Greezy

Too much bad falafel last night gave me insomnia. Woke up at 10, got on the bike at 11ish, and road up and down the protected route that is a special event for the summer, from Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park, before meeting up with B&E at South Street Seaport. Weirdly not hungry, though B wanted ice cream, so ice cream it was.

Edie is moving her arms and legs a lot, rocking her head back and forth, and starting to make more complex cooing noises. While I was giving her a shower in the sink, I noticed she has the faintest signs of auburn eyebrows.

Hope to have a more active, body-centric day tomorrow...

BREAKFAST: 10:30am, good granola with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, soft serve ice cream cone, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3pm, Superior Lemonade, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Made mint syrup yesterday, made the lemonade when me and the fam got back from a long walk down in the seaport. This is what I did this time:

• 1 cup mint syrup*
  
• 5 cups water and ice
• 4 lemons, juiced over a strainer
  
• 1 lime, juice over a strainer
  
• 1 large pinch of salt

Mix everything with wooden spoon. (*Mint syrup: bring 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water to a simmer. Add half bunch of mint leaves (no stems), simmer for 2 minutes, let sit off heat for 30+ minutes. Strain through cheese clothe. Can be made in advance and refrigerated for 1 month.)

OH MY, the salt definitely kicked everything else up a notch. I remember Chef Chris in c-school talking about a fizzy Mexican lime drink where salt is always added, and that any sweetened juice drink will come to life with salt. I guess that just didn't register because it seems, so, well, decadent. Sodium is the devil, right? Well, it makes the angels sing!

DINNER: 6:15pm, whole wheat fusilli with homemade tomato sauce, more lemonade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Funny, I've never made simple tomato sauce for pasta without a recipe until today. Merging the Batali recipe I've done a zillion times with memories of making sauce with my dad, I just winged it and it came out (forgive me dad) better than either, at least with me at the helm. Some whole canned tomatoes hand crushed, another can through the food mill. Long sauteed onion and shredded carrot, fresh thyme and lots of fresh diced basil. Sea salt. Simmered for about 30 minutes, really nice.

On the other hand, all I had on hand in the cupboard was whole wheat pasta, which is a bit ass.

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, popcorn, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Edie being cranky, B in need of comfort food. Half corn oil, half butter in the covered pot, finished with sea salt, pretty damn good -- only if movie theater popcorn always tasted this good.

EVENING SNACK: 9:30pm, 2 cold falafel balls
Weirdly tastier than when fresh, though a bit greezy.

I'm back, and cookin' (Falafel FAIL)

The week away was nice in the North Fork. Edie was a pleasure, she really seemed to not mind all the fuss and bother of travelling -- stuffing into a car for 3 hours at a time, a new and strange room, less than ideal diaper change times, a momma's boob in all sorts of new and wonderful public spaces! Got some good riding in, maybe 125 miles over 2 days.

Ate a spectacularly bad slice of pizza in East Hampton -- you'd think they'd have some snooty uppercrusty pizza there. Our hotel had a surprisingly good James Beard-awarded restaurant attached to it, had a nice dish of Asian-style mussels there. Had a nice fresh lobster roll after the main ride of the weekend.

Felt a bit heavy and out of shape on the bike. Time to rededicate myself to paying attention to what I eat, and what I cook. Thought a lot about what is going to happen when Betsy goes back to work, and I become the main care provider for Edles during the week during the day. It was a lot to chew on, but feel good about things. The cogs are turning.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, organic cheerios with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, several mouthfuls of Israeli Salad
W0rking up the components for tonight's falafel dinner. Simple recipe from here, needs to sit a few hours to come together. Unlike that silly recipe, I just winged the components by amount. Tomatoes ripe, in season and tasty.

LUNCH: 1:30pm, 2 slices, grape soda, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Out for a walk with B&E, I decided to try 2 different slice joints that have opened up in the vicinity in the last year. The first, on Rivington off Clinton (names, simply, "Pizza") looked like a place that just needs a coating of age and grime to be a typical slice joint, but the pizza was surprisingly good -- a nice snap on the bottom, a thin layer of chew on top, and a nicely thing layer of moz, oregano-tinged sauce. Cheese tasted a little cheap, but over all a very good showing. Then I walked past Solo Pizza on Ave B below 3rd. Impressed by the nice design, good selection of good bev, nice wrap-around counter. They had the ultimate soda to eat with pizza - Boylan's Grape. The slice, unfortunately, was over cheesed and the sauce underseasoned. Oh well. I noticed the guy behind the counter was also the guy on the Food Protection cert on the wall -- the owner/operator? Solo operation? Hmmm. I could work there, but right now I'm I bit burned out on questionable pizza owner operators....

