You might be asking since when does United Airlines serve Which Wich? sandwiches on their flights. How on Earth would they be able to customize a “hot wich” mid flight? Unfortunately, that’s not (yet) a service they offer. I can just imagine a flight where every seat back is equipped with a Which Wich? bag, and a red Sharpie for passengers to check a page in the flight magazine to write out the basic type of sandwich they want and then use the bag’s check boxes to further customize the rest of the bag and write on a seat number instead of a name so that an inflight Which Wich? attendant could prepare the sandwiches and have them delivered hot and fresh to passengers in flight, but unfortunately that’s just a dream at this point.

In the era of airlines trying to nickel and dime their passengers for all the formerly included services, such as food offerings on cross country flights, the good thing is they allow you to bring your own food on board. So which airport offers Which Wich? in the terminal? Well none in California at the moment. How I got a Which Wich? sandwich on board my red eye flight from Los Angeles International (LAX) to Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport (IAD) was stopping at the Which Wich store in Carlsbad, California where I had bought two sandwiches, one to enjoy hot and fresh there in the restaurant and the other to take with me on my flights.

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On my recent trip to New York City, my fellow San Diego travel companion (who likes to remain anonymous) and I opted to stay at the Ramada Limited in Jersey City as opposed to a more expensive option inside New York City. Some of the nice benefits of staying there is that they offer complimentary airport shuttles to Newark’s Airport (which we were both flying into, albeit on separate airlines), free Wi-Fi, and complimentary continental breakfast all for about $100 a night. ($110 with all the taxes and fees.)

Another key selling point for booking here was the fact it’s located a block away from the PATH trains which head right into New York City. I used Google Maps to run public transportation estimates on how long it would take to get to Carnegie Hall from the hotel and back, and of the reasonably priced options in Jersey City, this one allowed for easy public transportation options twenty-four hours a day with approximately 45 minutes travel time each way, which is roughly the equivalent of getting a hotel about two miles away from Carnegie Hall and walking but at less than half the price. I absolutely had to do this trip with as much savings on cost as possible so that pretty much ruled out an in the city hotel for this trip for me.

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Having literally just gotten off the plane from New York where I spent two nights with the real Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus as they presented the first English language performance of their musical, Kristina at Carnegie Hall, I took the opportunity to attend the ABBA Fab tribute concert at Escondido’s California Center For The Arts. As the author of the eZine article, “ABBA Tribute Bands – 8 Tips To Improve Your Show” I often like to check out ABBA Tribute Bands to see which ones are worth recommending and which ones are worth avoiding.

ABBA Fab bills themselves as “The Premiere ABBA Experience” on their posters for the event and on their website at ABBAFab.com as “The most amazing tribute show you will see anywhere.” which are some pretty grand statements for a tribute band that has never been seen or heard by me or any of the other ABBA fans I am in touch with around the globe. So I was a bit skeptical of their claim as I have seen some truly great ABBA tribute performances and some truly appalling performances as well.

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Later today I will be boarding a couple of flights that will take me to New York City. My flights are “Red Eye” flights that will deliver me to New York first thing tomorrow morning. I’m excited to be seeing the new English translation of the epic musical, Kristina, written by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. The show is based on Vilhelm Moberg’s epic novels in “The Emmigrants” series which chronicles the adventures of Swede Karl Oskar and his wife Kristina as they move their family from famine stricken Sweden to the wild’s of America in the late 1800′s.

Kristina is not being staged as a complete show, it is being staged in a concert style at the famed Carnegie Hall. The purpose of which is to record the show as well as gauge the reaction to it to see if there’d be interest in a fully staged version. The original Swedish epic was a definitely considered an epic masterpiece by those who saw it, but at a four hour running time, is going to have to undergo some trimming if its ever going to be staged fully here in the United States. The concerts will be a good indication of where some of the trimming has been done.

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After the disappointing attempt at getting a lettuce wrapped burger at Burger King, it seemed it would only be fair to try the same thing at McDonald’s and see what the world’s top selling fast food restaurant does when presented with the challenge of being asked to wrap their burger in lettuce instead of a bun.

I decided to try one of the one-third pound Angus, Bacon and Cheese burger, which granted is a bit more of a premium burger than Burger King’s Whopper, but when I asked at the counter at Poway’s McDonald’s, it did seem to be an interesting challenge for them as well. The clerk behind the counter didn’t know if they could and asked one of the managers, and the woman who was managing said it would be no problem. The clerk wasn’t sure how to ring in the customization and finally they just resorted to just telling the cooks verbally to use lettuce to wrap the burger instead of a bun. Or at least, I’m guessing it was said verbally as the discussion was held completely in Spanish, but the guy who would ultimately be assembling the burger didn’t seemed phased at all by the request, and made it without any look of confusion.

I decided to take the burger home so the reveal was delayed a little bit, and sure enough, the burger was put between a couple of the leaves of lettuce that they use on the premium burgers. Fortunately it was sized quite a bit larger than the hand shredded lettuce they just threw on the patty at Burger King. It wasn’t quite a perfect lettuce wrap like they do at Carl’s Jr, In-N-Out Burger, and Red Robin, but this was definitely a much better effort on McDonald’s part than Burger King attempted. As the picture shows, the lettuce on the top side was skimpy but fortunately they used a much larger piece of lettuce on the bottom which was better able to contain the burger.

