Long good day

Woke at 7, got out of the house by 8:30, met D at 9 in Brooklyn Heights, then we rode bikes down Flatbush out to the BQE bikepath and road out east into East New York before heading north up into the string of parks that dot Queens, up in to Flushing Meadows. We took the 7 train in, but I got out before Manhattan and road into Greenpoint, stumbled upon the Renegade Art Fair. Bought matching t-shirts for me and FutureBebe, with a rainbow and a bicycle on them. Got home, ate pasta, back out again for a nice walk with B to the movies. Met up with her friends, went to a mediocre but convenient dinner after. Walked part way home, then hopped in a cab. Once B safely delivered, hopped on commuter bike to Greenpoint to hang with friends, wandering around the nether regions of Williamsburg.

-Phew!- I'm glad I'm old, not single, and don't have to have nights like that too often after days like that! I'm dog tired.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, smoothie, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Good milk, good yogurt, vanilla sugar, salt, banana, blueberries, cherries, grapes, freshly ground flax seed. I left out the kiwi today, and found it much more pleasant. Kiwi gives a sour kick that does make the flavor a lot bigger, but to my own personal taste, a little less pleasant. I guess I just don't like kiwi. I wish I could expound and explain exactly why -- I do like sour-tasting foods, but I guess in this context I want more of a straight-ahead sweet experience.

LUNCH 1: 11:30am, turkey and swiss with lettuce, tomato, onion mustard on rye bread, Manhattan Special, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Out it Glendale, Queens, at a busy local sammich shop. Ride makin' me hungry

LUNCH 2: 2:30pm, homemade pasta with homemade sauce, Gatorade, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Straight up carbs with an electrolyte drink, perfect for recovery after 40 mile ride in warm weather

PM SNACK: 4pm, chocolate hazelnut vegan frozen dessert, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Pre-movie stop at Stogo, it really hit the spot despite me not liking their product too much -- it was cold, smooth and not very sweet, just what I was craving.

DINNER: 7pm, lamb schnitzel with one small potato, glass of cava, water, large scoop of chocolate peanut butter ice cream in a chocolate-coated waffle cone, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Dinner at the Smith, stupid menu, not very good food, slow service, but convenient. A little bit of everything, everything done not that well.

EVENING SNORT: 9:30pm, a beer, a bite of trendy but over salted burger

Today is National Donut Day!

Woke up after 10 hours of weird sleep. Dreamt that L opened a sandwich shop a few 100 feet away from the pizza place, with amazing brisket sandwiches. He was trying to woo me to run it for him. I would only do it if he promised to never be there. I was putting pizza aside for dependence!

I was out doing chores in the neighborhood this morning, when I walked past the local donut shop (with literally some of the best donuts in the world), and they had a chalk board out front announcing that today is, in fact, National Donut Day. How could I not honor that? Unfortunately, the man behind the counter is very familiar with my face, and asked me where I've been lately -- y'know, just working a lot, trying to lose a little weight. I asked him if there was an official donut of National Donut Day, to which he responded a little aghast, "That would be donut discrimination! All donuts deserve to be eaten equally." Really. Well, I think that Mexican churro should be discriminated against. Their churro is so authentic, you want to see if it has a green card!

BREAKFAST 1: 9am, organic cheerios with the good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

BREAKFAST 2: 10:45am, chocolate donut, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1:15pm, matzo farfel, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Wow! This was the last of the batch I made a few weeks ago, and dah-AM, is it tasty. Very rich, but so tender, moist, flavorful....it froze great, too. I still have a couple of quarts of chicken stock left in the freeze, but once that is gone, I can generate more schmaltz to farfel it up again...

Rufus went nuts licking the farfel bowl...


