Eat Teach Blog

Scenes from this past week:

Last Friday, I was beat. Completely done with work. Exhausted from writing reports. Tired of all the “grown-up drama” that comes along with this job. I just needed to take some time to myself. Away from everyone. So I left work shortly after the kids did and went to Stevens Creek County Park.

It was just me, my mini bottle of wine, and my book (hi-tech version). Nobody else nearby. It was exactly what I needed. Uninterrupted relaxation time.

I also picked up my first shipment of wine from Picchetti Winery! The cool thing about this place is that, with each shipment, you get a free wine gift. This time they included a wine stopper (although who really needs a wine stopper – isn’t it bad luck or something if you don’t finish the bottle?)

Saturday:

I spent most of the day running small errands and reading a lot. At night, I went broom balling with a couple friends in San Mateo. I haven’t done that since college and I had forgotten how much fun it was.

Sunday: Day of relaxation and FINALLY checking the mail:

My sister is the coolest. She’s probably the most thoughtful, selfless person I’ve ever met. She’s always thinking of others and ways to make them happy. Sissy sent me a package with this really cute dress in it. This is not the first package. Last time it was a pair of TOMS shoes. The time before that, it was this beautiful poster of LA to hang up in my room. The time before that, it was pillow cases to match by bedcovers.

Just try not to be jealous of Sister Budhraja. She’s pretty damn amazing.

 I also drove over to San Francisco to watch the Super Bowl. It was such a great game (but who am I kidding? I was in it for the Beyonce concert…). 

Monday: Learning Day and Happy Hours

AKA – Early Morning Walk of Shame 

Today was actually really great because it gave me the chance to get a program overview of one of the high schools we feed our students into. I was really impressed with the amount of support and the number of resources they had. It makes me feel really relieved to know where I’m sending them off to next year.

I also tried out a new-to-me place in Downtown Campbell called Sushi Confidential. They had a great happy hour:

I just got the California Roll. I know, I know. Boring. I get it. The guy who was making the rolls basically laughed at me like I was some sort of amateur.

Tuesday: IEPs and MORE Food

Call me a nerd but I love data. I don’t particularly enjoy having to be so consistent about monitoring and assessing students performance. But I love being able to visually see when a student makes progress. And for this particular IEP, the student had made a significant amount of growth both academically and socially. When I see things like that, it validates my belief that a particular program or intervention is working. I LOVE IT.

I went to another new-to-me place in Downtown Campbell called Jalisco Mexican Food. It’s definitely a hidden gem! I accidentally stumbled on it when I was trying to make a U-Turn and decided to pull into the parking lot. So glad I did. Look at this food:

Wednesday: Worst Day Ever

Wednesday has always been the worst day in terms of work. I don’t have any prep periods on this day so I always feel a bit overwhelmed. Today, in particular, was the worst. And not because of work.

One of my closest friends from college, Kirstin, recently got engaged!! A few friends were going to grab dinner in the city to celebrate. I left work right after the students were dismissed so that I wouldn’t hit any traffic. I parked my car about a block away from the restaurant we’d be eating at and then went into Vinyl – a really cute coffee/wine shop that I was going to work at until dinner. Around 6PM, I head out and walk back to my car to drop off my bag.

I couldn’t find my car.

I walked up and down that damn street, pressing my car alarm over and over – hoping I’d hear it off in the distance. But no such luck. A few minutes later, I realize my car had gotten towed. Here’s the fun part – it turned out to be a whopping $600. How’s that for a slap in the face? 

Anyway, I’m moving on with my life. Kirstin gave me some good advice. Pretend I bought a really expensive coat and never speak of this again. It happened. It’s over. It was my initiation into the bay area. I’m moving on.

Dinner ended up being great. (Can you tell it’s been a while since I’ve cooked at home?) We went to Nopa on Divisadero (also the street “I bought my coat” on). It was delicious. I wasn’t a huge fan of their cocktails to be honest, but the food was great.

Flatbread of spicy fennel sausage, pickled onions, and spinach

And, of course, the newly engaged couple:

Kirst and Brian!

The couple that drives my carless ass to the towing lot I owe them big time! Aside from my very expensive  drama ”coat,” it was such an enjoyable night with some of the best people I know!  

Now I’ve just returned from this:

…and I’m realizing I’ve eaten every single dinner out this week. Time to get back on track!

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When’s the last time you got a parking/speeding/towing ticket? 

Cheap, healthy meal ideas for a girl who is now $600 poorer? 

