Welcome Back

Now that I've finished culinary school (well, at least the class-room stuff; I still have 210 hours to complete as an extern at a restaurant, which starts tomorrow), I'm still not the greatest home cook in the world. But I do have a nice set of skills and ideas that make cooking a bit more interesting. When you end up cooking a wide variety of foods, including stuff you'd never eat in a million years, you have no choice but to...open up a little. I even ate eggs! Still not a fan, but I can cook them competently.

Learning to feed: It's about learning to eat well, with thought and compassion for others and the world from which the food comes. It should be as fundamental as learning to read. These will be my newly invigorated explorations into eating and feeding -- myself, my suspiciously flexetarian wife, my omnivorous friends, my strictly vegan HVS, and other friends and family.

This weekend was mostly spent with my wife, recovering from graduation -- indoors, and eating poorly. Tomorrow, I'll spend the day helping making some damn good pizza.

Note all the previous entries here are from the blog previous to Culinary School Confidential, my initial stab at keeping a diary of what I ate called, "I Am What I Eat, I Eat What I Wish to Become". Oy, such a title!

ADDENDA:
When I got on the scale this morning, I was shocked to see it say 219, a solid 6 pound drop from a week ago. Ilsa will not be happy -- since I dropped from a high of 235 to 225 over a period of 6 months, I maintained that weight for another 6 months. I guess the stress of school ending led me to eat less, as well as a couple of solid bike rides and 3 yoga classes last week, the physical activity to keep me balanced. To balance the weight loss, I ate a big ol' brick of Chinese today. Now THAT should make Ilsa happy!

I usually don't eat this crappily, just a weird transitional day.

LUNCH: 1pm, peppersteak with pork fired rice and an eggroll, water, 2 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5pm, homemade vanilla ice cream, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
I finished the ice cream so my wife wouldn't be tempted.

DINNER: 7pm, brown rice pilaf, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Softened onion in butter, sauteed the basmanti brown in it for about 10 minutes till it got really fragrant, through in a quart of store-bought chicken stock along with a few spoonfuls of minced dried shitakes and a few bay leafs and thyme stems wrapped in cheese clothe. Brought it to a boil, covered it, into the oven at 350 for about an hour till the liquid was absorbed. A little bit gluey and firm, but tasty. The store stock already had a ton of salt in it, no need to add any more.