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!

It's too early to think of a snappy post title

BREAKFAST: 6am, toasted onion bagel with good butter, glass of lime seltzer, dirt pill, hunger 2/5
Tempted not to eat, but thinking about discipline and the extra desert and stuff. And I gotta get to work early to do a slightly intimidating freelance job that's too well-paid to pass on....

BP 7:30am 134/84
Damn, that's high. Too much salt yesterday? Gonna make an app't today with the medical doc to make sure these numbers are for real.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, 24 oz still water

LUNCH: 1:45pm, lamb over rice, hunger 4.5/5
Intense work day. Almost over the top. Falling asleep from hunger during the meeting before I was able to get away for lunch. Ate lunch at a public outdoor space in midtown, away from the office. Felt good to eat.

It's now after 6pm, going to fancy dinner at Craft with B to celebrate the chunk of change I earned today (as I luckily just finished it! Talk about singing for supper!), but am at 4.5 again and there is no healthy options near by....

PM SNACK: 6pm, large bag of plain potato chips, 24 oz still water, hunger 4.5/5
The deli next door was just so....limited. So much stuff, so few real choices. I was looking at the sunchips, and noticed it had EXACTLY the same amount of salt as plain Lay's potato chips. I feel a bit beaten up/in deserving of reward, so I snarfed the potato chips to keep me going till fancy dinner...

I called the doc this morning, but his office didn't open yet. I just called again, closed for the day. -sigh- Will follow up on Monday. I'm so burnt. I gotta keep healthy shelf-stable snacks around here to ward off another case of the the potato chip heebie jeebies.

This is how burnt I feel (hanging on for dear life with adult sippy cup):



DINNER: 8pm, 2 pieces of good bread & butter, a spoonful of squid ceveche, small boston lettuce and feta salad, 3 pieces of raw tuna belly with jalapenos, small rack of smoky berkshire pork, roasted onions, risotto, gnocchi, chocolate tarts and fresh donuts, lots of water, hunger 4/5
It's 10pm, I'm beat, but I just have to write down this meal, it was so friggin' good. After having those eh potato chips satiate me, my hunger came rip-roaring back with the bread and did let up till the end of desert. It's nice when a huge appetite meets a meal made by people who dedicate their days to making the best food possible with the best ingredients - we went to Craft on 19th street, where the ingredients are mostly locally sourced. It was nice connecting with B over a meal.

I kinda of wish every meal could be similar to this one, and once I get some more cooking skills, it'll be a bit closer to that. If every meal was like this, though, I'd be extremely fat and extremely poor...

Yogurt Now, Yoga Later

ADDENDA:
The gift certificates we received for beginner's yoga classes begin only at the start of the month, so that's being put off til October. Gotta make a doc's appointment to see if my BP #s are fo' real, and start revising my attitude that a day without a desert is not a day worth living....perhaps yogurt to the rescue?

Ilsa forwarded me a link to a cooking school today. Kinda exciting, try to get on top of that next week....

BREAKFAST: 7am, small bowl of Fage whole-fat yogurt with a teaspoon of local honey, 2 pieces of organic whole wheat bread toasted with good butter, dirt pill, hunger 4/5
Woke up after a good 6.5 hours of sleep, guess the burgerpalooza didn't have any lasting effects.

Betsy is a huge fan of the Fage, eats it every day. I tried it early on in our dating life and thought it was nasty - tangy and bitter, the consistency and appearance not so far from Elmer's Glue. Over the break from blogging, I was thinking about how to reduce deserts - what is it that I like about sweets? One thing is the consistency and creaminess of soft serve ice cream - the sweetness is nice, but the thing I like most is the cold creaminess. Frozen yogurt is not an option - it has so much sugar and crap in it that it is just about as pointless as soy milk. If I were to find a non-desert that has these qualities, moving away from deserts will be one step easier....