On today’s Thankful Thursday, I’m thankful that it’s Thursday. Because of block scheduling on Thursdays, I am done teaching for the day at 11AM. Usually, the remainder of the day is dedicating to testing students or holding IEP meetings, but fortunately for me, I’ve got none of the above scheduled for this week. So I’m going to spend the remainder of my time tackling the mountain of paperwork on my desk. I can barely see the surface of it – it’s always covered by folders, notecards, IEP paperwork, post-its…and occasionally lettuce….

I’m a sloppy eater. #sorrynotsorry

But let’s rewind to Wednesday.

Breakfast:

Oatmeal, cinnamon, peanut butter, and almond milk. Looks nasty – tastes delicious

Lunch:

Some leftover crockpot chicken on top of a bed of lettuce. Or now that I’m examining the picture above, I guess it was underneath the bed?

Snack/Dessert?

I met up with a co-worker in Campbell for dinner, but stopped to get dessert first at Willow Glen Frozen Yogurt. Couldn’t help myself!

Dessert before dinner

Dinner:

We ate at Sonoma Chicken Coop so we were able to watch the Giants game. Gotta confess here – I ordered the salad and forgot to take a picture of it. So this is a picture of the food display. Basically what I ate – but this one had been sitting out for a couple hours. Cool bro.

Bootcamp:

Done and done. I definitely feel it in my shoulders today. Remember yesterday when I couldn’t decide if I hated alligator crawls or burpees more? I’ve decided. Burpees are the worst.

Good morning and Happy Father’s Day! Going to head out soon to the Corona del Mar Farmer’s Market, but before I do, wanted to upload some pictures from this weekend. I did a lot of branching out and tried a few new restaurants!

Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza (El Segundo, CA)

Gina and I came here for lunch on Friday. They just opened up this location recently and I was eager to try it. The restaurant always seems pretty busy, the ambience was really nice, and I love woodfired pizza! Unfortunately, I wasn’t too impressed with the food….

We started off with a Meditteranean tapa (appetizer) – Lebni, Soft Cheese. The description sounded like it’d be really flavorful: exotic spices, tomato, evoo, grilled herb flatbread. So we were looking forward to something really delicious. I think when they said “exotic spices,” they actually just meant “a shit ton of cumin.” It was hard to enjoy the food when it was entirely covered in spice. Not an exaggeration:

We also got a grilled chicken and hummus wrap and a garlic chicken pizza to share. Although the presentation was nice, I was, again, not too impressed with the taste of the food. The wrap had the same exact seasoning/taste as our appetizer. And the pizza was dry and I didn’t taste ANY garlic. C’mon Sammy’s – step up your game. I don’t understand why there were SO many people there….

We ate about 1/3 of it and boxed the rest up – never to come back again. Hahaha. Dramatic. But, probably a little bit true. They didn’t leave a great impression on my palate – sorry about it.

Luckily, we had this nice, chilled bottle of wine waiting at home for us. Made it all better:

Yokohama Sushi (Culver City, CA)

After living in Culver City for nearly two years and no longer a resident, I finally tried this sushi place. In my defense, it’s right next to a Subway, so I’ve never had the desire to eat anything else

He’s not posing. He’s just naturally that prim and proper.

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything unique – just your regular, average sushi place. Hits the sushi craving, but doesn’t really go beyond that. I’m also not too much of a sushi connoisseur. I did, however, enjoy the chilled sake they had. I think I’m much more of a cold-drink drinker. I think red wine should be served chilled and that sake should never be served warm.

The one thing that did stand out was the Gyoza appetizer we ordered. It was really deeply fried, so I only had one, but it was DELICIOUS. The sesame seed sauce it came with was even more delicious and I wanted to dunk my sushi in that, instead of the soy sauce:

Forage (Silver Lake, CA)

Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures from dinner here. Probably because I was too eager to start eating. But I can assure you that no picture could really illustrate how AMAZING this food was. I got a plate of 3 sides: an arugula and kale salad with feta and breadcrumbs, a corn salad, and mac ‘n cheese (two different kinds of cheddar and grana padano). Unbelievable. The food tasted better than it looked – every bite was so, so flavorful and fresh-tasting. Apparently, they used to do this kind of “trading thing” with their customers that if customers brought in fresh produce, they would get a discount on their order. They would then use the produce in their future meals. They stopped doing that for obvious reasons…..but I like the idea. I will definitely be going back here for more…

Intellegentsia Coffee (Silver Lake, CA)

Not really a restaurant, per say. But still a notable mention. It’s a really high-end, exquisite taste type of coffee and espresso. Randy and Kent wanted to come here and splurge on a 1/2 pound of their coffee beans, so we all got a drink to end our amazing dinner. I got a soy latte – it was so creamy and delicious. Pretty expensive – and I thought Starbucks lattes were expensive! But it was a nice treat:

Now, I’m done with restaurants for the week. My goal is to be healthy and homemade for the next 5 days! Expect a lot of recipes on the blog this week…..