PM SNACK: 3pm, slice of streetza, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
I was on an errand that took me to the far side of my neighborhood, past a pizzeria that has been there forever and a day but always seemed just a little bit too...seedy. Off the corner of Essex and Grand, next to the Pickle Guys and across the way from a large high school, Vic's Pizza is a tiny space right out of the early 80s. As in, just recovering from the economic slump of the 70s, hasn't yet cleaned up and redecorated, but has a Ms. Pacman video game to keep up with the times. A large menu of simple Italian dishes on the wall, but no kitchen to be seen. Crappy 2 deck baker's pride oven. Lots of kids, a few Chinese locals, a parent and child, all huddled in from the rain. One man operation, a sullen quiet Hispanic guy. I see him take a large pie out of the oven, the crust as white as Clay Aitken. He starts slicing it and giving it to the kids, collecting money and giving change with the same hands - a major health code violation.

The pizza was undercooked, pale on the bottom, white at the crust, and was that rare combination of flibbidy flobbidy AND dry. And at $2.25, not cheap -- a dollar slice joint can get away with this quality, but not for the full throw. Well, I now know why I've never been there -- the quality of their pie matches their decor.

DINNER: 5:30pm, Ethiopian vegetarian combo, Haaagen Daaaaaz chocolate ice cream, Entemann's chocolate chip cookies, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
B wanted to order in Ethiopian. I used to really like Ethiopian, but have fallen out of love with it since c-school. It just doesn't seem as original or interesting since then. But B wanted it, we got it, and it was pretty good. I picked up the Entemanns because of my emotional connection to them from my childhood, but compared to the homemade cookies I had just a few days ago, it makes me think why anyone would buy these craps. Tasted vaguely stale, vaguely chemically, vaguely fakey.

What keeps mankind alive?

Spent the afternoon after class at the restaurant, helping interview candidates. My gawd, some real bottom-of-the-barrel people, reminded me of the first few weeks of American Idol where the freaks come out and show their stripes. How does mankind survive?

Friends at the restaurant say I look skinnier, but I don't believe it. I'm not to anxious to stand on the scale and see what I weigh right now. I've been eating well since leaving the resto, so I'm sure my weigh is up, though my clothes are still a little loose.

Lunch weighed on me. I probably could skipped dinner, but skipping meals is lame, no one should do it, especially if you have a choice in the matter. Took a brief nap around 6pm, conked out around 11pm. Don't feel sick, just run down, I think it's still allergies.

BREAKFAST: 7am, smoothie, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Grapes, cherries, banana, kiwi, blueberries, flax, good milk and yogurt, vanilla sugar, pinch of salt. Kick total ass.

AM SNACK: 9:45am, 2 cart donuts, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1pm, 1 slice pizza, 25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 3pm, 3 hotdogs with mustar and kraut, small amount of oven fries, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Hotdogs today, burgers yesterday, pizza often. Staff lunch at the resto is not too high falutin'.

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, latte di mendorla

PM WATERING: 5:30pm, quart

DINNER: 9pm, asparagus risotto, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5
Not too hungry, but knew if I ate nothing I would feel funky the next morning.

She really IS glowing!

Of course, B can't just glow like a normal gal, she gotta toss off thick red and green bars that knock people over as she walks by them. It's quite startling.

Had a fun day at school, talking about the big picture P&L statements -- made business seem a lot more manageable from such a perspective. Gave a presentation about my ideal pizzeria, got some good (and strange) feedback, but I guess you need to check my other blog to hear all about it!

Spent most of the afternoon at the restaurant, doing some accounting tasks, taking care of the menus, signage, then spent a lot of time interviewing people for most positions in the place, interesting eye opener.

BREAKFAST: 7:15am, organic cheerios with the good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 9:45am, chocolate almond croissant, water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
A break from the cart/Starbucks school grind. A few fellow students directed me to a fancy pastry shop on 23rd that's the same walking distance as Starbucks. Sure, the croissant was $4, more than twice the cost of a Starbucks pastry and 4x the cost of a cart cake, but oh my gawd you get what you pay for. Redolent of butter and that wonderful 'brown' flavor -- caramelization, malliard reaction, whatever you want to call it, it has it. Tremendously satisfying. I needed two Starbucks pastries to get satisfied, at the cost of almost 900 calories. I imagine this butter bomb has more than 400 calories, but probably less than 900.

