What I Ate Wednesday - Hattie B's Hot Chicken

Hey, y'all! I'm back again this week for what is unintentionally becoming a weekly blog. I have been really sick. Just too sick to think about words and complete sentences and articulate thought... but I'm hopefully getting better. I came down with a cold about two weeks ago and by Monday, it had developed into pneumonia. I knew at this time last week that I was feeling far sicker than a cold should make me feel. Marvin did such a great job taking care of me last week when our weekly date was pretty much just me sleeping while he brought me stuff to make me feel better. All I have wanted to do for the past two weeks was sleep, honestly. I would wake up enough to talk to him on the phone a couple of times a day but mostly I was just going from sleep to sleep. I had a doctor's appointment already scheduled for this past Monday and  my dr knew right away... pneumonia. So... I'm on an antibiotic (a whole new world of unpleasantness) and am scheduled for a follow up in two weeks to make sure it has all cleared out because ... with me, it rarely does with just one course of antibiotics.

That's part one. Cold - turned to pneumonia - hopefully getting cleared up with antibiotics. Part two is my blood pressure. Tuesday my blood pressure was 153/120 AFTER starting a new (fifth) medication to try to bring it down. I have been dealing with high blood pressure since I was 35 and for the most part, medication and behavior modification have controlled it. Lately, nothing works. One possible reason is sleep apnea. I was diagnosed with this back in 2011 but there was so much going on with my health then that I just couldn't afford the time off work, cost involved, etc to get that issue sorted and honest to dog... I just don't want to deal with the c-pap machine and all of that nonsense. However, uncontrolled sleep apnea creates so much stress on your blood vessels because of the interruption in breathing... your body goes into fight or flight and your heart pumps harder and harder to keep you alive. Doing that every single night will ruin the elasticity of your blood vessels and cause a lot of other issues... so, as much as I hate the process of controlling sleep apnea, it's a part of the puzzle in getting my bp under control. The other step is seeing a cardiologist because... once your blood pressure is as high as mine has been for as long as it has been without finding a solution with medication... you have to start looking at the mechanics.

The past seven years have caused me to develop a love/hate relationship with the medical profession. I hate that I need them. I hate the cost. I hate the inconvenience of going to appointments, especially when I'm seeing new specialists and I have to start at square one with them. My medical history is crazy. When I start listing diagnosis' I sound like an absolute hypochondriac. OH how much do I wish I was just a hypochondriac. I would love to never have to deal with prescriptions and doctors and copays and ... all the things. There have been times that I have just abandoned the process because I hate dealing with it all... just as with the rheumatologist. I was supposed to follow up in February 2017 in the ongoing quest to isolate the specific auto-immune disorder going on in my body. The bottom line for me is that nothing they suspected was anything they could treat with one magic pill. It's still a symptom by symptom resolution which is what we're already doing... so... anyways... not happy to see a cardiologist. Grateful to have the health insurance to be able to do so. Hopeful that he will have a solution for this blood pressure issue. It just becomes very scary when you know you're taking all the meds and trying to eat healthy and still, not able to lower it.

SOOOO... today's blog is about our trip to Hattie B's Hot Chicken for lunch today. I know it seems completely contradictory to what I've talked about so far but ... I try to take a 80/20 approach to healthy eating. I do the best I can within my resources (as far as feeling too poorly to cook for the past two weeks, not feeling like shopping for myself, etc) and then on date night (and day and night and day) I loosen the boundaries a bit. Honestly, I had one piece of fried chicken, some potato salad, black eyed pea salad and lemonade. It wasn't horrible. What was horrible is that I completely forgot to take pictures. Cody met us for lunch as he was working right down the street and his birthday is the 30th... not sure when we might be able to celebrate so we did today. I've snagged some photos from the web and you should also check out Hattie B's website.

