Eating For Two in the Bay Area, Chapter One

Usually the phrase, "eating for two" is aimed at a woman with child, to provide her with an excuse for scarfing down the buffet. In this instance it refers to how a couple can go out to eat often in the San Francisco Bay Area and share meals to help each other lose weight. My husband and I do this, and we've found we've also saved money. It's well known that when couples first meet, they eat out a lot, and try to treat each other well, and end up both gaining weight.
The last few years, we've been actively studying how to eat more healthily, you know... less fat, fewer calories, more protein, fewer carbs, lots of fiber. When we eat out as much as we do, we figured out what we think is a pretty good plan. We don't super-size...... we share a meal.
We'd like to share how we order our meals in a few of our favorite restaurants in the Bay Area.

We eat lunch at the Hacienda Grill in Richmond, CA about two times a week, since it's across the street from where I work. Very predictable about what we order, we are well known to the owner/chefs, Jose and Javier and all the waitresses .They know not to even bring us the complimentary tortilla chips and salsa. They'll bring us our icewater and we'll start with a cold and refreshing fruit plate. The grilled fish or shrimp tacos are a favorite, and we found that we could ask them to leave off the tartar sauce and give us some lime to squeeze on them. Delicious! They are each served a la carte, with no rice or beans, saving even more calories (and money).
Other dishes at this restaurant are big enough to share. We see folks eating burritos the size of a rump roast and think they probably wonder why they can't lose weight. If we come in for dinner, the shrimp fajitas are our choice. There are plenty of well-seasoned shrimp sauteed with peppers and onions for both of us to pile on to the warm corn tortillas.The black beans are healthier to choose than refried beans, and we ask for more of them than the rice. Tastes of the sour cream, salsa and guacamole make for a happy party in your mouth!
Can't mention the Hacienda Grill  without praising their chicken soup. We find that ordering a cup (each) of this luscious concoction is enough for us for lunch (along with our fruit plate). Most customers are happy to order the bowl, which also comes with entire pieces of chicken, huge hunks of carrots, zucchini, and potatoes in a savory broth. The surprise with the bowl is when they bring out the sides of rice, onions and cilantro and warm tortillas! Yum!
Best of all, the prices are very reasonable, making everything easy to swallow.

Deviled Eggs

Today, getting ready for a Superbowl party, I made 42 deviled eggs. That means I boiled 2 dozen eggs, but 3 of them didn't peel very nicely, so I only had 21 to cut in half. While I peeled the eggs I thought of a party I gave one year.....
I had asked folks from work to come to a neighborhood party I was giving. One doctor showed up really early and asked if there was anything he could do to help. He was so early, that I hadn't gotten myself ready at all. I told him that I had hard-boiled some eggs to make deviled eggs, and if he could peel them, cut them in half, and put the yolks in a bowl for me that would be great. I went upstairs to shower and change.
When I came back down to the kitchen, I discovered that this surgeon had treated his project as a surgery. All of the yolks were in the bowl, not cut in half, but cut carefully from the whites without leaving a mark. As a surgeon would.
I praised him for his diligence, but told him, sorry, but his perfect round yolks would have to be mashed up and blended with mayonaisse, mustard, salt, pepper, onion, pickle, a little curry and garlic salt. He volunteered to mix it up and stuff the yolk concoction into the halved whites and top them with paprika. His Chinese family had never made such a thing, but he proudly presented his finished product to the crowd that had gathered.
He came up to me during the party, and happily reported that everyone was commenting on how delicious the "Eggs of the Devil" were! He was so proud.

Travels With Our Prius, Part 1

 Our first purchase as a married couple was a new 2004 silver Prius. We had no choice of color, since Toyota couldn't make them fast enough, and we had to take whatever we got. Of course it was silver. I've become obsessed with finding antenna balls in order to find our Prius in the mass of it's siblings. It only took one time of trying to open up the trunk of someone else's identical car in a parking lot to get me to add a bumper sticker and an antenna ball.
 It doesn't get pampered, or even kept very neat, and it's expected to be a workhorse, hauling things for the garden or my husband's store. Our Prius has had a couple of dents, and on our last trip, had lowfat creamer leak from our camping cooler onto the backseat rug. The next day it smelled like we were aging cheese in there. The car has been professionally cleaned, and per the internet has been treated with  baking soda and lemon. We are still getting used to the "not-new-car-smell".
I think about the days of camping in the car. The salesman who sold it to us asked, "Why do all of you Berkeley people always ask if you can sleep in it?!!"
Well, my husband and I both had times in our lives when we traveled around the country in a car or van, and had good memories of that. We wanted to repeat it. So we have.
No sooner had we got possession of our new little Prius, my husband went off to Bed Bath and Beyond while I was at work, and figured out how to make it into a camper. The two insulated boxes with removeable lids and covered with red fabric, were to store cooking utensils and canned goods, and the futon was our bed.
When the seats of the car were slid forward and the back seats were down, the red boxes fit behind the front seats in the footwell and the futons made a bed comfortable enough to fit me and my husband, who is 6' 4"! The joke I always say is, that in the morning in the campground, the folks in the tents and Winnebagos may look over to our site and think as we emerge feet-first from the side doors,that the Prius is giving birth!

We know we are attached to our car. We talk about it too much and we brag about it's mileage.When we drove it into Canada, we let everyone know that our Prius is like our pet. We reported that this was it's first trip into a foreign country, and it was our first time to drive our own car in a foreign country. When we entered Canada, we changed it to km, instead of miles. When we were in Victoria, it saw all it's "homies"....about 2/3 of the taxis are Priuses! ...It had its first three rides on ferries.....in Oregon, it had its first ride on a beach, and it didn't even get intimidated by the big 4 wheel drives!
Even now in 2012, and we've owned it for 8 years, we bore folks with stories of how we bought gas at the top of I-5 and coasted into Palm Springs with 68 miles per gallon displayed on the dashboard screen. We plan on keeping this car for quite a while and boring all of you for just that long.