Betsy is under the influence of the misconception promoted by gurus like Susan Powter in the 80s that "FAT MAKES YOU FAT". Cut out the fat in your diet, and somehow magically you will be thin. Of course, FOOD TASTES LIKE CRAP WITHOUT FAT and a lot of people replaced it with sugar, which made them fatter. Fat doesn't make you fat, silly, CALORIES MAKE YOU FAT. And calories come from fat, carbs and protein. I so boldly criticize my new (and rather slim and sexy) wife in this forum because the Fage she eats is 0% fat, strained of it rich, yummy goodness. I tried a small cup of full-fat (a.k.a. full-flavor) Fage with a squirt of honey a week ago and was shocked to find myself enjoying it. REALLY enjoying it. The squirt of honey (an idea from B, by the way) didn't really make the yogurt sweet, but it rounded out the sharp bitter tang that real yogurt tends to have - not mask it, but smooth it out, like turning down the volume of the stereo when it's just a tad too loud.

I wanna add peanuts to it, like I used to do with my (sickly sweet) Danon when I was a kid.

AM SNACK: 9am, 24 oz still water

LUNCH #1: 1pm, large green salad with Italian dressing, hunger 4/5
Brought this in from home, if I didn't eat it today it would go bad. Completely gotten from the Saturday greenmarket, really good. As I was getting a fork, Tamar asked me to join her and some peeps to eat, adding that Ilsa doesn't approve of eating at the desk. Ilsa's spies are everywhere!!

LUNCH #2: 4:30pm, natural peanut butter on whole wheat, saltless wholewheat pretzel, 3 ears unadorned corn, small amount of milk chocolate gelato. hunger 4/5
Got home ravenous, the peanut butter sandwich was good, the corn better. I didn't have butter and salt in Cape Cod, and boiled corn was amazing. So I tried it again, and again it was almost better - butter and salt kinda interferes with the straight corniness, masks it a little instead of enhancing it. I imagine if it was not so sweet or fresh, it would need the masking.

I wasn't planning on eating dessert, but Betsy was complaining of an upset stomach because she ate some gelato. So when I went into the freezer, she had eaten 7/8 of the tub in one sitting! I guess that's what you get for eating artificially fat-free stuff - when you're confronted by the real thing, ya go nuts because your body needs the fat! There was so little gelato left, it was literally 1/3 of a desert portion for me.

DINNER: 7:30pm, 3 different sausages, kraut, cold potato salad, 1 beer, 1 cupcake, hunger 3/5
Met up with friends at Zumschneider on Ave C, a nice German beer hall for Roshashanah. The sausage platter was probably not much less healthy than everything else on the menu. This was probably the saltiest meal I've eaten in a while.

Technically the cupcake was a 2nd desert, but quantity-wise, it adds up to one dessert. False justification, I know, but it was peer pressure! The cupcake jumped straight into my mouth.

Close to 10pm, I have a very slight headache....

Burgerfest 2007

ADDENDA:
Super busy at work.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, decadent oatmeal, small amount of water, dirt pill, hunger 4/5
In Ilsa's meeting last night, I hinted at maybe a shift in focus to the most boring thing to read about in a blog, losing a little bit of weight. I know from past reading that keeping a consistent stream of food in you is key - ideally, a lot of small meals scattered through the day instead of 3 (or, like yesterday, 2) monster meals. So breakfast is key. If anything has evolved more than anything for me during this blog, so far it's been breakfast. Decadent oatmeal, pancakes from scratch, plain yogurt revealed to be delicious, bagels with magical butter of the grass...what could be next?!

AM SNACK: 24 oz still water

LUNCH: 2:30pm, half pound organic burger on whole wheat bun with all the fixin's, slaw, small amount of non-dairy mashed potatos, hunger 4/5
Went to "Better Burger" with Tamar, a chain place whose hook is organic non-hormonal meat, healthy everything. I thought about fries, then went with the slaw, but then I noticed the fries there are actually baked, but ruled against it anyway - baked fries is kinda as pointless as soy milk to my taste buds. As I'm eating the burger, I realized I had made a play date with a good friend to eat at Shake Shack near where Ilsa (and B) works this evening - burgers-a-poppin'! I'm not a big burger fan, so I guess one day of multiple burgers won't kill me....

DINNER: 8pm, 2 hamburgers with ketchup, one bratwurst with onion and pickle, a handful of frenchfries, a cup of chocolate custard, hunger 4/5
Shake Shack is NOT all that. I waited in line with my friend Yana a good 30 minutes, it's a good thing we had a lot to talk about because we hadn't seen each other much for a good month before the wedding, because if I was really impatient I would of been pissed. The burgers were a tad dry, a little salty, on generic white burger buns. The dog was generic.

