Day 83: Change is Bad

I met my friend Sol for lunch today and he was in the mood for dairy. We considered the mainstream local dairy options and decided to go to Rosas, on the basis of it being close to both of our offices, and it not being Circa, where I have been eating pretty frequently. The thing with Rosas is that a lot of there food looks good, but there is never anything I want to order. They have lots of specialty pizza slices which look kind of appealing and kind of odd. For example, today they had ceasar salad pizza. Anyway, they were advertising individual brick oven pizzas so I figured I could get a personal pie the way I like it, whole wheat, no veges with light sauce. When I asked the pizza man for it to be done that way, with regular mozarella and not fresh mozarella, he was not very pleased by my request. After the pizza was baked, he added fresh basil which is apparently standard for brick oven pizza. But I don't like basil so I started picking it off. The pizza man saw this, and in an unfriendly voice, asked me why I bothered to order his pizza if I wasn't going to eat it the way it was made. I told him that I had never asked for basil. He said that its just the way the pizza comes. I told him that at Circa, they make me pizza the way I like it. He said that if I liked Circa so much I should just eat there. I told him I would be sure to do so in the future. I took my pizza to my seat and ate it. The crust was thin and burnt and not doughy at all. The pizza had a weird flavor. I either don't like brick oven pizza or just don't like the attitude with which it was made, but I did not enjoy my lunch and I will be returning to my regular Circa routine.

Day 76: Circa-tastic

I headed over to Circa today to pick up some lunch. When I walked in, one of the managers let me know that they had a vegetable noodle soup, and to warn me that it was very spicy. It was too hot out to eat soup as my meal, so I only asked for a taste. It was pretty good. I definitely tasted the black pepper but it had a nice flavor. I noticed that they were serving the Cantaloupe soup again, but now they are calling it Chilled Cantaloupe soup. Coincidence??? I think not. I ordered a whole wheat pizza with light sauce, to go. While waiting, I chatted with the manager about adding certain options to their website and about their new menu design. When my pizza was ready, I took it out to Greeley Square where I ate and enjoyed. During lunch, I also signed up for the Komen Race for the Cure, to support breast cancer research.

Day 56: Lunchtime Lying

I knew I needed a substantial lunch today, so I ordered a personal pizza from Circa. I went downstairs to the lobby of my building to pick it up from the delivery guy, and on my way back upstairs I ran into a very nice, friendly, more senior colleague in the elevator. He asked me where I ordered my pizza from, because he himself had picked up slices of pizza for lunch. I commented that I preferred personal pies during the day, because to me those are more lunch appropriate, whereas I equate slices with dinner. I knew as I was saying it, that this was a complete and utter lie. I totally made it up. I've noticed that when I am in the middle of a semi-awkward conversation with someone I know but don't have much to say to, I will often end up fabricating stories. And then, just like it happened today, I walk away wondering what on earth I had been talking about. A professor I know just wrote a book on lying and he discovered that "new acquaintances will lie to each other about three times in the course of a ten minute conversation". My personal experiences definitely corroborate that. Regardless, my pizza was really good, and very filling. It was slightly more toasty than usual and that was a nice change of pace.

Day 41: Kosher Switch-up In Penn Station

My first attempt at lunch was unsuccessful. I had a meeting to run to, and not much time, so I went downstairs to the basement that is Penn Station to pick up a Yummy Sandwich, hoping for a good ceasar grilled chicken wrap. When I got to Primo Cappucino, I noticed that all of the kosher sandwiches were fish or cheese based, and none had any chicken. Upon further inspection, I realized that they were not Yummy Sandwiches at all – they were Circa sandwiches! They had several different tuna and vege wraps, and assorted cheesy looking sandwiches. I am generally a big fan of Circa, but nothing looked appealing to me. And 8 dollars for a tuna fish wrap seems kinda insane. So I went back to my office, went to my meeting for an hour, and then ordered in from Circa. The website listed a cantaloupe soup, which I would have tasted if I was at the restaurant, but I thought was too risky of an order without a taste test. I decided to get a pizza, since I was hungry and cranky and two of my computers had crashed and almost died in the last 2 days. For some reason, there is no whole wheat pizza option on the Circa website. I had to call my order in and request a whole wheat pizza, light sauce. It came pretty quickly, and seemed to be a bit bigger than the one I ordered last week, so maybe that smaller one was a fluke. It was extra cheesy and as always, deliciously satisfying.

Day 37: Pizza Shenanigans

The day after the fast is all about eating the foods you couldn't eat the day before. That means that lunch today was pizza. I ordered a whole wheat pizza with light sauce from Circa and had it delivered to my office. The pizza came in a new box with an ad for Dasani water on it that says "The water that makes your mouth water". Doesn't that kind of sound like the water won't quench your thirst and that drinking water will just make your mouth water for more water? This would actually be a smart gimmick for water companies to increase sales, (kind of like adding nicotine) but it doesn't seem like a smart way to advertise. The pizza itself, inside the Dasani ad box, was tasty. But the personal pies from Circa seem smaller than they used to be. Has anyone else noticed this (or am I just going crazy from thinking about lunch too much)? I was still full at the end of the meal, but I felt a little cheated. Also, the slices were cut very unevenly, so that some took 4 bites to eat and others took closer to 10. I do not approve of such inequity.

Photo Credits: Marisa C

Day 36: Cravings

Today is a Day of Mourning on the Jewish calendar and therefore I am abstaining from food. This means that I am very hungry. During my lunch break, I distracted myself by doing some quick shopping. It is really convenient that my office is right next to so many stores, so I can very easily run over to Old Navy or H&M. But shopping did not make me any less hungry. And when I walked back to my office I smelled the sweet aroma of fresh baked pizza wafting down 33rd street. And now all I can think about is pizza. Bubbling hot cheesy delicious pizza.

Day 35: Dairy Debate

It finally stopped raining in NYC so I have been venturing out of the office for lunch more often. Today I met my favorite Early Childhood Educator (and my roommate), Mor, for lunch. We first walked over to Circa to check out the soup selection. Still no sighting of my favorite soup. I decided to talk to the manager about this, and he assured me that they would serve my soup of choice on Monday. We'll see . . . He also had me taste the eggplant soup which was not terrible but I think it was tomato based and I don't usually go for tomato-y foods. Mor and I then went to Rosas to check out the menu over there. The selection was not bad but we decided to go back to Circa, where we split a whole wheat personal pizza (her half with veges, mine with light sauce). The pizza was particularly awesome today. Good job, Circa. I also ate a side order of roasted sweet potato. I wondered if this counts as a vegetable side dish. Potatos are somewhat gender ambiguous like that. Google research confirms that sweet potatoes are in fact members of the vegetable food group.

Day 6: Rain Delays

I decided to order in today, primarily because it is gross and rainy out. I realized this morning that I don't really have appropriate footwear to wear in the rain. I suppose I could buy those ugly plastic polka dotted rainboots, but they are so bulky. Let's say it's raining in the morning but the rain has stopped when it's time to leave work. Then I need to walk around looking dumb in rainboots, because they are too big to carry in my bag to take home. Anyway, I ordered a whole wheat pizza from Circa. This is a good lunch because the personal pie is quite big, so even if I don't eat the whole thing I know I will be full. It's also a good lunch on days when I don't know what on earth I am going to eat for dinner, since I can probably get away with a lighter dinner later in the evening. I also like Circa's pizza because I can specify light sauce, which is great since I hate very saucy pizza.