Slice o' Edie

Fell asleep around 9:30am, so waking up at 5 was no big deal. Got hungry, but didn't food shop this week, so went around the corner to the local diner I used to go a lot to with my parents on weekends. The food quality is pretty poor, but standard in a very American way. I pretty much stopped eating there when I went to c-school -- I found I couldn't stand the dish I got there regularly. After learning to make the most delicious pancakes ever, having their gummy, chemical pancakes from a mix just didn't cut it. Still, it was nice to slip on some flip-flops, slip out of the house while B and Edie slumbered in each other's arms, and walk slowly through a drizzly, over caste sky to go commune with memories of my parents.

Last night, I had the privilege of feeding Edie. We mixed a couple of tablespoons of Gerber "Rice Cereal" with some breast milk to make a smooth creamy gruel. The stuff is basically commodity white rice milled into flour, then spiked with a cabinet's worth of vitamins, minerals and stuff. We placed Edles into a highchair, and fed her with a long-handled metal baby spoon. I placed the bowl of the spoon, full of gruel, into her mouth and tilted up. Edie immediately started gumming wildly, and I felt the pressure of her tongue against the spoon. I removed the spoon and she continued to jaw wildly, food going in all directions -- down her throat, coating her mouth, around her lips, down her chin and pooling on the wash clothe tucked into her collar.


Pretty much the moment I take the spoon away, Edie starts WAILING! Did she not like the food? Is she uncomfortable? Is something wrong? The next spoonful comes to he mouth, and she stops wailing and greedily, anxiously, joyously eats the next spoonful with gusto. She couldn't wait for the next spoonful, and with a full mouth loudly let us know. Essence of cuteness. She is learning to feed.

BREAKFAST: 7am, BLT on rye, homefries, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH 1: 11:30am, falafel, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
At Maoz.

PM SNACK: noon, popcorn, one piece of shortbread, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH 2: 2:30pm, salad, 2 slices of pizza, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, samosa with chickpeas, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, leek dumplings, .75 bowl, hungert 4/5


Bonus picture: PIZZA VS. HOTDOG!

Vanilla

B used up the vanilla extract, so this morning I took down the glass jar which was packed full of used vanilla beans from baking surrounded in grain alcohol. It's been sitting up there for a solid 6 months or so. I through the contents in the blended to make a muddy liquid, then strained it through a wire mesh and cheese cloth. I added about 50% water to cut down on the alcohol smell and bring forth the vanilla. Voila! About a pint of vanilla extract, more vanilla-y than anything you can buy on the market, and cost me about $5 (for the booze, as the beans were already used once) versus about $100 for this quantity of good extract.

A little splashed on the counter, now the whole kitchen smells like vanilla.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, good yogurt with cashews and honey, a piece of shortbread, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 8:30am, another piece of shortbread, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11am, small amount of scrambled eggs, pickle, salmon, cream soda, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2:30pm, 2 slices Sicilian pizza, sprite, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5pm, some cheese, bread, a few cookies, glass of wine, glass of beer, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7:30pm, samosa with chickpeas, vanilla ice cream, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Shortbread daze

A good day, though ate a bit much due to making shortbread. Spent the early morning making a complicated shortbread recipe from Cook's Illustrated, so I can bring a nice adult sweet to a Halloween play date tomorrow. Kinda shocked how much better this short bread is compared to the super simple shortbread I made in the past.

BREAKFAST: 8am, organic cheerios with organic dead milk, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10am, homemade short bread, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11:30pm, a few licks of melted chocolate
I couldn't help myself, the short bread was good that I had to kick it up a notch by melting some dark chocolate and dipping the bases of the cookies in it. A thing of beauty.

AM SNACK: 11:45pm, left over pasta, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5
Sugar making me queasy, a little greasy starch to bring me down.

DINNER: 6pm, slice of roast beef sandwich, a handful of brownie squares, can of ginger ale, a few tastes of mayo, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
The students and I cooked a buffet for the PTA conference. Included were mac n' cheese and a big green poppa-style salad, large cold-cut sandwiches, and brownies. As much as possible, from the vinaigrette to the roasted peppers on the sandwiches, were from scratch.

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, 2 pieces of chocolate dipped short bread, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Edie EATS!

I was away teaching teenagers how to cook to feed themselves, and back at home Edie had her very first solid food. Even though I'm the keeper of this blog, B is on Team Learningtofeed, so I guess it's no biggie. We got some Gerber rice cereal (rice flour supplemented with all sorts of vitamins and steroids (kidding!)) mixed with a little freshly squoze booby juice, and fed it to her with a sterling silver spoon we were given as a gift. Edie has recently been imitating chewing motions when watching me eat, so she was really ready to move forward. According to B, "She was very chewy and giggly and licking her lips just like Rufus."

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Standard with frozen fruit. There is a pomegranate and a papaya giving me the stink-eye in the fridge, but they will just have to wait.

AM SNACK: 11:45am, large piece of chocolate babka, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:30pm, orechiette in wine & butter sauce with shrimp, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Made a nice lunch with what was on hand, to thank Yomomma and L for coming over and watching Edles while I was off teaching. Red wine to sec, worchestshire, butter, olive oil, vinegar, all on top of some sauteed shrimp. A little salt, big flavor. I also served some apple crisp and vanilla ice cream, but after my babka gobbling, I had no stomach for it.

