Be My Own Chef

ADDENDA:
Saw this corny advert that said 'Be Your Own Chef', while I was pedaling by and in deep thought about culinary school. A lot percolating...

AM SNACK: 8:30am, 3 vegan cookie things, hunger 4/5

BREAKFAST: 10am, ham & cheese on a croissant, water, hunger 4/5
At Orchard 88 with friends who are staying with us for the weekend. Sandwich was small, greezy and a big ham and funky cheese flavor. Very frenchy.

PM SNACK: 1pm, veggie booty, hunger 4/5
Went to the farmers market and WF, made a big salad, but felt too lazy to eat any.

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, 1 saltless wholewheat pretzel, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 4:30pm, 1.5 mixed empinades, 1 piece salty chocolate cake, hunger 4/5
Ate the leftovers at the end of Reeve's baby shower.

PM SNACK: 6pm, 1 slice streetza, hunger 4/5
Hungry on the way out to a L.I. party. Near the Flatbush LIRR, this rather dirty looking slice joint had a thin, wonderfully snappy crust with just a hint of chew. An unexpected delight.

EVENING SNACKS: 8pm, a few slices snausage, little bits of various fancy cheeses, a few water crackers and onion dip, 1 beer, hunger 4/5
The hostess did a diploma at the French Culinary Institute, chewed on her ear about her experiences and thoughts through the night.

EVENING SNACK: 12:15am, 1 Gus Grape soda, hunger 4/5
After getting home and having such a weird eating day, just needed....something. This lightly sweetened soda was nice...but makes me think I could make it myself.

Culinary?

ADDENDA:
Met with an admissions director at the Institute of Culinary Education this morning before work. Sat and spoke for about an hour, then gave me a tour of the facility. Though I stuck to my questions about job placement and career advisement, my gut reaction while seeing cooking classes in session was, "Oh my. This looks like an obscene amount of fun!" I'm considering getting a double diploma in culinary arts and management. Well, if I do pull the trigger, it should make for a very interesting blog...

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, raw cashews, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1pm, curry pork cutlet with rice, miso soup, hunger 4/5
Nice having a work-day lunch with Erikka.

PM WATERING: 3:30pm, 24 oz still

DINNER: 7pm, leftover homemade baked ziti, baby carrots with crappy WF guac, homemade chocolate soy ice cream, hunger 4/5
Baked pastas freeze exceptionally well and come back to life in the microwave without a hitch - gotta make a new batch with the idea of individual frozen servings. Felt the urge for more food and sweets after, so cobbled together the ingredients and busted out the ice cream attachment for the mixer. From deciding I wanted it to eating it was under 15 minutes. I upped the maple syrup and threw in a dash of vanilla extract, it really made the flavor pop.

EVENING SNACK: 10:15pm, bowl of veggie booty, hunger 4/5

The Unwork Work Daze

ADDENDA:
Back at the old job, at the old desk, till Tuesday as a consultant. Left my adult sippy cup here, there was some mildew in it, yuk. I feel a bit bummed being back here, but easy money is easy money, even if it's not a 'career move'.

I've realized the emotions I'm feeling - it's like you have a big break up with your significant other, you spend a month feeling low about it, doing healthy things to constructively move on, then all of a sudden you find yourself back together with your ex for an extended weekend of bonking - it's nice, it LOOKS the same, but you know everything has changed, and the weekend of bonking is going to pass and you'll be right back where you started.

BREAKFAST: 10am, bowl of organic wholewheat chex with good milk, hunger 3/5

AM WATERING: noon, 24oz water

LUNCH: 2:30 lamb on pita, hunger 4.5/5
Almost forgot to eat, but started getting dizzyheaded - how the hell do people forget to eat?! It's like forgetting to breathe! (So sayeth the chubby dude...) Nice to go back to an old favored lunch spot. Watching the 4 guys in the little cart, a tight team...

DINNER: 7pm, crusty bread with fresh ricotta and tomato broth, margerita pizza appetizer, polenta and mushroom appetizer, 2 ginormous meatballs in tomato sauce, shared warm chocolate cake and ammeretto icecream, 1 glass presecco, water, hunger 4/5
Nice relaxing dinner out with the wifey at Apizz in the 'hood. Very good food, very charming room.

Arancini, bambini!

BREAKFAST: 9am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, raw cashews, hunger 3/5

BP 11:30am: 133/90
Haven't been very physical lately, my plan to intensify yoga routed by my employment situation. Too cold to ride.

