A day on the town

The day started with gobbling sweets, out of pure laziness. B took Edie today, and I went off to spend the day in Brooklyn amongst babyless friends. Lunch in a hipster joint in Greenpoint, then swung by the opening day of a fancy ice cream shop. I tried their ice cream, which honestly was good, but my high-yolk-content custard-style ice cream has an edge. My ice cream isn't there yet -- it's not chocolatey enough, but it's on the path.

Caught a movie with D, then we walked down Atlantic to a nondescript Vietnamese sandwich shop. Had my first bahn mi sandwich, which is odd, why haven't I had one sooner? Crunch french baguette, three forms of pork -- roast, pate and crumbles -- pickled cuce and carrot, mayo, it all just came together divinely. Must eat more of these soon.

E gave B a box of Sees chocolates from her recent vacation, and when I got home, E tore them open and started taking little bites out of every single piece. I was both disgusted and enrapturiously in love with my wife at that very moment. Sweet & sour, salty & fatty, chocolate and peanut butter, my wife's eating habits and my wife....

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, apple crumble, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10:30am, brownie, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, buttermilk biscuits with sausage gravy, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2:30pm, chocolate ice cream with caramel sauce, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

DINNER: 7:30pm, bahn mi sandwich, summer roll, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, bites of random chocolates, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Chili & Waffles

The day started with a snowstorm. B stayed home and took over Edie-duties, while I made a morning appointment with the tax accountant, then a rare Edie-free trip to Wholefoods. I was a bit jealous, as it seemed of the few customers in the store, more than half had their babies with them.

The second batch of chili was vastly superior -- we boiled the beef in stock instead of browning it, added a couple of teaspoons of salt and a few glugs of molasses. Most righteous. Next time I make it I want to double the stock, boil the beef twice as long, uncovered, to reduce and strengthen the stock.

Food was central to the day, but no greenery -- it's February, there is a snowstorm -- that calls for chili and waffles, not lettuce and squash!

BREAKFAST: 10am, orange donut, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, instant ramen with vegetable dumplings, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
"Oriental" flavor, he he.

DINNER: 6:30pm, chili over waffles, apple crumble with chocolate ice cream, glass of dark beer, seltzer, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
My friend M came over and we cooked chili from scratch (including grinding a single piece of beef), the crumble and then the waffles. D came over, and it was a good time.

Salmon fneh

Went out to Bed-Stuy to visit C and her 6-week old baby. We ordered in sandwiches from a local joint, and I had salmon, a fish I rarely bother with because it is literally "chicken of the sea" -- tastes like nothing much, questionable in it's healthfulness due to farming practices. After this sandwich, my opinion is not changed much.

Busy evening working on some food coop stuff, doing laundry, etc.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Used a frozen banana this time, made a MUCH thicker smoothie, had to add extra milk which thinned it to the right thickness but flattened the flavor out. Hmmmm. Mango, grapes, blueberries, cherries, banana, milk, good yogurt, vanilla, a dash of salt, freshly ground flax.

LUNCH: 1pm, hoison salmon sandwich with a small salad and a small quantity of fries, half a soda, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7:15pm, large green salad, Stouffer's Frenchbread pizzas, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Bop de boop de zaaah!

Woke up feeling bleah, from being up around 2am to help Edie get back to bed. Hunger overtook me, and the novelty of having freshly fried bacon was a concept to strong to resist. Must get healthier breakfast tomorrow.

Momma-in-law came over and took on the Edie, and I road the bike over to Red Hook to interview my new batch of students -- class starts one week from today, and I'm really looking forward to it. It's like a new recipe. The first time you do it, you follow the instructions and you don't make any changes other than common sense things, like adjusting seasoning. So the SECOND time you make the recipe, you know what was good and what was lacking, and you can take out your culinary trumpet and start blowing new harmonies, runs, leit motifs and make the recipe, if not better, at least your own. This 2nd run at teaching the culinary program is gonna be jazz, yo.

After, I visited the restaurant and helped L interview another publicist over some pizza. It was nice coming home to a peaceful momma-in-law and a sleeping baby. Since getting back from Detroit, Edie's sleeping patterns have shifted. She now takes two naps a day instead of one, and goes to bed much later, like 10:30pm. Being the B likes to be in bed before 9, it's more Edie time for me. Gotta watch the snacking that this may cause.

