My family has always enjoyed small, off-the-beaten path restaurants. The kind of place many people would call a “hole in the wall” but I prefer to think of them as “independent.”
That’s how you find the best, or the worst, of food. And often the highest quality meals at the lowest prices.
Today, the teenager and I got up at a reasonable hour — or early for us— to take Extra Crunchy and Parker (and another family’s foster Wynken) from our cat rescue Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab to another animal rescue Furry Feet Rescue for shots and neutering.
By the time we retrieved kittens and microchips and made the 17 mile drive to drop the babies off, it was noon.
We found ourselves needing to use a bathroom and hungry in the small town of Bath, Pa. At a traffic light we noticed Turn–In Family Restaurant and with the teenager’s current occupation as a diner waitress, well we couldn’t resist.
Who says animal rescue is all hard work?
Turn In Family Restaurant turned out to be adorable. We got there after the Sunday morning early rush and minutes before the after church crowd.
The restaurant smelled of fresh potting soil as it actually had real plants and flowers. The dessert case looked amazing so I splurged and bought the teenager’s dad a giant cookie (hey, Darrell— “put that cookie down.”)
They gave us the lunch menu but when the waitress arrived she offered us breakfast and I accepted. After all, you can’t judge a diner without trying its classic morning meal.
Speaking of classic, my daughter got the Turn In Breakfast which is the same basic idea as the Tic Toc Breakfast Feast— but the price is $3 cheaper and at Turn In includes toast. I ordered the eggs Benedict.
The Hollandaise sauce couldn’t have been more perfect. The home fries the right delightful mix of soft on one side and crispy on the other. The Canadian bacon with my platter was thick cut and just salty enough to give the meal the right zest.
The teenager and I realized that we have become true pancake connoisseurs. The Turn In pancakes were very fluffy and rather dry, where Tic Roc’s pancakes are denser and have a heavier butter/fried flavor.
The bill came to $20, which included the cookie but not the $5 tip we left.
This is (kinda) my first full month with a Silk & Sonder planner. I say “kinda” because it arrived a week into the month.
But I realized today, that even if some of my prompts are empty, and even if I stare at the same exercise day after day, that I am still performing the reflection actively and being present for/in myself.
The new July planner is, according to a tracking email I got this morning, out for delivery today. This is very exciting as I feel like now I can perhaps slowly ease into the upcoming them and actually use the planner as a planner.
I’ve experimented with various ways to log what’s important to me and honestly I still struggle with “what should be where.” I can’t determine what should be on my monthly habit tracker versus my weekly goal tracker.
I have quasi-decided that my monthly habit tracker reinforces habits I have established and the weekly goal tracker helps me tackle specific projects or establishing/renewing habits.
The other “problem” I have is using the weekly health planner— it’s been blank each planner I have received. I don’t meditate, never have and don’t intend to. I haven’t reliably reconnected with flossing. I haven’t lifted a dumbbell in months. Once upon a time I did yoga…
But that also brings up the idea of how many times can you list something as a goal and/or put it on the tracker and not do it at all.
Earlier this week we got our third Hello Fresh meal delivery. The teenager (I have reason to believe teenager #2 will be moving this week; as she has only been home a few hours in the last week, I hereby formally declare that teenager #1 is now, once again, the teenager) asked to try one of the discount offers provided in another of our subscription services.
They are certainly clever marketers. Box one comes at something like 50% off, then they scale back the discount until delivery four is eight percent off.
And box five, for four people, once you include the shipping, is about $40 per meal.
Now, as I have mentioned, I am a good home chef and a very thrifty shopper. For the cost of one of these meals I bet I could replicate at least three of their recipes.
But that’s not the real point of one of these services, at least in my opinion.
These services:
Renew people’s interest in being in the kitchen.
Teach people to cook without the risk of randomly googling a meal on the internet, buying the wrong ingredients or admitting you don’t have any skill in the kitchen.
Offer the convenience of avoiding the shopping experience or running out of or forgetting a key ingredient.
Provide better choice and healthier options than restaurants.
Help people meal plan and stick to that plan which can reduce the chance of poor food-related decisions.
