Orzo Salad and Cookies and Pizza, oh my!

Got into a little cooking fit this afternoon. Finished the vanilla ice cream whose batter had to chill over night, then I made a big batch of vegan Basil Lemon Orzo Salad, made it up with out a recipe, pretty good. Box o' orzo al dente in well-salted water. 2 finely shredded carrots, carton of cherry tomatoes, quartered, juice of 1 whole lemon, cup of chickpeas. Lightly sauteed in olive oil: shallot and garlic, diced yellow pepper, diced de-finned portobello, a little chive, salt. Mixed in, finished with fresh diced basil, more olive oil, more salt to taste. Bright, fresh, and after it sits for a day or two, the flavor is really gonna mesh. And a big ol' portion of it will be waiting for the HVS when she gets home!

Also made focaccia french toast to soak, to be served to our guests tomorrow. Had some chocolate chips laying around, so made a small batch of cookies.

Made pizza for a friend of B's and her 2 little kids, boys age 2 and 4. It was fun showing them how to stretch dough and top the pizzas. Though MY kid's pizza is gonna be soooo much better then theirs!

I just got an email message from a distant relative, saying she just made beef stew from a recipe of my father's. I hope she has a hand-written copy by him, I would love to study it.

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, organic chex with good milk, banana, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:30pm, basil lemon orzo salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 1:30pm, a spoonful of vanilla ice cream, a snip of chocolate chip cookie dough, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

PM WATERING: 2:30pm, quart

DINNER: 7pm, 1 cookie while cooking, homemade pizza, slice of s'mores pizza, 1 cookie, 1 spoonful of ice cream, quart of water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Least. Healthy. Snack. Ever.

I found this while trying to find an image to illustrate "Bacon Porn":


"Tastes great, just needs more salt!"

In culinary school, one item that had almost universal popularity was honey-bacon. Ridiculously easy to make: brush raw bacon with honey, lay on a drying rack set in a sheet-pan, place in a cold oven then bake at around 400 until done. Flat, crispy, sweet & salty. I'm not a big fan of honey-flavor, and all the intense smokey fat really ratchet up that particular note.

Now the snack I had today, oy. Over all, I think I hit a new low in unhealthiness, but for not horrible reasons. I felt good, enjoyed working last night, have some new ideas, B worked from home and I had extra time to admire her belly, Rufus the Wonder Cat was super snuggly, and I had a really good yoga basics class with my favorite teacher focusing on my favorite yoga practice (back bending). Also maybe a lack of sleep, only 5 hours. So I'm not weirdly punishing myself, maybe celebrating by indulging myself?

While eating the bacon, I desired something sweet, and I reached for a grape soda. What a great combination!! I should make something like a loose grape jam, and spread it on the bacon! Mmmmm! Grape bacon! I posted on facebook, and people chimed in with "No! Orange!" or the like.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, nuts, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 11:30am, 6 slices bacon, grape soda, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Least. Healthy. Snack. Ever. But so delicious! Hit the spot.

LUNCH: 4:30pm, curry ramen, pork fried rice, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AFTERNOON SNACKAGE: 6-8pm, bits of chocolate, taste of cream anglaise, tofu pie batter, vanilla wafers, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
Cooking. Vanilla ice cream for tomorrow's guests, a chocotofu pie with an experimental vanilla cookie crust for the HVS.

EVENING SNACK: 11:30, tortilla chips and salsa, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

I am what I eat, but do I HAVE where I eat?

I got called in to the restaurant at the last minute to do a shift, so I had to find a fast convenient place to go eat on the way there -- it's bad to show up for service while hungry if you won't be able to eat when you come in, you'll end up snacking for hours. I was going through Chinatown, not in the mood for my regular vegetarian dim sum. Along Mott, there are the old restaurants that have been there forever, with a classic Americanized menu for the tourists. 'Big Wong' had a name that said, "Hey, if you go here, you can write "BIG WONG" all over your blog today!" -- definitely not the best way to choose a restaurant, but hey, the menu was cheap, so I bet the turn over was fast.

And it was. I had my first dish seconds after I ordered and my bill before finishing my meal. I think this was the way all Chinese restaurants used to be, particularly in the 70s. Big portions, cheap, harried, a bit dank, and funky of flavor. The first item I got was "fresh" shrimp wrapped in rice dough, but literally feet away from me I saw the waitress pop it out of the microwave. The shrimp was definitely a bit tough. The wonton soup was filled to the brim with pork/shrimp dumplings, at least 12 of them, and the broth was pleasingly/oddly gamy -- I imagine they must use EVERY bit of meat in their dishes, and the really scary unusable stuff....goes into making the broth! My main noodle dish, which was under $7, was enough for two people....and after that huge bowl of wontons, could only get through half of it. Am I glad I went? Yes. Did I enjoy my meal? Sure. Will I go back? Not any time soon.