LUNCH: 1pm, homemade arancini with homemade tomato sauce, water, hunger 4/5
Did a search to find the best way to reheat gluey cold risotto - most said either microwave it or pan heat with a bit of stock. One person said there is NO way to bring risotto back to life - the traditional way of using leftover risotto is to make arancini - rice balls. Basically you mix an egg into the cold risotto, ball it up around a stuffing (I had some mozz lying around), dredge in flour, bath it in egg, coat it in crumbs (I just used wholewheat flour) then deep fry till golden (I only had olive oil around) They actually came out pretty good, though a bit loose and messy - this method of cooking is definitely a feel-thing. I feel like I'm sketching, trying to develop a feel for the tools of this art - only I get to eat the art and judge pretty immediately if it's good or not!

DINNER: 7pm, 2 shrimp spring rolls, baby carrots with guacamole, 1 small piece of thai peanut marinaded mahi mahi, 1 slice chocolate cake, hunger 4/5
Wow, this is my first mid-meal post! After the arancini, I cleaned up then installed myself on the couch to digest, where I promptly fell asleep. I woke up feeling guilty - lazy & unemployed, sleeping the afternoon away when I was planning to make some pro-active motions towards the situation. So I forced myself out of the house at 5pm, rode over to Chelsea Market to buy a new houseplant. Food Network is based there, and I wandered the market looking at people who probably worked there, feeling a bit crummy. Found an Italian-supply shop, wandered in and found a really good price on bufalla moz.

On the way home, stopped by Whole Foods just to buy dinner for tonight. The greezy arancini still rolling around in my stomach, I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to eat...and what I came up with was....carrots and cake (not carrot cake, I hate that stuff!) So I got a bag of baby carrots, some house-made guac (not very good, surprisingly), a palm piece of raw fish, and a container of 2 fresh spring rolls. When I got home, popped the fish in the oven and ate the carrots, guac and rolls. Waiting for the fish to be ready before the cake....

It was tempting to buy some prepared heat n' eat thing, as I didn't feel like cooking, but baking a piece of pre-marinated fish isn't really cooking....and pre-cooked fish is by far always not that great.

EVENING DRUGGING: 10:30pm, 2 tumms
Lots of fried food doesn't agree with me, I'm coming to realize...

Pancakes just keep getting better

ADDENDA:
Betsy made a crack about the other day when I was feeling crappier, worried I was overeating - referred to the pasta I made for lunch as a very large serving and the Thai food I ordered for dinner as a 'brick' - a term I usually reserve for the obscenely dense bricks that Chinese take out comes in. I imagine when I focus on lowering my weight, I'll have to focus not only on making good healthy food, but eating less of it, too....

Still stuffy, but feel a lot better. Slept a little fitfully, but OK.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, home made pancakes and bacon, hunger 4/5
Used whipped eggwhites as a fluffing agent again, I must say these are some of the best pancakes I ever made/ate. Bacon is organic and uncured from WF, salty but reasonably so.

LUNCH: 12:15pm, homemade baked ziti, water, hunger 4/5
Katya came over to use my computer, made lunch. Actually, it's a baked penne but whose to nit-pick. The sauce was homemade but frozen, and mixed a buffala mozz with fresh cow because WF was out of the good stuff. Came out pretty damn good, pretty too. Bread crumbs were freshly made, too.

Still got a ton of risotto. Guess I'll freeze this jam for when I have less time to cook!

LUNCH #2: 4pm, small green salad, small portion of baked ziti, hunger 4/5
Granted, the portion of ziti I had for lunch was small, I was feeling a bit guilty after B expressed her concern about portion size. But Dinner ain't till 7ish, and I'm hungry. Better a bunch of small meals then a few biggies, right?

DINNER: 6:30pm, sushi platter, water, 1 piece of multigrain bread with weird vegetable spread, hunger 4/5
Nice dinner outwith some colleagues/friends from the old job. Ironically, got a call during dinner, will be going to the office for a freelance project Thurs-Tues.

EVENING SNACK: 10:30, small bowl of risotto, hunger 4/5
Not enough for dinner. Found some interesting recipes of what to do with gluey risotto, looks good for an interesting lunch tomorrow...

Monday Make Me Wanna Puke

ADDENDA:
Got to bed around 11, had slight difficulty falling asleep, then had the craziest dreams again. On the sick-couch, I watched the movie 'Deep Impact' then an episode of the L Word, and in my dream I was running away from a giant wave with the characters from the L Word. Also dreamt that I inherited a really old, broken-down car from my father (a black Studebaker with lots of leaves piled up in side, something my dad never had) and I was driving it around Staten Island, trying to clear the leaves off the steering wheel while staying in control.

