue.). Right now at 2 PM the actual air temperature is 61°, but we’ve got gusty northwesterly winds so wind chills are way down in the low-50s. Next week when it gets much colder here in North Texas I’ll be back home in South Florida basking in 80° warmth and higher humidity again. Bring it on !

4.  I asked my brother (who is technologically savvy when it comes to modern cell phone devices) what is the difference between ‘3G’ and ‘4G’, and strangely enough he had no clue. This made me wonder if the average consumer knows what exactly a ‘G’ is. One thing is fairly certain though. My antiquated cell phone from the middle ages (2004) is ‘ZeroG’. But it does just what I want it to do – send and receive text and Twitter messages and the occasional call.

5.  This Thanksgiving my family is trying something new and different for our MASSIVE LuDinner meal. We’re going to The HoneyBaked Ham Company to grab a 3-pound boneless ham – sliced and glazed. This will be our first turkey-less Thanksgiving meal that I can ever remember, so perhaps it’ll be the start of a new tradition. My sister-in-law will be making all of the various side dishes that will go along with the tasty ham. I just hope that one of those side dishes is either spinach or collard greens or broccoli. YUM !

Those are my ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. Be sure to check back here later this week for my spontaneous ‘Thursday Night Mini Thoughts’.

Categories
Animals Food Health Sports Weather

The Major’s Walk-A-Thon

Sky: Clear
Temperature: 66°F
Dewpoint: 45°F
Relative Humidity: 47%
Winds: SE 6 MPH
Barometric Pressure: 29.92 Falling

After I watched my visiting Washington Redskins give up the shutout and the game to the hometown Dallas Cowboys in the last 3 minutes of the game I decided that the only reasonable thing for me to do was to walk around my brother’s neighbourhood for a little while, and so I did for a refreshing 28 minutes and 48 seconds.

Here are my walking thoughts in 15 words or less:

– Me, my Brother, Sister-In-Law, and their dog Buddy went on a 1.5-mile walk.
– They live in a rather large subdivision of cookie-cutter style split-level houses.
– It’s a peaceful and quiet neighbourhood just perfect for suburban families.
– The sky was crystal clear and as deep blue as can be during the 3 PM hour.
– It was in the mid-60s, but this was a different mid-60s than I’ve felt before.
– It was a dry mid-60s – compared with a more humid mid-60s typical of home.
– At first Buddy (the dog) was leading the way.
– But soon thereafter he was slowly stalling out.
– He was pretty much exhausted halfway through the walk.
– What do you expect from a canine that’s approaching his 60s in dog years ?
– Right now Buddy is passed out on a chair.
– When my sister-in-law exclaimed that we had gone a half a mile I concurred.
– All I did was look at my watch and see that 9½ minutes had elapsed.
– Since I typically walk a mile in 19 minutes flat I knew that she was right.
– Once our walk was done we had all worked up a sizeable appetite for food.
– So we ventured over to The Cheesecake Factory for a MASSIVE Dinner.
– I enjoyed the Lemon-Herb Roasted Chicken.
– Of course I saved room for a large slice of cheesecake too.
– Of course I indulged in the ‘for a limited time only’ Pumpkin Cheesecake.
– Walking hard and eating hard – that’s how I roll on this Sunday !

Categories
Advertising Commerce Driving Food Mail Shopping Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  I receive a lot of junk mail in my old-fashioned traditional mailbox. I wish there was a way where we could select which specific stores we would like to receive weekly advertisements for, and then only receive junk mail from them. But then I guess that it wouldn’t really be ‘junk’ mail, but rather ‘want’ mail. I receive weekly ads from Winn-Dixie, Sedano’s, and Diaz Supermarket (among others). I don’t shop at any of these fine grocery stores. I do shop at Publix, and I think that I would actually pay a small fee just to receive their weekly ad in the mail.

2.  It’s ‘The Major’s Lunch-A-Thon’. This past Sunday I ate at Longhorn Steakhouse. On Monday I ate at Beef ‘O’ Brady’s. Today I ate at Olive Garden. The tour de force of fine dining establishments in and around Homestead continues on Wednesday and Thursday before I head out-of-town on Friday. Lunch – It does a Chris good !

3.  ‘For Crying Out Loud !’ – Where does that phrase actually come from anyway ?  It’s a phrase that some people utilize in lieu of cussing – particularly when the’re astonished and can’t believe their eyes. I don’t think that I’ve ever uttered that phrase intentionally or otherwise. I suppose it’s a phrase (like many others) that’s probably inherited from generation to generation within the family. Incidentally how can you not ‘believe your eyes’ ?  Have your eyes ever lied to you ?  Well maybe after drinking !

4.  I filled up my car with gas this afternoon on my way home from work. I’ll be doing it again this Friday morning up near Orlando along Florida’s Turnpike. And then I’ll do it again about 5 hours later up in the northwestern panhandle of Florida along I-10. And then I’ll probably do it again another 5 hours after that at my first pit stop on my road trip. The adventure begins in less than 60 hours !

5.  The weather should be nice and seasonal on my way to the Dallas Texas area this Friday and Saturday with temperatures within a rather narrow range on both days – pretty much mid-60s to mid-70s on Friday and low-50s to mid-60s on Saturday – so neither cold nor hot. I should be able to maximize my gas mileage during my trip there by not using the A.C. We’ll see.