Baby is Fo' Reals, Yo

I went to the hospital with B today for an ultrasound to make sure all the parts of the baby were intact, and on a side note found out the gender. My wife doesn't want to know, so it's my secret...but if you want to know, scroll down to the bottom of this post to find out. Finding out was one of those moments...you don't think it's gonna be a big deal and then, when you do find out, it's like whack: a concussion. You don't remember what happened and yet you feel a huge excitement welling up from all directions...but you're not quite sure why. Then you remind yourself, and it's, oh yeah. He he.

Felt like a quick celebratory meal, pizza but something weird. Went to Viva Herbal, an odd vegetarian/vegan pizza place in the East Village. I'm quite familiar with it from the dark days of the years I was vegetarian & vegan, and fooled myself into thinking it was...pizza. On the bottom shelf they have traditional pizza, with cheese n' stuff, which seems silly (you don't get fish at a steak house, you don't get pizza at a burger joint, etc), but I thought it could be interesting. There traditional slice was WAY over-cheesed with a blanket of flavorless moz. I had a vegan picante, which is a snappy whole wheat crust with no chew, topped with a thick layer of relatively mild tomato stew, thickened with soy meat balls and roasted red peppers. It was actually pretty tasty, but a stretch to call it pizza.


Cooked up a bacon corn bread for a party I attended late in the evening. The theme was the Depression. Cheap, filling, full o' lard -- that's what I think when I imagine what people ate. And apples. (All those pictures of apple carts.) The party had a real working old-fashioned fireplace, and we toasted marshmallows in the living room of a well-appointed Carroll Gardens apartment, an odd experience. Riding home over the Brooklyn Bridge, my mind wandered as to what it's will be like raising this kid, this kid who just became a lot more defined today. Not that gender is the be-all end-all -- I still intend to go strictly gender neutral on the stuff side of things, and if my kid is born and naturally blossoms into something decidedly queer (or whatever the PC word is today), that'll be perfectly fine, too. I mean, Rufus was just fine living as a dude until his gender reassignment! Oy, it's 2 in the morning and I'm slightly buzzed and really tired. Good night!

BREAKFAST: 9am, organic corn flakes with dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:15pm, 2 weird slices, chocolate cigar, 1.5 bowl

PM SNACK: 3pm, bacon cornbread drippings, swig of apple cider, water, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 7pm, small bowl of potato chips, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

EVENING DRINK & SNACKS: 9pm-1am, 1 beer, 1 manhattan, 1 gimlet, small plate of bland rice & beans, small wedge of bacon cornbread, small piece of smoked moz, 3 smores, 1.5 bowls, hunger 3/5

EVENING WATERING: 1:30am, quart


It's a.....



...First, this political message....




OK, OK. It's a.....

BIRL!!!

Because it sure aint a goy! I've been sworn to secrecy!

Kati Rolls are yummy

I got 10 hours of uncomfortable sleep on a small bed with an enlarged heated pregnant lady, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Still, waking up and still tired to a pantry I'm unfamiliar with is a little disconcerting, letting the graham crackers comfortably nudge me awake.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, water, a couple of graham crackers, cart roll & butter, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:45pm, homemade mac n' cheese, 4 freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, quart of water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
It's nice when you finish the left over of a large dish that's been sitting around a while and it tastes just as good as the day it was made.

DINNER: 6:25pm, potato kati roll, lamb mince kati roll, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
D took me to a favorite lunch place in midtown before a movie, really good concept, nice looking space, good food, but the place was EMPTY and took 10 minutes to get our relatively simple food.

EVENING SNACK: 7pm, cherry icee, popcorn, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Usually I'd say 1 or 1.5 bowls, but according to the posted labels, this snack was about 1000 calories, so...

Tired again

Only got 4 hours of sleep last night, couldn't get to sleep. The restaurant called earlier and signed me up for multiple shifts over the next few weeks, guess the 2nd new guy didn't work out, either, or something.

After class, went to a kitchen class room at a community college to volunteer to set up for a student competition, for an organization that awards students scholarships to go to c-school. After, I went to join B at her brother's house to watch bad TV and eat pizza that Brother B insists is some of the best in the city.

BREAKFAST: 6:15am, good yogurt with honey, raw cashews, vanilla, pint of apple cider, 1.25 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 10am, cart cake, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:15pm, falafel & hummus sandwich, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2pm, cart hot dog, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, pizza, 1 diet soda, a chocolate thingy, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Wood-fired roman pizza from a place called Waldy's, kind of rendered impotent by arriving cold.

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, graham cracker, small piece of chocolate, seltzer, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

ILSA! What is she good for? UHH! Absolutely SUMTHIN'!

(The title is sung to the tune of "War" by the Temptations....anyhoo....I've been thinking about my nutritionist Ilsa lately -- she's movin' on from NYC and going to embed herself on a farm out in Massachusetts, and our active bi-weekly meetings will be coming to an end. Next time we meet, we're going to work on just what has come out of the work we did.

Well, the first thing that's come out of it is kinda obvious -- this blog! Originally under the name "I Am What I Eat, I Eat What I Wish to Become" (snappy, huh?), it came out of Ilsa's request for me to keep a food journal for a week or two, and the reflectivity of it just made it too easy to roll on.

