How you like THEM apples?! OR: Unmitigated Dinner Disaster Pt 2

ADDENDA:
Had a good morning working on my music collection, got the farmers market at 8am and got superhippy bread, lamb snausages, a full salad, etc. After I got home and helped B with the laundry, went out again to Wholefoods and stocked up to start with the pizza making.

At the farmers market, there was a fantastic selection of all sorts of good looking apples with names I never heard before. Bought a whole bunch of 'Mutu' yellow apples that are supposed to be very crisp and tart, so I made an apple crisp this morning, hopefully the tartness will make a superior crisp....

BREAKFAST #1: 5:30am, organic cornflakes with good milk, hunger 3/5

BREAKFAST #2: 9am, good yogurt with honey, vanila and raw cashews.

LUNCH: 1pm, homemade pizza, small amount of cinnamon gelato, seltzer, hunger 4/5
Got new dough from wholefoods. Found it difficult to work with, gotta get a pizza-peel. Used whole peeled tomatoes on the pizza, too liquidy. Little bits of buffala moz was perfect, but the crust was too thick (so it had that moist wet dough layer between the toppings and the crust), the tomatoes brought too much liquid, needed a little bit of salt, a little bit of olive oil, maybe a little bit of basil. Next time maybe I'll blend up my own experimental pizza sauce.

PM SNACK: 5pm, small piece of apple crumble, hunger 3/5
B had a friend over, to be social. Pleasantly tart.

DINNER: 8pm, entire box of prepared low-sodium stuffing, hunger 3/5
An elderly neighbor knocked on our door, her elderly husband fell in the bathroom and hit his head and couldn't stand up. I ran across the hall to look, and though there was no blood and he was conscious and coherent, it was clear with his advanced age, this kind of fall required immediate medical attention. Betsy and I stayed with the woman, who clearly had dementia, as we waited what seemed like forever for 911 to arrive. After Nathan was taken away, we stayed with the woman for a while, got her daughter (probably in her 70s) on the phone, arranged for someone to come and look after her.

The whole thing was reminiscent of my father's last days, the beginning of the end was when he fell in the kitchen and hit his head, concussion and stroke and the whole 9 from that fall. While B and her friend went out, I just felt crappier and crappier - not so much depressed, as remembering what it was like. With my parents, when one lost their health, the other picked up the slack. When the other was alone and sick, I moved in. Neither ever had to move to a home, both always had a family member and/or a home health aid at all times. Here, these two people, clearly both on the edge of oblivion, why don't they have a home health aide or a younger relative living with them? Just so disturbing. But we did what we can, and we'll look more closely after our neighbors from here on in.

Wasn't hungry, going through the cupboard. A lot of good stuff to eat, but the only thing I went for was....crappy box of stuffing. Every Thanksgiving when my mom cooked, I would make the stuffing - which was from a damn Stouffers box, so it wasn't cooking really. So when my mom would brag that Noah made the stuffing, I'd have to qualify that it was from a box, not from scratch.

I didn't mean to eat the whole box, it just kinda disappeared from the pot. By the end, I could kinda taste a weird stale chemically aspect to it which I never noticed before. Still, it tasted like fall with my mom.

Unmitigated Dinner Disaster

ADDENDA:
Had my third go at yoga last night, this time focusing on back-bending. I got there 5 minutes late after rushing down by bike, and I kinda wanted to stay at work and knock some stuff out to be able to go home with a clear mind. All through yoga, I felt distracted by 'Superstuffed', which is part of the title of the Thanksgiving event I'm helping coordinate - funny how it references the American holiday habit of eating to excess, while I'm doing all I can to get out from under that baggage. Anyway, there were a few moves and routines I was just too tired/unfocused for and just laid there till people got by them. One however, hurt like hell - the hero pose where your basically sitting on the fronts of your fore-legs with your knees tied together and back straight. I sat on 2 blocks to make it possible, but it killed my knees, legs, feet, ankles. Held it for what seemed like forever (though probably 60 seconds), all the while of having images of my knees forever being damaged and never riding a bike again. When we came out of it and shook it out and went into downward facing dog, I was shocked to find my knees actually felt really good after all that. Huh.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, toasted onion bagel with good butter, hunger 3/5

AM WATERING: 8:30am, 24 oz still

LUNCH: 1:15pm, curry pork tonkatsu with white rice, cabbage, 3 pork dumplings, seaweed salad, water, hunger 4/5
Good Japanese, will never go to that crappy sushi place again next door. Haven't had meat since....the day before yesterday, really enjoyed it, wonder if I could make it similarly at home by pounding a piece of meat within an inch of it's life....

