Waiting. In. Line.
Ugh.
It drives me nuts. You, too? I mean there are things that need to get done! I work from home but I spend a lot of my days going from one beauty event for the launch of a brand’s new collection to a studio to get my gait assessed to a new bar to try a cocktail.
So I’m always on the go. And sometimes I pencil in event after event (my calendar is a colour-coded sight to behold!) really closely together so as to not waste a moment…Which means that I often have very little time to grab a snack or — this has happened a few times — I manage to completely forget about making time in my day for lunch.
Which makes Ritual app my time-crunch saviour when I’m just plain swamped and hangry. Now available in six neighbourhoods (Yorkville, Liberty Village, Yonge and Dundas, King West, Discovery District and St. Lawrence Market), Ritual eliminates the time wasted by waiting in line, making your order and then standing around til your order is ready.
How it works: All you do then is place your food and beverage order and pay using the mobile app and it notifies you how many minutes until your order is ready so you can time your walk over from your desk to go pick it up. You’ll find your order off to the side as a Ritual order with your name on it. Can’t you picture yourself just breezily walking in and grabbing your takeout already? No waiting in line, counting out cash to pay, waiting for change, and so on and so forth.
Just refrain from saying “Suckers!” out loud to the people waiting in line, haha.
November 9, 2015
(Bindewerk notebook)
The number one tool that’ll help you lose weight, according to new research from the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics? Keeping a detailed food journal. Write down everything that you eat (and be very specific — include how it was prepared, the portion size, etc). In the study, people who kept journals lost six pounds more than those who did not journal every bite that passed their lips.
Two more habits that’ll help shed weight? Not skipping meals and not dining out at lunch (dining out for any meal was linked to less weight loss, but lunch in particular stood out).
July 18, 2012
Tom Colicchio knows my name.
Kinda sorta. OK, not really. But he did say my name.
I was invited to an intimate lunch hosted by Vitaminwater this past Saturday, part of the TIFF festivities. I willed my tastebuds to be in tip top shape (I’d had a cold all week) as I anxiously counted down the days til lunch. Why so excited? If you’re into food, you get my giddiness. I’ve had “eat at a Tom Colicchio restaurant” on my to-do list for awhile, but have yet to do so. So to attend a private lunch and meet the Top Chef judge? Oh. Em. Gee. (if you’re like my bestie who thinks it’s weird I get excited over chefs, well, then I got nothin’ for ya).
I arrived perhaps overdressed (gold dress, five inch heels) for a Saturday lunch, but whatevs. Lunch was served family-style, which always stresses me out a bit (“What haven’t I had yet? What’d the waitress just put down? I have to try that before they take that bowl away,” is pretty much all I can think about in this situation). Plus, there’s that awkwardness of how much is it polite to serve yourself. Because, really — I wanted to park this bowl of lobster salad in front of me and chow down.
Let’s get back to the best part, though. Tom (I’d like to think we’re on a first-name basis now) came out as we started dessert and one of the first things he said “Lots of tweets….Karen’s been tweeting a lot…”.
“THAT’S ME!!!” is all I could think. Oh, he also talked about how he cooks in his teeny NYC kitchen, too, but I was kinda distracted thinking about the fact that he’d seen my tweets. I know he said his kitchen is so small that the fridge and the oven can’t be open at the same time.
(To top it all off, we were given takeout containers to load up with leftovers and you’d better believe I loaded that puppy up to the brim — it were as though I’d died and gone to foodie heaven).
(Oh, and the food was delicious, btw — lobster salad was my fave, followed by this cuttlefish salad).
September 12, 2011
