Chinatown with Edles

After sleeping away a large part of the afternoon, I couldn't get to bed until close to 4am. Today is the last experimental Edie day for me, which really is to give B some time to herself to get her matters in order, as she returns to work next Tuesday. So I got up as B was leaving around 8:30, and after changed her diaper, Edie was calm until she started getting cranky.

She would stop being cranky when I picked her up, but I wanted to, ummm, do stuff like email and, urrr, blog. So after a moment of discordance, a -duhhh- realization came into my head and I popped her into the sling as I sat at the kitchen table eating my breakfast. She wiggled a little, shouted a little, snuggled her face a little tighter to where my heart was (literally! - and figuratively), gave a coo, then shut her eyes. Ahhhhhh! After a few minutes I laid her down on the bouncy, sling and all.

Looking over what I ate today, realized my body is recovering from a bug -- feel a little worn out for no reason, eating a little less than usual.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, 3 pancakes, a little peanut butter ice cream, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Freezer fresh, he he. Thing is, you can buy frozen pancakes in the supermarket, but a) they're about 3x more expensive than making your own from top-shelf organic ingredients, b) taste like cardboard because they were probably made months ago and c) involve a lot more packaging (OK, maybe c isn't a big deal for me, but it makes people happy!)

LUNCH: 1:45pm, "rice noodle with fishball", 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Leisurely walking through Chinatown with Edles, thinking about the "Chop Suey" book I've been reading, I noticed all the little hole-in-the-wall restaurants, which are more like food carts that evolved into shops, kinda like mobile homes that lost their wheels and ended up on cinderblocks. The only one that had any English at all had a handwritten sign, "Lunch Special: 3 items $3.25", and I'm sure that was on top of rice and not in a small portion. These places have buffet hot bars in front, a few dingy tables in the back. No room for a stroller, and Edie is just too small and unprotected to leave outside by herself while I popped in (how unEuropean of me, I know.)

It the corner of Rutgers and East Broadway, there was a street cart with a line of Asian peeps in front of it, so I got on. The tiny menu was in Chinese, with a few annotations in English. Their big specialty was Curry Squid, but I went for the more friendly sounding rice noodle with fishball. For $2.25, got a full pint of rolled tubes of meifun rice noodles, about 7 small fishy-tasting fried ground fish-balls, and on top the woman squirted 4 different sauces in rapid succession, a sweet, a salty, a spicy and something else I couldn't put my finger on. She shook some sesame seeds over the top for good luck, too. I ate it in the park while Edie slept, surrounded by Asian children and Asian grannies. I feel fortunate to live so close to such a thriving neighborhood, right next door to my thriving neighborhood. Only one block away from my noodle cart are the best pickles and best bagels in NYC!

DINNER: 5pm, pad thai, 3 little fried thingies, a beer, water, small cup of gelato, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Walked to the hepper section of the LES on Orchard to try a new Thai joint, walked Edles in the sling and met B there, ending her big day out without us. Food was surprisingly good, a lot of thought in the presentation and nicely balanced flavoring -- I could taste the galangal, a Thai sweetener similar to brown sugar, but with it's own special funk. Went to Laboratorio del Gelato after, where we both got 2 flavors in small cups and ended up eating half of each other's.