And my favorite, expose people to new recipes and new uses to standard ingredients, expanding a person’s cooking repertoire. That, in my opinion, is worth the investment and why, after next week, I will be converting to a two-meal, once-a-month plan.
Now for the “cons” of specifically Hello Fresh:
I am freaked out by the idea that my raw meat spends 24-36 hours in transit, and by the amount of ice packs in that box. The waste generated upsets me. I noticed that our cat foster godmother reuses the boxes as cat huts.
The ingredients sometimes disappoint. I bought their “chicken protein pack” and their chicken strips were tiny chunks— like popcorn chicken. I ordered an extra bag of Brussel sprouts and they were either $3.50 or $3.99, which is the going rate for fresh Brussels. Now they are my favorite and I thought Hello Fresh might have access to special sprouts. Maybe organic or a unique source. Nope. Green Giant.
Our schedules in this house are chaotic and finding the time and energy to commit to preparing several meals a week like this is more stressful than I anticipated.
The recipes assume you have a certain efficiency in the kitchen. I think we, on average, require one hour at least for a meal that should take 10 minutes prep time and 30 to cook.
There’s a lot of rice.
I’m not sure these meals fill me up for more than two hours.
There are cheaper meal delivery services available. One friend recommended trying Every Plate.
So what have we tried so far?
Pork with Apple Dijon Pan Sauce over farro and wilted kale. (Photos above) I liked it. Teen found the pork scrumptious and well-seasoned but does not care for neither farro nor kale.
Thai Ginger Curry with creamy coconut veggies, peanuts and lime rice. I loved their creative use of red peppers and green beans for the vegetables. They provided a fantastic, full-fat coconut milk. Teen did not care for it. She likes my curries, but this curry was not her thing.
Tuscan Garlic Butter Chicken with creamy kale and paprika carrots. Amazing. All around. The Tuscan heat spice blend excites me. Teen still hates kale.
Paprika Chicken in a Lemony Sauce with pistachio rice and roasted carrots. Not the rich Hungarian dish I was hoping for but very yummy. We both agreed. The pistachios in the rice seemed so decadent.
Thai Shrimp with candied peanuts over sesame cabbage and arugula. I bombed this one. I loved the salad portion and the peanuts, but I’m not a fan of shrimp. The teen loves shrimp but is not fond of purple cabbage and discovered that she detests arugula. So I ate salad for three days until I got sick of it and she ate a lot of shrimp.
Meatloaves with creamy mushroom sauce plus garlic mashed potatoes and roasted Brussel sprouts. The teen and I might agree this was our favorite. But I didn’t eat my mushrooms.
Creamy Cilantro Steak Bowls with garlic lime rice and charred poblano. I enjoyed this one but they were so generous with the steak portions that I got three meals out of what was listed as two servings. This was spicy. And that was good, but the vegetable was onions and neither the teen nor I wanted to chomp on a serving of cooked onions.
We have one meal left this week— apricot ginger chicken— and one more box coming this week. Hello Fresh offered a refresh of our taste buds, but hits hard on the wallet.
My daughter often stops at Grocery Outlet in part because of their “rainbow Coke program” where you can rummage through lose cans of soda and mix and match flavors for 25 cents each. They have weird food, good deals, and allow us to try things on which we wouldn’t usually splurge.
Tonight we made the Cheetos Jalapeño Macaroni and Cheese. Now, hands down, without question, my absolute favorite ultra-processed boxed macaroni and cheese product is Wegmans house brand Spirals and Cheese dinner, which I often used to get on sale for 33 cents a box.
This hard larger than average noodles that once prepared very quickly absorbed all the sauce. It tasted exactly like jalapeño cheetos. Except you didn’t have to chew so much. I ate a bowl, and the spice developed on the roof of my mouth versus my tongue. I added a can of tuna and had another bowl. A two-serving box was 79 cents.
Other Random Products
Fried Oreos: finally tried them at Sheetz. Gooey in the middle. Enjoyed them but was disappointed by the end product because I never realized how much of the allure of Oreos was in the crunch factor.
