CT Scan

And in the blink of an eye, I'm back in my lil Brooklyn apartment! It wasn't so much a weekend in Connecticut as 24 hours, but I'm not complaining. Any city dweller knows that it can be tiring to live here, so a change of scenery is always refreshing, no matter how short. It was also nice to chill with the parents for a while, since they don't make it to this neck of the woods all that often. You may or may not be aware that they actually live in Tokyo full-time, but were able to maintain a crashpad in Connecticut after they moved to Japan in 2003. Since they were in town for a wedding this week, I took advantage of the opportunity to go look at trees for a change and spent last night in Danbury.

After they finally picked me up yesterday afternoon, we drove straight to CT and picked up some essentials at the grocery store, some of which we consumed immediately upon arrival at their condo. Of course, I wasn't going to let them get away without trying some of the loot I've received over the past week or so. Namely, some Newman's Organics Soy Crisps and Sabra Classic Hummus. I brought them the hummus in the picture below...plus one other...plus four more for my mom to bring to my sister in Boston. Slowly but surely finding homes for the excess! The roomie actually just told me she pawned some off on our Super. Extra points for creativity!

These soy crisps are a little too good, especially dipped in the best hummus in the world. And I'm not sucking up to Sabra right now (recall that I pretty much have a cargo bay's worth of hummus in my fridge already). Papa-san doesn't even eat hummus and he was digging in as enthusiastically as Mama-san and I.

In between soy crisp-hummus dunkage, I managed to get my veggies in with a little salad bar action. Back to the Newman's soy crisps, I have to give them a sincere endorsement because they have really great nutrition stats and only about four ingredients. I'm not much of a chip person normally, but these satisfy the salt-and-crunch craving and deliver a nice 9g of protein per serving at the same time. That's a good deal. See for yourself:

Ingredients for Lightly Salted: Organic Low Fat Soy Flour, Organic Rice Flour, Salt, Sunflower Oil.

Serving Size: 1 oz, Calories per Serving: 110, Calories from fat: 20, Total Fat: 2.5g (saturated fat: 0gm, trans fat: 0g), Cholesterol: 0mg, Sodium: 650mg, Total Carbohydrates: 14g (dietary fiber: 3g, sugars: less than 1g), Protein: 9g

I'll take it!

Going over to the dark side, we went to Houlihan's for dinner, where I dismantled a camera-shy cheddar cheeseburger with shocking carnivoracity, at least for me. As we all know by now, meat finds its way to my plate pretty rarely these days, and only when I notice a distinct craving for it. Considering that I've been having fantasies of a burger and fries for about two weeks now, I'd say that this particular craving was doing its darndest to make itself known. Far be it from me to deny it. That's a lot of talk about an unpictured meal, but unless you're from Neptune, I'm willing to bet you know what a cheeseburger looks like.

More picture-worthy were the desserts, if not as tasty as they looked. We had a sampler of three "minis." Mine was the S'mores, which was kind of ghetto, if I'm honest! They melted some Fluf and not-quite-real chocolate goo in folded wax paper and served it to me with a cup of graham cracker sticks and strawberries. Maybe a good idea in theory, but it was nothing to write home about. Plus my parents were sitting right there so I just told them it wasn't awesome. :)

The other two minis are in the background below - a weird dumpling of a cheesecake (left) and a berry cobbler (right). Also pretty mediocre.

So weird to have these extravagant-yet-not-delicious sweets after having eaten one of the better burgers I've had in a while! Oh well, I guess this is what I was supposed to do with my kindergarten-meets-campfire dessert:

The strawberries were the best part!

This morning, breakfast was by request. Mama-san admires the oatmeal concoctions of the food blogosphere (Namely, mine! Of course...), so I whipped up a little something Diana-style in the form of Hot Cocoats.

For 2 servings:

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 2 cups water
• 1 packet Land O'Lakes French Vanilla Hot Cocoa (the 'fancy' kind they sell in single envelopes - it's really bad for you and therefore extra delicious)
• 1 banana, sliced
• 1 tbsp natural PB for each bowl as a topper

Pretty much dessert for breakfast. Only the best for Mama-san! ;)

During the odd moments that we weren't eating today, we made ourselves useful by patronizing the suburban wonder that is the single-level Target. Whenever I'm in the 'burbs, I always try to think of anything I might need from Target, because the ones in New York City are a total joke. The one in Danbury, by comparison, feels like freaking Neiman Marcus.

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I don't think I've ever gone into a Target and bought only what was on my list. Such is the trance it puts me in. Feeling a little munchy to boot (and admiring the bar selection in true food blogger form), Mom and I decided to split a Clif Mojo bar, since I hadn't ever seen this bariety (typo, but I'm keeping it!) anywhere near me in the City.

...And we were so very disappointed. Sickly sweet, loosely bound goo. All due props to Clif for the simple ingredient list and the organic factor and the whole almonds and all, but that don't mean it tastes good. Not worth trying again.

The disnackstser was quickly forgotten during dinner at Spasi, during which I only remembered I had my camera on me when the entrees came out. This is my Pollo Verdura, which was chicken with artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers and mozzarella in a marsala sauce.

Italian heaven. Especially combined with salad, eggplant florentine, bread and olive oil...and maybe some chocolate lava cake with gelato...

I'm not sure, everything went hazy during the train ride back to NYC. :)

And it wouldn't be a visit with the parentals without them spoiling me, so along with all the fab eats, they picked up the tab for the Target excursion as well, which resulted in some solid, practical loot.

Ok, so accumulating more bars is not "practical," per se, but I doubt you will think less of me for adding to the collection.

I need another day of weekend! It was sayonara too soon. Even the most mature among us need our mommies and daddies every once in a while. :)