Illin' Day 3

Feeling better, but still out of it and drained. Nice to clear out some yummy stuff out of the freezer, though. Want more fresh veg, though.

BRUNCH: 11:30am, 4 mini muffins, 2 slices of restaurant pizza, grape soda on ice, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4pm, banana, peanut butter, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8:30pm, small plate of rice & beans, small amount of vanilla ice cream, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

Still Ill

Despite the Nyquil, slept shallowly and fitfully. Didn't go into the restaurant for a 2nd day, felt bad about it but there was no way I could go in in this condition. Spent the day taking baths, watching TV and napping.

BREAKFAST: 8am, swig of cider, water

LUNCH: 1pm, boca burger on whole grain toast, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM WATERING: 3pm, quart

DINNER: 8pm, vegetarian maki, shrimp roll, salad, vegetable dumplings, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING DRUGGING: 10pm, shot of nyquil

Must've been the chicken pizza

Had a good time at school today, but felt lethargic, overheated and uncomfortable. Realized I was having cold sweats and my forehead felt warm, so I swallowed my pride and called in sick to the restaurant. I really wanted to go -- I'm paying my dues -- but if I showed up all sweaty and weak, I would have been sent home for being an unproductive health violation.

Part of it has been a little too little sleep, the stress of painting the 2nd bedroom, lots of big thoughts. And chicken pizza is evil, I ate a couple of pieces of that last night! I think I just need to eat lighter for a while, sleep more and hug up on my wifey!

I think my very first taste of alcohol was a shot of Nyquil - back in the mid 70s, there was no child-friendly non-booze version. I absolutely despised it. Now it just tastes like....Jagermeister. Still hate it, but don't need to jump up and down and scream.

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, good yogurt with honey, raw cashews, vanilla, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5

PM WATERING: 1pm, quart of water

LINNER: 4:45pm, falafel and salad plate with whole wheat pita, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING DRUGGING: 9:15pm, shot o' Nyquil

Oatmeal Returns

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, oatmeal made with the good milk, a little salt and brownsugar, glass of apple cider, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Why haven't I had oatmeal this season sooner? Just getting tired of dry cereal and yogurt. The starch of the oats gave the milk a nice custardy vibe, and the mild dose of a dash of brown sugar made all the difference -- the salt turned up the notch on the whole affair. This is what those horrible packets of chemicalized instant-oatmeal try to be, and always fail. And it took 3 minutes in the micro, which makes instant oatmeal very suspicious.

AM SNACK: 9:30am, cart pound cake, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:45pm, wonton soup, a small amount of curry shrimp with fried rice, 1 bowl, hunger 3.5/5
Picked up cheap Chinese on the way home, absolutely horrible. Literally couldn't eat 2/3 of the plate, the curry sauce weirdly thick and goopy.

PM WATERING: 3pm, 1 quart

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, handful of chocolate chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, olives, various salumni, moz and tomato salad, pieces of 4 kinds of pizza, ice cream and cake, water, 2 bowl, hunger 4/5
Went to a new wood-fired pizza place in my neighborhood with B and a couple of friends. Good, not great. But I ordered the vegan pizza in honor of the HVS. Will go back, only if HVS accompanies me.

Soup the Season

I wanted B to eat the chicken soup, as it is the perfect food food for a pregnant lady -- full of protein and bone building collagen, organic, almost fat free, big real flavor, reasonable in salt, freshly seared chicken breast pieces and vegetables. But she is feeling picky and skipped it, and it was too good to let sit in the fridge.

I think I need to make a massive amount of chicken stock and just make soups with it as the winter rolls on, cooking up additions for different recipes to keep it interesting.

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, pint of cider, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, bowl of homemade chicken soup, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

SNICKLE SNACK: 3pm, vegan Cesar salad, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
It ain't quite a snickle without the HVS, but it was in her honor. During the yoga class immediately before, the teacher asked us to dedicate our practice to a guru (a.k.a. yoga teacher) who inspires our thang. Of course, I dedicated it to Guru T!

DINNER: 4:45pm, potato knish, half a chocolate-cheese knish, a few slurps of cherry coke, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4.5

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, mom style salad, flax tortilla chips, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
At the movies with a favorite friend, snarfing knishes from Yonah Shimmels next door. Snarfing knishes in art house theater from a turn of the century knishery is what makes NYC great.

