Road up and down the Summerstreets event with D, with a loop around Central Park. Met up with B&E at Petisco in the neighborhood for lunch. Then B, E and I hopped in a taxi to Eastern Parkway to a birthday party of a friend's 1 year old. Holy crap, this place was infested with babies, crawling all over the floor and walls. Edie slept through a lot of it. So this is what adulthood is like!
There was an especially clunky menu item at lunch. Due to several options on the item, I ended up asking for a "fried coconut fishburger", which was actually a lot more appetizing than it sounds.
BREAKFAST: 9am, glass of lemonade, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 12:15pm, "fried coconut fishburger" with fries, a blueberry pancake, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
PM SNACK: 2pm, 2 beers, half a small beef taco, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5
DINNER: 7pm, foot long Subway veggie burger sub, cookies n' creme ice cream, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Saturday, August 22
Friday, August 21
All Lamb, all the time
Spent another full day (8:30-5:30) with Edie while B went out, went well again. She ripped through three full bottles of milk, which was amazing, I guess due to the heat. While she was napping/staring/cooing, baked off another round of cookies, churned some ice cream and washed dishes.
In the evening, off to Brooklyn for a movie with D, went to the all-Lamb, all-the-time Yemeni restaurant, great food but remarkably shady. No menu unless you ask for it, soup, salad and wonderful bread included but not on menu. No check, just a number told to you at the end of the night, no tax included.
BREAKFAST: 7:30pm, good yogurt with vanilla and honey, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
AM SNACK: 9-11am, cookies and ice cream!, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Churned the custard and added the cookie crumbs for cookies n' creme ice cream, then baked off another round of c-chip cookies. Some just slid into my mouth, unawares!
AM SNACK: noon, glass of mint lemonade, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 2pm, homemade spinach ravioli with salad, ice cream & cookies, lemonade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
K came over to hang and play with Edie, made a nice homemade lunch.
PM SNACK: 6pm, finished the cookies!, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER: 9:15pm, lamb chops with rice and roti, lamb soup, salad, water, small cup of sweet tea, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
EVENING SNACK: 10:45pm, 2 glasses lemonade, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
In the evening, off to Brooklyn for a movie with D, went to the all-Lamb, all-the-time Yemeni restaurant, great food but remarkably shady. No menu unless you ask for it, soup, salad and wonderful bread included but not on menu. No check, just a number told to you at the end of the night, no tax included.
BREAKFAST: 7:30pm, good yogurt with vanilla and honey, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
AM SNACK: 9-11am, cookies and ice cream!, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Churned the custard and added the cookie crumbs for cookies n' creme ice cream, then baked off another round of c-chip cookies. Some just slid into my mouth, unawares!
AM SNACK: noon, glass of mint lemonade, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 2pm, homemade spinach ravioli with salad, ice cream & cookies, lemonade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
K came over to hang and play with Edie, made a nice homemade lunch.
PM SNACK: 6pm, finished the cookies!, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER: 9:15pm, lamb chops with rice and roti, lamb soup, salad, water, small cup of sweet tea, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
EVENING SNACK: 10:45pm, 2 glasses lemonade, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Thursday, August 20
Powernap
Woke at 5am after a brief night of restless sleep. Dark, hot and humid. Got my gear on and got out the door with the sun around 6 and road my bike up to Nyack, a 70 mile round-trip. Got home around 1:30, with the intention of hitting up yoga at 2:30. Showered, got on the couch at 1:45 with the idea of chilling for 10 minutes, and then....it was 8pm. -sigh-
Drank over 80 oz of water on the ride out of a Camelback, and stopped 3 times to eat instead of the typical once on this ride, due to high heat. Ate a really good pumpernickel bagel and lox in a very suburban neighborhood in NJ, a little bagel shop that was outside of any commercial district, just randomly thrown in a corner of a residential neighborhood. The fact of it's high quality speaks to the probability of a whole lotta fellow Jews in the area. We can do without a dry cleaner or a grocery nearby, but we better have fresh bagels and lox at our beck and call!
