This is fantastic.

Oi, another food post! Haha, can you tell it's getting colder, and my body is telling me to fatten up?

I tried out a place yesterday that I've been hearing a lot about, Amanda's Feel Good Fresh Food in Berkeley.















Great space, non? Clean and bright.

Amanda's serves "fast food" -- burgers, fries, salads, sodas -- with the same aesthetic as some of the big chains. But there's a big difference.

First of all, many combo meals are actually healthy, and come in under 600 calories. She achieves this through a smaller burger all around (yay!), and the burger is grilled and served on a crunchy whole wheat bun, with all the fixins that normally come with a fast food burger -- lettuce, tomato, special sauce. There are also options for organic American cheese, avocado, or olive oil grilled onions, and you can get walnut/mushroom veggie burger or grilled chicken if you're not a beef eater.

I got a cheeseburger, and it was really delicious. It was well cooked and wasn't greasy or suffering from that fast food oil taste, the tomato and lettuce was crisp and fresh, and the bun was so crunchy and light. I was also impressed that the ketchup is organic, and thus high fructose corn syrup free.

I love cheeseburgers, but I often can't finish an "American" sized burger unless I prep my belly all day, and I not only like to eat healthy but I have to watch my cholesterol, so Amanda's is a godsend.

She also bakes her fries, and she offers sweet potato fries as well. Holy smokes, they are good! Her salads are made with organic greens, with goodies like radicchio, grapes, organic peaches, almonds, and jicama, and are served with an organic whole wheat roll.

All of her packaging is done fast-food style, for that fast-food aesthetic to make you feel like you're having something bad for you, but it is all compostable.

But the best thing for me was the homemade sodas -- sweetened with agave nectar and stevia. Not only does this slash the calories in a soda in half and rid you of the high fructose corn syrup factor, but the soda doesn't taste as sweet.

Cola and sweet potato fries:



















I love cola, but never drink it (except the occasional Mexican Coke made with sugar). I was in heaven!

Can't wait to take my 7 year old nephew here when he visits next. Highly recommended when you have a hankering for fast food and don't want to feel guilty about it later, or have it come back to haunt you!

I really can't stand the writing of the author of this article (so much so I'm not naming him for any further free publicity), but I do like the subject matter.

So, what are your greatest rock and roll myths? (And I just have to say, haha, Robert Plant, you card.)

I was quite surprised that the first one that popped into my mind -- the old school yarn of a Bowie/Jagger affair -- didn't make the cut. Glamorous myth, or glamorous truth?

But I must agree: that "half-eaten backstage deli tray by a moth-eaten couch under the green glow of fluorescent lights" is truly the sad, sad backstage reality that kills the glamorous rock and roll backstage fantasy.

Though, in my case, it was more like cheap alcoholic leftovers in a plastic bus tub -- filled now with more water than ice -- sitting by a moth-eaten couch in a room with one window, being scavenged by a local tambourine player/record store clerk and his coked-up friends. Leftovers that were also being offered to me by a roadie who may have been thinking of me as a sexytime prospect. Oy vey.

I'm still disappointed from that complete nosedive of my backstage fantasy!

One of myriad reasons I live in California, $1.25 tacos al pastor from a taco truck:















That's a Mexican Coke too, baby. My belly is singing.