Pumpkin Power

Although pumpkin flavored everything has been out for a while now, tomorrow is October and that means I need to start eating and drinking pumpkin themed everything.  Coffees, beers, PIES, and so on will now become a consistent part of my "diet" for the next month.  Think of me as the bigger pumpkin in the above picture.  If the human race turned into pumpkins overnight, I'd start eating everyone and look like a boss doing it.

Feel free to throw some suggestions my way in the comment section as to what pumpkin related things I need to try.  I'm not afraid to try anything pumpkin related in the spirit of the great month of October!

OVER-EATING v. OVER-SLEEPING

I seem to find myself faced with one of these issues every other day and it got me thinking.  What would you rather have happen to you?  Would you rather over eat, or over sleep?  Let's take a look at the pros and cons for each starting with over eating.

This poor little kitty has clearly stuffed itself to exhaustion.  I can respect that, but I also know how that feels.  While eating, your taste buds become alive, you're happy, and you're just overwhelmed with a feeling of joy and bliss that goes unmatched in this world.  But then you get to a point in your meal where your body is satisfied and you should stop putting food in your mouth.  Some people have "self control", but I'm not on of the lucky ones.  I don't sit down at a table and eat until I'm satisfied.  I sit down at a table and eat until there is no more food in front of me and usually no more food in front of anyone else at the table.  I eat until I am physically uncomfortable to be alive and all I wanna do is pass out on the table, much like my furry friend above.  That feeling of being overstuffed can almost ruin the fun filled ride that got you to this feeling in the first place, but is that worse than over sleeping?

 

Right off the bat you would assume that over sleeping is better than over eating because you don't feel like you're about to burst out of your clothes, but let's not rush to conclusions.  When you over sleep, you usually wake up extra refreshed and obviously really rested, so what's the problem?  For me, the problem is that initial five minutes after you wake up where you say "OH SHIT" after looking at the alarm clock.  That moment of panic is awful because you're just waking up where your brain is just starting to function and BOOM... your mind is flooded with everything that you have to do that day and how you're late and will never make it anywhere on time.  This is usually followed by a mental debate as to whether or not it's worth even getting out of bed or just scrapping the entire day, which spends more time and makes you even later, before you finally get up via a violent thrust to start getting ready.

 

So, after my brief analysis, I would have to say that I'd rather over eat than over sleep 10 times outta 10.  My main reasoning behind my decision is the simple fact that you enjoy eating the food more than sleeping because you're conscious and aware of how amazing eating something is tasting.  In addition to that, over eating makes you uncomfortable for maybe a half an hour versus over sleeping potentially ruining an entire day.  Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments section (I just made commenting available... still new to blogging so there are still kinks to work out).



Diner #1 - Let's Get Randy

It was lunchtime on a Friday afternoon, but this was no normal Friday afternoon.  There I was, standing at the front desk of my hotel asking for recommendations for places to eat and who uses his Jedi mind control to open the sliding glass doors?  None other than Randall Insero from my hometown of Waterbuy, CT.  Granted, I knew he was coming (my Jedi mind control and abilities are far superior than that of the average Jedi), but as soon as I saw him dressed in his shirt and tie I lit up like the 4th of July.  But the question still remained: Where do we go eat?

In steps Thomas's Ham 'N' Eggery Diner.  I was skeptical at first because I'm not sure what the hell an "Eggery" is, but after a quick back and forth, we were on our way.  Once we pulled up to the place, we knew we were in for a treat seeing as how the parking lot was full on a Friday afternoon at 1:30pm.  After parking on the street, we walked in, found out it was CASH ONLY (don't worry, Western New England will reimburse me), and sat down to order.  Let the record show that the following is the first appearance of a human being on the What's Really Good? blog...

Eager to attack, I was able to capture Randall in his natural food stalking pose as he was about to dig into his hamburger omelette.  I don't think either of us has ever seen a hamburger omelette, so it was only natural that one of us ordered it.  I went with a more traditional order seen here:

Bacon, sausage, ham, American cheese, and cheddar cheese are what makes up this delicious delight.  We both got some home fries and a side of toast, and yes, I did in fact order a glass of chocolate milk.  If you think that's wrong or childish then I hope you get hit by a bus or lose the ability to taste.  Too far?  Not far enough?  Either way, don't disrespect chocolate milk.  Overall it was a solid recommendation and I would absolutely go back.  Thanks again to Randall for being my special guest and for being the first person to be featured on What's Really Good?