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, large piece of cheese cake, water, hunger 3/5
Birthday at the office, it's Tamar's fault for treating her peeps so well.

DINNER: 7:30pm, small green salad, horrendously bad bar-za, pecan tart with vanilla gelato, water, hunger 2/5
Went to Lucky Strike with B and Yana, it was starting to rain and it was convenient. Love going to dinner with Yana, but the menu did not appeal to me this evening, and the previous cheesecake put the squash on my appetite. So I thought ordering the bar-za would be a safe palatable option, I've never really eaten pizza at a bar/french restaurant. It was HORRIBLE, the menu said fresh moz, and there was a thin layer of it buried under a blanket of crappy yellow industrial cheese, ick. After the first tiny slice I tried to pick off as much of the bad cheese as possible, but it just kind of ruined it. Had dessert just to eat something good, even though I wasn't hungry for anything. Oy.

Experiments in Decadence with Gelato

ADDENDA:
Wedding pics are up!

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, organic crispex with good milk, hunger 3/5

AM WATERING: 9am, 24 oz still water

LUNCH: 1:15pm, peanut butter on superhippy bread, baby organic carrots, hummus, whole wheat saltless pretzels, hunger 4/5
Packed it into my borg cube, had to eat at desk. Got a bunch of compliments on the cube. Almost forgot to pack lunch this morning, but feels good to sticking to 2 home lunches a week, especially with how much I've been eating out this week (and it looks like dinner is out tonight and tomorrow!) Gotta hit up the farmer's market HARD on Saturday...

LUNCH #2: 3pm, falafel sandwich on whole wheat, hunger 4/5
First lunch wasn't enough, don't want to be starving for yoga. Not feeling meat today.

DINNER: 8pm, homemade pancakes and cinnamon gelato, hunger 4/5
After yoga, wanted to just go home and chill, not much to eat at home. Felt in the mood for pancakes, though it seemed kinda boring. I don't like sweets with my pancakes, particularly syrup. Only desert in house is cinnamon gelato, kinda boring too.

Thinking of throwing in cinnamon into my pancake batter just to do something different. Thinking of waffles and chicken, maybe some non-bacon meat with the pancakes? Got nothing. Waffles n' ice cream, always good, but no waffles.....DUH! Rather than have pancakes then gelato and be bored, be totally decadent and have pancakes WITH gelato!! It was SOOO good, sopping up the melted cinnamony gelato with the fresh, crisp pancake. It was the same stuff I was going to eat, but eating it together just made it seem so....decadent.

First date with Home-za delayed

ADDENDA:
I heated up the oven to 550 (the highest it would go) and preheated the pizza stone, arranged my cheese, basil, San Marzano tomatoes and dough ball on the counter, thinking maybe of taking a pic of it for before/after photos. Called B to confirm when she'd be home, wanted her in on this as much as possible.

I'm standing there, inspecting my ingredients, reading the label of the dough ball I bought from the freezer case of Wholefoods. "Wheat Free". Huh????? I mistakenly bought a pizza dough ball made of rice, soy and some other flours that should have nothing to do with a healthy person's pizza. There was no way I was going to move forward with this "dough".

It's kinda like dressing up for a first semi-blind date. You may have friends in common who've assured you she's not nuts, you've seen the pictures and you know she's smokin' hot. She has a good job and a good family, you know she's quality and you can't be half-assing it with her. You're meeting around the corner at the perfect date cafe in 10 minutes, and because of your focus and mindlessness, you realize you haven't done your laundry in 2 months. You go into the closet and the ONLY clean shirt you have is a T-shirt that says "I -HEART- MIDGET PORN". You could wear it inside out, but it's just too dangerous. You MUST cancel, apologetically and in hopes of rescheduling as soon as possible.

That dough was a 'midget porn' t-shirt. To be continued....

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, good yogurt with good honey, vanilla and raw cashews, hunger 3/5

AM WATERING: 8:30am, 24 oz still

LUNCH: 12:30pm, brick o' food including 3 potato samosas, chickpea curry, a little lentil salad, a little cucumber salad and organic brown rice, hunger 4/5
The nutritional opposite of a Chinese brick o' food, a.k.a. the dinner combination of pork fried rice and pork lomein with egg roll - same container, though. Really yummy samosas.