We had passed by Hattie B's a few weeks back when we went to The Vortex for lunch. Hattie's had a line going down the street so we thought... hmmm... we should go there... and we also though, hmmm... we should get there early. Win on both counts today - we got there about 11:15 and had zero wait time. You order at the counter and they give you a number and bring your food to your table. The menu is pretty straightforward and simple so ordering was easy... the table service is attentive and helpful. We were able to order dessert without getting back in the (then very long) line. The food is fresh and hot (except my potato salad and black eyed pea salad which are meant to be cold). I got the very bland - no spice - chicken because I'm a wimp and because my belly is kind of unwell from the antibiotics. Marvin and Cody both got medium spice and agree that it was about as spicy as they would want to go. I got light meat because that's my preference and it was not the least bit dry. Marvin and Cody got dark meat because they worried that the white meat would be dry. It wasn't. There is limited parking, Cody had to pay to park so... that's a drawback but it's in the city so, it's just part of the process. We snagged what Cosy refers to as "Nana parking" because I have the handicapped tag. Definitely though, if you're in Atlanta / Five Points area, I would recommend Hattie B's. There are also locations in Nashville and Birmingham.

What else can I tell you about the past week? We had lunch with Cosy last Thursday and then had a good time playing with her afterwards. I didn't see her over the weekend because I was feeling so rough and then finally got her again yesterday (Tuesday) and had THE BEST TIME despite my blood pressure being high. Austin was around and did most of the actual caring for Cosy, I just got to enjoy her. She dried my hair for me and helped me put on makeup... she's just the best medicine!

Tomorrow Austin and Cosy are coming to pick me up from Marvin's. I don't have to drive, which helps when I'm not feeling myself. Until then, I'm just tucked in, enjoying being spoiled a little and appreciating the peace and quiet. I'm basically just trying to feel better. I think the blog creativity will improve as I start to feel better... in the meantime, I'll try to keep you posted. Thanks for stopping by! Love and hugs, y'all!

 

What I Ate Wednesday - Six Feet Under

Today's blog is part one of a two part special (it's honestly not THAT special) on mine and Marvin's big adventure today. Part one is a restaurant review of a place called Six Feet Under that - no lie - is right beside one of Atlanta's biggest and most historical cemeteries, Oakland Cemetery. Part two will be more about Oakland. I want to do it in two parts because 1. I am sleepy/not feeling great and I know if I try to blog too much right now it will be lousy content and 2. I want to give you a little extra background on Oakland Cemetery and I don't have time/energy/brain space for it tonight.

Sidebar - I don't discuss this part of my multiple diagnosis' much but one illness I deal with is fibromyalgia which gives you horrible brain fog at times. I also have an unspecified autoimmune disorder that does a number on me when I'm out in the heat and will make me feel run down / really tired at times. I'm also still struggling to adjust to the new muscle relaxer which makes a huge difference for me pain wise but makes me terribly loopy when it peaks in my system. I'm feeling all three hitting me at the moment and it's draining me to where I'm worried today's blog will be more of a blahg. That's just sort of where I am today... very happy/peaceful/content but in such a fog of exhaustion that it's hard to function.

BUT LUNCH... was AMAZING! We went to a place in Atlanta called, Six Feet Under (check the link if you'd like to see their entire menu, etc) which is - like I said previously - RIGHT beside the most historic cemetery in Atlanta. I am Old Atlanta. By that I mean... my family has been here - in Atlanta and surrounding areas - for several generations. Our roots are deep in this city.  I have such an immense love for the history of this city, even the ugly bits, because it gives us our character. Atlanta is a city that does a horrible job of preserving it's landmarks. So many of our cities treasures have been bulldozed in the name of progress but Oakland Cemetery stands proud, dotted with the names of city founders and famous folks. So eating lunch right across from this iconic part of Old Atlanta was truly, an amazing surprise for me.

Six Feet Under is sort of a fish/pub type place. They had a pretty extensive menu that was sort of a Southern food / fish / pub fusion with the undertones of the graveyard theme but not so much that it was Halloweenish. Marvin had a taco combo platter that came with a  their catfish taco, fried calamari taco and blackened shrimp taco with hush puppies as his side. I tasted his blackened shrimp taco and it was good but... the blackening spices were a little spicy for me. I had a fish and chips basket that came with the US version of chips... you know, round thin slices of fried potatoes... and mine also came with hush puppies. My chips were... crispy and fried exactly as I would have liked but the oil seemed a bit old. It was a little off. The fish, however, was perfect, browned and crispy and not the least bit greasy (which can be hard to do with fish, I think). I loved the hushpuppies but they did have bits of jalapeno and my tongue is still sore from that encounter. We drank iced tea with our meal... we're fancy that way... and we skipped dessert because we were both stuffed.