Strawberry Ice Cream Cone Hershey Kisses: very smooth strawberry flavor and I didn’t expect the crunchy bits. Honestly, between 20 flavors of Oreos and constantly rotating flavors of Hershey Kisses, my taste buds are getting burnt out. How many different flavors of potato chips and Mountain Dew do Americans really need?
Tropical Swedish Fish: like the iconic red flavor of Swedish Fish that vaguely resembles cherry, these tropical Swedish fish vaguely resemble something familiar but the flavors listed on the box aren’t even all flavors (passion fruit, pina colada, beachy punch and tropical island). They are weird and the colors are muted and off-putting.
Dunkin’s Peach Lemonade Refresher: possible one of the most over sweetened items I have ever tasted. Even teenager #1 who likes sweet things couldn’t drink it. So I suggested she blend it with some diet ginger ale we had in the house. That she loved.
And as promised— a brief update on Hello Fresh.
Meals, for four servings, cost about $35 each, when including shipping. The meals are amazingly curated and the recipes amazing. This week I tried to pick things my daughter would like but that I wouldn’t normally buy or don’t often take the time to make.
The Turkey meat loaves with mashed potatoes, Brussel sprouts and mushroom sauce were a hit. But the shrimp Thai salad bombed. I don’t care for shrimp, poor teenager #1 struggled to eat it all. And didn’t. And it turned out I didn’t notice when I ordered it that the based of the salad was arugula. And the teen hates arugula. So I ate massive vegetarian salads for dinner for three days. They were scrumptious but I don’t want to eat arugula again for a while.
We downsized our box from three meals to two as it is Sunday, another box ships tomorrow and we still have steak from last week to make.
So while we are eating better, we are spending a whole lot of money, struggling to find time to be in the kitchen and then stressing over getting the meals prepared before they go bad or another box shows up.
My new Silk & Sonder planning arrived today (no wait, yesterday) after some mishaps with the postal service. To read more about that, Silk & Sonder’s marvelous customer service and my previous experience with the product, allow me to direct you here: Silk & Sonder posts.
I already did the boring stuff— the data transfer of dates already scheduled and associated what not like what Hello Fresh meals we still have coming. Now I will sit with the book for a while and interact with it while blogging my feelings. I received the May journal late in the month and used the time to experiment and test how I wanted to use the book so I feel ready to commit more fully.
So let’s open the book.
1. I find the space “if lost return to” a tad silly and makes me feel five. As in five years old.
2. Table of contents.
3. Editor’s letter. Let’s actually read it this month. Meha, the author of the letter, does a really great job articulating why June is a great month for this theme of “play.” She also has a great thought that addresses my fear of play. “Play can be nurtured in seemingly ordinary ways, but it’s up to us on how willing we are to open ourselves up to new characters, stories, and settings in the midst of our chaotic schedules.”
Play can be nurtured in seemingly ordinary ways, but it’s up to us on how willing we are to open ourselves.
Meha, Silk & Sonder creator
Calendar stuff…
4. May reflections: wins, hiccups, favorite moments, hard moments, changing habits… I feel like I can answer these now and my answers will help frame the month ahead.
And coupled with this… on the same two page spread is space for June intentions.
So let me fill this out and I’ll be pausing there for right now. Until next time…
Greetings my readers — apologies for the lackadaisical level of blogging but in addition to mandatory overtime at the Bizzy Hizzy my life has been a tad repetitive.
I ended a beautiful work week with hitting my QC quota not once but twice, learning that my favorite nurse is leaving to take a job in hospice, introducing my daughter to some of my Stitch Fix colleagues, finding out I have to get the Covid vaccine* and wear a special sticker in the warehouse if I want to work without a mask this summer, and binging on fried food and a Swedish fish milkshake at Sheetz.
Midnight with teenager #1 at Sheetz
The new Swedish Fish milkshake at Sheetz (my favorite junk food spot in the middle of the night — scrumptious jalapeño poppers and Wisconsin-style cheese curds) topped off my night although I was a little “drunk” on sugar when I got home and slept like garbage because of it. But the sweet flavor and the tiny gooey chunks were a lot of fun.