BREAKFAST: 5:30am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
BREAKFAST 2: 8:30am, lox and cream cheese on a pumpernickel bagel, 20oz Gatorade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
AM SNACK: 9:30am, cheesy poofs, 20oz Gatorade, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 1pm, 1 slice streetza, 16oz bad root beer, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
At a place I like in Queens by the Triboro. On a plastic bottle of A&W Root beer designed to look like an old fashioned brown-glass bottle, there was a little call-out, "Made with Aged Vanilla!" It's unusual for a mass-produced soda to trumpet ingredients, so I had to try it. Same old corn-syrup sweetness, same old loud generic root beer taste....and conforming with the law, did not list vanilla as an ingredient, just "artificial and natural flavors". Hrumph.
DINNER: 9:15pm, big home made salad, sushi, shumai, seaweed salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Drank over 80 oz of water on the ride out of a Camelback, and stopped 3 times to eat instead of the typical once on this ride, due to high heat. Ate a really good pumpernickel bagel and lox in a very suburban neighborhood in NJ, a little bagel shop that was outside of any commercial district, just randomly thrown in a corner of a residential neighborhood. The fact of it's high quality speaks to the probability of a whole lotta fellow Jews in the area. We can do without a dry cleaner or a grocery nearby, but we better have fresh bagels and lox at our beck and call!
BREAKFAST: 5:30am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
BREAKFAST 2: 8:30am, lox and cream cheese on a pumpernickel bagel, 20oz Gatorade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
AM SNACK: 9:30am, cheesy poofs, 20oz Gatorade, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 1pm, 1 slice streetza, 16oz bad root beer, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
At a place I like in Queens by the Triboro. On a plastic bottle of A&W Root beer designed to look like an old fashioned brown-glass bottle, there was a little call-out, "Made with Aged Vanilla!" It's unusual for a mass-produced soda to trumpet ingredients, so I had to try it. Same old corn-syrup sweetness, same old loud generic root beer taste....and conforming with the law, did not list vanilla as an ingredient, just "artificial and natural flavors". Hrumph.
DINNER: 9:15pm, big home made salad, sushi, shumai, seaweed salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Wednesday, August 19
Cookilishisness!
I write "Hunger 4/5" over and over again, without much of a change, but I'm glad I do -- every time I type it reminds me to only eat when I'm hungry, and be hungry when I eat. Many years I ate out of habit, because of the idea of three big meals a day was what I was taught, disassociated from actual desire for food.
Woke up at 6 and did graphics work for the restaurant, made my power smoothie, then spent the morning at the shop. Spent the afternoon cooking: custard for cookies n' creme ice cream, chocolate chip cookies (so I can make ice cream cookie sandwiches tomorrow, with X-tra cookilishisness!), and a large batch of fresh pasta. Half cut into spaghetti for the freezer, the other half into small ravioli. I had some yummy spinach mixture from last week's pizza explorations -- chopped spinach, caramelized onion, criminis, salt, olive oil and added left over ricotta, nutmeg, parm and whole egg. Seriously good, after tossing off the rejects, got about 5 entree servings of nice and perfect looking dough dumplings.
BREAKFAST: 9am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Same as yesterday, though a little less of everything, still came out to 1.5 pints. Yummers!
LUNCH: 1pm, clam and bacon pizza, no cheese, half a sprite, half a Manhattan Special, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
At the resto, kinda lacking. No lemon, no salt, not enough garlic. L threw on some unasked for bacon, which I love, but like pepperoni, once you add that, any lighter flavor will be masked.
PM SNACK: 4pm, chocochip cookies and cookie dough, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER: 6pm, fresh pasta scraps and sauce, more cookies, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
All the trimmings from making ravioli, instead of dumbly trashing it, simply cut into pieces and boiled it up for a dinner for 1. Pieces are irregular, some stuck together, but eating them seems like a lot more sane than trashing perfectly good food.
Woke up at 6 and did graphics work for the restaurant, made my power smoothie, then spent the morning at the shop. Spent the afternoon cooking: custard for cookies n' creme ice cream, chocolate chip cookies (so I can make ice cream cookie sandwiches tomorrow, with X-tra cookilishisness!), and a large batch of fresh pasta. Half cut into spaghetti for the freezer, the other half into small ravioli. I had some yummy spinach mixture from last week's pizza explorations -- chopped spinach, caramelized onion, criminis, salt, olive oil and added left over ricotta, nutmeg, parm and whole egg. Seriously good, after tossing off the rejects, got about 5 entree servings of nice and perfect looking dough dumplings.