PM WATERING: 1:30pm, 24 oz still
Usually the first 24 lasts all day, but I was thirsty this morning...

PM SNACK: 2pm, half a greentea-wrapped red bean paste dumpling thing, hunger 2/5
Ate it to be social, waaaay too sweet. Weirdly beany, though, that was kind of nice. Gonna try the red bean icecream at Chinatown Icecream Factory next time I'm down there.

DINNER: 7pm, 5 pieces semolina bread and butter, small amount of snapper cruddo, a shotglass of cauliflower soup, roast pork loan, belly and sausage, small amount of buttery gnocchi, a small apple cider donut and a scoop and a half of icecream, hunger 4/5
Me and B dressed up all fancy to go to this award ceremony where an old friend of hers was being honored. We showed up to the place in Grammercy, and nothing was happening. So we walked into the East Village and dropped in on Hearth, where we had a fancy meal a while ago and was impressed. I had the same pork dish, didn't like it as much - the sausage was too salty, the belly was too fatty, the deserts again were underwhelming. But it was nice to be dressed up and out with B.

Turns out the event is TOMORROW night, urgh. Between this and the dough, I think the aftershocks of being so stressed at work have effected my focus on other parts of my life.

Will I find the pizza love of my life tonight?

ADDENDA:
While I was grocery shopping at Wholefoods last night, was thinking about my evolving relationship to pizza. They have these really expensive 'gourmet' frozen pizzas that are better than the industrial stuff, but bottom line they aren't that great either. Grumble-thinking, damn, I should make my own....DUH! So I bought a frozen ball of pizza dough, a can of San Marzano tomatoes and a container of fresh buffalo moz. We have fresh basil from B's cousin's Brooklyn backyard, and a pizza stone from our registry. Tonight's cooking will be a challenge but crazy fun...

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, organic cornflakes with good milk, hunger 3/5
Still getting to work super-early, but the Sumner Redstone presentation I shepherded is being shown today, and the other doody-sandwich of a project I'm on is still in the weeds, but my inexperience is starting to evolve into light-experience and have gotten positive feedback from my overseers. I don't know if I can wake up later , but my stress level has definitely gone from 9.5/10 to 5/10. Work usually keeps me at a 2 on a good day, 3-4 when things screw up. I don't even want to know what my blood pressure was last week...

LUNCH: 11:30am, big container of whole wheat rotinni with homemade sauce and Italian sweet sausage, hunger 4/5
I bought the sausage last night precooked, and made this for me and B just for lunch last night. Sausage was disappointing. Them fishstick and these sausages, it's just not nearly as good as cooking it yerself from raw, makes the biggest difference....

God, that sounds like it should be self-evident by why did it just click now? There is a very real cost to convenience, and not just money...

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, bag of Robert's smart puffs, hunger 4/5
I know B may not be home till 8, don't want to jump the gun and make (and eat) the pizza without her....

DINNER: 8:30pm, carrots and hummus, masamam curry with shrimp and sticky rice, veg dumplings, roasted tofu with satay sauce, cinnamon gelato, hunger 4/5
Grumble grumble grumble dough grumble grumble wah grumble.

Oh Beloved Street Slice, you've changed. I don't think I love you anymore.

ADDENDA:
When I lived in England for a year abroad as a college junior in 1992, I really didn't know what I was in for, food wise. I had only heard the stories about the horridness of English food, never experienced it. As a Jew from NYC, Chinese food was simply some of the best, cheapest filling and tasty food around.

So when I went to the local Chinese in Uxbridge, West London, and ordered a pint of fried rice, I was shocked, horrified and saddened when it dawned on my that Chinese food as I knew it would not be on the cards for my year abroad. The fried rice was soft and white, free of the browning of the soy sauce, and instead of yummy bit of fried onion and scallion and vegetable, this rice was chock full of....canned cubed carrots and canned peas! Yuuuuuk! Fortunately, soon after I learned that Indian food was the British equivalent of NYC Chinese takeout, and started a life long love for it.

I've had a life-long love for street slices (a.k.a. streetza) that I think just died today....sure, Times Square 'za is a crappier example than a my local slice shop, but still, it's all the same animal....

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, 2 saltless wholewheat pretzel, dirtpill, pint of seltzer, hunger 1/5
Stomach tight and on the edge of nausea, probably a mixture of chocolate hangover and nervousness about work. Got good 7 hours sleep, feeling more optimistic than not.