It was the original iteration of this blog where I started really cooking for myself, and thinking about what I was cooking....and with a little knowledge, I quickly learned how little I knew about cooking. Which lead to 8 months of culinary school....and my current part time job as a pizza cook. And another blog, Culinary School Confidential, to go along with it.

Yesterday, I ate really poorly....but upon reflection, it makes sense. It's winter, I'm craving the heavy, not feeling the light. One thing Ilsa has caused me to really reevaluate is portion size. The portion of mac n' cheese I ate yesterday was big enough for me, but a few years ago I would of easily eaten 2.5x more on one plate....in fact, if I were to put that much in front of me, I probably still could eat it without too much trouble. It's just now I know that if I cut my portions down, for some reason psychologically it just seems like I ate a full portion and enough is enough. For that, I definitely have to credit the work I did with Ilsa.

As I just mentioned, I'm now conscious of the seasonality of my eating. Before Isla, I would mindlessly make the same exact salad 12 months a year, whether I enjoyed it or not, regardless of what was in season. After Ilsa's assignments to choose random in-season veg from the market (and the skills acquired from c-school to prepare them), I can't imagine eating my standard salad outside of late spring and summer -- it just doesn't taste so good in the colder months.

I guess the biggest thing I gained was my control over my sweets intake. I still occasionally eat 2-3 sweets in a day....maybe once a week, if the sweets on offer are special. Before Ilsa, it was 2 to 3 of ANYTHING sweet, prepackaged industrial junk, as long as it had that fix. I enjoy sweets more now! It's not a habit, there is thought behind it.

This thread needs to be picked up later, I'm getting sleepy.


The HVS is back from overseas, spent a good part of the day eating with her -- I've been making food for her the past few days, but her front door key was changed at the last minute, so she came over this evening for an unprecedented snickle dinner. It was nice being able to serve a fully homemade 3-course vegan dinner with almost no prep or cooking! I was worried the chocotofu pie would be nasty, but was pretty good and rich and redolent of molasses.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, organic chex with the dead milk, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5

SNICKLE SNACK: 2pm, large vegan Caesar salad, bowl of dahl, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4pm, swig of apple cider, small wedge of halavah, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5:45pm, one glass of black cherry/orange soda cocktail, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

SNICKLE DINNER: 7pm, grilled seitan, orzo salad, butternut squash soup, chocotofu pie, seltzer, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Hungry for the Heavy

It's winter, I fully realized, as I ate pizza for the second time during dinner, after a lunch of not-light mac n' cheese for lunch. OK, I did make everything myself (including the pizza from the restaurant), but damn, not even craving veg. This morning I cooked up some killer vegan butternut squash soup for the HVS's homecoming, but outside of tasting it for balance, just wasn't....rich enough. Hungry for for the heavy.

Speaking of heavy, I weighed in at 226.2 this morning. The way I've been eating, I thought I was more than just a few pounds over where I've been. My body is handling things well. When I start going in for salads and lighter food in the spring, maybe I'll be in a good spot.

Saw an old episode of Seinfeld this evening, Kramer had an idea for a 'build your own' pizza restaurant, and was trying to convince the owner, Poppy, to go for it. When Kramer puts cucumber on his pie, they get into a fight -- Poppy believes it is NOT pizza if you put bad toppings on it, while Kramer believes it's not a pizza till it comes out of the oven. Hmmm.

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, organic corn flakes with bad (i.e. homogenized, dead) whole milk, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, street slice, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
While riding home through Cobble Hill, stopped by an old slice joint on Court St. Classic big greasy triangle, too much salt. The menu said $2.75, the dude charged me $3. They also have 'brick oven' pizza, separate on the menu. They have a gas-burning standard pizza oven AND a built-in brick oven, very odd.

LUNCH: 1:15pm, mac n' cheese, grape soda & potato chips, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Not horrendously healthy, but the portion was right, and primarily home made.

DINNER: 7:30pm, 2 frozen resto slices, 4 freshly baked home made chocochip cookies, quart of water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

I got my mind on the pizza and the pizza on my mind...

You can google just about any term and 'porn' and find something interesting...

There are two pizza conventions: one in NYC in the beginning of March, and a national convention in Las Vegas in mid-March. Going to the local one is no biggie, $30 for a pass and I can ride my bike there. Las Vegas would require a hotel, an airline ticket, time off from school, being in Las Vegas and a $170 pass. Not sure what the significant difference between the two conventions are, other than it's 'industry' stuff. Definitely going to the first, maybe to the second. Does any one know definitely what the difference between the two are?

My mac n' cheese was luxurious but....bland, all these nice cheeses but skipped salt. For some unknown reason, I've been feeling fat -- I tried on a baby bjorn and even at the most extended, barely fits around my waist.

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, 1 glass cider and 1 cookie while cooking, 5 small pieced french toast, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Cooking for B & the guests. I was low on cream, so I did a 2/3 whole milk 1/3 cream batter mix, it was actually better than 100% cream, it was a better vehicle to get the focaccia to soak in the egg element, so when it came off the burners into the oven, it firmed up all the way through in a nice way. Very french-toasty.

LUNCH: 12 noon, mushroom risotto, chocolate chip cookies, handful of carrots and hummus, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3pm, ramekin of vanilla ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, home made mac n' cheese, orzo salad, grape soda, small amount of chocolate, 1.75 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING WATERING: 8pm, quart of water.