PM SNACKS:1-2:30, a few snippets of moz, ricotta calzone mix
Hanging at the restaurant in the quiet hours taking care of my remaining responsibilities.

LUNCH: 2:30pm, big hamburger on white bread bun, potato chips, pickle spear, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 6:45pm, large swig of red Gatorade

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, snippets of 10+ different kinds of gelato, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
A Brooklyn gelato-maker delivered samples for us to try, to swing us away from Laboratorio de Gelato. With the exception of his rather amazing pistachio, all of the flavors were inferior. And the white chocolate gelato, really, that just offended me on principle!

DINNER: 7:30pm, potato nik with mustard, half a glass of musty red wine, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Potato nik tastes like my dad. I miss my dad. B needs to drink more wine so we can get this bebe show on the bebe road!

I cook, B bakes

Went out with B in the morning around the neighborhood, went to the crappy diner on my block because it was convenient. B slept most of the day with her big ol' belly while I worked on a school project and prepped dinner for B and a visiting friend of hers. Made pasta from scratch, haven't done it in a long time. After resting, the dough was way too wet so I just wacked in a lot of flour as ran it through the rollers, came out fine. Made marinara with a food mill for the first time (at home), a much more refined sauce from the chunky stuff I've made up to this point. Went with a trio of deserts because I could. I imagine when BabyB is here, homemade trios of deserts may be a thing of the past.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, BLT on rye with mustard, homefries, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11:30, potato nik, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2pm, a few chocolate chip cookies, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:45pm, smoked moz with tomato and basil, fresh spaghetti with marinara and ricotta, a little cherry sorbet, a few chocolate chip cookies, cookies and cream ice cream, glass of white wine, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Allergies, my butt, kicked

Thought I was just sleepy yesterday, but today after lunch on a bike ride down from the Upper East side, my nose was an open tap, my eyes were itching and I felt a little bit...intoxicated. Ah, it's that time of year again! A handful of days a year when certain trees or plants are blooming, I get sick without feeling crappy -- runny nose, run down, maybe itchy eyes and throat, but mind remains sharp, mood is fine and I sleep nice and deep in addition to daytime naps. Good thing I'm spending most of my time just waiting for miniB to enter life's stage.

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

AM SNACK: 9:45am, 2 cart donuts, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH:12:30, fried shrimp, a little baked potato, a few french fries, large house salad with creamy Italian dressing, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Met up with B and Momma B in the Upper East side after B's check-in with a doc. We went to the Upper East side's diner institution, Jackson Hole. Shrimp was surprisingly good, probably out of the freezer but big, shrimpy and delicious. Came with a lot of salad, and avoided the fries. In the end, felt good about eating diner food.

PM SNACK: 4pm, 2 scoops of cookies n' cream ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8:15pm, pint of pork fried rice, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

Queasy

Very lazy day, barely left the couch and ate too much. The HVS came over to see the Big B in her native habitat, and I spontaneously made some pre-dinner lemonade. It's so ridiculously easy, and no doubts after making so many gallons of it in the resto. I had 2 lemons, so I juiced them, threw in about 3/4 of a cup of sugar, then topped it off with 3x or so water. Taste, iced, served. I Just needed a squirt of lime and a sprig o' mint.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, organic chex with good milk, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10:45, crappy Wholefood trail mix, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11:45, baby carrots with a litte evoo and seasalt, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5
The crappy trail mix gave my tummy a bit of a queasy feeling.

LUNCH: 2pm, asparagus risotto, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, cookies n' creme ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, chive cakes, spring rolls, summer rolls, shrimp and string beans in brown sauce with white rice, homemade lemonade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5