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

LUNCH #1: Noon, large plastic clamshell full of cold pumpkin noodles and mushrooms, hunger 4.5/5
Almost fell into the too-hungry-to-think well, ate this during a meeting. At least from Green Symphony, kinda healthyish.

LUNCH #2: 2:15pm, crappy slice of pizza, hunger 4/5
Went back to green symphony to get some samosas to walk with, but they didn't have any. Haven't had a street slice in months and months, so stopped in a touristy Times Square slice shop. I used to subscribe to the axiom that pizza is like sex - even if it ain't that good, it's pretty good. Not anymore. This pizza's crust was a little too dry and crumbly with no chew, the sauce had a weird rancid tang to it, and the blanket of yellowy greasy cheese didn't taste anything like real mozz, more like de-flavored glue. And the thing is, I remember a Times Square street slice tasting like this, but somehow appealing.

Like diet coke, I guess I could teach myself to like this again, but why would I want to?

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, 7 dunkin' donut munchkins, hunger 4/5
Aiiigh! I was assisting my ppt specialist in the office of a VP, and this secretary came in and force fed me donut holes!! OK, she didn't, but they came to life and jumped down my throat. Hour later, slight head ache. Gonna try to make this my solitary sweet today...

PM SNACK: 6pm, 1.5 chocolate chip cookies, hunger 4/5
The problem with going to a supermarket hungry is when they have a tray of free cookies out there, it's hard to resist.

DINNER: 8pm, fresh fish sticks with forbidden rice, organic baby carrots with a little hummus, hunger 4/5
As an experiment, got pre-cooked fish chunks lightly breaded from Wholefoods, better than the super processed frozen stuff, but just not that fresh, would be better if I breaded and fried it myself. Betsy didn't like it at all. The black rice was kinda good, but bland, maybe I should of used stock, but then it would of been so salty.

Bought a tub of cinnamon gelato, and I successfully resisted eating any, and while B insisted on having some, I was able to go into the locked freezer and dole her out a single scoop. I was tempted to chow down on it right them and there, but after the munchkins and the cookies, I really didn't want to have to write about feeling guilty and lard-assed.

Chocolate Covered Aspirins

ADDENDA:
I definitely lost focus on what I spoke with Ilsa this past week, about curbing my appetite after riding - but I only road 20 miles or so, not really a real super-appetite inducing exertion, but enough to rev it up a bit. I think I AM comfortable enough to start paying attention more to what I eat on the weekends, rather than take that time 'off' from any restrictions. Still no fries or chips, one desert a day, eat more home cooked stuff than out (though I suspect all 3 meals today will be eaten out due to family and social obligations!)

BREAKFAST: 8am, onion bagel with butter and hummus, good yogurt with honey and vanilla, hunger 4/5
Still hungry from yesterdays ride, doubled up on breakfast.

AM SNACK: 11:30am, 1 small square of good dark chocolate, hunger 3/5
I gave a gift of good Jaques Torres chocolate to a friend's mom who is the hospital, who promptly opened it and offered me some. How could I of said no? Of course after eating it I promptly got a thumping headache.

LUNCH: 12:30pm, small handful of olives, a few pieces of cured meat, roasted string beans, excellent wood-fired organic sausage pizza, hunger 3/5
Lunch at Franny's with B's family, wish I was hungrier.

PM SNACKS: 2pm-5pm, a little bit of JT chocolate here, there and 2 aspirin, hunger 3/5
Gave B's cousins kids some chocolate gifts that got spread around, then headed over to my friend Erikka's place, where she was under the weather, so I gave her the chocolate baggy I had bought for myself and had some of that, too. Common sense would dictate I would cut out the chocolate because of the headache, but instead I took 2 aspirin....mmmmm, chocolate covered aspirin!

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, small bowl of organic baby carrots with a dash of sea salt, pint of water, hunger 3/5
Headache in remission, but looking at what I ate, I see I haven't had much water. Will drink a pint right now....

DINNER: 7:15pm, pork egg roll, string beans with shrimp and brown rice, a large high quality dark chocolate bar, hunger 4/5
The brown sauce was surprisingly bland, but resisted putting more salt in this take out dish. Craving chocolate like crazy, took a bar out of the locked freezer. Looking over the day, I ate chocolate at all times during the day, but in very small quantities. This time, however, was not small. So I guess the next time I complain about how I'm not losing weight, dear reader should point me back to this entry!