BREAKFAST: 9am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Same as yesterday, though a little less of everything, still came out to 1.5 pints. Yummers!
LUNCH: 1pm, clam and bacon pizza, no cheese, half a sprite, half a Manhattan Special, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
At the resto, kinda lacking. No lemon, no salt, not enough garlic. L threw on some unasked for bacon, which I love, but like pepperoni, once you add that, any lighter flavor will be masked.
PM SNACK: 4pm, chocochip cookies and cookie dough, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER: 6pm, fresh pasta scraps and sauce, more cookies, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
All the trimmings from making ravioli, instead of dumbly trashing it, simply cut into pieces and boiled it up for a dinner for 1. Pieces are irregular, some stuck together, but eating them seems like a lot more sane than trashing perfectly good food.
Tuesday, August 18
Smoothie Absolution
Rode bikes with a friend from the restaurant out to Coney, indulged in the Cyclone and a hot dog (in that order), then popped out to Breezy Point for a dip in the ocean. It is hot out.
Started the day with a healthful fruit smoothie, and quelled my post-ride hunger with a large homemade salad before going out to a restaurant. Feel good.
BREAKFAST: 9:45am, smoothie, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Filled the blender with: banana, blueberries, cherries, red grapes, half a kiwi, quarter of a mango, a heaping spoonful of the good yogurt, enough good milk to cover the blades, 5 ice cubes, a tablespoon of vanilla sugar and a pinch of sea salt. (I need to get a spice grinder, so I can add flax.)
I usually go heavier on the dairy, sugar and salt, but after the HVS's consternation yesterday, wanted to go a little lighter to....be more righteous or something. And survey says: excellent. The sweet and the tart worked in tandem, thick in a satisfying way. This thing is easily 2/3 fresh fruit, probably hard to make affordable in a restaurant setting.
LUNCH: 12:30pm, hot dog with kraut and onion, half a small fries, large lemonade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Odd, I used to think 2 hot dogs was a meal, and less than that was somehow less than satisfactory. Out on a hot day at Coney Island, on the bike, ONE was a bit too much.
DINNER PT 1: 5pm, large green salad with olive oil and vinegar, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER PT 2: Shrimp in a tomato vinegar sauce, rice, chips and guac, ginger mojito, water, chocolate hazelnut gelato, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
B, E & I took a walk to the hipper part of the neighborhood and ate at Barrio Chino, then around the corner to Il Labratorio for gelato. My shrimp dish was way out of balance, so vinegary I thought it might have been pickled. When you taste something and you immediately ask yourself, "Does this supposed to taste like this?", it means it's either really good or really...not.
Started the day with a healthful fruit smoothie, and quelled my post-ride hunger with a large homemade salad before going out to a restaurant. Feel good.
BREAKFAST: 9:45am, smoothie, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Filled the blender with: banana, blueberries, cherries, red grapes, half a kiwi, quarter of a mango, a heaping spoonful of the good yogurt, enough good milk to cover the blades, 5 ice cubes, a tablespoon of vanilla sugar and a pinch of sea salt. (I need to get a spice grinder, so I can add flax.)
I usually go heavier on the dairy, sugar and salt, but after the HVS's consternation yesterday, wanted to go a little lighter to....be more righteous or something. And survey says: excellent. The sweet and the tart worked in tandem, thick in a satisfying way. This thing is easily 2/3 fresh fruit, probably hard to make affordable in a restaurant setting.
LUNCH: 12:30pm, hot dog with kraut and onion, half a small fries, large lemonade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Odd, I used to think 2 hot dogs was a meal, and less than that was somehow less than satisfactory. Out on a hot day at Coney Island, on the bike, ONE was a bit too much.
DINNER PT 1: 5pm, large green salad with olive oil and vinegar, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER PT 2: Shrimp in a tomato vinegar sauce, rice, chips and guac, ginger mojito, water, chocolate hazelnut gelato, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
B, E & I took a walk to the hipper part of the neighborhood and ate at Barrio Chino, then around the corner to Il Labratorio for gelato. My shrimp dish was way out of balance, so vinegary I thought it might have been pickled. When you taste something and you immediately ask yourself, "Does this supposed to taste like this?", it means it's either really good or really...not.
