Daily Archives: July 26, 2011

Cookie Dough Rolls

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Hope you had a lovely Tuesday night!

We spent ours toasting our lovely friend Kendall’s birthday at a delicious sushi bar, Umami!

I love Umami but don’t go nearly enough (as in I can’t even remember the last time we went there!) The ambiance is awesome, it gets packed, the sushi is fresh and delicious and the happy hour menu is amazing, and doesn’t break the bank!

All rolls $5? I'll take one of each.

We started off by taking full advantage of the Happy Hour drinks menu… 50% off any bottle of wine!

We went for the 2008 Rodney Strong Cab and it was great!

Apparently, 2008 was a great year. But not to be confused with 2007 which took the cake. Who knew? ;-)

Boyfriend and I started off by splitting an order of sliders - seasoned kobe beef, spicy aioli, crispy shallots & gingered pickles (which were promptly removed) on steamed buns (think steamed dumplings… but as buns. ohmygod.)

From there we attacked the sushi rolls!

I went for the Rock n Roll (eel, cucumber, avocado with sweet eel sauce) while boyfriend went with the Alaska (salmon, avocado & cucumber), Spicy Tuna, and Spicy Hamachi.

Can you tell who is the more adventurous one with food here? ;-) Hint, it’s not me!

I also successfully used chopsticks, unassisted for the first time in my life. 

No I’m not embarrassed to say that boyfriend and I concoct chopstick “training wheels”, not to be confused with the actual “beginner chopsticks” I have at the apartment. ;-)

Please don't judge me.

All of the sushi was delicious, fresh, and so filling! Being a birthday celebration, we had to have dessert!

Cupcakes were passed around to share from the delicious Susiecakes!

But I was saving my dessert appetite for the main event.

THE COOKIE DOUGH ROLL

Vanilla bean gelato wrapped with chocolate chip cookie dough, topped with chopped peanuts & drizzled with chocolate & caramel sauces

Without a doubt the best dessert I have ever tasted at a restaurant. Gelato wrapped in cookie dough. 

Tell me it gets better than this. I dare you. ;-)

It was a wonderful night with great friends, great conversation, great food and great drinks!

Happy Birthday Kendall!

Action Shot!

Hope you had a great night! :)

Lara Bar Convert

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Hello Hello!

Glad you all were such big fans of the Celebs! They’re Just Like Us! post! I was cracking up laughing doctoring up the photos, and you can bet this will become a weekly post.

In exciting Tuesday news (I work in an office for 8 hours of day, it’s the little things that excite me) I’ve officially found a 2nd Lara Bar flavor that I can eat daily. I just might become a convert.

Oh hello Ginger Snap

Workout

Today’s came in the form of a 3 mile run and my favorite TRX class on my lunch hour. I booked it to the gym and had to crank up the speed to fit in 3 miles in the 25 minutes I had before my class started.

Luckily with the Kindle as my running buddy, this wasn’t a problem.

I swear if people could run Boston with a Kindle, we’d see records broken left and right. Time FLIES by!

I completed 3 miles in 25 minutes (and am now 46% through Stories I Only Tell My Friends) and then went into the TRX class where I proceeded to sweat bullets, and feel like my entire body had turned to jello.

Successful lunch hour I’d say! ;-)

I got back to work absolutely famished and true to my pledge to bring my lunch everyday, I had it ready and waiting for me.

Today’s lunch?

Money. Saver.

 

  • Whole Wheat Sandwich Thin
  • Rotisserie Turkey
  • Laughing Cow Cheese Garlic & Herb Wedge
  • Organic Arugula
  • Bag of BBQ Popchips on the side
Since I was clearly still hungry, I had a couple (handfuls) of dark chocolate covered almonds. At the rate I’m going these babies will be wiped out by Friday.

The Chocolate to Almond ratio is at least 5:1

Seriously, next time you’re at TJ’s… get these. You’ll be eating them by the (triple) handful too.
Boyfriend and I have a birthday dinner to go to in a bit but since my nut butter consumption has been seriously lacking in the last 48 hours I had to snack on something.
Is there a better combination (dark chocolate and coconut aside) than PB, Cinnamon and honey on toast? I think not.
I’m off to finish up last night’s Rizzoli and Isles On-Demand (I LOVE this show) and get ready for dinner. Hope you have a great night! :)
What’s your favorite flavor combination?
Favorite Lara Bar (or any energy bar) flavor?

Been Doing It Wrong The Entire Time

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Goood morning! Happy Tuesday!

It looks like January outside in SF at the moment, which is just wonderful.

About as wonderful as Ben Affleck’s new Bieber-meets-Billy-Ray-Cyrus hairstyle. Why Ben, why?

Last night started with a round of HIIT at the gym and then from the second I got home until we went to bed, it was relaxation nation. Having a busy, busy weekend just takes it out of you!

I’m not going to lie and tell you the run was rosy, and beautiful and enjoyable – because it wasn’t. I couldn’t wait to be done.

Mainly because for my cool-down I had my Kindle (it will never get old) and my Rob Lowe book ready to go. The 5 minute cool-down turned into about a 20 minute cool-down (which could have gone on a lot longer)… the book is that good.

At the end of my intervals, I completed just over 2.5 miles in 22 minutes.

Thank goodness that's over

Overall my workout looked like this:

Then, this morning I woke up to an article in my inbox about HIIT Training!  (and realized I’ve probably been doing it wrong this entire time by not going slow enough to fully recover… wooops.)

THIS is my cool-down. A-Rod honey, pull a little harder, this is too easy.

The benefits of interval training have been studied in labs, made national headlines and continue to be evangelized by every hard-body glossy on the shelves. And for good reason: It works.

“The two most common mistakes I see people making with intervals are not going hard enough on the effort and not going easy enough during recovery, which is really the crux of the whole thing,” Pagano says, “It’s the juxtaposition of near maximum and minimal effort that produces the desired physiological response.”

After a perfectly executed interval routine, your body experiences EPOC, or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. “EPOC is essentially your body trying to catch up with the oxygen demand put on it during the session,” says Pagano. “It’s trying to return to homeostasis and the harder it has to work to return, the more calories your body burns to get you there.”

As a general rule, you should aim to work between 85 and 90 percent of your maximum heart rate on intense bursts—and you’ll need a heart rate monitor to eliminate the guesswork. Then recover for as long as it takes you to get back down to 60-70 percent of your max. “The recovery is just as important as the effort because that’s where the cardiovascular adaptations take place,” Pagano says, “And you need to fully recover in order to allow your body to expend a close to maximal effort on the next burst.”

Source

For those of you that do interval training or are just interested in it, this article has a lot of good information… including that (as I suspected) I know nothing about intervals and have been pushing way too hard during my recovery! Definitely try it out if you’re working on your speed.

Slowpoke over here has seen a big difference! ;-)

Off to get some work done, see you this afternoon with your weekly dose of: celebrities! working! out!

Do you interval train? How do you work on your speedwork when you run?