The Best Oatmeal Ever

BREAKFAST: 8am, water, dirtpill, hunger 1/5

BREAKFAST #2: 11am, Noah's Decadent Oatmeal, hunger 4/5
No eggs to make pancakes. Wanted something 1) delicious, 2) healthy and 3) wouldn't send my recovering state in the wrong direction. So I went all out and made the oatmeal of my dreams:

• 1/2 cup organic rolled oats
• 1/2 cup room temp water
• 1/2 cup whole unhomogenized organic milk
• 1/2 tablespoon organic grass fed butter
• 3 shakes of unrefined sea salt
• 1 pinch organic dehydrated organic cane juice
• 1 pinch freshly grated cinnamon

Dump all in a high-walled plastic bowl, nuke on high for 4 minutes or until desired thickness. Stir and eat.

Oh my. Much better than I expected. The whole milk, butter salt was what a freshly baked mac n' cheese from scratch and a fatty Alfredo sauce has in common - the good taste part that they have in common, minus all the cheese. The light hint of sweetness and cinnamon set off the rich dairy flavor at just the right angle. The fat in the milk gave the oats a tender firmness never found with just water. The butter gave a spectacular mouthfeel once swallowed.

The only thing I would of done differently is cut back to 1 or 2 salt shakes - it was pleasantly salty, but the salt would of had the same positive effect without being so notable.

And it doesn't hurt to have a Rufus sleeping on your head, a hot lady kvelling over you, your health slowly returning, and the weekend ahead of you.

LUNCH: 1:30, penne with homemade tomato sauce & grated Parmesan, hunger 4/5
Defrosted sauce, getting rid of the non-wholewheat pasta box by box.

PM SNACK: 3pm, 3 fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, hunger 2/5
Though it's the weekend, I think I'll aim for one dessert today. Only slept 3 hours last night, as I usually do the night after a drug-sleep night. Maybe sugar in the middle of the day instead of the end of the day will help tonight's sleep be all that more thick n' ropey.

DINNER: 7:30pm, 12 pieces sashimi, shrimp tempura appetizer, vegetarian nori rolls, small side of white rice, small amount of soy sauce, diet black cherry boylan, hunger 3/5
Downed the soda to squash sugar cravings.

PM SNACK: 9:30pm, small handful of unsalted pretzels, hunger 2/5

Not ill, not better

ADDENDA:
Symptoms retreated, tried to go to work this morning and realized despite Nyquil-sleep, was totally out of proverbial gas. Been sleeping all day, no energy. Eating more, but not much.

I just watched literally 24 hours of television. I am now watching a food-channel show about diners, and one in particular whose specialty is the "garbage plate". God bless America's food culture!

BREAKFAST: 8am, toasted whole wheat bagel with a little bit of peanut butter, pint of still water, hunger 2/5
Thought I was going to work, but after eating this, felt woozy and hazy. Promptly emailed work then napped till 11.

AM SNACK: 11am, 3 graham crackers with chocolate hazelnut butter, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 3pm, shrimp toast, pint of beef lomein, hunger 4/5
Haven't indulged in take-out Chinese in a while, used to be a weekly standard. This is total comfort food, food that would be an anytime-special occasion for my parents and I. Despite the sodium horror show, it just makes me a little more comfortable coming out of an illness.

DINNER: 7pm, 4 vegetable dumpling, diet black cherry soda, hunger 3/5
Left over from lunch, the dumplings had weird pockets of intense saltiness, I had to just stop. Tired of water, washed it down with a Boylan's, which I intend not to buy again, but feel wasteful just throwing them away.

PM SNACK: 8:15pm, about 10 halves of Jaques Torres dark-chocolate ganaches, hunger 3/5
B had a surprise bachelorette party last night - pedicures, penis-shaped head-gear and what ever else ladies do on these things. One of her friends, however, gave her a nicely-sized box of good chocolates. So when B got back from chores (returning more gifts, getting a makeup test), she sat on the edge of the couch I've been prone on for the last 3 days. She opened the box, ate about half of each one by one, named the flavor and gave me her feedback, then put it down for me to gobble. It was kinda like a scene out of a light romance, only not corny. I don't think I could ask for a better partner to watch out for me. I love you Betsygirl!

Pizza, How Could You?!

ADDENDA:
Stayed home again, ate nearly nothing. Damn you evil Pizza!! I thought you were my friend, my comfort, my lover - how could you do this to me? I think we may have to have a talk, once I recover.

