Welcome to the first Friday Five of
2023, which is kind of crazy to say. I'm back to work this week and it has been busy, but this weekend I'm doing a staycation at the Delta hotel in Farmington (where UNO's is located), which I was invited for, and I'm pretty excited about that.
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| HelloFresh Katsu pork chops, with lemony green beans & candied sweet potatoes |
What I've been up to this week:
- Dealing with my knee and ankle. I took a spill right outside Little Caesars Arena last Thursday, immediately before the TSO concert, which was not fun—I banged up both my left knee and my right ankle. I've been icing the ankle all week, and my nice neighbor gave me a compression sock to wear, too, so I'm hoping that will help. I've also been bandaging my knee up with Neosporin nightly. I think I may have sprained the ankle—I can walk but it hurts.
- Cooking. On New Year's Eve, my boyfriend made a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza, with a new pan he got from Christmas (more on that later ...). We also had a HelloFresh box this week and I made the Katsu pork chops pictured above, as well as a bulgogi pork chops recipe and an Italian chicken and peppers sandwich; the other pork chop was very good, as was the Katsu pork, but the sandwich was just okay, possibly because we didn't make the potato side dish (too many calories).
- Going out to eat and ordering presents for myself. I was fortunate to receive a few Christmas gift cards, and I treated myself to a new Fossil purse/tote; I have this same bag in red but it's very old, and is torn up inside, so I wanted a new one for traveling. Fossil is one of my favorite brands, it's a bit expensive but they do great sales, too; the bag was $250, marked down to $125, with another 50% off, making it $62.50, with free shipping. I also ordered some snacks from Yami.com, which I've never tried before, mostly because I wanted my Haitai Honey Butter Chips, which apparently are hard to find now—I threw in some Milk Tea Kit Kats, which sounded interesting, and a popcorn-style Lays bag of flavors (caramel, etc.). I also ordered a pack of 14 bons from Bon Bon Bon, my favorite chocolate place in Detroit.
Last Saturday, I got tacos for lunch, which I think was a bad decision (read more on that below), and on Monday, we had to go back to my house briefly, so we got Pink Garlic takeout, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite Indian places in the area—its butter chicken is phenomenal, and my boyfriend enjoyed his shrimp/chicken/lamb biryani bowl, too. On Tuesday, we got 2941 Street Food, in Bloomfield Hills (Maple/Telegraph) right before the screening at the Maple Theater, as it's in the area and is one of my favorites—make sure to ask for their Samoon chips, which are sort of like bagel chips, but better. They're free with your meal but they don't usually include them unless you ask. - Watching TV and movies. I saw a press screening of A Man Called Otto, the new Tom Hanks movie, on Tuesday (check out my review here), which I enjoyed a lot. Ginny & Georgia (Netflix) is back as of yesterday, and I watched the first episode and hopefully will watch more today. Married at First Sight's new season, in Nashville, has also kicked off this week, and Welcome to Chippendales finished its 8-episode run, on Hulu; I highly recommend that show, as Kumail Nanjiani and the rest of the cast are great, and it's a true story, too, which is always interesting. My boyfriend and I have been watching Hello Tomorrow! on AppleTV+, too (the screener app for press—the first episode drops on February 17th), and I can't say anything about it yet, but you should check it out in February.
- Having a not so fun New Year's Eve. I had to get my last Crohn's infusion of the year on New Year's Eve Day, so I got up earlier than I'd like on a weekend, and did that first. I like to treat myself to takeout after; I got a chai tea latte with soy milk from Starbucks, because I had some stars expiring, and I got tacos from a place that shall not be named. Later in the evening, around 8pm, I became pretty ill, and was vomiting, which I think was food poisoning; I took a nap and woke up at 11:40pm, just in time to see the ball drop. Needless to say it was not a good New Year's Eve. I was hungry around then, too, since I had nothing left in my stomach, and I had some of the Chicago-style pizza my boyfriend had cooked, which was very good. I did get to watch most of the UM game before the vomiting started, though.
- Bonus #6: Game night with friends. New Year's DAY, however, was much more fun. I was still a bit sick/tired in the afternoon, but at night I saw some friends who are in from out of town, and we played my new game Mantis (from the same company that made Exploding Kittens), plus Machi Koro, one of my favorites. We also exchanged Christmas presents—a Monopoly card game I got them, and they gave me two UNO games, which look fun, plus a UM t-shirt for my birthday.
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| "Better Butter Crunch" from Bon Bon Bon, with potato chips, chocolate, sea salt |