DINNER: 7:30pm, mac n' cheese, Caesar salad, chicken, brownie, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Cooked up a storm, with 6 teenagers at the school. Mac n cheese with a proper bechamel, a Caesar salad with the dressing from scratch, croutons made right there, multiple sheets of brownies, a big green salad for tomorrow, and lots of sauteing of chicken breasts. A lot of positive feed back -- funny, because I was dissatisfied with the mac n' cheese and brownies because I know they can be so much better due to the uneven ovens, but didn't want to disrespect the effort the kids made.

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, vanilla ice cream, .15 bowl, hunger 3/5

A day on the couch

Woke up after a bumpy night to an overcast day full of rain. Did not feel like moving, so I did not. Skipped drop in at the center, skipped food shopping and skipped eating anything challenging to stay on the couch as much as possible, with Edie as my playdate. I imagine this would have been much harder to achieve if she could actually walk or crawl.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, large piece of chocolate babka, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 3pm, large green salad, kasha varnishkes, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, small amount of chocolate chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, Stouffers french bread pizza, small piece of babka, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4.5

Fruit Exploration continues

AM SNACK: 9:15am, a little pineapple, mango and grapefruit
The pineapple was quite good. It's fabrication was one of the first things I learned in c-school, and I actually used to like it as a kid....in fruit cocktail. With grapes and pear in it, if I remember correctly. I stopped eating it by puberty time, as even then it seemed just too sweet, with the syrup it was packed in. I don't know why I stopped eating those fruits all-together, other than a prejudice against things that weren't processed -- if it's not packaged prettily, marketed on TV and needs syrup to be good, it must not be worth my time.

Firm, very sweet, juicy in the right way. I thought the angular pulpiness would be a turn off, but it actually gave it interest. Pineapple and grapes are now OK in my book. Just gotta get a better pear and I can recreate a proper fruit cocktail!

The mango was also something we learned to fabricate early on, and I need to review my notes because I had a hell of a time getting it apart, and even then it wasn't pretty. Since c-school, I've been using fresh and frozen mango in my smoothies, but yes, never actually tasted it alone. Easy to eat, a firm flesh without a lot of pulp. Not as sweet as the pineapple, but a nice balance of sweet and bitter. This mango wasn't very flavorful, but I suspect it's out of season.

The first first response after putting the first piece of grapefruit in my mouth then quickly spitting it out was saying out loud, "Are you serious?", as if the HVS was watching down on my from above. Woodsy sourness, more pulp than juice, tart in the wrong way -- like an orange gone bad. I put a second piece in my mouth, chewed and swallowed and it only confirmed my first response. That diet soda, flavored with grapefruit, has a bit of a following, but that is supersweet and artificial tasting, and this just tasted very natural and very gross.

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, pumpernickel bagel with hummus & sable, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Out of creamcheese, had to go even more Jewwy on it!

AM SNACK: 12:30pm, a small portion of brown rice morel risotto with sauteed greens
I thought this was going to be lunch, as I assumed if the bowl was still in the fridge, there would be enough for at least a small meal. Alas, there was only a tasting portion left, about an ounce and a half, maybe three bites. B has a habit of leaving near-empty containers in the fridge....

But what really is of concern is that B asked me if there was any left, as this tasting portion was to be her "dinner". Tiny toy portions might make a person feel virtuous, but it'll just make ya gorge on ice cream later.

LUNCH: 1pm, 2 slices streetza, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, chocolate babka, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, curry potato and rice, fried gluten, a lotus leaf wrap, a spinach dumpling, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Ordered in from Tien Garden.

Last Ride of 2009

Woke up at 5 to meet D for a bike ride up to Bear Mountain (the same route I rode with the HVS a few years ago) The weather was crisp, the traffic was light, and we met up with E and a few others in Bear Mountain park for a drink. I kinda missedEdles all day. Unlike past years, I think I'm going to not even try to do any winter riding and focus on the Spring, when Ediebird will be ready to be strapped to a bike...

BREAKFAST: 6am, bagel with cream cheese and sable, 1 bowl, hunger 2/5
Not hungry at all, but wanted fuel in the tank.

AM BIKE SNACK: 9:15am, 2 donuts, gatorade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
At a Dunkin Donut in the middle of deep dark NJ. They had a "Fall Harvest" donut which had bright orange sprinkles with blue (?) sprinkles. I bet they were "NY Giants" donuts just yesterday. Made me feel a little sick to my stomach, after admiring such gloriousfoliage up to that point.

PM BIKE SNACK: 12:30pm, cliff bar, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM BIKE SNACK: 2:30pm, 1 beer, 1 soft pretzel, 1 piece of apple strudel, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
At a rather cheesy Oktoberfest celebration at Bear Mountain. After 65 miles of riding, was nice to sit with friends (who took a boat up there) and drink and be merry in the nice fall weather. There was a large selection of hot German food, but with over an hour line for it, just want to the snacks bar.

DINNER: 6:30pm, beef lomein, homemade vanilla ice cream, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5