BREAKFAST: 8am, dirt pill, water hunger 0/5

LUNCH: 2 graham crackers w/ chocolate hazel nut butter, hunger 1/5
My urge for sweets overcame my lack of hunger! I was looking for Nutella at Whole Foods, and found an interesting organic and healthier analog of Nutella - not only organic, but skips the hydrogenated oils, the artificial flavors and the extra chemicals. Still, it's about half fat and half sugar, so by no means a health-food....

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, half a whole wheat bagel with good butter

DINNER: 7pm, 12 boiled meat, potato and kraut/mushroom perogies, 2 pints of water, hunger 4/5
Hunger is welcome back. Another comfort food, this time minus the grease and the dairy. I don't know why I haven't ordered perogies from this local diner before, as I often crave them. I usually eat 7 or 8, but I ordered the X-tra large portion, thinking my stomach would only be able to take half and I'd have another meal out of it. But low and behold, they jumped off the plate and shot down my throat. And I felt good after, though still sick, but the more, uh, graphic symptoms had receded.

PM SNACK: 9:30, shot of Nyquil
Don't like taking sleeping drugs, but really wanted to be on point for work the next day.

The Salad Warned, the Pizza Attacked

ADDENDA:
The original post:

I suspect an evil gustatory experience last night has sent me sideways. It is noon and I have not slept (or eaten) since last night's dinner. To paraphrase that annoying old guy on NPR, tomorrow I will be back....with the REST of the stor-Y. Good-DAY!

Well, now 4 days later and 75% recovered, 20/20 hindsight tells me the warning signs were there, I just wasn't paying attention. The stress of the wedding and an uptick of workload took me from two sides, and I hadn't been sleeping well. The night before, I felt a bit rundown, and wanted comfort food....I'm a glutton for comfort food...

The salad was fine and fresh but I just didn't enjoy it. My body was hungry, but my stomach wasn't. It just wanted to....rest. I should of had the salad and a small sweetie, and call it a night. But B was home, and we both LOVE pizza, and since I've been watching my diet, it's become something special instead of something regular. While ordering, I spontaneously ordered pepperoni because it's B's favorite (personally, mushrooms is the only topping I really go gaga over, but B is shroomophobic).

Tasted so good, that charcoaly crust, the fresh bright red crushed tomato sauce, the pillowy fresh mozz, the roasted veg, the crisp and oily pepperoni....it was a pleasure to eat, and I wolfed it. Fast. Then hey!, I didn't eat dessert today, doesn't matter I haven't let my meal settle, let's go for the gelato and mini pies! Ilsa, I swear I didn't eat this stuff - it just jumped down my throat!

Hopefully in the future, when a salad gives me a warning, I'll be able to pick up on it. The immense amount of dairy mixed with the crappy meat put my GI tract in a twist and knocked me out for a solid 3 days - this happens about twice a year, but this is the first time I've recorded my food intake to parallel it. I've lived, hopefully now I've learned.

BREAKFAST: 9am, half a whole wheat bagel with good butter, water hunger 0/5

LUNCH: 3pm, water, hunger 0/5

DINNER: all evening, water, hunger 0/5

I Used to HATE Lamb Chops....

ADDENDA:
My mom was a wonderful mother, a great person, a strong woman, a respected leader and a horrible cook. I remember the thin lambchops she would broil until they were tough, dry and the color of putty. No oil or salt that I can remember, never mind butter. Laying in front of the television, I'd cut the meat into bits then stick them under the corner of the carpet. After dinner, I'd be primed for a nice big desert.

I've been grooving on pork chops lately, but I think the time is coming soon to see what I can do with lamb, in my mom's honor.

BREAKFAST: 9am, cornflakes with whole unhomogenized milk, dirt tablet, hunger 2/5
Woke up late, but got a good night sleep. On the way out, saw the tray of mini pecan pies - one was half eaten by another resident of my apartment (hrumph!) I was very tempted to pop it in my mouth but, ummm, didn't want to have to cop to it here.

BP 10am: 126/80

LUNCH: 11:45am, chickpeas, lentils, spinach & panmeer over rice with nan bread, some raw onion, hunger 4/5
Just hungry, desirous of carbs. Sat down at local Times Square joint, read more of Animal Vegetable Miracle. Felt thristy. Why am I not drinking more water? Spicey mouth is shouting out for icecream, let's see how water does.

PM SNACK: 12:15pm, 24 oz still water

BP 3:30pm 121/84

PM SNACK: 4:15pm, bag of Robert's Potato Flyers, hunger 4/5
Eating my way through the non-sweet selection downstairs, hadn't had this in years. Puffed potato/corn thingies, with too much salt. Just tasted too salty, unpleasant. Went on their website to see the salt-content of their other products, was surprised to see a big announcement about a recall of their Veggie Booty due to salmonella contamination.