Just finished my breakfast: Honey Chobani, chia seeds, slivered almonds, and Farmers Market blueberries. YUM!

Now off to the farmers market to buy more fruits and veggies! I love this farmer’s market because it’s literally steps from the beach:

Corona del Mar, Newport Beach (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happy Father’s Day to all the wonderful fathers out there….my daddy’s gotta work on Father’s Day, but we will hopefully make something yummy for him to come home to.

What are your plans for Father’s Day?! 

So…I don’t think the interview went that well. Reasons being:

1) Nobody on the panel smiled. How intimidating.

2) It lasted for 20 minutes. I mean, I know they have a lot of applicants, but 20 minutes?! Really??

3) 5 minutes into the interview, one of the guys on the panel stopped writing notes. Like, as if to say, “yea, I’m pretty certain we’re not going to go with you, so I’ll just save myself the trouble of writing down the shit that’s coming out of your mouth.” Ouch. Although – that was just my interpretation of the situation. But I’m usually pretty accurate with this kind of stuff…

4) I felt rushed the entire time. This could also be my crazy mind at work, but I just felt like they wanted me to hurry up with my answers. So, I felt like I was not explaining things to the best of my ability because they just wanted to hurry and get on to the next applicant.

Oh well – what’s done is done. And if nothing else, this was a good opportunity to practice my interviewing skills (I need LOTS of practice…). Next interview scheduled is May 30th in L.A.

After the interview, I decided to skip out on visiting Stanford (I don’t want to fall in love with the place just yet….) and went straight back to Jen’s to change out of my interview clothes. Then jumped back in the car to go to the local Farmer’s Market (read: Farmer’s market but in actuality, it’s a cute little shop that’s available to Saratog-ians EVERY DAY!). Bought some lovely, fresh ingredients for dinner:

$50 = Bellpeppers, Raspberries, Blackberries, Spices, Tomatoes, Brussel Sprouts, 2 Fruit and Nut Bars, Pineapple, 3 Avocados, Carrots, Turkey Jerky, Cauliflower, Feta Cheese, Tofu, Nectarines, Asparagus, Lettuce.
Not a bad deal….

Had some tofu stir-fry on top of salad. No need for dressing – the feta was so fresh tasting, it added so much flavor! Didn’t get an actual picture of the salad – we devoured it. Also devoured the oven-roasted brussel sprouts and cauliflower, so no picture of that either. But here’s a picture of the stir-fry – SO MUCH COLOR! I love when I eat in color.

Bellpeppers and Asparagus

Now, I’m off to bed. Early morning tomorrow – going with Jen to work. It’ll be great to be able to spend an entire day helping her out and watching how her centers play out. 6:45 AM – STARBS RUN!

Few things happened today -

1) Got an interview with Palo Alto Union School District! Well, that happened yesterday. But forgot to mention it. I’m interviewing with them on Monday, so I’ll be heading up north tomorrow afternoon! =) Crossing my fingers!

2) Went to the Weight Watchers meeting – lost 2.4 pounds (but I already said that!). Probably made a complete fool out of myself because I told Jason (the team leader) that I only came today because I love listening to him speak.

3) Farmer’s Market!! I went to the one in Corona del Mar – I’ve never been there before! It’s on PCH and Marguerite – not too big, but nice for the vital fruits/veggies. Picked up some strawberries, kale, asparagus, and blueberries. Yum!

Farmer’s Market Goodies! =)

4) Made a delicious stir-fry salad (only 4 WW points). Love using salsa as a dressing!

Salad: Spinach, Bellpeppers, Onions, Turkey, Cabbage, Asparagus. Topped with incredible Pico de Gallo. AMAZING!

5) Finished up my HCA scrapbook (did I mention that it was started approximately 6 years ago?!)

6) Made some Kale Chips – had to throw half of them away on account of too much salt. But despite that – they are my new obsession.

7) Spent the rest of the day on my computer getting my life license. Oof. No pictures please.

Going to get ready for bed soon……..less than 24 hours til I get to see Jen! =)