The mother is back

It's been great... relaxing, shopping, eating, etc. I know I didn't blog yesterday, but when I went out to dinner I didn't bring my camera, so I used my mom's iPhone, and then we had to transfer the photos... okay I'm blabbering.
Saturday:
THE LAKE WAS COMPLETELY FROZEN! I worked out, looking out the window wishing it were warm enough to run outside :(
But I did run a fast mile on the treadmill and then did 40 minutes on the elliptical and upper body weights.
Breakfast was a huge bowl of cottage cheese, yogurt, grapenuts, half a banana, blackberries, strawberries, and peanut butter (But I still ended up getting more... I was hungry!)
My mom got back after breakfast. She seemed pretty tired...
For lunch we all scrounged for leftovers. I continued to eat up that tempeh that never seems to go bad... on a wrap with watercress and hummus. Plus carrots and celery with the last of the hummus, and a little bit of the leftovers my parents were eating.

A little later: a big mug of hot chocolate and an apple.

My mom had a haircut a little while later, and while she was at the salon, my dad and I did some shopping... I got some really awesome Adidas boots, as well as some functional stuff: pajama bottoms, gloves, etc.
I was going to cook my mom dinner, but we ended up staying out pretty late... we decided to go celebrate her return at Cuatro, a kind of "new Latin" restaurant in the South Loop.
I actually wasn't feeling that hungry-- I definitely ate lighter than my parents.
To start with, we had two salads:
ensalata de xuxu: broiled, spice-rubbed chayote squash, baby spinach, cucumbers, pear tomatoes, queso frito, and a bitter orange vinaigrette.

ensalata de palmitos: hearts of palm marinated in spicy escabeche, piquin shrimp over arugula and iceberg lettuce, pineapple-honey vinaigrette (aa, where is the photo??).
Main courses-- portions were huge! Luckily I ordered relatively lightly... not so with my parents, who were feeling carnivorous.
My dad-- 16 OZ PORK CHOP! Of course, he didn't eat all of it, but that is 4 times hte normal portion... it was roasted with sugar cane, served with plantain mole, green beans, and yuca cake.

I tasted the mole (although later I found out it had chicken stock in it) and apparently it has 27 ingredients!
My mom ordered a short-rib special that was served with avocado salsa and rice... unfortunately, the photo of it has disappeared!
I ordered seafood stew with scallops, shrimp, tilapia, squid and mussels in a tomato-coconut broth with fried plantains and coconut rice. Of course, the broth was incredibly rich... The rice was fragrant and the fried plantains had no taste whatsoever-- neither sweet nor salty... more like a baked potato, but in a good way! The squid on the top scared me... turns out it was stuffed! I mainly ate the scallops and tilapia and let my parents eat some of the rest. I really wasn't as hungry as I normally am, but this was a huge portion!
We ordered one dessert that I had one bite of... really wasn't in the mood! We had creme brulee (yerba mate-perfumed) with a pineapple confit bottom and cinnamon shortbread cookies. Creme brulee has never been my favorite dessert, but this was delicious... the cookies tasted basically like apple pie.