I hope you all had a Happy Labor Day weekend! Ours was spent with family and friends and the photos are below.

I have a crushingly embarrassing secret. I am a junk food junkie – don’t judge me! I can’t help it, but all the crappy food calls my name just as loudly, if not louder on some days, as fine food from great restaurants. If it is fried, greasy, loaded with chemicals and other crap, I WANT IT! Just think on this for a minute: Twinkies stay fresh for a long time because of all the preservatives and chemicals in them. Imagine how long I can remain fresh by consuming them…jk.

For me it is ridiculously difficult to drive by Popeye’s Chicken and NOT stop. It’s excruciating for me to order the side salad instead of the fries and the smell of tortilla chips frying will send me into a swoon. Fried foods – French Fries especially – are my particular personal demon. Dip almost anything in batter or breading and fry it and you have won me over (Moment of Truth – I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so things like fried Oreos, fried Twinkies, and the like are easy for me to pass up.).

It is a rare occasion to find an open bag of potato chips in my house. A closed one? Sure! But once that puppy is open, all bets are off. Those crispy little darlings sing to me with a siren’s song and I can’t stop until the bag is empty. The only sure fire way to make sure I don’t eat the chips is to buy BBQ flavor or something equally disgusting, but I can promise you that if they are Salt & Vinegar or any regular salted chip , you’d better keep an eye on them or they will be mine. Most of the time I don’t even realize I am hogging all the chips. It is just mindless eating to silence the siren’s song. Once they are gone, the song stops.

As an exercise in self control I have challenged myself to NOT eat anything fried for the entire month of September. Of course I forgot it was September this past Saturday and before I knew it, there was a piece of fried calamari in my mouth! It just jumped in there, right off the plate! And again on Sunday! I forgot it was already September and had to try Brother JJ’s fried quail. Honestly, I only had one bite because I remembered it was September as I broke through the crispy crunchy shell to get to the delicious meat, but I passed on the poutine with great difficulty. Yesterday at a friend’s house (just so you know, I am having a hard time typing FRIEND instead of FRIED) I immediately went for the chips and dip and I grabbed a chip. It never made it to my mouth because I FINALLY remembered it was September.

I am like an addict trying to wean myself off fried foods. With any luck I will succeed! And if the Waistline Goddess is kind, maybe I’ll drop a few pounds too? Please?

September is Hunger Action Month and last week was Restaurant Week here in Vegas to kick it off. Tons of restos pulled out all the stops to help raise money for our Three Square Food Bank. Of course I am a terrible food writer since I didn’t take pics of all my food (bad girl!!), but in my defense, it was so delicious I didn’t want to waste the time!

Girls’ Night Out at Comme Ca with Chef Brian Howard

Grilled Squid in ink sauce

Panna Cotta at Due Forni

Jenna’s salmon at RM Seafood

The gang at Public House

Jenna and Brother JJ

Food Memories this week include dining with Brother JJ and wife Jenna (a Happy Anniversary trip for them) for the first time in almost 2 years, Girls Night Out for Restaurant Week and dinner, and drinks and conversation with the folks at Marche Bacchus and the Mancinis.

Until next week, go out and make your OWN Food Memories!