Service wise - it was fast, attentive enough and we avoided the usual jinx of if I'm blogging about it, our glasses never get refilled. We got refills. Everyone was friendly without hovering. My big beef with this place is that they've gone straw free which makes me 1. Roll my eyes really hard and 2. Want to buy myself metal straws to tote around. I'm not anti-environment at all but I read some stat that said our straw usage makes up like such a ridiculously small percentage of the entire trash in the world - something really small and seemingly inconsequential - that we're wasting more resources by the effort to be straw free than using straws would make. Marvin says I wouldn't care if I wasn't such a big straw user - and he's true. I prefer to drink through a straw, even at home. It didn't make a huge difference to me, honestly, but it was the first time I had encountered this so... buying metal straws now.

Price wise - it was Marvin's turn to pay so I didn't actually see the bill but I think it's reasonable for lunch, especially inside the Perimeter (inside I-285 - the highway that circles Atlanta). My fish basket was around $14. It was two large pieces of fish, a lot of chips and two hushpuppies.

Free parking is available with a short walk. We walked around the cemetery for just a tiny bit after lunch which made the walk back to the car seem really, really long.

I would ... maybe take little kids here. We were there for a weekday lunch so we mostly saw blue collar type workers... a lot of Atlanta Police officers (including one who accidentally whacked Marvin on the head- it was a lady - she got very embarrassed but I told her I do that to him all the time... which he was claiming as police brutality... tee hee).

In other news... I won on HQ - the trivia game that Marvin and I play on our phones. It was my third win and this time I earned $6.05! I would NEVER have won if Marvin hadn't been playing with me because there were 4, maybe 5 answers out of the 12 questions that he had to answer for me. He got out earlier in the game on a question about the Real Housewives franchise. I didn't know the answer but I guessed correctly. And I just lucked out and knew the ones he didn't know!

Cosy's mama posted some really cute pictures of our sweet girl out at Dairy Queen today. I love that she will let her mama put her hair in "dog ears" because she sure as heck won't let me do it!

And... that's about it for today. I'm going to have a bit of dinner then soak in the tub before Marvin gets home from work. I'll do the blog post about Oakland Cemetery some time in the next few days. Tomorrow we're having a Cosy day!

 

What I Ate Wednesday - Rico's World Kitchen

A little bit of housekeeping before I tell you about the amazing lunch we had today...

1. Austin survived Warped Tour '18. He made it there and back alive. I did have to wire him money for parking. So... there's that... but he didn't wreck or get lost or get run over on the interstate so... I'm relieved that is over.
2. My doctor's office got the stronger muscle relaxers approved by my insurance (Medicare, in case you're wondering). They are 2mg stronger per pill but SO MUCH STRONGER. I'm really having an adjustment period with this medicine. It does what I need it to do, it's longer lasting because it's a capsule instead of a tablet but it packs a punch. My head is spinning and I took it... four hours ago...
3. Marvin's blood pressure is great! If they could just get mine sorted out...

chicharrones - you must try them!

Now on to what I ate today! As I've previously mentioned, Marvin has taken a Tuesday night trivia show (Mellow Mushroom in Sandy Springs, go see him! He's so much fun!) which means we've changed "date night" (which truly consists of about a 48 hour time period) from Tuesday night to Wednesday lunch. In making that change we decided we wanted to have some culinary adventures in this thriving metropolis that he calls home (I'm too far North to truly be considered an Atlantan myself). Last week we went to The Vortex in the quirky Little Five Points neighborhood in Atlanta and I had a plain burger. I'm fun like that. This week he tasked me with planning our adventure and we went to... a place we go to a lot, Rico's World Kitchen. 

Here's the process.  Bear with me.

