will someone help me roll over?

got back from dinner with the friend who bailed on us last week. we were supposed to go to one of the two Brazilian restaurants in town - Cafe Brazil. the other is a fancy pants French-Brazilian restaurant in Cherry Creek, Aquarela, which is supposed to be outrageously expensive and kinda lame.

anyway, we went and had a blast. she (Cindy) had a stew of vegetables and black beans topped with green onion and cilantro, served with rice, fried bananas, farofa, collard greens, orange slices and aji of campana. lois had the same exact thing, but with some grilled chicken. and i ordered a sea scallop dish prepared with a sauce of garlic, shallots, coconut milk and kaffir lime leaves, served over rice and vegetables. exquisite!

afterwards, we went to Gelato D'Italia for their phenomenal ice cream. lois had a scoop of cappuccino chip...i had mini scoops of white peach champagne and raspberry...and Cindy opted for mango and mixed berry. sigh...so good! we need to go there more often since it's less than a ten minute walk from the house. 'course, that may be a dangerous proposition; i'd probably gain ten pounds of gelato weight...probably way worse than water weight.

all this talk about food...well, i can blame Katie for bringing out the glutton in me ;) any blog or site that even mentions food or travel will get me started!

Katie is at an age where the metabolism is set to one speed - TURBO. until i was 23, i could eat everything and complain about never being able to put on weight. it's just bad when your metabolism slows down and you realize that it will take some effort to fit in those pants again. lessee here, i can either lose the weight and fit those clothes again OR i can buy a whole new wardrobe! the name is Visa...big debt Visa.

her blog title, I Can't Believe I Ate That, is priceless. i have had my share of "I can't believe..." happenings in my life. of course, the majority of the 'different' foods were consumed in Latin American countries. i remember getting some tamales on the street in Panajachel (Guatemala) and hurrying back to the hotel to down them. they were steamin' hot...the masa was good...but the meat filling had bones...and the meat didn't taste like chicken, pork, or beef. in fact, all the time i was eating, i was thinking that the bones sure resembled those of alley cats that we had dissected in Physiology once. so that cured me of buying street food under lamp posts without working bulbs...think that was a sign?

have you ever sat there and eaten something mediocre just because you had paid for it and, by golly, you weren't going to leave more than half of it uneaten? this only applies with barely edible food, not spoiled. well, i once paid five pesos for a duck sandwich in Cholula (yeah, like the hot sauce) Mexico. when it came, i realized that the item that i ordered was not duck ('pato' in Spanish), but a pig's foot ('pata') sandwich. it was cold, purple, and ug-lee. still, i was determined to eat some of it. after all, five pesos was about $1.66 then...about half of the cost of a mexican lunch special (aka, 'comida corrida'). i lasted about two or three bites...got some fries and a queso fundido instead.

after traveling in some countries as well as seeing strange Chinese edibles while growing up, i think i'm a pretty open minded eater. i've eaten giant game rodent ('tepescuintle') in Guatemala...Peruvian guinea pig ('cuy')...Vietnamese duck eggs (strange because there is no yolk...the taste of the embryonic fluid is harsh and you have to choke down some partially developed beak). nevertheless, i usually draw the line at ingesting insects. i know you can eat ant eggs and grasshoppers in Mexico...mealworms in Malaysia...and even fried tarantula in Cambodia. nope. i don't care if there is virtually no fat or that they have the highest protein ratio. unless i'm lost in the jungle and delirious from starvation, there are some lines that just shouldn't be crossed!

so Katie, i applaud you and your gastronomic prowess...more power to ya because people would KILL to be so on-the-go and skinny as you. i just hope you're getting enough protein in yer diet. fear not though, if you need to supplement your protein intake, might i suggest...