And to make life exciting, my replacement Silk & Sonder June journal arrived. The excellent customer service made right for the difficulties incurred by the postal service. My original June journal has been sitting in the regional post office 8 miles away for two weeks and at one point did arrive in my local post office two miles away only somehow to be rediscovered at the regional post office yesterday. The post office claims it will be delivered today.
If I end up with two I will give one to my friend Gayle who is often my partner in crime. She’s a graphic designer, a college professor and, in my opinion, a professional and talented doodler. So if we use this “self-care” journal together, it could lead to some interesting feedback.
Another random side note, teenager #1 is considering returning to therapy. She has struggled to find a good match as she is a teen but an unusually mature teen with more adult than teen problems. I have reached out to a friend of a friend (we all went to college together) about the prospect of her professionally seeing my daughter and I was suddenly struck by the notion that I am now old enough that my friends have such fully developed skills and careers that we are, well, the grown-ups in the room.
Anyway, back to Silk & Sonder, the June 2021 theme is “play.” I am numb with fear. My mother and estranged husband all insist I don’t know how to play. I had carved away this small block of time before dinner to explore more of my June Silk & Sonder planner…
I transferred the June-related notes from my May planner. The basic layout is the same but I see they do try to change up the mood tracker and some of the pages. I didn’t try last month’s recipe or complete all of the “creativity” exercises.
But I was surprised at how distressed I became when I no longer had it. I’m a little behind on all my hopes for today so as I start working with it more there will be another post. Or many.
* Now, please don’t lambast me for not wanting to get the Covid vaccine. I am very glad there are products available for those who need it or would feel safer with it. But the research on this virus is still happening, the current products on the market are not approved by the FDA and the mRNA vaccines are new technology (using the same techniques developed by crispr to genetically modify mosquitoes so they can’t carry disease and the same technology was used by a Chinese scientist to modify a female baby so she can’t catch HIV) that is not a vaccine at all.
I had an appointment to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as that is a more traditional (do they call it viral vector?) product. My appointment was on the same morning the FDA called for the pause, so it was canceled, not by my choice. I don’t understand the fuss about blood clots when plenty of women get blood clots all the time from hormonal birth control pills.
And if that wasn’t enough to make me think twice, the new guidance from the CDC suggests that natural immunity generated by the body after contracting and recovering from Covid, which I had in December 2020, should last for at least a year if not for life.
So I probably don’t need an experimental vaccine product, not yet.
And, I have anecdotal reports from a friend who works in Washington DC as a medical technologist who has attended events at the CDC regarding this virus, that the next round of vaccine products, boosters as it were, may allow those who have not been vaccinated to receive only one shot instead of two.
And, I think finally, I am concerned that since I had Covid, the vaccine may cause a reaction on the first dose and since I had Covid once, I’m not ready to volunteer to repeat any of that experience. In addition, vaccinated people often test positive on Covid tests when they don’t have Covid and this can cause unnecessary quarantine and prevent travel and delay necessarymedical procedures as one friend can attest.
Earlier this week it was 90 degrees and sunny. Yesterday was 60 and cloudy and prone to dramatic cloudbursts of dramatic rain.
Today, the high was around 45.
My knees ache and my ankles keep giving out. I collapsed on the floor at one point, scraped my knee and tore my fancy, super soft and cozy joggers I bought at Stitch Fix’s Bizzy Hizzy employee pop-up store.
So I’m currently in bed with my electric blanket and two three-legged cats.
Louise, one of our fosters
Tomorrow I will finish my May edition of the Silk & Sonder wellness/self-care planner. Even though June starts on Tuesday, apparently Silk & Sonder starts all of its planners on Monday, so Monday May 31 is part of the June planner.
The June planner shipped in mid May, with an anticipated delivery date of May 24. According to the tracking information, it arrived at our regional post office about 10 miles away in the early afternoon on May 18, but didn’t arrive at our local post office 2 miles away until 4 days later on May 22.
It has languished there for a week.
Now, in the great scheme of life, this planner is not vital. But it is rather pricey, and I find a weird emotional sensation in stressing over planning my mental wellness strategies because my calendar is lost in the mail.
Receiving a calendar that suggests you plan for the future with reflection and mindfulness AFTER the month starts defeats some of the purpose.
