Tag Archives: Guilty Pleasures

Guilty Pleasures #6 – Apryl Lyttle

Posted on by LeAnne Notabartolo

I saved this post for last for several reasons, but mainly because part of what pal Apryl says here has been echoed by The Hubs and several of my friends who were asked to share their thoughts. To quote one friend, “Food is NOT a Guilty Pleasure for me in any way because I apply no moral value to food. It is simply fuel and I don’t feel guilty about eating anything.”

Apryl writes a VEGAN food blog and you can follow her HERE. If you have been following along, you know that I am an omnivore committed to the consumption of flesh, but I will tell you that the chocolate chip cookies in her recipe archives are SO good, had she NOT told me they were vegan I wouldn’t have believed it. Because I adore her so much I am even girding my loins to eat in a vegan restaurant <gasp>. I said I would do something new at least once a month for my 50th year and that might be on the books for April.

So, my dear friend LeAnne asked me to write something about guilty pleasures. I had a hard time with this piece because I don’t allow food or eating to make me feel guilty. I do, however, realize that I have a guilty pleasure when it comes to food, and that’s EATING OUT.

I was raised by poor people, so eating out was always an unnecessary expense, or a treat. It was also a luxury that we could rarely afford, and I still have a hard time warranting it when we go out to eat. Even though we live comfortably now, I always seem to find myself looking at a menu item and thinking “I could make that for the whole family for less than half,” etc. Frugality steps in and spending a week’s worth of grocery money on one meal still hits my head sideways. I’m working on getting over that.

The flip side of being raised to believe “going out is only for special occasions” is that I always feel super special when I go out to eat. I love being around other people, enjoying food, cocktails and the like. I love the amount of time and attention I can give to my family, rather than fretting over the meal, wondering if everyone likes it, and so on. I like that there are no dishes to do afterward (though Sean usually does the dishes if I cook). I like experiencing the flavors that the chefs bring to the table, and potentially learning new ingredients to incorporate into my cooking.

Lately, my most favorite indulgence has been boozy brunches. There’s something LIBERATING about day drinking, and brunch food is my favorite type of food. My favorite brunch spot is Terrace Pointe Café at The Wynn. They offer fantastic brunch food on both traditional and vegan menus, and they also have a $22 bottomless mimosa and bellini option. It’s perfection. And true to Steve Wynn’s taste, the restaurant is stunning. I recommend it to every one of my tourist friends, as it’s truly an experience.

Terrace Point Cafe Mimosa - photo by Apryl Lyttle

Terrace Point Cafe Mimosa – photo by Apryl Lyttle

I’ve also been trying out new spots near my home in Summerlin as well. Mercadito at Red Rock was a great spot, where we dined on the patio on a beautiful Saturday. The food was good, but my favorite thing there was the V-9 cocktail, which was a delicious cocktail of tequila, pineapple, super greens, ginger, and lime. I felt like I was a little good, a little naughty. Tequila for breakfast? Yes please! I’m also looking forward to trying the brunches at Elements, Honey Salt, Marche Bacchus, and Embers.

V9 Cocktail at Mercadito

V9 Cocktail at Mercadito

What’s your favorite guilty dine-out pleasure? I’d love to read comments.

For those of you celebrating holidays this weekend – I wish you wonderful food memories and peace and joy.

Guilty Pleasures #5 – Lynn Moonen

Posted on by LeAnne Notabartolo

Lynn is my often partner in crime in so many adventures here in Vegas and I look forward to having more shenanigans with her. She spends nearly as much time at my house as at hers and people often ask “Are you sisters?” (FYI – we look nothing alike).

When LeAnne first asked if I wanted to write about my guilty pleasures, my immediate response was to scoff at the idea. After all, I now live alone and I have no one to answer to if I want to indulge myself. It’s only guilty if you have to hide it from someone!

There was a time, as the mother of 2 boys (3 if you count the “was”band), that I had to be creative in stashing a treat just for me. Of course, you never shared that it was even in the house. They all, including the boys’ friends that seemed to have taken up residency, were experts at ferreting out any treat I had hidden for my enjoyment. Moment of truth, I kinda miss those times…but that’s another story!

