At Least I Didn't Strip.

Last night, I think I threw my system a bit out of whack…

The day started off well enough with a bowl of Fiber One with a banana and almond milk.

For lunch a bit later, Cassie, Jillian and I headed to Quantum Leap, a vegetarian place near NYU.

I ordered the roasted vegetable and tofu salad, a mix of roasted veggies, tofu, beans and raw veggies with a thick vinaigrette.

So far, so good.

After a bit of shopping, we made our way to a veg café called S’Nice for a coffee break. I ordered an iced black tea and a vegan chocolate chip cookie, which I split with Jillian…

But the roasted broccoli I split with Cassie balanced that out.

We headed back to my apartment, where I got to work baking a batch of banana oatmeal chip cookies.

I ate a few handfuls of chocolate chips, a serving or two of chopped walnuts, the last 1/2 cookie worth of dough, and a cookie fresh from the oven. They were irresistibly delicious.

Though I wasn’t in the least bit hungry for dinner, I was exited to try out La Nonna’s, an Italian place in Brooklyn that Jillian and our friend Alyssa couldn’t stop raving about.

It was evident from the packed restaurant that La Nonna’s was every bit as good as they’d promised. The only problem was that the wait for food was ridiculous. We didn’t get our orders until over an hour after we’d placed them.

To pass the time, I ate four slices of delicious Italian and ciabatta breads…

And drank several glasses of wine…

My cheeseless pizza Margherita was the first to arrive, about twenty minutes before the other entrees. Though I tried to wait for the other girls’ food to arrive, pizza gets cold quickly. By the time their food came out, I had almost polished off the entire pizza.

Yeah, it was that good.

For the record, it’s really, really difficult to watch other people eat amazing food when yours is already gone. So hard that I resorted to pilfering tons of butternut squash gnocchi in cream sauce from Jillian and Alyssa, which was heavenly. My pizza, while good, wasn’t a patch on theirs!

When our waitress asked us if we’d like dessert, the four of us just couldn’t resist. We split two.

Nutella layer cake.

Warm brownie topped with vanilla ice cream.

 The Nutella cake was hands-down the winner. How could it not be?

Stuffed, we paid our bill and headed back to the subway. I was thirsty, so I stopped to get a bottle of sparkling water from a deli the way.

It was a mistake to get the bubbly water. I drank about half of it before my stomach started rebelling. Too. Much. Stuff.

Apparently, I really am my mother’s daughter. Huge, heavy meals make her sick, to the point where she faints/tries to beat up my dad/tries to strip in public because she’s too hot/blacks out.

While my reaction wasn’t quite as extreme (thank God, because I’m not sure how my friends would have dealt with that), it definitely wasn’t pleasant. I experienced waves of extreme lightheadedness, overheating and nausea until I finally gave up on going out and called it a night. I was super bummed since it was Cassie’s last night in town, but all I could think about was sleeping it off.

Though I feel pretty good this morning, I’ve learned my lesson. Good food is good. Devouring rich food for hours, while tasty, is not good. What’s funny is that I’ve definitely eaten way more than that at vegan restaurants, but never had an adverse reaction. I’m only guessing here, but I feel like all that cream and butter was just a shock to my system, since I very rarely eat such large quantities of it.

At least I didn’t strip J

PS- I’ve been super behind in reading/commenting and responding to emails lately. If you’ve emailed me recently, I’m catching up on all of them today!!