And on the 8th Day I discovered Spice.

This is the beginning of week 2, and I have to say again, it doesn't feel like it has been that long.  I'm not suffering overall.  Meaning, I don't suffer from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep.  That's good, right? I'm not trying to out-Job Job or anything, so minimizing suffering is good.  Sure, I have a moment here and there, or I stress about what to order when I go out, but so far I haven't been staying up all night on a Donut Addiction Hotline trying to talk myself down from a donut disaster.

This morning I had a meeting in Tucson with 3 other people, which also meant lunch in Tucson....unplanned lunch at an unknown location! This was a challenge.  The group picked a place called Hub in downtown Tucson. They are known for their decent hipster food and their rotating selection of gourmet homemade ice cream. Decent hipster food, in my mind, means put gourmet, artisan, local bacon on everything, and put 75 obscure ingredients in your sauces while claiming they are all sustainably sourced.

Every single thing on the menu had some major flaw.  Mmmm....gourmet salad with salmon and oops! with quinoa...X.  no quinoa.  Ooooo, salmon with zucchini noodles soaked in butter...X... I couldn't know if it was clarified butter or not, and I wasn't willing to ask for it cooked without butter because it would have been cooked in butter anyway.  That's just how things work in a busy restaurant.  "No butter? Sure, we can do that (as it is finished in butter)."

I settled on a burger, no bun/cheese/bacon, a side salad with balsamic vinaigrette, and a cup of pork, green chili soup.  I asked what was in the soup, making sure it didn't have cream. It arrive and looked delicious.  I proceeded to remove some fried tortilla strips from the top, and after a couple of bites, I saw it had garbanzo beans.  X.  Why put stupid garbanzo beans in a pork/green chili soup? So, I ate around the garbanzos a bit, but ended up shoving the soup away in "unnecessary additional ingredients" disgust.  

Another person at my table ordered the side salad, and I saw it was riddled with corn.  What the hell, people? Corn? I flagged down the waitress and asked that no corn be included in the salad I ordered with my burger.  She looked at my partially eaten soup and asked if I was enjoying that.  Uhm...garbanzo beans? No.

So, all in all I was THAT PERSON.  We've all known that person. You go out to eat with them, and it is a struggle to watch them order everything with some exception and some special request.  It drives me insane, and NOW that's me.  Once upon a time there was a person who was friends with some of my friends.  I would end up seeing said person at gatherings, potlucks, etc..., and it pissed me off every single time because this person would talk allllllllll about what they could and couldn't eat.  Every single freaking time we would get the epic speech about this person's special diet, and people who went out of their way to make something special for this person would be praised.  This person would poopoo dishes that had ingredients they couldn't eat because "You all know, I can't eat that!"  For the love of all that is holy in this planet!!!!! SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR SPECIAL STUPID DIET! That's what went through my head each time.  And now I was screaming that at myself at Hub.

At the end of our lunch, the waitress walked over and placed the current ice cream list right. in. front. of. me.  Hussie.  She knew what she was doing.  You aren't going to break me with your fig ice cream with indian fry bread bits.  YOU WON'T WIN!   

The lesson: avoid hipster, trendy restaurants because everything will be contaminated with artisanal bacon that has been hand massaged with sustainably sourced sugar and salt evaporated from the tears of endangered animals.  Then they will put garbanzo beans where you least expect it and try to ruin you with the siren song of homemade ice cream.

The real win of today, aside from my eating out lesson, was the discovery of spices!  Crazy spices!  One of the people in the meetings with me was a classically trained chef in a former life.  I started talking to him about my boredom with food and the need to make things more interesting without adding complicated recipes.  He immediately had me turn the car north into Tucson to Penzeys Spice Store.  He said he had to pick up some things for his house, too, so since we were carpooling, we went to the spice place.  Who knew this place existed? Not me.

Instead of having to follow a complicated recipe to make things taste good, I sprinkle some of these delicious Penzey blends on things and VOILA! Food.  The Fox Point that I used tonight is like crack...yummy, yummy crack.  I cooked chicken breasts with it, and it tastes really good. Once I tire of that, I can go Indian, Bavarian, Greek, Italian, or just straight up Garlic.  This was revolutionary!

So, I have asparagus cooked, a cabbage to cook, and I will probably saute onions and zucchini this weekend.  I have lots of chicken, and a couple of proteins in the freezer I can use, like shrimp, fish, and some steaks.  I'm optimistic about week 2.