So…I’ve thought about the guilty pleasure thing and I realize mine has more to do with nature than food. I know that’s surprising to those that know me. For me, a walk in a snowstorm after nightfall; not a Nor’easter blizzard but just a quiet snowfall….when everything is covered and there are no cars on the road. It’s a muffled quiet that’s calm and soothing. When I used to go deer hunting with my Dad and it would be 6:00am (‘cause you had to be there before the deer woke up). I’d be in the woods sitting against a tree and the only sound was that of a mild breeze rustling through the bare branches. It was a quiet and calm found only in the woods. And it has to be first thing in the morning before anything was up and stirring. Many years later when I lived in Key West, I’d to go out and sit on the beach in the morning before anyone got there and I’d listen to the waves lapping on the shoreline. Those were times I would have a feeling of total calm and quiet, free from the little voices of doom and gloom that reside in all of us, and just “be”!!

Sunrise

I no longer live where there are snowstorms (THANK GOD), it’s been more than 30 years since I’ve hunted and I no longer live at the beach…so for me, my guilty pleasure to recapture that feeling of calm and serenity is to take my coffee and sit on the patio first thing in the morning. The best time is Spring when it’s not freezing in the morning but has that promise in the air of a beautiful day. You can hear the birds that you don’t take notice of at any other time of the day. It’s that same feeling of calm and solitude that quiets me and gives me joy….sigh!!!

Ohhh….and ice cream!! Preferably coffee and if it has a ribbon of fudge running through it…pure bliss!!

Saturday will be the final installment in the Guilty Pleasures series. I saved Apryl’s for last because part of her thoughts echo my hubby’s and one of my dear friend’s.

You can follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and soon MyFab5. All at @GoodforSpooning

 

Guilty Pleasures #4 – Maureen Kelly

Posted on by LeAnne Notabartolo

Maureen Kelly is a brilliant friend and makes one of my high school pals, Luca, very happy – every day. More importantly she works in women’s health for Planned Parenthood in Ithaca, NY. Maureen is an avid baker, an adventurous eater and fun drinking partner. I asked her to share her Guilty Pleasures and she graciously agreed to do so.  Enjoy!

So, LeAnne is one of those Forces of Nature. You know, the kind of person who you know of, before you actually meet and you hear about before you’re ever lucky enough to share a drink or a meal with them.  That’s LeAnne and exactly how I got to know her and I’m so fortunate to call her a friend. I am delighted (and profoundly honored and humbled) to be invited into the Good for Spooning blog-world to share my own little riff on guilty pleasures.

So here’s the thing.  I’m not one for a lot of withholding or putting off or not doing because of guilt. I’m not sure if that’s just my over-reaction to the more rigid religious upbringing my folks lived through or perhaps a core element of my being.  I’m thinking it might be the latter. I’m a pretty pleasure focused gal. I see too much shame, fear, secrecy, worry and denial in the world and am pretty well acquainted with the fleeting nature of life (and careers, and relationships, and friendships) that my own brand of pseudo-Buddhism leads to a pretty here-and-now kind of life. And that approach is rather evident in my love of good food, good drink, and a deep love of cooking.

The one challenge this presents is picking but one guilty pleasure to share. So, I’m not going to.  I’m going to go with two of the top guilty pleasures swirling around in my life right now.

One.

Okay. I’m rather fond of nice steak. Really, quite fond. I’ll be honest; I’m a bit of steak-seeker. And I’m pleased to report I’m taking a break from my seeking because I’m pretty set. I found something really special in Manhattan.

You may well know of it, if not, and you’re a carnivore, you really must. (Don’t be fooled by the pull of Peter Luger to Brooklyn, stick with this.) Keen’s Steakhouse at 72 West 36th Street (between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue) was founded in 1885 by Albert Keen.  (You’re going to want to read more bout the storied history of this this place. Click the link above).

Yes, the mutton chops are certainly a thing, but please, walk with me to the Chateaubriand Steak for Two, with Three Sauces. This piece of meat exists wholly as a Guilty Pleasure. And my, does it deliver. It’s price is steep, the mass of perfect top end meat is outrageous how it melts, you will be full, you will be more than sated, and you will need to go back. Oh, and if you’re also a drinker, be sure to try the New York Sour as well. It completes the meal.

Two.

About that New York Sour. I am a committed whisky girl. I go so far as to gift myself a Whisky Advent Calendar every Christmas from the fine folks at Master of Malt. Did you do advent calendars as a kid? They were these excellent thin cardboard calendars that you opened a door for each day leading up to Christmas and it revealed a delightfully small, waxy, tasteless, ill-formed chocolate that when you’re 8 is an utter thrill.

