Pesce Week 19: The Don't Feel Like Itening

This is my post for the week. I don't want to post about it. Blearg. Maybe soon I'll give you something. Until next time.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 18: The Educationing

Well I don't have way too much time today. We're going to be celebrating my nephew Cameron's third birthday today. That means running around, setting up the hall and then the party itself, oh and not to forget the 6+ hour drive home. So I don't really have too much time to post about school and the amazing meal I had on Friday, a calamari steak. I promise to post more about this in a short amount of time. Until next time.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 17: The Nothingening

I really am starting to run out of stuff to write about. I've been doing this for a total of 118 days now. That's pretty crazy to think about. I'm over a hundred days in. I'm almost half way through right now, I have 132 days left to go before I can go back to my regular dietary habits. Well I hope to have more to write about soon, but as of right now I have nothing really. Until next time.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 16: The Still Awakening

This one isn't going to be very good. I just decided that I'm going to stay up to try to reset my sleep schedule for school. I don't know what I'm going to do all day, but we'll see what I can manage. I think I'll go to the gym today, not sure if my parents are going, but we shall see. This week has been super easy mode so nothing to report on. Until next time.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 15: The Road Trippening

So yesterday Waldino, Marlon and I went on a road trip to San Diego. It was pretty bawse. We started by going to this one restaurant/bar I was told about called Analog Bar, I didn't get to check out the video game and music area, but the atmosphere was really chill and the food was fantastic. I ordered Chilaquiles Tatchos, tatchos are their specialty which is tater tots done nacho style. The sauce was fantastic and the two eggs done sunny-side up just accented the flavor perfectly. It was only $6 during their happy hour and was well worth the money. Waldino got the Pulled Pork Tatchos, which I heard the pulled pork on it was fantastic, also $6, also worth it. Marlon got their Pancetta Mac n Cheese, he couldn't taste the Pancetta very well and it was really small other than that he said it was good, it was $5.50 but not worth it due to the proportion. The three of us split a dessert, their Churro French Toast, it was really freaking good with their strawberry jam, it also came with a brown sugar maple syrup but the flavor of that with the french toast was too similar. I decided to try mixing the two "sauces" together once we were out of french toast, it was so freaking good. The Churro French Toast was $6, happy hour only reduced the price of the appetizers, but split between 3 people, well worth it. All together we payed $10 each to enjoy a nice relaxing atmosphere, good music and great food. If you're ever in the area of the Analog Bar, 801 F Street in San Diego on the corner of F and 5th, I highly suggest checking it out.

That's not all we did yesterday, not by a long shot. We walked around the Gaslamp Quarter and saw a Dr. Suess and Chuck Jones art exhibit. It featured a lot of art you could buy starting at $300 or so, of course we couldn't buy anything but it was really good seeing everything, including original Disney animation cels. Once we finished viewing the exhibit and talking to a curator we continued on. We made our way to the Convention Center and saw some event going on, we couldn't get in so we wasted some time just looking at what we could do there and then decided to continue on. We got a ticket that waved the cover charge of a club, Belo, so we checked it out. They told Marlon he couldn't wear hats or his red shoes, but they'll let him in by checking his hat and just a warning on the shoes. We get down there and avoid paying $20 because we're awesome, but the club was completely dead, so we left. We walked around some more, found our way to this really cool bar called something I don't remember, but it was influenced by Alice in Wonderland. All over the ceiling there were cards, the walls were faux hedges, there were books in a few places and it was downstairs. This was a really nice bar, but we had been walking around for quite a few hours at this point and we really just wanted somewhere to sit down which we couldn't find there without buying bottle service. I don't know about you guys, but eff that, I'm poor. We walk and find ourselves a hat store, Marlon had been wanting to find a good hat for cheap and so he did. From there we go to a Sam Goody and relax for a bit, but I mean sitting on a couch we could do anywhere, we were in San Diego so we continued walking. We walked into a Brookestones and try out this head massager that looks exactly like the headgear part of Cerebro from Xmen, it was awesome. From there we decide to get some food and go back to the bar/club scene. We find a place to sit down and get some food. I wasn't hungry but Marlon and Waldino bought pizza from Gaslamp Pizza. Not too expensive and it looked pretty good. After that we walked around and found tickets to wave the cover of this bar called Double Down, it's pretty much a louder version of Giddy Ups from that episode of How I Met Your Mother. Once we were done there we decided to go to Pechanga's to check it out, relax and get some coffee. It was pretty bawse, they gave us $10 for signing up for a club membership and Marlon ended with $11.50, I ended with $1.25 and Waldino ended with, well, less. After that we call it a night and drive the rest of the way home. It was a fantastic trip.

