The Chocolate Cake Temptation

I was sitting at my cubicle happily dieting when the people decided they should go eat at Magleby's. I had never been there and had my drawer full of Progresso soups that were like no points in the Weight Watcher's scale. I protested but they said it was for bonding that there is the new guy Curtis that was going too (so you don't say you don't want to bond because the new guy may think you are the boring guy) so I went.

They were giving chocolate cake with your meal. I joked with the host that the picture on the menu was huge with no disclaimer that it was not the real size of the slice they were giving (they should be careful in our world of people who sue for anything.) Anyway. The food arrived and the slice was very small but it was chocolate cake and I was not going to eat it. I decided to give my slice to Allison (a co-worker that stayed in the office on a business call.)

When I was leaving, the host asked if I liked the chocolate cake and I told him of my plan to give it to a friend. He said I had to have a slice and went on to get one for me to take along to work. I followed him and took this picture of the whole cake but then he gave

me a slice that was like 4 o

r 5 times bigger than what everyone got. The group went to the car and I stayed behind. When they saw what I got for free from Magleby's they could not believe it! I

could not believe it! But then, people keep giving me things so I believed it. It was pure temptation. I took the cake home and gave to the family. It was an amazing cake. I remembered the episode of Lost when Hurly was starting a diet and food fell from the sky... hehe. This time was a huge slice of cake.

Now, this did not help one bit!!!

I was in Kalispell, Montana, and had an Elk Burger. Then I saw in the menu that they had a 2 1/2 lbs hamburger! So, when I returned there two weeks later I told the people in the software class I was teaching that I wanted to try that. Two of them came along: Dillon and Patti. We had fun but when the burger arrived it was a blast!!! 

Here are the pictures. I feel bad now because I had actually lost about 3 lbs from Honduras and now I got a lot more than 2 1/2 back because I have been misbehaving in the food department... and what is worse! I am going to Brazil in a couple of days! What if do this there? 

The belly is here and it is winning but one of these days I will stop!!!!! Here goes, the elk burger and the huge burger... hey and also the soup that I had every day in between these crazy adventures in eating as my friends can testify I did.

SPICE HUNTER SPLIT PEA SOUP! Simply the best! I had that almost every day!

ELK BURGER FROM SCOTTY'S BAR! Well, the antlers were too crunchy!

Honduras - San Pedro Sula -

OK... I did not write about this but here goes: I ate baleadas and lots of food in Honduras because I had not been there for 5 years and could not resist. But they were good food with rice and beans, vegetables, and meat that was not greasy.

I went to eat with my friends from the paper at this restaurant in San Pedro Sula that is built around this huge tree. My choice was

beef with tajaditas (fried platanos.... they eat fried platanos every time and there are different ones to choose from). This particular plate comes with cheese and I even found a menu option that had my son's name in it as you see on the side. From the menu you can find names of many foods you cannot even imagine that are amazingly tempting. This blog was to inspire one to eat less but I don't think I am doing a good job posting these pictures and menus here, am I? Oh well... here goes the picture of what I had there. Menu item: Plato Tipico.

One memorable meal was at the Guamilito, a crafts market (huge) where they serve also foods prepared there for the locals, not food for tourists with fancy silverware and stuff. This is tortillas that the ladies are preparing there in front of you!!! Well, my favorite stand is the one run by Estelina. Everybody knows here and she had not changed one bit from 2005! Actually, I told her she looked even younger and had a very nice hairdo. Here is the picture of Estelina:

She was so happy with the comment that she gave us some delicious chicken soup for free that she had delivered to our tables minutes after we paid (I went there with my friend Christian on 09/14/10) If you go to San Pedro Sula you have to go to Guamilito and eat at that place.

On the 15th of September I also visited a banana market on the road to some caves (see pictures of the cave and all at my albuns in Picasa) and there were all lots of fruits. I drank from a coconut and then ate the inside that was soft and sweet. I even tried a red banana called Caribe that tastes like a platano but looks like a banana. Here is the picture of the amazing red banana that got some good comments in Facebook:

I also ate this huge fish that I ate at this lake called Yojoa lake. They fish there, and put the fish in a big freezer. The locals go and choose a fish and they fry it right there. Some people swear you can fry the fish at home and it will not be the same. The tables have jars with pickled onions and cabage. It is amazing!!! I picked a big fish and took a picture of it. My friends Oscar and his wife Olga took me there. It was a very nice day. This was a holiday in Honduras, Indepence Day, and they were very nice to take me places including the said cave. Here is a picture of the fish.