Snapple is for suckaz

Not enough sleep last night. I did sleep 3 hours or so in the car coming down from Albany, but got home from the restaurant around 11, all amped up, didn't get to bed til 1:30. Up at 6:30. After my habitual pound cake at class, got jumped in the library by an impromptu ice-cream bar of extras that would of gone in the garbage if I didn't help eat it up.

At home doing chores, chopped up a big healthy chunky veg salad for the next few days. Took the quart of the excellent rich chicken stock I made a week or so out of the freezer and heated it up in a pot. In a pan, I quickly sauteed thin sliced carrot, shitakes, cubed chicken boobie and a little garlic, deglazed with mirin, and dumped it in the stock with thin sliced scallion and let the heat of the stock finish cooking the chicken meat and soften the scallion. Seasoned with salt, this is easily the best chicken soup I've had in memory.

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

AM SNACK: 9:30am, cart pound cake, .5 bowl hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10:45am, selection of ice cream flavors, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
A culinary class put out about 12 ice creams in the library for all comers, I had to taste a few. A dark chocolate, a white chocolate mouse, a lame maple that was more vanilla, cinnamon, yum! The problem of hanging out at a c-school.

LUNCH: 2:45pm, momma style salad, homemade chicken soup, quart of water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 6:15pm, hunk of halava, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, pint of pork fried rice, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
On the way to meet the HVS to take a trip out to the airport, NOT a haven for vegan-friendly food, or any good food, for that matter. So took matters into my own hands

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, 2/3 of a bottle of Tazo iced green tea with spearmint and lemongrass, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
It's organic, the bottle has less sugar than pop, it's cane sugar, blah blah blah. Bottom line, it tastes like over sweetened tea that someone spit a chewed up wad of mint gum into. Kind of like where a stranger's saliva meets toothpaste. Deeeesgusting. Why do people drink sweetened bottled flavored teas? Snapple is for suckaz.

A Weekend of Pizza

Spent the weekend up in Albany visiting my brother and his brood o' plenty. Stopped by the parent's grave on the way up, and slipped a copy of Baby E's ultra scan into their crypt, that gave me a shiver. In Albany (where I went to college), we visited Souvrana, which was this remarkable little grocery store that happened to have incredibly delicious pizza. Back then, the only games in town were Souvrana, JG's on Lark Street, and if you were drunk and poor, two competing 50 cent slice joints across the street from the QE2 club. Anyway, Souvrana was a family-owned joint that has since gotten rid of the groceries and put in tables, but it still has a thrown-off vibe. The pizza has VERY thick crust for a round pie, not quite Sicilian but very doughy. And I found it tasty, but kinda....gross. Undercooked, too much dough in the mouth, no balance. I guess experience has put the squash on some forms of nostalgia.

Sunday morning with the brood, made bagels from scratch in the kosher kitchen. Was fun rolling the dough with the kids, but an unfamiliar oven ran a little hot and the bottoms got slightly burnt.

Sunday evening at the restaurant, fun time with friends I haven't seen in a while. It seems a wood-burning pizza place just opened 2 blocks down the street. Which reminds me, a wood-burning joint just opened up a few blocks from where I live. And when I was in Albany, I noticed 3 or 4 new pizza joints, including one slightly upscale joint. Are we in the midst of a pizza-bubble?

SATURDAY
BREAKFAST: 9am, 6 pieces of bacon, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11:30am, olive oil torta, bag of corn chips, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2:30 pm, 2 slices of Souvrana pizza, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, small salad, 1 small matzoh ball, 1 vegetarian 'chicken' patty, water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


SUNDAY
BREAKFAST: 7:45am, 6 mini muffins, half an unripe banana, water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 11am, 2 homemade bagels, hummus, cream cheese, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5-8pm, bites of pancetta, a meatball with a piece of focaccio, nibbles from the pizza topping station, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 9:15pm, pizza with stewed tomatoes, roasted red peppers, sausage, caramelized onion, mushrooms, basil and a light sprinkling of parm, rootbeer, small ramekin of chocolate rice pudding, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
The roasted red peppers made this pie, and the sprinkled cheese made it just taste cheesy enough.