So there is this week's post. Complete with being large, a Super Tasty (my food critic review column article thing) review of Analog Bar and a story. Oh and if you go to park in that area, don't put in a $20 for parking that costs $8, because you'll have to mail in to get your change... carry singles gentlemen. Until next time.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 14: The Heat Wavening

GOTT DAMN IT'S HOT! It may only be barely in the hundreds and all, but it is hot. Sitting on the couch is not an option, I am forced to sit on a chair much closer to the fan/AC unit.

So this is actually supposed to be for my Pescetarian Experience and not an outlet to complain about the temperature. So.... I didn't use my cheating day, I decided to just not eat the meats and stick to just the potatoes and beans. It was good. Today I tried a crépe with some vegetables in it. It was pretty good, I just hate red onions and there were plenty in it. Other than that it's been highly uneventful in the food realm of things. Until next time.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 13: The Extreme Trafficening

Hello and welcome to week 13 of my Pescetarian Experience. From tonight's dinner alone I am glad I chose to be pescetarian and not vegetarian. I ordered myself a Scallop Parmesan Pasta, which was delicious, and my mom ordered Seared Ahi Tuna and Coconut Shrimp for appetizers and my God they were so freaking good. The Ahi Tuna was so perfectly melting in your mouth and the shrimp was just awesome. So yeah, that was one freaking amazing meal.

So as some of you may know I'm down in Escondido, San Diego area, for my cousin's wedding. Since I probably won't post anything on Facebook about it, and the wedding is tomorrow, Congratulations Jason and Alice. We decided to go to Old Town in San Diego itself after being at the Wild Animal Park (or San Diego Zoo Safari or something that it is now). We get to Old Town after getting turned around and there is absolutely no parking, because of Comic Con. I had no idea how close to the convention center it actually was. So we decide, eff this, and we head back towards our hotel room deciding to get dinner somewhere along the way, this wasn't too bad traffic-wise. So after the amazing dinner I mentioned we head back and the traffic was horrendous, where someone nearly crashed right into Rey and Beth. We made it back here safely though, so yeah....

Until next time. Oh wait! I just realized something I wanted to post on, there is a chance, depending on the dinner menu, that I will be using my first cheating day since starting all of this, so yeah, I'll post on that if it happens. Until next time for reals this time.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 12: The Boredening

I don't have much to report on today. These past few posts have been uneventful. I did get Chipotle again and this time I got my guac, it made me happy. So I'm approaching 3 months of this pescetarian experience and overall it's been fairly easy. I might end up quitting early because it's pretty inconvenient for getting food and limiting where I can eat, but for now I'm sticking to it. We'll see how the rest of the year turns out though. Until next week.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 11: The Lazining

So I have put off my posting this blog since I literally had nothing to post on it this week. So since I have some free time now and missed out on Kickball of awesomeness I figured I might as well write this week's post, so yeah. Here it is, I'm going to count it even though it's pathetic. The reader challenge for pesce month still stands, if one of my non vegetarian/pescetarian/vegan readers goes at least pescetarian for a month I'll go vegetarian for a month. Catch you guys next week, time to get a shower and to Harry Potterationing.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 10: The Self-Gyppening

I would like to start this by saying that learning how to spell the word gypped made me realize how racist (prejudiced rather) that term is. Today I went to Chipotle for dinner ordering the vegetarian burrito and since I was offered guacamolé last time and spent $2 on it I said no when they asked me if I wanted it. I just looked at their online menu and the vegetarian burrito comes with guacamolé. I'm midly annoyed at myself for saying no and not getting the deliciousness that is guac on my burrito. Oh well, I know better for next time.

It really doesn't feel like I've been on this diet for Sixty-seven days as of now. It feels like it's been two weeks. So has anyone been doing the challenge of the one month of pescetarianism and stuck to it yet? I promise to not eat fish for one month if at least one person goes pescetarian for a month. Also I will not use my cheating days, which I have yet to use. I'll catch you guys next week when it will feel like Week 2 once again.