My chili was better this evening, hit it with a little salt, but I think I'm going to make it again soon. This time, a) double the beef stock, b) boil the ground beef in it for a few hours to liquefy it and reduce the stock, instead of browning in oil, c) add salt to the spice mix and d) adjust the spice mix with more cinnamon and baking chocolate. Bee bop boop boop!!

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, toasted bagel with creamcheese, 4 slices of bacon, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1pm, 2 small slices of pizza, Manhattan Special, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6pm, large green salad, pasta with homemade chili, small piece of chocolate tarte, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Stander

In the morning while Edie slept, I made some fresh spaghetti from some pasta dough I've had in the freezer for a while, and in the afternoon I ground a piece of chuck at home to make this chili. Came out well, but needed salt.

Edie fell asleep in the high chair around 4:30, before I could feed her properly. B woke her up around 6:30, and we did the whole routine, but Lil' E didn't go down until 10:45. I ended up indulging in another dessert while observed. Edie has been standing a lot, against various pieces of furniture. It's only a short time until she starts toddling everywhere, Gawd help us all....

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, organic cheerios with the good milk, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10am, brownie, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1:15pm, 1 slice streetza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2pm, 3 chocolate chip cookies, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER pt 1: 5:15pm, large green salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER pt 2: 6pm, fresh pasta with chili and cheddar, brownie, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, slice of chocolate tart, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Waffling

Well, that was a hell of a weekend. Due to a confluence of being near so much bad food, being around people who were down with the bad food and a pressurized situation surrounding it all, I perhaps ate the worst I ever have since starting writing about what I eat. When we got into the rental car, the first thing the driver did was....beeline for McDonald's drive-through. I couldn't wrap my mind around the toxic "beef product" that the NY Time so explicitly depicted a month ago...so I got the $1.99 10-piece chicken nuggets. The weekend's culinary exploits kind of went south from there.

We ate at the hotel the first night, and I think it was the salad bar that did me in. It reminded me of the small handful of tepid salad bars I experienced on my bike trip across the west. Usually limited to 9 or 10 items, half of those being processed food stuffs like crackers, breadcrumbs and heavy dressings. The other half would be vaguely wilted stuff out of a plastic bag, cleaned and cut at some factory in another state, after being harvested in a 3rd state. My stomach didn't feel right Friday night, and Saturday morning my innards seized up on me, and I ended up staying in the hotel room with Edie the whole day, dining out of the complimentary snack bar, until B & her brother returned....to take us to a chain establishment called "Macaroni Grill".

I'm sorry, dear reader, I swore I wouldn't record the nightmarish eating habits from the weekend. Like a weekend bender full of whores and cocaine, it's better to let it sit in the past, unrecorded and forgotten except as a warning to the future -- remember how bad you felt after you let it all hang out?

One thing I missed over the weekend were the liters of tap water I drink at home, 1 or 2 a day. The water in Ann Arbor tasted....vaguely soapy, minerally, a certain mouth feel that coated the mouth in an unpleasant way. We all noticed the distinct uptick in the number of fat people around us, I wonder if the quality of the tap water has anything to do with it. Makes me appreciate the high quality of water we have in NYC. With what I read about oil-drilling the shale in upstate NY potentially messing with the water table, I hope I won't be some old man ranting to his grandkids one day, "I remember when you could open a tap and water just as good as bottled specialty water would come out! We'd wash dishes with it! Flush toilets with it! And on top of that, you didn't have to pay for it! Taxes covered it, no fees, no nuthin'!"

I feel doughy and weak. The lack of exercise, specifically bicycling, is definitely starting to extract a toll on my mood and outlook. I think making arrangements with B for me to getaway several times a week to hit it hard on a bicycle is coming soon. March is the time.

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, homemade granola with the good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11:45am, a spoonful of brownie batter
Spontaneously got off the couch while Edie was asleep and decided to bake something. Had all the ingredients for fudge brownies, and realized I haven't made brownies for home consumption in a long time.

LUNCH: 1:30pm, 2 large pieces of demi-super-hippy bread with good peanut butter, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
All fresh veg in the house is either gone or spoiled, due to our 3 days away.

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, a bite of brownie
Cutting up the cooled brownie, a few crumbs found their way to my mouf.

DINNER: 6:45pm, large green salad with sauteed shrimp, 2 homemade waffles, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Making waffles on a caste iron waffleiron is hard, but fun.

EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, brownie, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5