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, several spoonfuls of yogurt sauce
16oz container of the good yogurt, about 4 ounces of sesame tahini, juice of half a lemon, a generous dash of salt. Funny, I eat this stuff for breakfast all the time and jazzing it up this way instead of with honey and vanilla, it's a whole different foodstuff. It's the same thing, but one rich and sweet, the other rich and savory.

DINNER: 7:15pm, falafel balls with yogurt sauce, Israeli salad, whole wheat pita, several glasses Lambrusco, vegan chocolate hazelnut ice cream, 1.75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Oy. I followed the falafel recipe from c-school, and as I was putting it togeher, I remembered there were issues of it, but could not remember how we fixed it. Well, I made an attempt, but it came out wrong. It came out hollow and mushy in the middle, crisp and thin on the outside. Flavor was about right, but too much moisture in the batter, too much flour to chickpea pulp. Hmmm.

Wackadoo

Got to bed around 9:15, but didn't fall asleep until 11:30ish. Set the alarm for 5am, saw rain, went back to sleep and didn't get up until 9:30 this morning -- and it's raining still. I was going to take the first train out to upstate and visit my parents and ride my bike home, but it will just have to wait until next week. Had dreams (see addenda).

Contemplating rain riding, then contemplating yoga, then contemplating a movie, but none seemed like it felt right. Then B came in the room with lil' Edie, and it was obvious -- I'm staying home with my family close by! Simple pleasures in life. In the afternoon, E was getting a bit cranky so I slipped her into a sling and took her for her first solo poppa-daughter walk. Once I exited the building she quickly fell asleep. We walked to the building my parents used to live in and I traced many of the pathways I walked with them. After an hour, while in the local supermarket, Edie started howling and felt the looks of strangers...why is this weird bearded man alone with an infant? What horrible things is he doing to it? Fortunately, I had a bottle of breast milk in my back pocket and the second it hit Edie's lips, she was silent except for a mini-slurping sound.

Did not eat that great today, but I stayed in control of it and went to sleep a little hungry. I suspect part of the reason for that is that we're going away for 4 days on vacation to the North Fork, and I'm bringing my bike -- we haven't restocked the cupboard. Anyhoo, I'm taking a break from this blog thang....will restart the home fires on Friday!

ADDENDA:
In those last 3 hours of sleep between seeing rain and seeing more rain, I had a wackadoo dream. I visited the restaurant, but the layout was different. Instead of just the front of the restaurant building being old-styled brick, the entire dining room was 100s of years old, and long and narrow. Behind the pizza oven, the kitchen was new and cheap like it is now, but L decided to put down carpeting in there. A & J were in the kitchen, busy little beavers, and there was T, taking a break -- haven't seen T in a while as she works in the evenings, and I'm usually visiting in the afternoons. We're happy to see each other, big hug, I ask her how things are, she says they are the same as before, but "only more so". She gives me a new soda they restaurant is carrying, a "60 year old witch hazel" flavored carbonated beverage, and it is laughably disgusting. I tell T to come with me on a walk, so we can talk about our lives and cooking, but I need to go to the bathroom first to wash my mouth out.

I step out front, and L is teaching A (a very sweet but language-limited Iraqi) how to make a chocolate omelet (?) L walks away because he's so busy, so I help A finish this monstrous creation, basically a simple french omelet wrapped in chocolate angel cake. (I hate eggs, by the way, but love chocolate, hmmmm) I proceed to the bathrooms, which are to the right of the long narrow dining room. It's old style, with a water tank close to the ceiling and a long pull rope. There is a window to the front, wooden frame all bent with age. I look out the window, it's raining, I'm glad I'm not subject to L's whims.....and I wake up.

I guess I need to get in touch with T(from the restaurant, not the HVS!). Yo T, you reading this? Send me yo email!!

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, 5 cold veg dumplings, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, home made baked ziti, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7:30pm, hot dog, baked potato, Gatorade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 45