Notorious,
Mandog

Pesce Week 9: The Latening

So here we are at week 9. I didn't post this on Friday, but my rules simply state once a week, not specifically which day. So today officially marks two entire months of being pescetarian. I haven't slipped up once, the closest I've gotten is having to fish out beef from a minestrone once or not eating a slice of pizza I grabbed. I'm kinda out of ideas of what I should post here right now. How about this, I challenge all of you readers to go pescetarian for just one month to try it out. That way you realize, it's not all that hard to do. If just one person does it... I'll do something in return. I don't know yet, it's to be decided. Well until next week.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 8: The Foodsening

So week 8, what can I say. I've found myself wishing for something with meat in it more than I used to. That's a change. I find myself bored with these posts since I don't have much to post about aside from, "Oh, it's been a week, I haven't failed yet...."

I do have a recipe I found and then modified by changing ground beef to ground fake beef.

Pasta Shell Tacos

A pound of ground beef (I used a package of Morning Star Meal Starters something... the ground beef)
1 package of cream cheese
Taco seasoning
Large pasta shells (I fit 16 filled ones into a dish)
Salsa of your choice
Cheddarjack cheese (or maybe a mexican blend) shredded
Taco sauce

Heat the oven to 375°. Cook shells according to direction (boil them until tender pretty much). Prepare a 9x13 dish and pour salsa on the bottom. Brown the beef (or heat the faux beef) and mix the taco seasoning to direction. Add cream cheese and heat until homogeneous. Arrange the shells in the baking dish and fill. Top the 'tacos' with taco sauce and bake for 15 minutes. Top with cheese and crushed tortilla chips if desired. Bake for an additional 15 minutes. Top with sour cream, guacamole and/or anything else desired. ENJOY!

They were really bomb, my family ate the non-meat with pleasure (just my parents, the other two weren't eating at home that night). So now that you have that recipe try it out. I'll catch you guys next week.

Until then,
Mandog

Pesce Week 7: The No Timening

So week 7, not much happened. I'm leaving for the beach now. Bye.

Swearing this counts,
Mandog

Pesce Week 6: The Etymologicalening

So it's the end of Week 6 and I'm still going strong, I have yet to use a day pass, and I have no overwhelming desire to do as such. That being said Wednesday was a little painful, we went to Red Robin for dinner and I couldn't get my favorite burger from there, the Royal Red Robin Burger which is burger with egg, cheese and bacon on it. Instead I ended up getting their Bleu Ribbon Burger sub BOCA, which was delicious, and a Rootbeer float which was only $.50 more than a soda with free refills on the float. Yes, that is right, for $2.99 you can have as many refills on a rootbeer float as you would like. It was heavenly.

So last night Matt Veronica, who is graduating as I type this, had mentioned that he doesn't believe someone is a vegetarian if they just eat cheese pizzas and don't eat vegetables. Now I disagree with this, but etymologically he is kinda correct, since the veget- does refer to vegetables. He offered another name for people who didn't eat meat, nonmetatarians... which would mean nothing going off of etymology. Yeah, I'm just saying Matt, that's a retarded suggestion.

So there's my post for week 6, only 30 more to go. I look forward to having more to write on. Until next time.

Indifferently,
Mandog

Pesce Week 5: The Monthening

Well it's official now, I've been a pescetarian for over a month now. This has been quite the endeavore so far. Not too difficult dietarily, but when it comes to ease of meals when my family eats meat it becomes more difficult as I have to cook my own meal before or after they do, or they have to cook me a separate meal. I appreciate their support through this personal challenge, I couldn't have asked for a better family to support me doing random stuff like this. Well that's it for this week's post, see you next week.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 4: The Somethinging

Well this week has been pretty uneventful. Not too much to report on, haven't really tried anything new this week except a bite from one of a Morningstar burger, and other Chik'n products. Oh and if you go to In N Out you should order chopped chilies on your burger/grilled cheese, so good. So yeah, see you guys next Friday.

Pesce Week 3: The Unluckening

I only used that title because today is the dreaded Friday the 13th. -DUN DUN DUUUUUUUNNN!- So week three has now come to a close and my pescetarian experience this week was primarily vegetarian. I had Rubio's fish tacos, which if you like fish are fantastic and on Tuesdays after like 2:30 are $1.25 each, and that's it for my fish this week. New vegetarian faux meats that I've tried are Morningstar's meatballs and their facon. While facon is not even close to the awesomeness that is bacon, it is pretty damn good, especially on a Boca burger with an egg. The meatballs are good, definitely not meatballs in flavor and they're a bit off in texture but they're still good. Also, I have to say, In and Out is my new favorite fast food right now, since my previous favorite one has almost nothing for me... Carl's Jr.