AM DRUGGING: 7:45am, dirtpill, 500mg Vitamin C, 2 extra strength Tylenol
Woke up several times to blow my nose, very stuffed up.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, 1 wholewheat saltless pretzel, hunger 3/5
I got up off the couch because I started to feel queezy, then attempted to throw up in the sink - I think the pills on on an empty stomach was a bad idea. The sound of my retching threw me back to when I was living with my mom while she was in the last stages of her cancer - the chemo and pills would make her make the same exact noises. Happy morning!

LUNCH: 1:15pm, homemade mushroom & sherry risotto, 2 small chocolate ice cream bars, 3/4 bottle of seltzer
Spent the morning doing laundry, food shopping, missing my parents, feeling sorry for myself, so I collected ingredients for a challenging afternoon of cooking. Following Batali's recipe with some necessary adjustments (double the shiitakes, dried porcini for fresh, sherry instead of Vin Canto, vegetable stock instead of chicken stock), and though he calls for 18 minutes of stirring while ladling in stock, to reach the proper creaminess and al denteness of the rice, took an arm-bending 45 minutes. (This would be a great recipe for those with OCD) A lot of cooking involves putting stuff on heat and walking away, this was 1 & 1/4 solid hours of chopping, sweating, browning, stirring then mixing - good for the soul. Even before I tasted it, I was glad to have the distraction.

So I ladled it out, took a picture and ate. I'm not a huge fan of risotto, but I have enjoyed it before. I was surprised by the creamy consistency (as no creamy ingredients were used), the rice-pudding like consistency of the rice, and the fantastic mushroomy funkiness set off perfectly by the sherry. That said, if I was served this in a restaurant, I'd probably not be impressed - but I wouldn't send it back, either! I look forward to Betsy trying it, as I have a small bucket of it left over.

DINNER: 7pm, reheated left over baked potato with sauteed broccoli, mushroom and garlic, 1 small chocolate ice cream bar, hunger 4/5
I'm a bit afraid of the left over risotto, it looks a bit like paste.... so I prepped the other left overs, threw hot sauce & soy sauce on the veg and came out nicely.

Feeling too healthy and craving sugar (baked potatoes have that effect on me), I scarfed my 2nd desert of the day. These ice cream bars are kinda like the Haagen Daaz all-chocolate bars, but smaller and all-organic and less crippity crappity stuff in it. I remember the H.D. bars as a snack making me feel ill, so I skipped them for this brand. Didn't make me fill skanky but wasn't that great, either. Gotta make my own ice cream again, soon.

EVENING SNACK: 11:15pm, small bowl of risotto, hunger 4/5
Feeling nippy - desiring....meat. But this is available. Reheated in the microwave, good, but surprisingly thick and pudding like. Taste the sherry a bit too strongly. Next time I make this it's gonna kick ass!

Casa de Wildman: Overrun with Ladies

ADDENDA:
Slept from 9:30 to 8, had some crazy dreams. I dreamt I went back to college, as a freshman, back to SUNY Albany, living on the miserable campus. Only this time I was black, with mini-dreads, kinda like that horrible 80s movie 'Soul Man'. I had full knowledge of my past, but everyone else I assumed I was an 18 year old black kid with 'wacky' street cred. Weird.

Also dreamt I visited my home in Staten Island, as if both my parents were still alive and never sold the house. For some reason the house was not as I remembered it, becoming more of a Victorian mansion with medieval ramparts at the front. It was pleasingly overgrown with vines and roosting wildlife, and my parents were happy and leading a good life there.

Have a cough, stuffy nose, not so much a headache. Cancelling all plans today and just going to read, watch the tube, read the job listing and snuggle my wonderful ladies, feline and otherwise!

AM DRUGGING: 8:15am, dirtpill, 500mg Vitamin C

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, good yogurt with vanilla and honey, hunger 3.5/5
Despite feeling ill, not affecting my appetite.

LUNCH: 12:15pm, wholewheat fusilli with garlic, oil & mushrooms, half a bottle of seltzer, hunger 4/5
Experimented with this pasta, sweating garlic and onion in olive oil and a pat of butter, a dash of white wine, a dash of sea salt to help sweat the vegetable matter, a sprinkle dried basil, and thinly sliced criminis, all kinda run together under very low heat. Topping the pasta with this and some freshly ground cheese, I was surprised how yummy it came out, definitely restaurant worthy. A great meal to veg on the couch with.

PM DRUGGING: 4:15pm, 2 extra strength tylenol
Headache came raging back when I stood up from the couch and felt light-headed. Still stuffed up and coughy.

PM SNACK: 5:45pm, large green salad with ranch dressing, hunger 4/5
Don't know what to do about dinner so I took this punt...

DINNER: 8pm, shrimp masamam curry with sticky rice, tofu tod, hunger 4/5
Ordered in Thai. Hark, is this a desert free day?!