Yummy In My Tummy

The following is a documentation of a random day in Ashley’s eating history: March 17, 2009, which also happens to be St. Patrick’s Day.  It’s like my second birthday, except I can celebrate with almost everyone, because almost everyone has a bit of Irish in them.

For breakfast:
A glass of water and a pill!  I have hypothyroidism.  Consequently, I am required to gulp down a tasty thyroid supplement every morning and wait around an hour before eating.  But because I prefer sleep to Frosted Corn Flakes and don’t have the patience to get up an hour earlier just for food, usually skip breakfast.
For lunch:
I came home to indulge in my two favorite guilty pleasures, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (on sourdough) and diet coke.  Mm, mmm.  No shame here.  I’ve probably been eating PB&J and drinking diet coke on a regular basis since I grew teeth.  I firmly believe in the daily consumption of essential nutrients like high fructose corn syrup and aspartame, of which PB&J and diet coke contain high amounts.  I also recommend that others follow my example in order to live a healthy lifestyle.
For snack:
It just so happens that USF was having a blood drive today, and what better way to kill time than by saving a life?  Sometimes I feel that being O negative is both a blessing and a curse.  I take pride in being a hospital hero as a universal donor, but at the same time I feel obligated to continuously suffer the excruciating pain of having a needle plunged intravenously inside me.  Alas, it is my duty.  After having a pint of blood sucked out of me, the phlebotomists required me to hang around for 15 minutes (in case I faint) and eat and drink their food—the only time in my life someone other than my parents has demanded that I eat.  Of course, I wasn’t complaining.  Free chocolate chip Chewy bar, honey roasted peanuts and two bottles of water!
For dinner:
Because it’s St. Patty’s Day, my somewhat Irish friends and I decided to celebrate by getting dinner at an Irish pub.  However, after a bit of yelping we discovered that no Irish pubs in the Richmond also serve dinner.  Not willing to compromise our somewhat Irish heritage by going to a dinner-serving English pub, we instead went out for sushi!  But on principle, we refused to try the Japanese beer.  The lovely Ichi Raku, on 2nd  and Geary, first served us some complimentary Miso soup and barbequed salmon.  After resigning to stabbing off portions of the salmon with my chopsticks (why aren’t there knives in Japan?), I noticed this salmon still had bone in it.  Ah, so that’s why it was complimentary.  After I was finished defiling my napkin, my friend Megan tried to convince me that this was actually a good sign, that they buy their salmon whole rather than in packaged chunks, and this was simply the part of the fish that was not right for sushi. I was still thoroughly grossed out about chewing salmon bone, fresh or not.  Needless to say, the salmon remained untouched for the rest of the evening.  Fortunately, the sushi itself proved to be very opposite from gross.  I ordered the caterpillar roll, which was delightfully shaped like a little avocado and salmon-egg caterpillar with cucumber antennae and an eel tale.  Aw.  I accidentally ate the head before I remembered to take a picture.
For dessert:
Ice cream.  This great little sushi joint gives out complimentary ice cream as well.  Usually it’s green tea, but tonight we were served good ol’ fashioned vanilla.
For drinks:
After wandering around Clement and realizing that all the bars were pretty much at max drunken capacity (at 8:00, even!  Everyone acting in the way of the Irish, I guess), I remembered that I actually live by this homey little bar inhabited by real Irish people, with accents and everything.  All excited to see the Irish in their natural habitat, my friends and I scurried to O’Keefe’s on 5th and Balboa.  We entered the smoky (yes, smoky!) tavern and surveyed the scene of jovial, drunken, middle-aged Irishmen, not an American accent to hear but our own.  The bartender leaned over the counter littered with cans of Guinness and gruffly asked us our drinks.  Seeing as how Guinness and I had a bad experience together last St. Patty’s, I ashamedly ordered a Heineken.  Just before the bartender served us our drinks, an angry Irishmen darted from his stool and passionately threw it to the ground, in the belligerent Irish fashion.  My friends and I gaped in awe, having only ever heard of such pugnacious Irish behavior, but never before witnessed it.  By the end of the night, we did not escape the tavern without first witnessing a beer-bottle throwing and a mooning as woman tried to show off her tattoo.  Feeling as if we had successfully engaged in a cultural experience worthy of St. Patrick’s Day, my somewhat Irish friends and I parted ways.
For snack:
I went home to recount my evening’s tale to my roommate’s, only to discover that they were cooking Irish meal.  They offered me a slice of Irish cheese on Irish bread, which I gladly accepted.