So this week a lot of people have been saying to me things along the lines of, "Kudos to you, but I don't think I could do that, I love meat too much." While I appreciate the kudos that were given it actually isn't that difficult to not eat meat, I am sure that it would be more difficult if I weren't to have my fake meats, but it's not that hard to do. The flavor and juicy texture of steaks and whatnot are missed, but as for things like not having protein or how without meat meals aren't filling I would disagree. I am getting plenty of protein from fake meats, fish and other various non-meats, and I'm actually feeling more full after meals lately than I had been. So I'm not saying you guys should try it, but I don't deserve too much kudos because it's not that hard.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pesce Week 2: The Fishening

So here I am at the Friday of week two and I've got to say, this mess is still really easy. The only thing I run into with problems is if I'm just sitting around and I feel like making something quick I don't have as many options as I used to. I kinda broke a small personal promise I made myself that I would eat fish at most twice a week for health sake, mercury content and all, and I ate fish thrice this week. Granted the fish I ate this week were all fairly low in mercury content, seeing as Sunday I had Salmon which probably has near to the least mercury of all the fish out there.

Some of the vegetarian food I have tried so far consist of the following:
-Boca Burgers = BAWSE!
-Hormel Vegetarian Chili = There was something in the way they spiced it... I dunno just wasn't that good to me
-Morningstar Scrambles (their groundbeef) = crazy delicious
-Morningstar Chik'n Enchiladas = good, but the enchilada sauce was pretty whack
-Morningstar Chik'n Nuggets = I feel like I'm cheating when I eat them, seriously, so good.
So that's what I've tried in my first two weeks, I know in the remaining 33 weeks I will try so many more things and love it.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Week 1: The Beginninging

I made a rule saying that I have to blog once a week for my pescetarian experience, so here I am posting. Week 1 hasn't been that hard really, aside from the fact that tonight I'm not really eating anything because my dad made a soup with meat and that's all he made. I could make my own dinner easily enough, but I'm just frustrated at the fact that I was promised that there would be rice, something I can actually eat on this diet, but there isn't. This frustration makes it so I shouldn't cook, because I know being this frustrated if something goes wrong I just won't be able to deal with it calmly. Well there's that small rant out of the way, I'm done with that.

Alright, so week 1 I decided will be purely vegetarian, no fish, just to start out strong. This has been simple enough, with having boca patties or meatless spaghetti for dinners, as long as there's an option that I have to eat I can keep this up practically forever. So there's week 1. I'll catch you guys next Friday most likely since that's when I plan to make all of my updates.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Pescetarianism

Pescetarian - (n.) A person who adheres to the ovo-lacto vegetarian diet with an addendum of being allowed to eat fish. The name is a portmanteau of the Italian word pesce which means fish and vegetarian.

That's the definition off the top of my head. I had once stated that I could never be a vegetarian but if I were to try to get as close as possible I could be a pescetarian. I believe that statement to be true still.

Earlier this month, probably the third or something, I had decided to give up bacon, something I thoroughly love, for the rest of the month of March. Roughly 20 days later I've stayed strong, this includes times I've ordered food with bacon on it and painfully gave it up. Mind you, the only reason I gave up bacon was just to see if I had the willpower to do so.

Today I thought to myself, "I was able to go without bacon so far, what can I do to take this further?" I thought of something I could do, I'm going Pescetarian for the rest of the year. I'm going to delay starting it until after Easter for a few reasons: I don't want these two personal challenges to overlap, I want them to each be their own achievement; Easter is a time of great feasting for me and my family, I just don't want to go without that luscious honey-spiraled ham on Easter; I want to maximize my time with meat before I go without and still make it a sizable achievement; All Catholics are Pescetarian for roughly 1/6 of lent anyways, let's make this a true challenge for me.

So here are the rules that I'm laying forth for myself on this challenge.
-First rule of course is no non-fish meats allowed, even blends such as Jack in the Box Tacos
-I am allowing myself a total of 8 sin exemptions, I can have meat but only 8 days throughout the year
-I must blog what my exemption was used on and why I felt the need to break the rule. If I fail to blog within 24 hours without a reasonable excuse it will count as 2 exemptions
-Speaking of blogging I'm going to say I have to blog my experience throughout it at minimum once a week. If I fail to blog that week the next blog I will have to do a pull up for the total number of times I have failed to blog in one sitting before the next week ends (why not turn this into a weight-loss thing even though it's not for health reasons). For example, if I fail two days in a row and I have yet to fail up to that point, I will have to do 1 pull up the second week and 2 the third.
-That's all the rules I can think of right now, if there are any that you think I should include, throw them to me as a comment and I'll consider it.