In Kingsolver's book, she writes about how the industrial food monoculture has limited the number of species and varieties of veg we eat, with an immense excess of potatos, corn and soy being pushed into our diets. Looking at these chips and the poisoned Booty, and can't help but see a connection.

DINNER: 7:30pm, half a Lombardi's pizza with pepperoni, onions and roasted peppers, homemade green salad, large portion of dulce de leche gelato and 4 pecan pie tarts, hunger 3/5
Salad was oddly unappealling, but the pizza was wonderful, if a little bit cheesier than usual. Little did I know this was the preamble to a long night....

Goin' Coco-nuts

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, a glass of water, small handful of unsalted pretzels, hippy tablet, hunger 1/5
Couldn't fall asleep till 4am due to wedding anxiety - yesterday was really the first day that was totally taken by wedding-related matters and nothing else. Fortunately, I know the #1 cause of my wedding anxiety and plan to address it tonight, hopefully resolve it as best as I can. Woke up groggy, food the last thing on my mind. But I knew I'd feel worse if ate nothing, so choked down some pretzels.

AM SNACK: 10:15, 11 oz coconut water, hunger 2/5
My friend Tamar read about my Gatorade dilemma and brought in a box of coconut water for me to try. Pleasantly but not overpoweringly sweet. Not as coconutty as I thought it would be, hints of pineapple. Slightly creamy mouth feel, like milk. High in sugar and potassium, hmmm, this definitely needs to be put to a bike-test, perhaps when me and T go on the NYC century together.

BP 10:30am: 126/95

LUNCH: 12:45pm, half a pastrami sandwich on rye with mustard, small cup of split pea soup with croutons, small bowl of vinegary slaw with 2 pickles, hunger 4/5
Work going well, but feel physically in need of comfort food, and a proper sit-down restaurant where I could read away my lunch hour. There is a Junior's on the ground floor of my building, and for this purpose, is perfect.

I'm in the early chapters of Kingsolver's book, and she's writing about what food culture is - it's not invented by a corporation, but comes naturally from the ground over time - "national and biological integrity". While embalmed cow is not quite what she had in mind, it is part of my personal food culture - this is what I grew up with, what my parents grew up with, what my grandparents (well, my dad's side, at least) grew up with. It's not the healthiest, but it makes me feel more connected to the world through my plate.

Yes, it is a salt trap of a meal, but a) the portion was a lot smaller than the usual head-sized meat portion, b) fries were sacrificed at the altar of Ilsa and c) no desert. Will this meal automatically raise my blood pressure, or is it more of a cumulative thing?

BP 1:45pm: 118/77

I guess that answers that a little. Feeling a desire for sweets. Greenmarket corn on the cob for dinner tonight, hopefully it'll help me contain a huge desert-fest....

BP 3:45pm: 118/65

LUNCH #2: 4pm, falafel on pita, hunger 4/5
Tired but feel good. Soul food from my mom's side.

DINNER: 7:15pm, large boneless porkchop with mushrooms in good butter and organic garlic, 3 ears boiled sweet corn with butter and salt, a large portion of dulche de leche gelato and 4 two-bite pecan pies, hunger=4/5
Left work early, browsed the Union Square greenmarket - some of the fruit and veg looked really good, but I have this hesitance - how do you cook it? I feel a subtle shift from fear to curiousity. In all my readings about the green market movement, it is said repeatedly that the Union Square greenmarket is both one of the first and one of the best. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that the only thing I bought from it for the past few years was wheatgrass....for my cat. Even my dad would shop there for veg....I thought he did it only because it was cheap....not because it was fresher and tastier.

Following some online instructions, I cooked the pork by browning on high heat then turning it down and covering the pan for a few minutes....it came up near perfect, if I was looking for well-done. Still juicy and porky, but I prefer it a little pinker. I'll get the hang of it eventually.

I purposely got a big, rich desert....with no chocolate elements. It'll be easier to resist later.

A Conservative Sunday, Except for Excessive Pasta

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, 3 burnt pieces of bacon, 1.5 bialies with sable, seltzer, soylent green pill, hunger 4/5
Feel good! Sore, but good.

LUNCH: 2pm, guacamole with soft tortillas and chips, grilled shrimp with rice and pepper sauce, hunger 4.5/5
Spent the day returning gifts. (If you're someone who gave us a gift, don't worry, yours is great. It's all the other ones that we exchanged!). By the end of it, starving to the point of feeling woozy, and the sore legs and stingy shoulders from yesterday's exertion didn't help. Went to Rosa Mexicana on 18th street, the guac was made table side, saw the good 1/2 teaspoon of salt poured into it! That's 25% of my daily right there. Noticed the saltiness of the shrimp and rice I ate - funny, as I was eating it thinking how the saltiness was kind of icky - it made the flavors a bit cartoony and loud.