Pizza - It's What's For Dinner

My prayers have been answered! As an Admissions Counselor, I do a ton of college fairs where schools are kind enough to provide a lunch or dinner for the reps from each school. We are all grateful for the kind gestures, but sandwiches and wraps EVERYTIME gets a tad stale. So, when I walked into Floral Park High School last night, I was floored when I saw what was for dinner. P-I-Z-Z-A. My wish had been granted! And what made the night even better was the fact that it was pretty legit pizza too. The simple things in life!

Missing From My Childhood

I stumbled across a few pictures and it saddens me deeply that I never enjoyed such treasures. I'm pretty sure I ate mashed peas and carrots when I was a baby and burned my mouth with Mint-Fire acid mouthwash after brushing my teeth. These are such great ideas!! All I can say is I'm proud to be an American!!

The Life Blood of the Admissions World

Who knew that maintaining a blog would be so much work?  I feel like I need to write a post every few hours, but I never have enough time to sit down and do one.  Things like sleep, work, and grad school keep getting in the way, but NO MORE!  I was supposed to be at a high school doing a mini fair, but the school told me on the phone specifically not to come.  I wasn't registered and was planning on just crashing the fair, but word for word was told "we have no room so if you come, you'll have to get back in your car and leave."  So in other words, she said to take a few hours off and go blog about something.  How dare she threaten me with a good time!  But I obliged and now I'm sitting in a Starbucks doing what Admissions Counselors do best during the day aka sucking down coffee and filling time before the next visit.

 

I'm not a huge coffee fan, but working in Admissions has forced me to drink coffee.  I shake uncontrollably all the time (thanks again to my office for pointing it out CONSTANTLY), but add coffee to the mix and I'm like a 6'6" human earthquake.  At the end of the day I'd rather have shaky hands than sweaty ones, so I guess I can't complain.  But there's nothing better than a nice Large Caramel Iced Coffee to break up the day.  And yes, I said large.  I hate the sizes that Starbucks has.  Tall, Grande, and Venti?  Paul Rudd was right with his mini rant in Role Models.  One of my favorite scenes by far.

My Admissions Secret

As most of you know, I'm an Admissions Counselor who has a variety of responsibilities, but one of the main aspects of my job is to travel to certain territories and recruit students via college fairs and individual private high school visits.  I think I'm pretty good at what I do, but I figured I'd shed some light on my secrets to recruitment this morning so others can benefit from them.  Normally when a counselor shows up to a high school they bring a suitcase or travel bag full of material to pass out to students.  This consists of inquiry cards, open house dates, a list of majors at the school, and so on.  That's where everyone goes wrong.  This is my travel bag and what I bring to schools:

 

Yes... that's a suitcase filled with meat.  You wanna know why our football team had the best record in school history last year or why lacrosse, soccer, and baseball were all ranked in the top 25 for D-III schools?  Suitcase full of meat.  This is how you recruit the top tier athletes and this is how you throw nothing but wins at a college fair.  People might have #AdmissionsProblems, but I have #AdmissionsSolutions.  I believe the saying is #YOLO, which in my world means the following:

 



The End of The World

It has been brought to my attention that the world as we know it might be over.  Not one, but two people have dropped a bomb on me that will literally ruin my life, as well as all of yours.  We might as well call it quits and let terrorists take over our country because BACON IS DISAPPEARING FAST.

I spit out my coffee and wasn't even drinking any when I read this article (stole that saying from El Pres of Barstool Sports).  I actually am drinking a Magic Hat #9 and refused to spit it out, but I am very concerned.  In order to literally save the world, I will no longer eat bacon which will prevent pigs from going extinct personally raise more pigs so we can continue to murder them and eat the deliciousness that they produce.  You're welcome America.

