A day in the life, brought to you by Trader Joe’s

I typically post 3-5 times per week, so posting more frequently in honor of MoFo is indeed more about food, but probably more about me too. I’ll share with you my day in food. Be warned, though. Today really wasn’t a good day.

I’ll admit it: I drink coffee. Pretty much every day. And I have one favorite mug that I like to use. I’m also in the habit of drinking Trader Joe’s Bolivian Blend. At least the mornings, I like my routine. I usually add some soymilk, but sometimes when I’m feeling extravagant I like to use So Delicious coconut milk creamer. Breakfast is often some fruit, and lately it’s been an apple, which I’ve been buying by the peck from a local orchard.

I don’t eat much for breakfast because lunch is really early, and usually I eat leftovers. However, after being out of town I didn’t have any leftovers so I had some packaged food, also from Trader Joe’s.

Vegetable gyoza (from the freezer) and a just-add-boiling-water noodle bowl. Yes, I ate from the plastic bowl. These are some of my current favorite packaged TJ’s foods. I don’t like that the soup bowl has so much packaging, but I do take my #5 plastics to Whole Foods for Gimme 5 and I buy Preserve toothbrushes (guess where? Trader Joe’s).

For dinner, I had a meeting at Max & Erma’s. I did not take pictures, so please use your imagination. If the food in your imagination looks good, you are not imagining correctly. First, let me tell you that Max & Erma’s is not a place I would choose to go, but it is a really popular chain in the area along the lines of Applebee’s, I guess. There is nothing vegan on the menu, although they do have a black bean burger that is vegetarian. (Vegan Eating Out is a great resource for info on chain restaurants.)

I ordered a salad and a baked potato. I asked the waiter for no bacon, no cheese. I told him I did not want any meat. So he brought me a plain baked potato and a salad with bacon. Bacon that I could not see. Bacon that I found with my mouth. The bacon was mixed in with the slivered almonds and underneath the tomatoes on the salad. He told me he thought I just didn’t want bacon on the potato. What? I could tell from the look on his face that he just didn’t get it and wanted to tell me I ordered incorrectly.

After the dinner meeting ended, I headed across the parking lot to Whole Foods to pick up some groceries and see if Alex wanted me to bring him any food. He was upset because someone had egged his truck. The truck was parked at the airport over actual Halloween, so this must have happened last night. Let me tell you, getting egged is no fun even if you like eggs. The paint is damaged, the inside stinks, and he had to spend hours working on cleaning up only three or four eggs.

Let’s end on a happy note. Our black cats stayed safe through Halloween. I wasn’t worried about them as they are indoor-only, but now I am. You can see the shadow of my hand holding up his little mouse, and Twinkie sitting on his hind legs like a prairie dog? He loves to do this, especially in the morning. He was doing this while I was photographing my coffee.

And I brought Alex a vegan Philly cheesesteak from Whole Foods and he really enjoyed it. He told me he wasn’t hungry but he plowed through this sandwich.