Though normally I would have desert, I realized I wasn't hungry - I could comfortably skip it at the moment and try to have one desert today, despite it being the loosy-goosy weekend!

I haven't hit a 5/5 on the hunger scale since starting this log. Basically, when I just lose it from hunger and will eat anything to get unhungry, that'll be a 5/5. I once fasted for 4 days, the morning of the second day was a 5/5, but by the afternoon it disappeared. Unless my circumstance prevents me from eating all day, I hope to not have to experience a 5/5 anytime soon.

PM SNACK: 4pm, large hunk of varhona dark chocolate, hunger 4/5
We went food shopping, through this in the cart. When I got home, rolled up on the TV and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a slight headache between lunch and coming home. I thought this chocolate might increase it - it actually made it go away about 20 seconds after chomping on the chunk. Hmm.

DINNER: 7pm, large green salad, whole wheat pasta with pesto and grated cheese, hunger 2/5
Looking back, I wasn't very hungry, I ate this meal more out of habit of having to have "3 squares a day" like my parents insisted. Perhaps I would of been better off with just the salad and a handful of pretzels...

Saturday - Day O' Sweets

ADDENDA:
Rode bikes with Danny to Nyack and back. Between the waking up early and pushing the bike a little, my stomach just stayed tight and closed most of the ride. By the time I started to get hungry, I was already on the West Side bike path, within an hour of home.

BREAKFAST: 5:15am, toasted onion bagel with sablefish, a large number of 2-bite brownies, small amount of seltzer, hunger 3/5
I think I was able to stuff down those brownies without blinking is because I barely had any carbs for dinner the night before - even for me, a half tub of gelato is a lot, but it was not offset by carbs. I guess this was a continuation. I ate the brownies because the donut shop wasn't open yet, and I needed the sugar rush to get me on my bike and start moving.

AM SNACK 1: 8:30am, 2 fresh donuts from farm stand, lots of water, Hunger 2/5
Tip of northern NJ, didn't feel too hungry but was careful not to become hungry either.

AM SNACK: 10:30am, 20oz bottle of gatorade, lots of water, Hunger 2/5
The last 2 experiments to replace gatorade failed, but I still need to attempt to create a home-made sports drink. Reading the label, it's really liquid industrial candy with a few additional chemicals thrown in. I can't believe I used to drink this stuff casually at home. Still, my stomach was tight and it went down easy, giving me the needed sugar rush to get me over the cliffs on 9W.

LUNCH: 2pm, mushroom potato knich, apple cheese knish, botle of seltzer, hunger 4.5/5
Home! Munchies! Would of eaten more but fell asleep on the couch watching a DVD, snuggled tightly on the couch wedged between a warm woman and a warm cat.

DINNER: 6:30pm bread and whitebean salad, 4 pieces of tomato and roasted garlic bruschetta, linguine in meat sauce, dirt pillhunger 4/5
Went to Supper with B, a nice Italian restaurant with a slightly off-beat, Northern menu. I went there a few times with mom, she loved it so much she took some of her own friends there. The fact that it was in the East Village and usually had a line of people, mostly in there 20s, waiting to get in, she found that incredibly hip.

B was a little irritating, criticizing me for not engaging her. Thing is, I was there, I wasn't being rude and reading a paper or playing a video game. We were at the bar, facing the open kitchen and I was watching the people prepare ours, and everyone elses, food. On top of that, I was really hungry, really tired, and really sore from the day's activity. I thought being there together was enough, chilling out together and enjoying the same experience. Why does every minute have to be a gabfest?

The meatsauce was eh, but the roasted bulbs of garlic on the grilled bread was amazing. I must learn the technique to roast garlic this way - it's like an almost buttery garlic spread, but mellow instead of sharp.

Forgot the multivitamin this moring, so I took it befoer we left for dinner.

PM SNACK: 8pm, 2 cupcakes, hunger 3/5
Too full to eat dessert at the restaurant, we stopped by Sugar Sweet Sunshine on the way home. B refused to get her own, ended up eating half of one of mine.

PM SNACK: 11pm., handful of saltless pretzels, hunger 3/5

PM SNACK: 12:30am, cherry italian ice, hunger 3/5
Craving sugar, enough so to keep me up. Gave me a slight headache as I nodded off to sleep.