Feel Better Soon, HVS!

ADDENDA:
This GuS soda stuff has something to it. It's made with cane-sugar, not corn syrup, and it's lightly sweetened, which allows the actual flavor of the intended taste to speak loudly. Today in the news, a lot of noise was made about this study - it suggests that people who eat a lot of artificial sweetener gain more weight than people who consume normal sugar because it encourages them to eat more.

I must say that consuming normal sugar, whether in a baked good or a soda , is always more satisfying 15-20 minutes after eating than an artificial, which keeps me wanting sugar after consuming...

The Meeting of the HVS with featured honored guest Ilsa was to take place tonight, but must be delayed due to the illness of the chapter high-commander.....

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, 2 pieces whole wheat sprouted toast with shmear of spicey homemade hummus, 1 GuS soda, hunger 4/5
Freezer-fishing for breakfast, will shop later today. Soda gave a nice tweak to start the day off, though after having one last night too, I shall not make this a habit.

AM WATERING: 11am, 12 oz bottle

AM WATERING: noon, 3 pints tap

LUNCH: 1pm, huge-ass buritto with beef & pork, small handfull of chips, water, hunger 4.5/5
Spent the morning in a classic NYC scenario - rented a U-Haul truck with a friend then moved a California King bed and mattress from a high-rise on the UES (service elevator) to a 4-story walk up in Park Slope. All the smaller bits and headboard were no problem. The matress took some work on one particular steep bend in the staircase, but with a lot of shoulder and creative bending, we got it up. The base, however, was one solid piece and just would not fit. When I left around 4pm, my friend was still waiting on the carpenter to come and cut it in half.

On the way back from returning the truck, Erikka took me to lunch at a California-style buritto place. I was quite starving but I was still shocked when it arrived - it was almost as big as my head!! I set in to it thinking I would be proud to write in this blog that I left a good half of it over, but it went down easy. I felt satisfied but not painfully full or sleepy after. However, it's now almost 6pm and I still feel quite full, he.

DINNER: 8pm, homemade pizza with bufalla, mushrooms and onions, homemade chocolate soy icecream and store-bought chocolate babka, water, hunger 4/5
The two pizzas I made for me and B were the best yet. I think partly it's because of the bit extra balsamic I added to the raw tomato sauce made it a lot brighter in a surprising way, and partly because after watching a dorky TV show on making pizza, I let the dough rest for about 5 minutes after kneading a little before rolling out, made it nice and thin.

Got the right ratio of sauce to crust, where the crust was super thin but still had three visible layers - the bottom, which is brown and crispy, the middle, which looks like nice leavened bread with lots of little air pockets, and the top which is a little mushy and cratered where the sauce and it's olive oil makes a nice pillowy pad for all the toppings. All that an a tenth of an inch!

The soy icecream also got a little closer to perfection. I used unsweetened baking chocolate and upped the amount of maple syrup a little. Upped the vanilla and cocoa powder, and added a dash of cinamon. Blended for an extra few minutes at liquify, then left in the fridge for the first time (about 20 minutes). The final result was chocolatier, smoother and more ice-creamy than before.

Betsy claimed she was having just one small ramekin of icecream and a small piece of babka, bu after finishing she ran back to the kitchen and started spooning ice cream into her mouth straight from the machine. When I stopped her, she grabbed the babka and ran across the apartment, threatening to throw the babka out the window if she didn't get more ice cream. I was able to talk her off the ledge with a little bit more ice cream and a couple bites of babka. Both items are now safely under lock and key in the mini-freezer... if B wasn't so darn cute, I'd say she was a bit dangerous when it came to desert!