I was sorely tempted to get fries, because this is the kind of meals you get fries with, and unlike Better Burger, no other sides were offered. As we got to the front of the line, I saw someone in the kitchen with a big box of "FROZEN POTATO FRIES" on their shoulder - so much for gourmet. Yana got fries, and didn't finish them. So I had one, it wasn't that good. Then the remainder on the plate jumped up and popped in my mouth, I had nothing to do with it, I swear! It was a moment of weakness, but they just didn't taste very good, my resolve is strengthened.

The chocolate custard, however, was the bomb diggitty. I will definitely be back for that, but as for the burgers and food, total hype. My lunch burger wasn't all that, but it was superior to that hockey puck.

A Pause, A Thought, A Rejigger

Ate a few sinful things the past few weeks, a brick of chinese food here, a little bit too much pizza there. But over all I've felt well, considering the pressure of all the pre-present-post stresses of having a big wedding. Ready to be a bit more hardcore with the eating stylee, start some yoga, take a cooking class, get B preggers, etc etc.... and I find many of the things I've cut back or given up, I don't really miss...

I just reread this blog from the beginning, all the while thinking about all the things that struck me as odd the past week or so. Pancakes - early on I was missing the pancakes and bacon of the diner on my block. I went there many times with my parents, and on my own on weekends as a lazy treat. I struggled with some yucky organic-pancake mix, then hit the jackpot with making my own pancakes from scratch - the best pancakes.

Well, I went down to the diner a few days ago as a treat. They know me by order - 2 pancakes, bacon and a diet coke. I was sorely tempted to order the coke, not because I desired it but for the taste memory of all the other diet cokes that came before it, but I resisted, got a seltzer instead. The pancakes themselves were.....horrible! Yellow, gummy, tasting more of old oil than flour or butter. I enjoyed these?

Ate a lot of lobster-things in Cape Cod during our honeymoon. We had a kitchenette in our salty sea-side shack, the first night we picked up groceries to allow us to not have to eat out every meal. I won't bore you with the details here, but one thing that I wouldn't of done before was I bought a big bottle of grape juice - as a sinful treat! Not chocolate or candy or something obviously indulgent, but a high-sugar processed drink others would regard as 'healthy'. And it was MAD sweet, too, a nice sugar jolt to wake up to. I didn't totally stick to 'one sweet a day', but my sweets were less indulgent than if I weren't thinking about it.

Almost done with the Kingsolver book, really good. I went to the Union Square farmer's market around 9am this past Saturday - DAMN!! It was 2x bigger than it is during the week, with lots more variety. There was a lamb vendor, who had a bunch of coolers with all sorts of different cuts, and surrounding the booth was skeins of wool - how cool is that? Real people with real connections to the whole animal selling all the bits, not just the normal stuff. I decided to start simple, purchased some lamb curry sausage (yeah, I know, too much salt.) Fried it up on a new cast iron grill (thanks Tania!) with market onions - between the light spice of the curry balanced with the sweetness of the pomegranite and currants in the sausage, even Betsy wolfed down her half - she usually shys away from sausage. But in this sausage you could taste the lamby freshness.... I came to the market by bike, and bought as much as I could carry. Next time I will take my granny cart on the bike and stock up on more lamb, the pork vendor, fresh bread, and another huge salad...

The other night made pasta sauce in my dad's style, with vegetables mostly bought in the farmers market. Had Tamar over for dinner, she sheeplishly asked for salt, as she knows I'm trying to cut down. Made pasta from scratch, eggless for the first time, came out surprisingly good.

On the way to and from Cape Cod, we stopped in New Haven to try the pie at Frank Pepe's - in every book about pizza, the main talk is about NYC, but there is always mention of how New Haven is the only real competitor to NYC as the capital of East Coast Pizza. At Pepe's, the original owner is said to have had allergies to both cheese and tomato - so he invented the clam pie. I had the clam pie the first time, and had to have it again on the way back because it was so good - and I don't even like clams! Despite no cheese and tomatos, I had to admit this is reall pizza - the French idea of 'terroir' - you can really taste the place in this pie made of the best ingredients of the area.

Tomorrow, back to the blow by blow.... too busy with work and personal drama (non-Betsy) to even think straight....yep, I wrote this on the last day of my vacation....