Maureen's Whiskey

As a Big Girl, the whisky calendar operates on the exact same principal but the door you open reveals a dram-a-day of the finest whiskies around.  This year yielded an Isle of Jura 16 Year Old (Diurschs’ Own), a Macallen Amber 1824 Series, and a fine dram of Timorous Beastie. But my newest whisky Guilty Pleasure is right out of Japan. Hibiki Suntory Whisky. Yes. A Japanese whisky that really must be tried. The company started producing whisky in 1923 and has really done something special. It’s blended with malt whisky from Yamazaki and Hakushu and grain whisky from Chita and it matures in plum liqueur barrels. Don’t know if I need to say anything more about it. It’s some smooth sipping, excellent with a stir, and a fine Guilty Pleasure I hope to keep around for a bit.

Life’s pretty short to not do it right.

Cheers.

 

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

-Virginia Woolfe

Guilty Pleasures with Guest Blogger Jack Notabartolo

Posted on by LeAnne Notabartolo

In an effort to keep you entertained and keep myself sane, I have asked a few folks to write FOR this blog instead of me. Sister Nancy did it a while back and now I am going to have a series of folks share their guilty pleasures through the Lenten Season. First up my one and only son Jack! He’s a junior at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.  Enjoy!

I am not the usual writer of this blog. My name is Jack Notabartolo, and I have several unhealthy food addictions. These are the foodstuffs that I positively adore, but I kick myself every time I eat them. Needless to say, they are quite a pain, considering that I am trying to lose a bit of weight.

You probably have a few as well, those little voices that call out to you as you’re driving down the highway, the inexplicably delicious fast food places that whisper to your taste buds “Eat me” as you’re driving by. But I’d like to devote this little bit of time to talk about the guilty pleasure foods that (mostly) aren’t from Jack in the Box or Taco Bell.

One that shouldn’t come as any sort of surprise to anyone is candy. Everyone loves candy, save for diabetics and crazy people, but there is one that just calls to me above all others.

Charleston Chews.  And I’m not talking about the big, mondo-sized bars that you could probably use to beat a small child to death, I’m talking about the Charleston Chew Minis.

Charleston ChewsWhen we lived in Texas, my mother and I would often go to the movies, and considering how expensive the… everything was at the theaters, the old one and I would go on a “Walgreens run” and sneak our own confectionaries into the theater in her oversized purse. It became a ritual for us. Weekend came, we would sneak in our treats, and feast while we watched movies that we decided on diplomatically. And “diplomatically” in our house meant “with a lot of cross-talk and unnecessary argument”. Either way, it was a great time for us, and one that I’m sorry has faded away. Still, whenever I’m in a pharmacy, I have to actively avoid the candy aisle otherwise I buy a box or five.

Another guilty pleasure of mine (that breaks me almost every goddamn time I go near) is Roberto’s Tacos. Fortunately, I don’t swing by the nearest Roberto’s that often, only when I’m getting an oil change. But when I do…

Carne Asada fries

Carne asada fries. They break me without fail. Even though I know they’re so horrendously bad for me, I order them whenever I swing by the Fabulous Freddy’s right down the street for car maintenance or a wash. This time, I came home with not only the fries, but their machaca breakfast burritos for my mother and me as well. I can feel them going to my thighs already.

Finally, there’s the coup de grace. The evil overlord of all food. The devil at the crossroads. The Don Vito Corleone, making me an offer I simply can’t refuse. Jack in the Box’s Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger, hold the mayo, with curly fries and a shake. This has been the go-to for my mother and I whenever we have an hour or two to kill during the lunch hour and nothing with a higher taste-to-healthiness ratio (not that hard, despite the tastiness of the burger). She’ll send me down the street to snag a couple of burgers and some greasy-ass fries when she’s at her nail appointment and can’t possibly get away on her own. I always feel bad because I get the bacon and shake, and she doesn’t.

But that’s the point of a guilty pleasure, isn’t it? It’s something that we eat, that makes us feel horrible about ourselves, that we don’t even care about until after it’s gone, until it’s out of our hands, beyond our control and stuck in our stomachs. I suppose it’s reasonable to enjoy our guilty pleasures every now and then, though. Because it’s just food. Food that is meant to be eaten, despite the fact that it is probably horrible to us despite our best interests. I will refrain from using “YOLO” in this situation, but the message still applies. Life is far too short to not eat your guilty pleasure food.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

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