Monday, August 17
Smoothie Aggro
Woke up early and made an early yoga class with the HVS. Not getting into a grind and treating my body better has been on my mind later -- how will Edie be a happy baby if her caregiver isn't happy to be with her? Attempted a snickleride, but the tandem failed again, and ended up back at the bike shop. Spent the day napping, then went out and did a big food shop. Lots of fruits and veg in the house now!
SNICKLEBREAKFAST: 9am, blueberry banana smoothie, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
I watched the counterperson make this, and was very unimpressed. Ice, milk, frozen blueberry and mango, a banana. No yogurt, no sugar, no salt. It was tepid. The HVS expressed concern that by adding that stuff you make something thats rather virtuous something that'll clog my arteries. I think its all about balance. A spoonful of yogurt, a teaspoon of vanilla sugar, a shake of salt goes a LONG way in improving something like a homemade smoothie. Industrial food go CRAZY with the salt, sugar and fat, not caring for balance, just the right blast of stuff to addict you into getting more and more. When you have such an overload of that bad stuff, everything else will just taste wrong. My smoothie will be right from the getgo.
LUNCH: noon, rice pilaf, gatorade, spoonful of the good nutella-like spread, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
PM SNACK: 3pm, blueberry muffin
DINNER: 8:15pm, boneless thick sauteed porkchop, brocolli and shitake in pansauce, corn on the cob, water
I'm learning that cooking with sweet wine (I've had an old bottle of rose in the fridge for a while now) just sucks, dry wine is the way to go. Bacony pan sauce was nice, though now that I've done it once, will do it differently next time. (Render bacon lardons first, then add onion and mushroom. Add broc with the wine, instant flavorful steam. Use pre-reduced stock so as not to overcook veg.)
Goofed on the meat, c-school came back to me as eating it. I seared one side, attempting to cook it half way...but it was 3" thick. After 8 minutes, the cooked color only came up .5", so I flipped it to find a thick, crunchy fond developed -- a bit too far. So I put it in a 400 degree over for 6 minutes while I finished the sauce, the veg and the corn, and when it came out the 2nd side had no fond, but after letting it rest for a couple of minutes, it was great -- very juicy, very flavorful, and cooked to medium-well all the way through. I was aiming for a medium-rare, should of cut back to 3 minutes in the oven. I never cooked such a thick fillet in school, it was always thinner, even the thickest steaks were maybe 2" thick...next time, I'll have my method down.
SNICKLEBREAKFAST: 9am, blueberry banana smoothie, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
I watched the counterperson make this, and was very unimpressed. Ice, milk, frozen blueberry and mango, a banana. No yogurt, no sugar, no salt. It was tepid. The HVS expressed concern that by adding that stuff you make something thats rather virtuous something that'll clog my arteries. I think its all about balance. A spoonful of yogurt, a teaspoon of vanilla sugar, a shake of salt goes a LONG way in improving something like a homemade smoothie. Industrial food go CRAZY with the salt, sugar and fat, not caring for balance, just the right blast of stuff to addict you into getting more and more. When you have such an overload of that bad stuff, everything else will just taste wrong. My smoothie will be right from the getgo.
LUNCH: noon, rice pilaf, gatorade, spoonful of the good nutella-like spread, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
PM SNACK: 3pm, blueberry muffin
DINNER: 8:15pm, boneless thick sauteed porkchop, brocolli and shitake in pansauce, corn on the cob, water
I'm learning that cooking with sweet wine (I've had an old bottle of rose in the fridge for a while now) just sucks, dry wine is the way to go. Bacony pan sauce was nice, though now that I've done it once, will do it differently next time. (Render bacon lardons first, then add onion and mushroom. Add broc with the wine, instant flavorful steam. Use pre-reduced stock so as not to overcook veg.)
Goofed on the meat, c-school came back to me as eating it. I seared one side, attempting to cook it half way...but it was 3" thick. After 8 minutes, the cooked color only came up .5", so I flipped it to find a thick, crunchy fond developed -- a bit too far. So I put it in a 400 degree over for 6 minutes while I finished the sauce, the veg and the corn, and when it came out the 2nd side had no fond, but after letting it rest for a couple of minutes, it was great -- very juicy, very flavorful, and cooked to medium-well all the way through. I was aiming for a medium-rare, should of cut back to 3 minutes in the oven. I never cooked such a thick fillet in school, it was always thinner, even the thickest steaks were maybe 2" thick...next time, I'll have my method down.
