I Love You, Fatman. Now Shuddup!

ADDENDA:
There was a fat man with a large round bald head with little round eyes and a little round mouth sitting behind me at dinner last night. I did not notice him until he was in the midst of a very long, very loud monologue with the poor woman who poured him water, who made the the mistake of asking him how his meal was.

He ranted about how offended he was by the poor service he received the last time he was there. He claimed to be a regular at Craftbar next door, and when the manager called him to inform him there was an opening at the proper restaurant, he expected to be treated as a regular. The head waiter sat him, and the first thing he noticed is that the menu had 30-day cote-de-beouf, not the usual 45 day. When he mentioned this to the head waiter, the head waiter simply responded, "We have 30 day cote-de-beouf." He was appalled by this rudeness, and went on to complain that even though he was paying for a table of ten and spent 1$1,4000, the white truffle pasta was brown truffled and barely had any. When the plates were taken, he asked to have the bones wrapped for his dog, because that is what he always does. He never got them, and when he got home he called the restau....and on and on and on. Wow.

Truly in love with his own voice. He makes it sound like the event of going to such a wonderful restaurant is such a labor, why the hell does he do it? A few minutes later the poor shmo pouring water asks him how his dinner was, to which he replied, "Wonderful!" then goes into another rant, telling this guy his opinion about how the salad dressing had a little too much of this spice, this dish could of been better this way, etc etc.

He was with a fat woman, who also had small round eyes and a small round mouth - judging by the nelliness if his voice, this had to be his sister, he he.

When the woman who poured him water came to our table to clear our dishes, she asked us how our meal was. I said, "Absolutely fantastic, as near to a perfect meal as I could of hoped for,", then I slammed my hand on the table really loudly and proclaimed, "and I don't think I could complain about a thing!" Betsy, looking a little embarrassed by my display, said, "We ate too much, but it was too wonderful to stop!". Then the fat man turns around, leans over and says to Betsy, "Didn't we all, dear!"

I kind of both despise and love that fat man. A true NY character/absolute asshole.

BREAKFAST #1: 5:45am, small bowl of generic rice-crispies with whole milk, hunger 3/5
Got to bed 10ish. Tomorrow I hope to be on bike by 5:30, so gettin' ready. Should be able to hit the farmer's marker in Union Square at 8, then be home to make the good pancakes for my house guest Mariko when I get back.

I bought a box of hippie rice crispies at Whole Foods the other day - the only two ingredients are rice and malt - no salt! It's amazing how hard it is to find salt-free breakfast cereal.

AM SNACK: 9am, super hippie bread with natural peanut butter, hunger 4/5
Me & B walked to the Union Square farmer's market and got there at 8am. We loaded up the granny cart veg and more lamb sausages and fresh bacon and pork chops and flowers and baby red potatos and all that good stuff. Got a loaf of whole-wheat 8-grain bread with all sorts of cracked grains in it, cost $9 bucks, at first I thought the guy was joking but wasn't. But I said what the hell, you only live once, let's see if you get what you pay for. It was actually really really good tasting, reminds me of a lot of the good bread I eat in the UK.

Spent an hour chopping up a huge salad for the week, prepping celery for B's peanut butter fantasies. Betsy made some chocolatey oatmeal squares using the recipe on the back of an oatmeal jug, involving sugar, coco, evaporated milk (I had a can in the cupboard from Thanksgiving) butter and peanut butter. A few minutes of boiling in a pan, then straight into a dish for cooling. Kinda weird, too sweet. I'm going to remake it at a later point with rice crispies instead of oatmeal, half the sugar and maybe crushed peanuts.

BREAKFAST #2: 10:30am, 2 pancakes, 3 pieces of bacon, half portion of the good yogurt with a small squirt of honey, hunger 4/5
The bacon from the market is great tasting and fresh, a wonderful smokey flavor, but is full salt and has nitrates. I noticed another vendor also had fresh organic bacon but was nitrate-free. Next time, gonna hit that one up. I've been eating all morning but still a little hungry....

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, 1 small choco-oatmeal square, hunger 4/5
Too sweet, the oatmeal is not full-bodied enough.

PM SNACK: 2:30pm, 1 wholewheat saltless pretzel, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, 2 ears boiled corn w/o salt or butter, hunger 4/5
Fell asleep, hungry but think gonna save the lamb sausage for pasta I'm gonna make myself tonight. Really sweet, something really satisfying about it's sweetness, much more satisfying than the the oatmeal sugarbomb.

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, slice of hippie bread with thin layer of good chocolate hazelnut spread, hunger 4/5
The bread has a tang, a little bit like yogurt. Weird eating like this, little snacks all afternoon...

PM SNACK: 6:45pm, small green salad with italian dressing, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, 4 or 5 assorted fried Vietnamese appetisers, vietnamese crepe with pork and shrimp & salad, several glasses of water
Road the tandem over to Williamsburg with my houseguest Mariko, we joined others for dinenr at a Vietnamese restaurant owned and run by a friend of Mariko's. It's nice being introduced to the main person of a restaurant you're about it eat at, everything seems a bit more personable and personal. I've gone to Franny's in Brooklyn several times with B - despite it having some of the best pizza in NYC, it's even more fun because B knows the Franny of the namesake from her publishing days and we always say hi. Not exactly the same as home cooking or a meal at a friend's house, but the next best thing.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, 3.5 home baked chocolate chip cookies from frozen dough, hunger 3/5
Seriously craving sugar. Gotta be up and out of the house on bike tomorrow by 5:30am, bicycle adventure with Tamar awaits!