Smash Hit

If anyone that reads this follows me on Twitter (@BrianMichaud7), you know I recently tweeted a picture of restaurants that I plan on visiting while on Long Island and in the Poughkeepsie areas of New York.  Well cross Smashburger off the list!  In fact, I can cross it off for you!  SMASHBURGER I just really wanted to use that function... Anyways, a brave man named Anthony Pinto came with me on this journey and neither of us were disappointed.  After placing my order I received this sign to put on my table:

If you know me, you know my favorite number is 7, so I took this as a sign.  I'll pause momentarily for everyone to shake their heads at that awful joke........... and we're back.  You might ask where Smashburger is and I'm happy to tell you that Smashburger locations can be found all over the place!  But let's focus on my experience and what I ordered.

 

Just looking at this picture makes me want to stop this post and drive back to get another one. This lovely little snapshot is of a BBQ Bacon Cheddar Smash Burger (bigger than their regular sized burger) with Ranch, Fried Onion Straws, and a Fried Egg with, you guessed it, SWEET POTATO FRIES on the side. And I had to get a little side of ranch and buffalo sauce to go with it. Only natural for me.

This burger was out of this world.  Definitely one of the best fast food style burgers I've ever had in my entire life.  I know a lot of people will say that's crazy, but it's true.  I'm a HUGE fan of Five Guys, but this burger might have been better.  It was so good that I needed to take a close up shot as well:

A cool thing about this burger was that it was on an egg bun.  It was different from a regular bun that you would get at McDonalds or Burger King, so it gave the burger a little extra somethin somethin.  This was one of those burger eating experiences where it never left my right hand until it was gone.  Perfect burger eating experience and I would recommend Smashburger to anyone who wants a quality burger or if you want to have something that's a little bit better than Five Guys.  And to all my Springfield/WNEC friends, White Hut isn't even close to being on the same scale as this place.

The Weenie Awards!

Outside of breakfast yesterday, there hasn't been anything notable to blog about eating wise.  So, in order to fill that void, I'm going to award my first ever Weenie Awards!

You might be asking yourself, what the hell are the Weenie Awards?  Well, the Weenie Awards are given out at random times when I am thoroughly disappointed in the performance of certain individuals who should be performing at a higher level.  Bottom line here is that they, for some reason, SUCK and maybe earning them a Weenie Award will snap them out of their funk.  There are 3 levels of Weenie Awards starting with the Junior Weenie, then stepping up a level to the Biggest Weenie, and somehow topping that is the King Weenie.  You don't want these awards, so pray you don't get famous and piss me off enough to receive one of them.

 

First up is none other than Dez Bryant, WR for the Dallas Cowboys.  WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING???  Dez looks absolutely nothing like he did in preseason and seems like a huge bust 3 weeks into the season.  I drafted him in the majority of my fantasy football leagues as either my #1 WR or my #2 because I thought he was gonna explode this year, but I guess not.  I even bought his jersey because I have him in so many leagues (similar to what I did last year with a certain QB to be named later on this list that led me to a few fantasy championships!!).  Dez had a decent first game and then has gone MIA since.  WAKE UP SWEETHEART!

 

 

I hate to put another guy I love on blast, but Antonio Gates clocks in at the #2 spot and gets the Biggest Weenie Award.  It's Week 3 and you've already managed to miss a game where your backup steps in and grabs 3 touchdown passes.  Come on now Gates.  Side note: if you haven't realized, this list is about the 3 fantasy football players on my teams that have pissed me off the most thus far by not producing this year.  It's not Week 4 and you have a total of 7 catches for 65 yards.  Do you realize that's not a lot more than what I've done in the NFL this year?  For the love of God please step it up!

 

Dez has been awful and Gates has been just as bad, if not worse.  So who does that leave as the King Weenie through 3 weeks of football?  It might not be entirely his fault, but Aaron Rodgers gets the nod.  I feel like there was a catchy saying there that I missed... something like A-Rod gets the Weenie Nod, but whatever.  Someone wanna tell me what the hell is going on here?  I know his offensive line let him get murdered last night, but he's gotta play better than that too.  Through 3 games he has 745 passing yards, a 3-2 TD:INT ratio, and 38 yards rushing.  MARK SANCHEZ has thrown for more TDs that him!!!  Granted, these aren't the worst numbers in the world, but he deserves the King Weenie Award because of how high he was drafted in most fantasy leagues and how he's producing like a 7th round QB instead of a 1st.  In case you didn't stay up to watch the full game last night, he ended up with a pedestrian 223 yards on 26-39 passing.  Forget about making funny commercials, Mr. Rodgers needs to go back to his neighborhood, gather up his little rat pack, and do a discount double check on their playbook to figure out why they're sucking so much.