Sunday, August 16
I am now a father. Or maybe baby-daddy.
Sorry for the unannounced break, I thought I'd be able to update from my phone from where I was, but realized I had to set some prefs on the account before doing that. It's for the best, as the last 36 hours contained some revelations.
I was invited by a friend to stay at their family's house in the Hamptons, we were all invited. B did not want to travel so soon, after our weekend out in Greenport, so I decided to go with a friend. Instead of the whole weekend, went out Friday late afternoon by train and came back by 10pm Saturday. I had a good time -- a beautiful house on the water, pizza by the water first night, a yard full of wild sea grass, a kayak across the bay, local clams on the halfshell, a beach with drinks, a raucous nude 2 year old acting the clown.
But still, I found myself missing B&E. Though it had all the bits of a perfect short vacation out -- great friends, great hospitality, great food, lots of cool non-urban things to do and relax -- it just didn't seem that great with out them. I couldn't help but feel that the entire time I was out there, some key element was missing from making this a truely great time, without it just kinda marking time until that element is back.
I guess you never know gravity is there until you try to defy it. I hopefully won't make the same mistake again. And hopefully when E is a little bigger, even if B is not up to it, I can take her out on little adventures like this.
On a positive tip, my friends were showing me their childseat bike rig, a fully padded a protected device that sits right behind the handlebars. They took their child on it as soon as she could hold her head up -- 8 months. And when their kid hits 30 lbs, they're going to lend it to me. It's rated for 18 lbs minimum (Edie is only 6 lbs away) and if she has full head control by then, nothing will stop us from riding across county on the drop of a dime! Nothing can stop us!
So far I've gotten up and played with Edie about 6 times since starting this entry. Today, B left out around 8:30am and won't be back until 6pmish -- replicating what it'll be like when she's back at work in early September. I'm finding wearing Edie in a sling around the house has been calming her and freeing me up to do chores, clean up, read the paper, etc....wait, she's crawling and wiggling in my arms again....
BREAKFAST: 6:45am, good granola with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
AM SNACK: 10:30am, left over pad thai, Gatorade, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 1:30pm, prosciutto & moz panini, small salad, lemonade, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER: 7pm, rigatoni with homemade sauce & ricotta, watermelon, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
I was invited by a friend to stay at their family's house in the Hamptons, we were all invited. B did not want to travel so soon, after our weekend out in Greenport, so I decided to go with a friend. Instead of the whole weekend, went out Friday late afternoon by train and came back by 10pm Saturday. I had a good time -- a beautiful house on the water, pizza by the water first night, a yard full of wild sea grass, a kayak across the bay, local clams on the halfshell, a beach with drinks, a raucous nude 2 year old acting the clown.
But still, I found myself missing B&E. Though it had all the bits of a perfect short vacation out -- great friends, great hospitality, great food, lots of cool non-urban things to do and relax -- it just didn't seem that great with out them. I couldn't help but feel that the entire time I was out there, some key element was missing from making this a truely great time, without it just kinda marking time until that element is back.
I guess you never know gravity is there until you try to defy it. I hopefully won't make the same mistake again. And hopefully when E is a little bigger, even if B is not up to it, I can take her out on little adventures like this.
On a positive tip, my friends were showing me their childseat bike rig, a fully padded a protected device that sits right behind the handlebars. They took their child on it as soon as she could hold her head up -- 8 months. And when their kid hits 30 lbs, they're going to lend it to me. It's rated for 18 lbs minimum (Edie is only 6 lbs away) and if she has full head control by then, nothing will stop us from riding across county on the drop of a dime! Nothing can stop us!
So far I've gotten up and played with Edie about 6 times since starting this entry. Today, B left out around 8:30am and won't be back until 6pmish -- replicating what it'll be like when she's back at work in early September. I'm finding wearing Edie in a sling around the house has been calming her and freeing me up to do chores, clean up, read the paper, etc....wait, she's crawling and wiggling in my arms again....
BREAKFAST: 6:45am, good granola with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
AM SNACK: 10:30am, left over pad thai, Gatorade, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 1:30pm, prosciutto & moz panini, small salad, lemonade, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER: 7pm, rigatoni with homemade sauce & ricotta, watermelon, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
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