• I wanted to do something REALLY different, like a cuisine I've never had before like... Korean or.. Bangladeshi. (for real, there's a Bangladeshi restaurant not too far). I've done a ridiculous amount of research on restaurants in reasonable driving distance with a reasonably priced menu where we could experiment a bit. 
• New adventures are fun and exciting and good blog fodder but the bottom line is that we're just two fat kids who like to eat. 
• We really, REALLY love Rico's World Kitchen in Buford, Georgia. It is always, consistently, no matter what we order, a great meal. 
• Rico's offers some very creative lunch specials which you can find on their Facebook page every day. 
• It's standard practice for us to check Rico's specials before committing to any other restaurant. They're our first choice, every time. 
• Today Rico's had a Surf and Turf Benedict with English Muffins topped with Caper Horseradish Mayo, Sliced Beef Tenderloin, Smoked Salmon, Poached Eggs and Hollandaise Sauce for $12 on their lunch specials. We had to try it. 
• Because Rico's other two specials today were... ok, decent, better than what you'd probably get anywhere else for the price but not something we HAD to have - we decided to split the special and add three appetizers. We're crazy like that. Correction - Marvin's crazy like that. Heather would have ordered the burger, which was one of the specials today. In my defense, though, it was their house ground brisket, chuck and pork belly burger - not just a burger- but we had burgers last week. 

Surf and Turf Benedict

And ultimately, today's lunch would rate among the best we've had together. Here's why (another list)

• Claire, the waitress has a cute butt. Just kidding. I mean, she does have a cute butt but the main thing is that she's one that remembers your drink orders and keeps your glass refilled and waves at you when you walk in. It's the attitude and friendliness of the place. We didn't get Claire today and, true to form, whenever I'm reviewing a place for my blog, the drink refills are slower than we'd like. It's the blog curse. However, by and large, the staff is friendly and attentive and welcoming. We've never had to wait long to be seated but that is probably more about our sense of timing. It's not a huge place but the food comes quickly when you order. You can linger (as we sometimes do) or get in and out quickly, if you need to.
• It was pouring rain but I have a handicapped tag and that was the ONLY parking place left open on the lot. There is nearby (free) parking a short walk away - the same block, essentially - but it was raining so getting the parking spot was a good omen. 
• I've been meaning to try their chicharrones (pork rinds) for awhile and today I finally did. I'm obsessed. We got a generous cone of them for $4.50. They were served with a clear dipping sauce that looked like water but guess what? It was vinegar and it was amazing. I will never eat pork rinds without vinegar again. It made them crackle and crunch like pop rocks or rice crispies! They're seasoned with the blackening seasoning which was not too spicy for me and I'm a wimp so, you can handle it, I'm sure.
• The chicharrones were so good that, as I previously mentioned, Marvin suggested a three appetizer + one entree meal and it was perfect for us! Our other two apps were fried green tomatoes - among the best I've had anywhere and I'm sort of an expert on these things - and lumpia - Filipino egg rolls. I don't remember the price of the lumpia but I know the fried green tomatoes are $4.50. You can't even get them that cheap at Captain D's. 
• The food is always consistently amazing at Rico's but one of Marvin's favorite things about them is that they carry Cheerwine. It's a North Carolina thing. It's a soda that tastes like somewhere between cherry coke and dr. pepper. I like Cheerwine just fine but carbonation gives me gas so I usually stick with my sweet tea - and their's is solid. 
• Rico's can be pricey for dinner but their lunch specials, especially when shared, are reasonable. I think our total bill today, even with the three appetizers and two drinks was around $30 (it wasn't my turn to pay so I'm not certain). It's a really good, filling meal with quality ingredients that feels like a real treat for a decent price. 
• We ate until we were both full and then rolled out of there fat and happy. 

lumpia

fried green tomatoes

The only thing I could say negative about Rico's is that the noise level is higher than I like. It's an open space, a converted service station and there isn't much to muffle the sound - no carpeting, booths, etc. Today we were seated in sort of a middle table and it was louder than I like but... still a great choice for lunch!

I made the link really big earlier in this post so you can see it and click it and see what I'm talking about. Rico's is definitely worth the drive if you're in the Atlanta area and if you can get away during lunch, it's a great, affordable, culinary adventure!

We eat out at least once, usually twice a week so we are still planning to try Korean soon. Any suggestions on what to order that is good but not too spicy? Any restaurant recommendations - either actual restaurant or just cuisine in general? Let me know and I'll blog about it when we go!

It's storming badly so I need to get disconnected from this electrical device in my lap. Thanks for stopping by! Love and hugs, y'all!