It’s the one day of the year set aside to remember and honor the brave men and women who have served in the military defending our freedoms. Thank you for your service to America!
Swan woke up on Sunday morning not feeling well, but the thought of all those disappointed children provided the impetus to do the Candy Walk anyway. We did it slow and easy and cut it a little shorter than usual, but we still managed to hand out goodies to over 200 children.
Swan took some meds and napped when we got back home and was feeling better later in the afternoon.
I carried out my weekly mission to Hideaway Bar for a feeding.
Two gin and sodas later (one every thirty minutes), it was time to cross the highway for my dinner date with Swan at John’s place. I didn’t see John this week, but I did see this:
I had a craving for John’s birria tacos, but my calorie counter said that would cost me 750.
So, what about me? I was thinking about doing pulled pork without the bun, but then I saw an item on the menu I’d never tried before.
I guess I’m not the only one wanting to know the difference. The link says gyros are usually served on pita bread, but the one I had was on a wrap, hence contributing to my confusion. Regardless, it was quite tasty and worth the 500 calories I expended.
We had our nightcap at Wet Spot, where I enjoyed my final two gin and sodas of the night (six total if you are counting). My neighbor Mike stopped in for a quick beer, and we snatched a ride home with him. Sugar-free butterscotch pudding for dessert was a sweet ending to my Sunday.
I still managed to stay under my 1800-calorie target. However, I didn’t make my daily step goal of at least 15,000. Still, when Swan hugged me this morning, she exclaimed that, for the first time, she could reach all the way around my midsection. That’s one way to measure progress, I suppose. The tape measure says my belly girth is now 49 inches, down from 52 on November 1.
On this day in 2017, I was perusing the menu of a bar I frequented in Anjeong-ri, the village I lived in outside the Army base.
The photo below is also from 2017, the day we shut down our office on Yongsan Garrison and relocated to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek. Today is Juyoung’s birthday (the gal next to me), and I posted the pic as a greeting to her from the good ol’ days. I am happy with my current life, but I also miss those days in Korea.
This also came up in my Facebook feed today:
Today’s YouTube video is a nice street show from Saigon. I really enjoyed my visit to Vietnam a few years ago and this brought back some pleasant memories.
And now for the funny business:
Another Hash Monday has arrived. The weather outside has been dicey this morning, but hopefully it won’t be too wet this afternoon. We’ll find out soon enough. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.
I’m sorry to read that Swan’s not doing great. May she get well soon. Going out while sick is a positively Korean work ethic.
Joy seems pleased
This must be one of the few pics of Joy I’ve seen where she doesn’t have food in her mouth.
I had a craving for John’s birria tacos, but my calorie counter said that would cost me 750.
I probably shouldn’t say this because it’s a “devil on your shoulder” thing to say, but some people do their calorie counts as a weekly thing, not as a daily thing. That way, if you suddenly have a desire to eat something tempting, you can do it, but you’ve got to pay for it the next day or later in the week, via exercise or fasting or simply reducing your food intake.
This can easily go wrong, though. If you’re like me, and you have an addictive personality (as I’m pretty sure I do), you can fall into the rut of constantly eating big, constantly promising yourself you’ll make it up later, then realizing you’ve crawled too far into the dark side, which leads to just giving up on the diet. It’s an entire rabbit hole of bad behavior. Forget I said anything.
I guess I’m not the only one wanting to know the difference. The link says gyros are usually served on pita bread, but the one I had was on a wrap, hence contributing to my confusion. Regardless, it was quite tasty and worth the 500 calories I expended.
I wouldn’t stress about it. There are gyros, shawarmas, döner kebabs (or just döner), and good ol’ wrap sandwiches. They all overlap. Gyros are generally (or originally) Greek, named for the spinning (gyration) of the spitted meat. As you said, they’re generally served on or in pitas (“in” = in the pita pocket). The sauce is a white sauce called tzatziki. Meat can be anything from beef/lamb combos (typical of Greek-American gyros) to just beef, just lamb, or even chicken. Shawarmas and döner are similar, with shawarmas often served on larger flatbreads than pitas and rolled into slightly thinner cylinders than gyros. Vegetables tend to be different, and the variety of sauces for shawarmas can vary from creamy/sesame-based sauces to pomegranate-molasses reductions (syrups) to various chili sauces (harissa, etc.). Döner, a popular street food in Germany and Switzerland (where I first encountered it), can be anything from a wrap to, more commonly, something more recognizably sandwich-like. There was a Turkish döner place in Fribourg, Switzerland, the town I studied in during my junior year in college, that made its döner with the most awesome Turkish bread I’ve ever eaten. The sandwich was made by taking a huge, circular bread a couple feet across, cutting out a huge wedge, cutting the wedge into something almost like a hinged pita-pocket shape or a bird’s beak, then stuffing that sucker with lamb slices and fresh chilies, finally finishing the whole thing off with some kind of white sauce. God, those were good. I dream about those sandwiches. Now, not all döner look that way; many are a lot smaller, and quite a few are made with small, round Turkish sandwich breads. They’re all good, though, whatever form they come in. Regular old Amurrican wrap sandwiches are usually made with (large) flour tortillas as the wrapper and are stuffed with typically American sandwich ingredients and sauces ranging from mustard and mayo to ranch/Caesar dressing to whatever might strike your fancy.
Trivia: tacos al pastor (shepherd-style tacos) derive from the influence of Lebanese immigrants in Mexico. There’s a vertical rotisserie for the meat (click the link and scroll down to see the rotisserie), and the taco itself is a cousin of the gyro/shawarma.
I’ve foodblogged plenty of my gyro/shawarma dishes (recent examples here and here). You can definitely see overlaps in style among the different wraps/sandwiches/whatever. So again, I wouldn’t stress too much over nomenclature. There are too many variations to count.
I hope the Hash was good.
Swan is feeling better now, thanks!
I think I need to stick with the daily calorie tracking. That’s how my app is set up, and as you say, it would be too easy to fall into an “I’ll make up for it tomorrow” mode. Having to look up the calories of everything BEFORE I stick it in my mouth is a pain in the ass, but like with the tacos, it helps me make better input decisions.
Thanks for the info and links on various gyro-like eats. It sounds like they are all cousins. I remember those gyros from the food stand in Itaewon, which were a Turkish variety and had a unique flavor. The important thing is taste, and I’ve enjoyed almost all of the content variations I’ve sampled.
Yes, it was a pleasant Hash yesterday. You can read all about it here later today…
Maybe my eyes are bad, but what am I supposed to be seeing in the picture you took of the sari sari store?
Glad to hear that your better half is feeling better!
Brian, some nice legs in the background…
Nice legs, eh? I bet she’s 60.
I remember those gyros from the food stand in Itaewon, which were a Turkish variety and had a unique flavor.
If it was Turkish, it would probably be called shawarma or döner, but I get you. Döner can be more sandwich-y or more wrap-y depending on the type of Turkish bread used. Great döner video here from one of my favorite foodtubers. What does “döner” even mean? See here.
I bet she’s 60
You say that like it’s a bad thing! Actually, I’ve seen her outside the store a couple of times. I’d say she’s mid-forties.
If I recall, gyro was in the name, something like “Istanbul Gyros.” They also served big ice cream cones. I never ate there, just noticed it as I passed by.
Thanks for the links!