 

So all in all this was more of a rant about football than about food, but hot dogs were reference so it counts.  A food item will always find its way into my post.

IT'S BACON!!!!

Oxygen, Water, and Bacon. (Eye-Catching Opening courtesy of Ms. (now Mrs.) Cybart) Those are the 3 things that I need to survive on this planet and I was able to have all 3 at my hotel this morning!

 

I'm attempting to write this post from my phone so I'm not sure how the layout will look, so no judging!  Also, my grammar/spelling isn't perfect and will never be perfect, SO BACK OFF.  No need for chirping there.  Anyways, this is what I started with this morning.  Nothing wrong with an all-you-cn-eat breakfast buffet.  You wanna know What's Really Good?  UNLIMITED BACON.

  

 

And I'm sure everyone noticed the strawberries on my plate.  Who was I kidding with that?  I mean, I eventually ate them because I hate wasting food, but that was space reserved for bacon.  But hey, sometimes this blogger needs to eat healthy.

So Good You Could Eat The Bowl

FINALLY I got an opportunity to eat something that was delicious enough for me to reference the name of this blog!  I was fortunate enough to meet up with 7 of my fellow road warriors from admissions at Miller's Ale House on Long Island and got something I'm always keeping an eye out for.  My Uncle Greg would be proud because I'm talking about none other than a New England Clam Chowder Bread Bowl!

You wanna know what's really good?  This bread bowl.  First off, if you order something at a restaurant where you can eventually eat the bowl that the real food comes in, you're in for a good time.  I'm not chowder expert, but this was pretty good.  My only complaint is that there wasn't more of it, but I did order Miller Ale House's famous "zingers" which are boneless buffalo wings.  The amount of ranch I put on those wings was insane and I wish I had a picture of them, but I got too excited when they came that I left my phone in my pocket.

A small side note here... my 49ers lost today and fall to a 2-1 record, which is still good, but it's obviously not perfect.  I just want to send a message to the team to be like the bread bowl.  Does that make any sense whatsoever?  No.  But I really liked this bread bowl and I definitely liked it more than watching them lose to the Vikings.  Either way, tomorrow is the beginning of a new week and I look forward to my all you can eat breakfast in the AM.  #GETATME

Good Morning - Disclaimer - No Bacon - Mario

I know I know, the title of this post is all over the place, but I figured since I'm going to be committed to this blog, I might as well address a few things that I didn't touch upon in my initial kick-off post.

First, GOOD MORNING!  This will most likely be the only early morning post that I do (unless a breakfast really blows me away) because I don't feel like "working" in the morning.  Every post I make will have something to do with food and this is that part.  Homewood Suites are my favorite type of hotel to stay at because not only do you get your own studio apartment with full kitchen, but you get free breakfast every morning AND free dinner Monday-Thursday where they have free beer and wine.  You might want to rethink your hotel accommodations after reading that.  Where ever you're staying, if there's a Homewood Suites nearby, switch!

My Disclaimer: I just wanted to make people aware that I do eat a lot.  Some would say an unnecessary amount to the point where they would be sick if they ate as much and as often as me and to them I want to say GFY  thank you.  Again, eating is my favorite thing to do in the world so I enjoy every meal I eat.  Going with that, I hear a ton of chirping (I love saying "chirping" because it reminds me of Jeff Velleca) about how "you're so lucky you can eat like that and not be 500 pounds."  It's not luck, it's called a gym.  I eat a ton, but I also hit the gym and go for runs and play basketball anywhere from 5 to 15 times a week.  I treat my body like a roller coaster and pack it with calories like you see on Epic Meal Time, but I balance that by working out so chirp that.

It's my 2nd day of travel and I haven't had bacon yet... I was hoping to feast this morning at breakfast, but they had sausage patties.  COME ON!  I mean, I had a few of them and they were quite tasty, but alas, another meal has come and gone without bacon.  Hopefully I can fix that soon.

