Energy day 12 & 13: El Grullense

My bf and I have a new tradition. Thursdays evenings have often been "go to the gym and then go across the street to the wine bar", now Mondays are "El Grullense day". El Grullense is a very conveniently located taqueria which I have been by MANY times in my nearly four years in Redwood City. There are a bunch of them in the area, and since I'm not originally from California, I was intrigued enough by my bf's mild embarrassment at ordering a burrito there to research the place online.

An article in the Palo Alto Weekly told me that El Grullense started out as a roach coach (aka taco truck) and then mushroomed into a bunch of physical locations. The name kind of looks like it refers to grilling, but it actually grullo means "crane" and the owner is from the town of El Grullo, Mexico and because of this is known by the name "El Grullense".

I can't believe I never went to this place before! I guess I was just intimidated, because I knew almost everyone there would be speaking spanish and trying to order could potentially be an ordeal since "vegetarian burrito with no cheese or sour cream or anything too spicy" is probably not on the menu.

That's silly, though. If I know anything in spanish, it's how to order food. And shop. Or especially, shop for food. At least I thought I did until I asked the woman behind the counter "a que hora cerrado?" and she looked at my bf questioningly until he said THE SAME THING to her and she answered. C'mon, my pronunciation isn't that bad, is it? Maybe I'm just scary.

Yeah, so Mondays when we go to the gym are "go get a burrito at El Grullense" night. I'm trying to decide where I put burritos on the scale of foods from healthy to unhealthy. Rice, beans (whole, not refried), lettuce, tomato, guacamole and cilantro all swaddled up in a giant, lightly grilled flour tortilla. It's kind of in the middle maybe? It's not an ideal dinner, but it's not exactly junk food either. They're pretty huge...I mean, one burrito and you're stuffed. Not sure it's the ideal food to eat late at night. But hey, it's my bf who eats a burrito the size of his head and then goes to bed, me I'm up for hours afterwards.

Speaking of the gym, I have had a LOT of energy when I'm there. Even if I'm sleepy for a couple hours when I get up (like today when UPS knocked on my door three hours earlier than normal) by the time I get to the gym I'm quite perky and I have tons of energy. I'm not too sore the next day, either. I think I need to do something else to challenge myself and to burn off the extra energy.

About six months ago, I was going to the gym sometimes a half hour before my bf and spending an extra 30 mins on the treadmill before he showed up. That was a good way to burn some extra energy. Maybe I should do that again. Although...Thursday we are going to the gym and we are supposed to meet at Jamba Juice first and both have our FIRST EVER shot of wheat grass juice. Hopefully I'll remember we're supposed to do this. We were supposed to do it Monday and I forgot and my bf...no, he didn't forget...he was HAPPY I forgot. I guess he won't be so happy when I remember in two days, huh???

Okay, let's talk about food...yesterday some crazy person took over my brain and made me buy beer flavored potato chips and eat the whole bag for breakfast. You see this crazy person loves to shop at Grocery Outlet which is like a dented can store except the cans aren't dented and they have lots of organic products and interesting flavors of soy milk and all kinds of different stuff. It's stuff that is overstock and discontinued items from warehouses and distributors and other stores. So where a dented can store takes the product AFTER it's been on another store's shelves, this stuff comes to Grocery Outlet without making an intermediate stop generally. The thing is you never know what they're going to have or IF THEY'LL EVER have it again. So if you see something intriguing, something you've never had before like oh say...beer flavored potato chips...you have to get them NOW or they may never have them again and you may not be able to find them anywhere.

So this crazy person that took over my brain HAD TO buy the beer flavored potato chips while she was at the store buying oranges and grapefruits because it was like NOW or NEVER. Then...well, I hadn't eaten yet and I was hungry and she took advantage of my weakness and made me open the package and eat them. They were pretty good, too, although not my favorite. They had a kind of cheesy taste to them so I was thinking they'd be great for a vegan that misses cheese flavored potato chips, which I don't. I miss Velveeta Shells and Cheese. I miss port wine cheese spread. There are a lot of cheesy things I miss but that isn't one of them.

Then to continue the "weird things for breakfast" trend, this morning (morning being a relative term) I had brazil nuts for breakfast. I blame this on our society full of "convenience" foods. I'm sort of tired of having to get out the juicer and/or the VitaMix every time I am going to have something, and then having to clean them out afterwards. It's a lot less work than cooking a full meal, but it's way more work than say, tearing a bag of chips at that little notch in the top of the bag or undoing the twist-tie on a bag of brazil nuts and sticking your hand in. We're so spoiled by having food come in a cup that you just stick in the microwave for 90 seconds and voila! Soup! Or something. I dunno...I've been trying to avoid ever microwaving anything and am thinking of giving away my Warm and Toasty microwave toaster oven to the feline HIV cat shelter. I was just listening to some more of Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" and he was talking about how the food we eat isn't even really food any more and I think it's so true.

Today's smoothie:

1 young thai coconut, both the water and flesh
1 frozen banana
1 scoop maca powder
4 packets stevia
1 scoop raw cacao powder
1/2 scoop espresso powder
4 ice cubes

I used a coconut because a.) I was out of soy milk b.) I had a coconut in the fridge and c.) I thought it would be delicious. At first it tasted weird and I couldn't figure out why, then I realized I forgot the stevia. Once I fixed that part it tasted pretty normal but I think it would have been better with two bananas, a pinch of sea salt and no espresso powder.