The Friday Five, 3/12/21: 5 things I've been up to this week

Not much going on this week but I've still been "vaccine hunting" for people, which has taken up a lot of my free time, plus work has been very busy. 

Portillo's Chicago hot dog and fries
Two Portillo's Chicago hot dogs and fries

What I've been up to this week:
  1. Getting takeout. Last Friday, my boyfriend and I got Pita Way takeout, since I had a B1G1 half-off coupon; it's not QUITE as good as Mr. Kabob in Troy, but it's pretty tasty. On Saturday, my parents and I got Domino's, and I also stopped by Saigon Market in Madison Heights to buy my mom a chicken banh mi sandwich to try, since she had never had it. They had some tasty boxed taro mochi too that I bought. On Sunday, Charminar Biryani House had invited me to try their new Hariyali wrap, so I stopped by there, in Troy, for takeout, and it was very delicious. Tuesday was Portillo's Day!!! (more about that below) And on Wednesday, I stopped by Green Lantern Pizza, the takeout-only location in Royal Oak, to get free cheese bread, since they had randomly emailed me a coupon for it, and it was expiring that day. 
  2. Portillo's Day!!! Yes, with three exclamation points, because I LOVE their Chicago hot dogs. When I first found out Portillo's was coming to Michigan, in Sterling Heights at the old Andiamo's location, I was pretty excited, because I've been to the Rosemont, IL location and also a few downtown Chicago locations, and their food is great. A few weeks ago, I got an email invite from them for their "sneak peek" day, and best of all, the only choices were carryout: curbside, or drive-thru. On Tuesday, my boyfriend and I made the 25-minute drive up to Sterling Heights, and I was really impressed by how organized they were; we were in and out of carside with our food in about five minutes. All of the food was really tasty, and it was my boyfriend's first time trying Portillo's, too; he had the beef and sausage sandwich, and I had the Chicago hot dogs. I did like their onion rings better than their fries, though. 
  3. Cooking. I had HelloFresh last week, and EveryPlate this week, and yesterday I made EP's version of Katsu Pork, which was pretty good—I have the second portion today in the fridge for my lunch. I have a peppers and sausage and couscous recipe from them to make for this weekend, as well as a tacos recipe. Next week will be Dinnerly, since I can't resist those $20.93 discounted prices that they send me. 
  4. Making more vaccine appts. Quite a few spots opened up this week, including, most excitingly, Kroger: I had been waiting for them to offer vaccine appointments here for a while. Now we just wait for one more chain (coughCVScough) but the good news is that Rite-Aid isn't the only game in town. I was able to get a lot of seniors (65+) Kroger appointments yesterday, and also Walgreens/Ascension opened some Warren City Hall appointments this week too. 
  5. Trying to read Firefly Lane. It was TECHNICALLY due back to Clawson library on Wednesday ... it's now Friday and I have about 50 pages left, it's about 500 pages though. I loved the Netflix show so I really wanted to read the book, and the last time I checked it out of the library, I had to return it before I had even started it ... so I'm okay paying $1 in late fees. I think it's like 20c a day or something reasonable like that. The Netflix show changed a lot from the book, which was interesting, most notably that Kate only has one daughter (Netflix show) and in the book she has twin boys and a daughter. 
HelloFresh Meatball Banh Mi Bowl
HelloFresh Meatball Banh Mi Bowl



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