The last part of this blog has nothing to do with food.  I was just curious as to how many people pronounce the name "Mario" like an idiot.  Maybe it's a New Jersey thing, but in New England I feel like most people pronounce it like this: Ma-Ree-Oh.  That's the correct way in my opinion, but down here I keep hearing it like this: Mare-Ree-Oh.  WRONG.  Play a game of Super Mario 64 for Christ's sake!  He starts off the game by saying "Itsa me, MARIO!"  Step your game up New Jersey.

And on that note, I'm gonna wind down this post.  It's a Sunday-Funday so I hope most of you that read this have nothing going on today (unlike me... college fair until 3:00pm) and can sit back, relax, and watch football.  Normally I would say to order some wings and have a few beers while watching the games, but today I'm feeling like a calzone or pizza.  That might be because I just talked about Mario and when I think Mario I think of Italian which in turns makes me think of pizza and everything in the pizza family, but go for a nice buff chick pizza today and get the best of both worlds.  Oh, and go San Fran!  Best team in the NFL baby!!!

And So It Begins...

And just like that, I'm ready for my first blog about food!  It's literally only been a few hours since I created this blog, but my stomach told me it was time to eat and BOOM.  Right now I'm staying at the Homewood Suites in Dover, NJ right next to the Rockaway Mall and there are a ton of eating options around me.  My original plan was to go to Fatburger and really set this blog off with a bang via the XXXL burger, but I've been there and done that... plus, I'm feeling pretty lazy tonight.  With that being said, the front desk recommended Maria's and off I went.

A normal person would take it easy when they order food late at night, but if you know me, I'm no where near normal.  I did want to start my blog with my favorite type of food so as you can see, I went with Italian.  Technically my favorite type of food is directly related to the amount of food that I order, but that's neither here nor there.  I thought they were going to send me an appetizer version of bruschetta, but I got that massive portion, which I was thrilled about.  Easily the best part of the meal, but the chicken francese was pretty good too.  Since it was a dinner special, they hooked it up with the pasta, salad, and bread which was really nice.  The bread was clutch because there was a ton of extra sauce/juice on the chicken so the bread helped clean that up.  The salad was not ordered, it was given to me... just thought I'd make that clear.

That's how these blogs are gonna work.  Nothing too too fancy here.  I just want to chronicle what I eat and be able to share it with whoever wants to see it.  I do have some food challenges planned, so I'm actually pretty excited to see where this blog goes.

Welcome One and All!

Welcome to the What's Really Good blog that I'm attempting to start.  I might as well be honest with everyone who reads this from day 1 and let you all know that I have little to no idea what I'm doing.  I was told by quite a few people that they love seeing my food pictures that I post throughout the year via Facebook and Twitter and that I should start a blog and "here we are" (I make a lot of horrible references to inside jokes, TV shows, movies, and so on... sorry in advance).

I figured a good first post would be to explain the blog, talk about what I will be blogging about, and the reason for the name.  After a quick eenie, meanie, minie, mo (I could have easily spelled each of those "words" wrong), I'll start by explaining the title of the blog.

"What's Really Good?" actually has a duel meaning.  I went to Kennedy High School in Waterbury, CT and that saying was heard throughout the halls all day, every day.  It's a saying that's synonymous with "how are you?" or "what's going on?", but in the halls of Kennedy, "what's really good?" was used.  Regardless, I like the saying and plan to sample a variety of different delicious things while I travel for work, cook at home, or just stumble upon something at night to find out "what's really good."

That's a nice transition into what I'll be talking about.  Bottom line here is that I love food.  Eating food is literally my favorite thing to do in the world.  Don't get me wrong, I love sleeping, watching TV, playing basketball, and so on, but eating takes the cake... or I take the cake.  Either way those type of jokes will be happening a lot so learn to love them.  But that's really it... plan and simple I'll be talking about food I eat and hopefully provide a few pictures to make people drool along the way.

In a nutshell, that is the blog. I might throw in a different post about football or a current event or something along the way (especially if I don't eat anything that's blog worthy), but it'll mostly be about food. Hopefully bacon will be involved 90-95% of the time. So until I get my first blog worthy meal, feel free to send me some bacon. My birthday is in July and Christmas is obviously in December, but a random bacon surprise would make my day!