Suppressed Memories: I Grew Up With a Tomato Patch

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, 2 pancakes and 4 pieces low sodium bacon, dirtpill, glass of seltzer, hunger 3/5
Made my favorite breakfast for B, Tania and Eli - even though we wrote "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" in frosting on it and had a piece of bacon for a mouth, he wasn't interested, as he was lunching on junk food all morning.

AM SNACK: 9am, 24 oz still water
Back at work. Gotta get my game on, yo.

BP 9:15am: 126/78

LUNCH: 12:30, half pastrami sandwich on rye, small cup of matzoh ball soup (didn't drink soup), small dish of vinegar slaw & 2 pickles, glass of water, hunger 3/5
If my normal well being is 10, and my sickest day was 1, today I feel 8.5. Work is going well - it's pressurized due to my absence, but I work with cool people and I feel like I understand where the pressures are coming from and why. Feel a bit low energy in the body, but my mind was so stultified by not leaving the house Tues-Sun, feel focused. But I needed this comfort food, desired red meat, a real craving! (My first non-sugar craving in memory!) Also, to be able to sit alone and read....

I'm into Kingsolver's book where she's describing the annual cycle of when vegetables are in season, and she spends a lot of time talking about tomatoes - big red hard industrial ones and boring Big Red Tomato seeds, vs. heirloom tomatoes. Then a large shard of memory just popped over my head, dousing my whole train of thought in tomatoes.

I grew up on Staten Island, with 2 parents and an older brother. We lived in a big 3 story house on a quiet street on a hill, with a terraced front yard and a nicely sized rectangular backyard, one side of which was fenced to avoid people falling off the wall to the driveway, the otherside a dirt-hump up to the neighbor's yard. When I was really young, probably 4 or 5, my parents grew vegetables on about a third of the space. All I remember is the tomatoes - how they made a big deal of the big red tomatoes they grew, always chopping them into salads. At some points they'd have too many, and give them away to friends. I think there were a few other vegetables they grew, but I don't remember what they were.

After a couple of years, they stopped, I don't remember why. I distinctly remember at the very end, my brother and I moved away and they sold the house to move into smaller digs - the grass on the 1/3 of the backyard that they grew vegetables was thicker, greener and longer than the grass anywhere else in the yard after all those years.

I really was a typical disgruntled kid growing up bored in the suburbs. Little did I know that little vegetable patch connected us to the entire history of the agricultural world in such a direct, tasty way. I wish I could talk to my parents about this, find out what they were thinking. They were so not just a boring, typical middleclass Jewish couple like I snottily assumed then, they were doing something quite cool and thoughtful, especially for the mid-70s. I was such a little dumbass, I miss them so much.

BP 3:30pm: 129/81
I noticed today is pressurized, and I'm feelin' the heat. Indeed, my bp is a little bit up. I wonder if there is a psychological method to lower my BP at times like this. Ilsa's breathing thing, perhaps?

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, bag of Robert's Smart Puffs, hunger 3/5
Tired. Good productive day, train only wobbled, never left the tracks. Gonna go home early.

DINNER: 8pm, small pork loin, quarter of kinish, mushrooms, one corn on the cob with butter and salt, one scoop of gelato, 1 small piece of homemade poundcake, hunger 4/5
Home made meal with the B and the guests. Nice. Kid is on a crazy eating schedule so had to wait till 10pm to serve up his birthday cake. Really yummy and dense, a little too sweet.

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, small piece of pound cake, hunger 2/5
Here is a new one: I wasn't craving sugar! I popped this in my mouth with a goal - I wanted to taste my cake with a clear palate, free of pork or icecream or whatever, to appreciate it's flavor. I (with the help of a hyperactive 4 year old) made this from scratch, and I was curious to focus on it's taste, not scarf it for it's sugar. I followed a recipe strictly, and I think on the next go around I'll reduce the sugar and up the lemon flavor...