What I ate Wednesday: Business Trip Eats

Man, am I getting tired of restaurants! Between being out of town two weekends ago for the Illinois 10k and out of town last week for work, and not really doing much grocery shopping in the middle because I was leaving in 6 days, I haven't eaten many meals at home. And I'm heading out of town again Friday night for dress shopping back home.
As you might recall, I brought a ton of food with me to California, lest I be caught hungry. What I left with:

Almost every day for breakfast, I made myself a breakfast in the room. Either a bagel or coffee maker oatmeal. 2 packets of oatmeal, hot water from the coffee maker:

What I came home with:

Wait a minute? How did that pile get bigger? A trip to Trader Joe's! We don't have Trader Joe's in Houston (although, rumor has it, one is on it's way!) so I went on a small shopping spree. The haul?
A salad for dinner that night- I was so tired of restaurants I opted to eat a salad on my hotel bed instead of go out again!

Love the included fork, since I didn't have any in my room!

Wine (sophisticated-ly sipped from a coffee mug).

Also in that pile were cookie butter, pita chips, KIND bars, and candied ginger. These were for home, although I did break into that cookie butter the very next day for breakfast! Cookie butter is this amazing (but not exactly healthy) spread that tastes like Biscoff, the cookies they used to give out on Delta flights. I had heard about this stuff, and I knew I had to try it. But it really is SO good, that I think people have been underselling it. All I can say is... get yourself some cookie butter. And a spoon. Yum!

In-n-out burger: I heard all manner of things about this place, which apparently has a divisive rivalry with Whataburger (which I hate) for the fast food burger throne.

This burger was awesome. As soon as it was gone I wished I had another. Or had at least ordered a double. Their special sauce... oh man! Another awesome thing? You can order your fries to your desired doneness- lite (slightly underdone), regular, lite well (slightly overdone/crispier), well done. I ordered regular, but I think lite well sounds brilliant. Also you can order fries with the special sauce on top. Sign me right up for that next time!

Ghirardelli! Yes I am reusing this photo, because I am THAT excited about this hot chocolate. Which I only drank 2/3s of before the trolley captain made me throw it away. Sad. But the part I had was oh-so-delicious!

Giant bagel. Our hosts at Ames brought us some delicious bagels on Friday. It's bigger than my hand!


Beer flight- Thursday night, our last there, our hosts joined us for happy hour at a place which brews it's own beer. So, of course, we tried them all! We passed the cups around so everyone could taste and pick their favorite to order in full size. Also, these little 6oz beer glasses are SO cute!

It was a good, productive, fun trip, but I'm happy to be home!