Eating on the go - can you really eat right on vacation!

So my partner, Rob and I are taking a bit of a break by hoping the Amtrak Crescent to New Orleans for the rest of the week. Right now we are sitting in our Superliner room playing cribbage and enjoying the leisurely ride across the south and into NoLa. Started out great with a egg bagel sandwich for breakfast and our morning coffee (aka-5 shots of espresso over ice with a touch of half-n-half). Then we get onto the train at 8:15am and take a bit of a nap, I mean seriously we were up at 6:30 am which in our household is unheard of.

A bit of a snack around 11:00 of whole grain goldfish and then it was time for lunch in the dining car. WTF!!! The menu was horrendous and extremely limiting, here were my choices 1. A salad with salmon on it, 2. A burger that I'm sure was not made with 93/7 beef, 3. Clam chowder and a side salad, 4. The chef's special (which I'll get to in a minute), and what I ultimately decided on 5. A turkey and cheddar sandwich on a multigrain bun with chips. And I hear you out there - all of the choices seem OK but I am here to tell you that there is no, NO altering any of the choices.




No chicken for the salad, no salad instead of chips, no turkey burger, and the chef's special??? It was chopped pork and beans over rice with a roll and salad. It looked like prison food or something you would get at sleep away camp. I couldn't say much about it as this is what Rob had for lunch, but I wouldn't even know where to begin tracking it. So here's what I did, I ate the sandwich with some mustard, would have taken the cheese off if it wasn't melted on there like some orange plastic bag on a hot burner. I ate about 10 chips and the pickle.




I think I did well on points, but I mean I will be having dinner (and for those of you who know me - drinks) in NEW ORLEANS!!! So I sit here with my snack of an apple, and wait for the next 5 days. How can you really eat well on vacation? I try, but French fries and vodka call me name on a regular basis. I think that they are following me on twitter. I will try and keep you all posted as these days go on. This is an adventure in numerous ways and I can tell you one thing fo sho - I do not want to fuck up the great progress I have made over the last 6 weeks.

Wanted to give a shout out to my WW gang - hey Debbie & Leslie! Keep up the good work and get KT to join us on Monday. I will certainly be nervous about THAT WI.

Urban Farmers - Take 2

So last year Rob and I began our newest adventure - planting the ultimate urban garden. We have an upper balcony, 7' x 25', and have never really known what to do with the space. We've tried hammocks and outdoor dining, ultimate sun tan lounge to almost making it an outdoor bocce ball court. Then in a stroke of genius we came up with a great idea - an urban garden. So we bought some raised beds online and started to plan.

We decided that last year would be our experimental year. We would try to grow EVERYTHING we wanted. So we went to Home Depot to buy our herbs, fruits & veggies as well as the most dirt I have ever seen in my life. Seriously!!! I mean it took about 5-6 40 lb. bags to fill up EACH box, and there were SEVEN boxes. Talk about earning activity points. So after cussing him out as we carried the 42 bags of soil up the 2 flights of stairs to our balcony, we began our cultivating. We planted the following: 7 kinds of peppers, 5 kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, cucumber, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, sweet potato, red onion, sweet onion, white onion, raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb, lettuce, okra, garlic, shallot AND corn.

OK so I absolutely understand - kinda ambitious, huh? Well again I said it was our experimental year. So out of all those goodies here's what we harvested - Roma tomatoes, tons of peppers, cucumbers and sweet potatoes out of our hiney holes. And we also learned several lessons - 1. in order to make anything substantial out of the tomatoes we needed to grow several plants of 1 kind, 2. the trouble to grow zucchini & squash IS NOT worth it, 3. blueberries do not grow in the south and 4. trying to grow corn on a patio is completely ludicrous. But all in all - we were extremely proud of what we had done, what we had learned and that we FINALLY came up with a great use of that space.

So here we are, a year wiser and a year older. Thank all that is

holy that we didn't have to bring any additional soil in, but we did have to start a bit earlier with planning and really think about what we wanted to do this year. We decided to trellis all of the vine plant (watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, cucumbers and potatoes) an also pair back the quantity and variety of what we planted. We also agreed that we would plant some basil in between the tomatoes and cilantro between the peppers. So out of the 7 boxes and assorted pots, we use 6 for things that we had grown before and to use 1 for experimental veggies. Things that were added to the mix were: carrots, betts, snap peas, green beans and (he tried to talk me out of it) artichoke. Things that did not make the cut this year were: afore mentioned zucchini & squash as well as onion, garlic, shallot, broccoli, cauliflower, okra (neither of us really even like it) and of course CORN.

I will keep you posted as the season goes along and let you know how it all turns out. OH by the way, almost forgot. Today was WI and I'm down 2.6 more - I'll keep you in the loop on that as well. If you have any vegetable garden questions - let me know!