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When I got invited to a pool party for today, I decided I should make something to take and why not make a sugar free cake? I didn’t want to do something as elaborate as the Black Forest Cake I made for my birthday, so a simple, single layer yellow cake with some frosting would be good.

I found a recipe by doing a google search and didn’t need to run out to the store for any of the ingredients, I already had them all on hand. That was handy. This was a great opportunity to use my KitchenAid Mixer I inherited from my grandmother’s kitchen. The mixer made the making of the cake as well as the frosting quick and easy. I basically just added cocoa powder to the same frosting recipe I used for my Black Forest Cake and the frosting came out great too. I even chopped up some walnuts to sprinkle on top of the cake as well. I got the idea for that from the photo of the cakes that were featured on the label for the foil pans I bought to put the cake in for the party.

The cake was a hit at the party. Once people started cutting pieces out of it, it didn’t last long. One of my friends there, saw me cut a slice out if it and he came over to scold me on it as he knows I’m on a low sugar program and he was convinced the cake was made with sugar. He was pleasantly surprised to find out I made it and told me how he thought he was being bad by having a slice of it. He couldn’t tell it was sugar free. It gave him a good excuse to try another slice. I was quite pleased the cake came out so well. I will definitely have to use it again.

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Burger King’s claim to fame is their slogan where they invite you to “Have It Your Way” where they encourage you to customize your burger or other food items to however you like it. They even go so far as to claim there are over 240,000 different combinations of how to customize the items on their menu. And despite all this, when I decided to stop at my local Burger King in Poway, they failed miserably on the customization I was seeking.

I stopped in to my local Burger King and after reviewing the nutritional information they had posted on the wall, it looked like the only way I was going to be able to get a burger with relatively no sugar, was to ask and see if they could wrap the burger in lettuce instead of a bun. I went to the counter and asked if it was possible to have the burgers wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun, the girl at the counter didn’t know, asked her manager as she had no idea how to even ring in the burger and have it wrapped in lettuce. The manager said it would be possible and that she would take care of letting the staff in back that would be assembling the burger know to use lettuce instead of a bun.

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One of the programs I really enjoy on Sirius Satellite Radio is Mary Occhino’s “Angels On Call” program. Mary is a psychic intuitive and also is a medium, able to communicate with people who have passed over. I often enjoy listening to Mary’s program learning about psychic things and have been fascinated by all the calls she takes. The program feels a lot like a lesson in the law of attraction rolled with a little of the paranormal. Whether or not you choose to believe that its possible, I happen to be fascinated with it.

The show is on the Sirius/XM Stars Satellite Radio channel (Channel 102 on Sirius, 155 on XM). Mary Occhino’s program broadcasts live Monday through Friday at 8 am to 11 am Eastern time zone, which is unfortunately the ungodly hours of 5 am to 8 am here on the west coast. So on work days, I’m still at work during the show, and on my off days I tend to be asleep at that hour. But fortunately, I have a Sirius Stiletto 100 radio and can record the show and play it back later in the day.

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As of September 17th, 2009 until supplies run out, Raymond Aaron is offering the opportunity to get his book, “Double Your Income Doing What You Love: Raymond Aaron’s Guide To Power Mentoring” for free, directly from Raymond. In addition to the free book, he’s autographing it for you and including a special DVD about Raymond’s participation in Polar Race. Polar Race is a event where competitors compete in a foot race to the magnetic North Pole and not only did Raymond participate in the 2007 event, he was at age 62 when he did it.

Raymond’s book is an amazing book. I’ve owned a copy since it was first released and have given it as gifts, it’s a very wonderful and powerful book explaining the need for mentoring and introducing the concept of goal setting using Raymond’s MTO Technique. MTO stands for Minimum, Target, and Outrageous and together they make for the most powerful way I’ve ever encountered for goal setting. Just by applying this methodology guarantees some accomplishment on your goals whether you hit your minimum level or shoot for the stars and hit the outrageous achievement level.

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When I went searching on Google for images of Nanaimo Bars to help explain what they are to a friend of mine who didn’t know what they were, I came across a site that had some interesting suggestions for variations for making different kinds of Nanaimo Bars. I was most intrigued by the Peanut Butter Nanaimo Bars variation and thought the next time I made some, I would give that a try. And of course, I would make my variation completely sugar-free so that it can be compliant with Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure program that I have been following.

The main changes to the basic Nanaimo Bar recipe is that I would replace the walnuts with peanuts and leave out the coconut out of the base layer. In the custard layer I would reduce the amount of butter used and replace it with peanut butter. In this case, I used Joseph’s Sugar Free Crunchy Peanut Butter, and the top layer would remain the same. So not too much different to try the variation. Fortunately I had some raw peanuts to use, and the sugar free peanut butter on hand to make it.

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