Buying enough food to last through the week is a royal PITA.

Today I have eggs in the refrigerator and a half a loaf of bread along with some grated cheese in the freezer.  Therefore I will be making an omelet for lunch.  I guess I’ll need to make a foray into the grocery store this afternoon and at least pick up some bread and lunch meat or something like that.

I used to be pretty good at meal planning back when the kids were home.  I was also much much closer to the grocery store (1 mile vs 6 miles now).  When my son got past the age of 5 and started to consume mass quantities of food, it was pretty easy.  Just keep adding stuff to the cart, it will get eaten.

Now with just my husband and I, it’s much harder.  I hate throwing food out.  Perishables only last a few days  and often they come in such large batches, it’s difficult to buy for 2 people who aren’t going to scarf down all of it quickly.  I’d be better off in the city with a grocery store nearby.  It would suit me very well to be able to walk to the store every other day or so and buy a few things.  Far better than this once a week deal for the main part of my shopping and then side trips to pick up extras. Especially when the “best” time for me to pick up extras is in the morning when I head over to Starbucks for my coffee.  Not being a morning person, I will often shrug and forget it because I don’t feel like making the extra stop at that time of day.  Then later I don’t feel like making the extra drive… it’s a no win situation.

Somehow I don’t think I’m ever gonna get the hang of this business of being far from the store.

Having already talked about Shilo’s in my earlier post and throwing some pretty pictures out there with it, I must now move on to a couple of other places where I didn’t get any pictures.  (yes this makes me sad too).

We were only in San Antonio for about a day and a half.  This didn’t leave much time for hitting up lots of restaurants.  One thing to remember about any restaurant on the River Walk, if you eat outside, the service will be very slow.  I heard this from others, so was moderately prepared for it when we did eat outside the first night.  We ate at the Hotel Valencia’s Restaurant.  They had outstanding guacamole made fresh at the table (this seems to be a staple of most restaurants down there and I like it!).  The rest of the meal was okay, but that may be because I decided to experiment and had some sort of thing with duck in it.  I have decided I am not a huge fan of duck – so the dish may have been perfectly wonderful for someone who likes duck.

We had a great view of the river while eating, along with an empty building across the river from us.  We spent a good deal of time speculating what might have occupied the place over the many years.  It was kinda fun but even that wore out after a little while.  We saw all kinds of taxi barges going past and many of them were carrying people who were having dinner while floating down the river.  My only problem with this, the boats have to go under bridges… there is no canopy or anything… um… no.  Although the people on the boats seemed to like it.  There was even one “romantic” cruise that went by with only a single couple on the boat.  Special occasion I think. If you’re going to eat outside, it is best done with a group of people who have a great deal to talk about.  That would pass the time much faster while waiting for food.

The following evening, after a fun filled day at the Alamo, we decided to ask the concierge for a recommendation.  He got us a table at Boudros.  We did have to wait once we got there because we decided to do an inside table this time.  (HUGE difference in speed of service).  The food was great and although I don’t remember what I had (sad I only seem to remember stuff I don’t like!).  I know I really want to go back there again.

When we left we decided to walk along the Riverwalk and got all turned around.  It’s very confusing down there and you can walk quite a distance if you go the wrong way.  So we did have an excellent post meal bit of exercise.  About the time we finally found our way to street level we decided we wanted a drink.  We were walking back toward our hotel and we did NOT want to get back on the Riverwalk.  That’s when we happened by Zinc.

What a fabulous little place.

We never did figure out exactly how it worked.  We were in the bar area which looked to be self contained.  But there were double glass doors at the back and people sitting at tables to eat in the room behind the bar.  However, the entire time we were there, no one walked through those doors either entering or leaving.  Hmmm.   Oh well  – we had a fantastic waiter who told us that Zinc is owned by the people who own Boudros.  Okay that’s 2 for 2 in excellent goodness.  Great atmosphere, not headbangingly loud, a couple of corner tv’s. and excellent drinks… what more could you want?  Well, we found out they also serve food.  Damn!  We weren’t hungry but we still ordered an appetizer.

Next time.  Next time we head down that way we want to hit all these places again.  They were terrific.  This is why I like to go places even though the travel gods do not like me.

On days I do pilates, it is impossible for me to eat for at least 3 hours before I start class – longer is better.  That’s because the “core work” is so intense, having food in my stomach means I can’t do the exercises properly.   Most of the time when I head into class, I’m really really hungry.  (I happen to be one of those people who is a “grazer” I don’t tend to eat lots of food at one sitting, I am more likely to eat some bits of food most of the day).

Well, if I’m hungry heading in, you know about 20 minutes after class is over I literally get the shakes unless I can find calories quickly.  On really desperate days I will stop at Starbucks and get a drink.  Desperate days are days when I haven’t got food in the house – which happens too often because I’m a slacker when it comes to grocery shopping.  Most times though, I head home and grab something quick to eat.  I really like it when I remember to buy tuna or have some sort of meat available for protein.  But most times it’s cheese and crackers which will work for about 30 minutes before I’m shaky again.

Therefore I twittered that I was going to have to create my own snack bags to take with me to pilates so I could eat them on the way home.  Some mix of nuts and dried fruit with maybe a little chocolate (because everything is better with chocolate!).

Then SarahK tweeted about Clif Nectar bars.    I looked at ingredients (Sarah recommends the Lemon, vanilla, cashew  and the cranberry, apricot, almond)  and decided I’m ordering some from Amazon – the lemon ones I can get with my Prime account – free 2 day delivery… yay!   They sound delicious!  Now if I can eat them and not get a headache – I shall be ever grateful.  (well, I am grateful for the recommendation in any case, but it’s always a bonus if something is good and doesn’t cause migraines)

I will know soon.