And if there are problems with the United States Postal Service, shouldn’t the merchant find a new method of delivery? The product is time sensitive.
Honestly, I find it difficult to evaluate if the planner has allowed me to plot a calmer and more mindful future/existence because I’m too busy freaking out that tomorrow is Sunday, that I have to not only work Monday but work day shift, and I can’t even fill out my to do lists, meal plans and other Silk & Sonder pages.
We were supposed to receive our Hello Fresh box on Tuesday, but it arrived Monday. Despite having an extra day to implement our meal plan, here it is Friday and we just got to preparing our second meal.
Teenager #1 wanted to do the majority of the cooking and utilize me in the helper role.
Today was garlic butter chicken with paprika roasted carrots and creamy kale.
Like I did, teenager #1 had a few foibles. I appreciated the roasted carrots as I am not a big carrot fan. Luckily the chicken cutlet was indeed a cutlet and did not disappoint me like the strips.
And it was delicious.
Our last meal for this week is the paprika chicken.
Hello Fresh advertises that they save you money on your grocery bill. But the full price of three dinners for four people is $89.99 plus $8.99 shipping. My entire monthly grocery bill is about $300 a month.
So we invest in Hello Fresh right now to find new recipes and renew our efforts in the kitchen and keep real food in the house while I am working all this overtime.
To read my first impressions, click here: Hello Fresh
We made the honey-ricotta crisps for breakfast yesterday. Here are the videos for that:Part one and Part two.
My only criticism is that what they call a “baguette” is what I call a roll. Maybe Italian but not French. Folks, if your baguette is soft on the outside it is not a true French style bread. It should be crispy outside and soft inside.
Today I started cooking. For real.
Before continuing, please note: my spirit animal is a cat. As a consequence, I don’t like being told what to do and I tend to be flexible with directions. If you’re a strict, play-by-the-book sort, you might have a stroke reading this.
Because we just make pork with rice and stir fry vegetables on Monday, I didn’t want rice. Two of my meals include rice. (Teenager #1 cooked the pork, teenager #2 said it was delicious. I am eating mine at work tonight.)
I decided to make the vegetarian curry, but swap the rice for the creamy kale from the Tuscan chicken dinner.
I ordered extra chicken, just to try some of their other products. Let me say, even as I make some criticisms, everything was delicious. And having a food service, retail background and commercial kitchen experience, I know some of the challenges Hello Fresh faces when combining food with a subscription service.
But this chicken is not “strips.” The package says strips, but it is chunks. And wow is whatever that packaging juice is slimy. Some of these chunks were too small to even cook. I fed them to the dog.
Hello Fresh chicken “strips”
I made the chicken with everything else because I usually have breakfast at 1 and dinner at 7:30 so I wanted to make it a little heartier.
The curry included fresh lime, fresh cilantro, and an amazing full fat coconut milk. It included green beans and red pepper as the base of the meal which wouldn’t be my normal pick. Turns out it’s a great mix. And the recipe forced me to work with shallots. Have never done that.
I hate onions, but I know they cook down in a recipe like this.
The secret to the creamy kale was Tuscan heat spice and sour cream. Kale and sour cream go so well together… I wonder how it would be with herbs de Provence instead of Tuscan heat…
Finally, let me at that the meal is supposed to take 45 minutes, prep & cooking. Mine took more than an hour, in part because I didn’t stick to one meal but mixed and matched.
We still have two more meals and I did schedule a box for next week.
With mandatory overtime ongoing at work, it’s an easy way to make sure I eat real food.
My daughter and her father have both used Spotify for a long time. I never tried the streaming service because I hate making playlists— or as we said way back in the eighties, “mix tapes.”
I hated it at first— it took four hours for my to set up a queue, and then I lost it. I finally discovered some new podcasts, though I still can’t make them auto play without creating a play list.
And today Spotify made me seven different daily playlists highlighting the diversity of my musical tastes. I can’t wait to listen.
I listened to albums I haven’t heard in decades.
And my ex sent me some of his playlists.
As I had hoped, the inner algorithms of Spotify have worked in my favor. Not only are there recommended personalized playlists, but they are starting to include a mix of news, podcasts and music.
Angel Ackerman 