Yesterday's weiner schnitzel brought back some strong parental memories. In the mid-nineties, me and my parents took our first and (now it turns out) last big trip as a family unit together. As my parents aged, they were never big on travel -- too expensive, too uncomfortable. (With my encouragement, they took a couple of cruises in the early 2000s, thank goodness, but that was without me...thank goodness!) We flew to England, London, stayed in Kensington, saw a bunch of my friends, travelled to a friend's for dinner up North, was really nice. Then we took a plane over to Vienna, where my father was born.

This was my second time there, the first time was in the early 90s as a student with a rucksack. I remembered all the pastry shops there, which my father remembered fondly and was undoubtedly the ground work for his diabetes later in life. We visited where he was born, where he grew up, the bench along the Danube River where he remembered "NO JEWS" painted on them. It never occurred to the three of us to bring a camera, that's how out of practice we were with exotic vacationing. (Fortunately, a friend had a camera when they visited, and my 2 pictures from that vacation are some of my most treasured possessions.)

The best time the three of us had in Vienna was probably when we went to some generic local restaurant for weiner schnitzel. Weiner schnitzel is simply a pork cutlet that is hammered out flat, breaded and deep fried to crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside -- not so far from fried chicken in concept, thought the spicing and presentation is very different. It was served, as it was last night, with a German potato salad, a little cooked shredded red cabbage, and a little cucumber salad. The food was good, we relaxed in the restaurant, pausing to appreciate where we were and let it enter our bodies. These were pre-Euro days, and there was something like 3,385 Austrian marks to the US dollar. My father, being my father, paid for the meal. As we were down the street from the spot, we calculated my dad left about 17 cents in tip on an 80 dollar bill. He felt horrible, but me and my mom refused to let him go back -- they don't really tip in Europe anyway, and even so, will we ever be back there? But really, me and mom just wanted an excuse to tease him, which we did for, oh, on regular occasions until the day he died!

Weiner Schnitzel was a food my dad grew up with, and eating it with him in the place he was born was a treat and an honor, and I'm glad I got to do it. Weiner Schnitzel will never just be a hammered pork chop to me.

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, banana, pint of apple cider, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10am, marble pound cake, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
I was hoping the pint of juice would of calmed me, but no. I know, I know, I feel like a broken record, I need to motivate.

PM SNACK: 2pm, olive oil torta, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 4:15pm, singapore chow mei fun, wonton soup, 'fresh' shrimp in rice crepe, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 7pm, half a soda, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 10pm, pizza with stewed tomato, sausage, parm, basil, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING WATERING: 11:45pm, 1 quart

B's Baby Bump

While at school today, my wife had a check up with her doctors. She's 20 weeks pregnant and looks friggin' great, and I'm not even talkin' about the boob situation; I am not a boob guy, I've always been about the....well, thats for a different kinda blog. Anyway, B is in good health, the miniB seems to be in good health, but the doc made a comment about her weight. (And yes, dear friend, I asked permission to talk about her weight in public before posting this!)

The doc says she should be gaining about 25-30 pounds by the time she's ready to give birth. We're about 5 months in, and she's gained about 20lbs. Gaining too much could lead to prenatal diabetes. I see (most of) what B eats, she definitely does not go crazy overall, even though a lot of her steady habits have dropped in and out over the past half year. For a few weeks she couldn't eat a fruit or veg, but french fries were all the rage -- that was fun! She's back to eating veg, but between her growing bump, the cold weather and the inappropriateness of a preggers lady riding a bike is not working in her favor.

I suppose the doc's 25-30 lb limit is a bit different for every woman. B is hardly sitting around gorging on bon bons all day (though I would love it if she did that for a day -- just so I could lovingly complain about it), and I'm hesitant to encourage any sort of dieting for her n' Lil' Fetus (That's gonna be the name of our baby, Lil' Fetus. Middle name: Cletus.) Whenever B has expressed any sort of urge for a food, I've either made it or we ordered it in. She doesn't eat weirdly large portions, either -- if anything, she ate weirdly small portions matched with weirdly large binges late in the day. I would love a chubby wife -- so cute! Like one of them sexy German farm maids, with the ruffly sleeves....but that's for another kind of blog, once again!