But I had local fruit like green mangos with salt and lichas (a fruit that looks like the eyeball, egg, or brain of some hairy alien creature)... without much to say besides that those fruits are addictive since you cannot stop eating them once you open the bag here is a picture that says at least a thousand words:

Did I tell you I ate churros? I came back from Honduras with 4 extra lbs... so sad!!!

Montana and the Elk Burger

Hey, it is been a while and I gained weight dang it! I went to Honduras and ate a lot of baleadas and stuff. So, my last trip was to Montana... Kalispell to be more exact. I asked the locals what was the food of Kalispell, Montana and they told me to go to this bar and have a local hamburger. I had an Elk burger. It was not as juicy as I thought it would be. The fries were ama

zing!!!... and the waitress was mean! I still don't know her name... hehehehe. Oh well. Here is a picture of the hamburger that I posted on Facebook:

I did have some bites of my friend Jeff's hamburger though because he bought a huge juicy meat burger that he could eat only half of. I was not really hungry but the elk burger is so lean that I needed some of his burger to leave the place thinking I had hamburger.

During the week I was actually good snacking on tomatoes and almonds and eating Pea Soup from Spice Hunter for lunch. I tried some other soups too and at the hotel I had backed chicken bought at the local store, and little salami sandwiches besides more tomatoes, strawberries and fruit juices. I also drank a lot of water this time because Nick, the fitness trainer, said so. : ) I came back 1 lb lighter than when I went. Here is the picture of the pea soup also posted on Facebook.

I ate Chinese food and made a nice card...

There is no picture to show the amount of Chinese food I ate today due to stress. Chinese food in Peru is not just Chinese food! They put all these ingredients there that make it special Chinese food and so I ate like a pig. Sorry. Sometimes I think I will just lose this and live with the belly. But I won't. I will bounce back from all this. I have an extra week here now to prove that I can do it.

But that is not all I did. I spent the whole day making a card for my wife. To do that I searched through all the pictures in my 1 terabyte hard drive for the past 29 years that I have digitized there. I put them in the right sequence and I put music to go with it (well, I was going to sing but the software is not working as it should - Smilebox - and I had to go with what it offered.) I think the song is good but I wanted it to be me singing for her, like I did for our 25th anniversary. Humm... Here goes if you want to take a look at it:

HAPPY 29TH ANNIVERSARY SWEETHEART!

This free scrapbook design customized with Smilebox

They made me stay in Peru on my Wedding Anniversary!!!

Well, just when I thought I was going back to Utah and eat normal (yesterday, the 16th), the company asked me to stay one more week here. I had two huge reasons to say no: my wedding anniversary and to help my youngest daughter move to her own place on Monday - the nest will be empty! But then the project is in trouble and they need to do stuff next week that require me here and there was no way I could go. That was one hour before the cab arrived to take me to the airport!!! So, I had to call the airline company and the hotel and change it all so the cab took me back to the hotel instead.

I was tense! There was my wife on Skype saying "But it is our anniversary!" and the boss on the speaker phone "But it is best for the company that you stay!" and this picture shows me as I was listening to both and having to make a decision. So, my wife who is a true saint let me stay. But it was not easy, I know she is sad. The whole week I have had heart burns because of so much spicy food but today was the worse of all I think because of all this. Thank goodness for Salt de Frutas Eno (it is an anti acid for situations like this. I bought 15 packets now.)

I ate too much with the Chapeyquens!

Brother Abraham Chapeyquen is an artist ( ) and a Patriarch in the LDS Church in Lima, Peru. I always visit them when I come here and it was not an exception on the 15th. But that can be a good thing or a bad thing. Good because they are very nice people but his wife cooks like she got the cookbook from those gods of the Inkas and she makes big plates because she wants her husband and sons very well fed... and that includes the visit.

I cannot resist that and that is why I lose to the belly in my fight. I need to learn to control myself when int he house of nice friends and relatives who cook this good. Take a look at the plate! It was fish, but it was fried and then Peruvians eat potato like Brazilians eat rice and beans but Peruvians eat rice too... a lot! So, I am having this huge diet and potatoe with lots of meat and amazing sauces this whole week. How can I win???? Where is my hope??? (Note I am just posing. The plate she made for me was huge and there was a serving of potatoes before it that she did not include in these pictures just for the blog... she is smart! But I will eat there again and this time I may win!)