Factor 75 Roasted Red Pepper Filet Mignon

Roasted Red Pepper Filet Mignon with Tortellini Primavera & Lemon Garlic Butter

This is a really good one.  They charge an extra $9, but it'd be twice that at a restaurant.  

You get a six-ounce filet, seared on the grill, then finished in the oven and served over a bed of roasted red peppers (bell peppers) with garlic.  Green and Red Bell Peppers are the same plants, but the red ones were allowed to ripen on the vine, giving them a more complex flavor.

The tortellini I really wish they'd serve just by themselves.  It was so good.  Served with a generous portion of herb butter spinach on top, this pasta could be a meal all by itself.  The pasta is made with brown rice flour to cut back on carbs.  I've yet to see them serve pasta made with semolina flour.

The only real drawback I can see is that you don't get to choose your cooking temperature on the steak, and I usually like mine rare to medium-rare, and this came medium-well.    The extra cooking time didn't damage the taste or the texture of the beef, though.  It was almost tender enough to cut with a fork. 

Nutrition Per Serving
Calories                    570kcal
Fat                            32g
Saturated Fat            12g
Carbohydrate            27g
Sugar                        6
Dietary Fiber            4g
Protein                    42g
Cholesterol            155mg
Sodium                    780mg

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Broken Promises

My parents worked pretty hard to instill several important lessons in me.  Some I picked up on better than others.  One was that I should always try to be useful and always try to help other people.  That was reinforced pretty heavily when I went to Boy Scouts or Sunday School.  The message was pretty clear.  You're here to have a positive impact on other people.  It might be more important than anything else.

When I was much younger, one of the things that made me really uncomfortable and unhappy was that it was really common for people to make social, even romantic, connections with me just because they thought I could help with their job or some other financial aspect of their lives.  

The end result was a situation where, whenever I met somebody, I'd wonder why they were there and if they really had any interest in me or were they just acting like it so I'd help them out.  The times when that did become a problem, it was almost impossible to tell if somebody was genuine or not, and I made several mistakes when I trusted somebody who was not.  

I don't know that I really blame them, though.  In your twenties, life is kind of a survival game.  Nobody is in a very stable situation, and taking a shortcut here and there can be very tempting, especially if your situation is really upside down and dire.  I don't think anybody ever set out to hurt me.  I think they just got desperate and saw me as a solution to their problem and didn't care enough not to hurt me.  

It was particularly bad with people who struggled with addiction issues.  With an addict, you're dealing with two people.  One is normal and moral and usually really nice, and the other is an animal out to survive however it can, which sometimes meant me.

Closing Time

 In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, Scrooges in Jackson was as close to Cheers as you'll find.  They even had a plaque from the guy who owned the real Cheers in Boston saying so.  It was official.

Today we buried a regular soldier from that campaign.  In among the high school friends, church friends, and family were Norm and Cliff and me.  In the hip-hop culture, there's a tradition of pouring out a beer for a friend who died too young.  We all die too young.  Some of us have had more beers than others, poured out or not.

Scrooges began when Billy Neville wanted to move his clothing business.  It wasn't a square lot, so they designed a structure with two large retail spaces but ended up with sort of an odd-shaped leftover space in the corner.  Since he was making his business an old English haberdashery, he had the idea of using this odd-shaped corner as an old English pub.  While the building was going up, he traveled to England and bought furniture for both his shop and this idea he had for a pub, including authentic English pub booths.  He soon found out that American asses must be deeper than English asses, so he had them modified to be about six inches deeper.  

Mississippi had been "wet" for a few years, and there were bars in Jackson, Cherokee being one, but there weren't any of what Neville considered "nice" bars.  Scrooges was the first.  He thought running a bar would be easy; everybody does.  It's not.  Pretty soon, he sold the bar to an ambitious young restaurant manager named Bill Latham.  

Bill owned Scrooges through its golden years, parlaying that success into a venture called "Amerigos" and another one called "Char," but also the ill-fated Wild Bills Caddilac Grill.  The bar changed hands several times after Bill, but it never regained the status it once had.

There's something to be said for sitting next to a guy for twenty years.  Some people at bars are really good at socializing.  Some of us prefer to sit in the corner; the great thing about a place like Scrooges (or cheers) is there's room for everybody.

Factor 75 Summer Squash Medly

 Summer Squash Medley with Pimento Cheese & Roasted Asparagus

This is one of my favorite meals yet, and check out the 120 calories.  It comes with a generous portion of Zucchini and yellow squash topped with a really tangy pimento cheese sauce.  They really don't skimp with the portions.  This meal weighed in at a respectable 11 ounces.   Freezing and canning squash can ruin its texture, but these have never been frozen or canned, so they still have that farmers market fresh texture.  There's a healthy portion of chopped asparagus with herb butter sauce.  

Not vegan, but vegetarian, this meal is a little low on protein, so pair it with a chicken breast. All the other nutritional numbers look great!

Nutrition Per Serving

Calories                120kcal
Fat                        10g
Saturated Fat        4g
Carbohydrate        5g
Sugar                    3g
Dietary Fiber        2g
Protein                3g
Cholesterol           15mg
Sodium                190mg

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