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, organic chex with the good milk, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 10:15am, marble pound cake, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Was hoping the more substantial breakfast would take me through to lunch. I was wrong.

LUNCH: 1pm, mushroom risotto, small amount of chocolate gelato, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, Weiner Schnitzel with German potato salad, cucumber salad, cooked cabbage, French Onion soup, half a dark beer, water, a few pieces of bread, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Dinner with friends before a movie at BAM in Brooklyn at a newish Viennese restaurant. This was the food of my father's childhood -- I think the last time I had a weiner schnitzel was in Vienna with my mom and dad in the mid 90s, very lucky to have done that. Still digesting it, figuratively and literally, perhaps more to say about it tomorrow.

Risotto, and how we got there.

Had a nice but odd experience at a restaurant I'm auditing for class. It was a fix prix lunch menu, both me and B were paying the same amount for a first and second course. However, my panino and fries was a large amount of food and her tortelli were 6 little halfmoons all lonely on the plate.

Met with Ilsa this evening, seems she's flying the coop this year to pursue her life on the farm -- I need to start thinking in terms of how I've changed in my eating and food perspective since starting with her. Anyone out there following this blog from the beginning who can summarize the whole shebang for me? 100 words or less, please!

Nyquil gave me the sleep of the dead last night, feel better but stuffed up. Appetite came back, but worried about waking up predawn again tomorrow. Got to work out a new breakfast/food routine for the mornings.

As I was cooking risotto this evening (which takes a solid 45 minutes of constant activity), I snacked on dessert, tortas and gelato, but just a little. Earlier the sugar goes in, the theory goes, the less it'll effect my sleep.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, swig of apple cider, 7 slices of bacon, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Had to make bacon or let it go bad. Was delicious, and nice to feed bits to Rufus out of my hand.

LUNCH: Noon, prociutto & buffalo moz panino with fries, Caesar salad, 1 glass prosecco, small scoop of lemon sorbet, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7:30pm, 2 Spanish sweet olive oil tortas, 3 spoonfuls of chocolate gelato, 2 bowls homemade mushroom risotto, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Hadn't made risotto in a while, pretty good. Using the chicken stock from yesterday, sauteed a shallot, added all the sliced mushrooms, sauteed the rice then added stock a ladle at a time till all absorbed. Added a cup of dry sherry and cooked to get ride of the alcohol. Cut the heat and finished with a half stick of the good butter, a half cup of marscapone and half cup of parmesan. Salted to taste and bammo, some kick ass risotto!

If an Alien assumed we were monodietetic...

Not sick, not well. I think I'd be a lot sicker if I was unhappy with life. I think I'm more unsatisfied than unhappy, thanks to the B and her little b baking.

Was going to cook this evening, and went so far as to make chicken stock with a baggie of 'chicken parts' from the market -- mostly spines and belly bones. After boiling them for 3 hours, added mire poix with mushroom stems, some dried porcini, pepper corns, thyme and a clove of garlic for an hour. Strained, put in the freezer to coagulate the fat. (What should I do with this yummy disc of shmaltz?) I was going to make mushroom risotto, but the tiredness and the laundry and the househusband duties got the best of me,

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, pint of apple cider, 1 bowl, hunger 2/5
Felt hungry and nauseous from lack of sleep, this was the only thing that could slip down easily.

AM SNACK: 9:15am, thick slice of street pound cake, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Again, out of sorts and no plan while at school

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, bottle of grape soda, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
Not quite sick, not quite well, just riding the low-energy edge. Need sugar to continue to move.

PM SNACK: 3pm, 2 olive oil tortas, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5
Sweet, savory, mildly like fennel, crispy, melty, all Spanish n' delicious

DINNER: 6:30pm, 2 slices restaurant pizza, ramekin of store-bought chocolate gelato, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Feeling better, low energy, not enough to continue with the stock to make risotto. I'm glad I have a lot of slices banked in the freezer, it's kinda like an alien's idea of what a human would stock up on to survive. Bee's stock up on honey, squirrels stock up on nuts, and human's stock up on pizza slices.

I bought a fancily packaged, high-priced gelato from the market today, as an experiment. Disappointing -- chocolate gelato should be deep and rich and hit a harmony of chocolate notes from milky and sweet to dark and pleasingly bitter.

EVENING WATERING: 8pm, quart o' da wet stuff

EVENING DRUGGING: 9:30pm, a shot of da Quil