Can I change my order?

I recently rearranged the closets, and I now have a box of random 'desk stuff' that resides on a high shelf in the closet. I took it down to find a lip balm when a sight odor hit me like a canoe paddle on the side of the head -- it smelled slightly like the drawer of my father's desk in his home office when I was a kid...and that smell was a mixture of sunflower seed husks and a slight tinge of saliva.

My dad habitually ate sunflower seeds. They were in the shell, so he'd have to crack open the seed with his teeth, spit out the husk, then chew and swallow the tiny little seed. The whole seeds and the slightly wet husks would find their way into the nooks and crannys of his desk, giving the whole affair a vegetal, slightly earthy, slightly tangy smell. I tried eating his seeds a few times, but the effort and work to eat one seed seemed oversized compared to the reward of the tiny, woodsy tasting kernel.

Looking back now, clearly it was the repetition and the business of his mouth and lips that gave him satisfaction, the eating of the seed was probably just a bonus afterthought. That smell was my dad in his own private work fortress of solitude.

I'm recording hunks of TV for HVS's professional reasons. I'm watching this corny reality program, "Bringing Home Baby," about the first few weeks of bringing home a new born. Oh my. Uhhhhhh. The dude is changing the diaper for the first time, and poo is running down the kid's leg. Uhhhhhh. Think I can place an order for a non-pooping model? Or some how convince B that it's my responsibility to make everything that goes in, and hers to take care of everything that comes out? Like doin' the dishes, but stinkier. This blog is Learning to Feed after all, not Learning to Poop. Though I guess that may be applicable at some point...

Don't worry B, when we have our arancini, I won't invite a film crew into our house for the first month....

Weight this morning was 224, two pounds over last week. I feel light and other than the excess soda yesterday, my eating has been good, so I'm going to chalk it up to normal variation.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, toasted onion bagel with good butter, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 12:15pm, homemade powerbar thingy, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 4:30pm, Caesar salad, 1/4 of a turkey club, handful of fries, 1 decadent brownie, a few spoonfuls of awful ice cream, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Late lunch with B and her momma on the upper east side. My first non-vegan Caesar since c-school, good, definitely taste the tang of the anchovies. The chocolate ice cream tasted oddly sour to me, but B kept eating it without complaint, so I didn't stop her. Should I have?

DINNER: 8pm, pork cutlet curry over rice, 1 pork dumpling, water, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
At the place I used to eat at all the time when I worked in Times Square, just lovely. Didn't eat most of the rice that came with it, just not hungry enough.

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, homemade vanilla ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
One thing for sure, my ice cream is better than that restaurant's from this afternoon.

Half-a-Pastrami

Tomorrow I'm back in the restaurant, but today I was left to my own devices. Made an 11am yoga class -- with only one other student, the privilege of having an irregular schedule. Went to the movies with Y afterward, then Y took me to the 2nd Avenue Deli for lunch, as a gift for graduating c-school.

I have a long relationship with the 2nd Ave Deli. I used to occasionally go there with my father for lunch. When I was in the music biz, I took a band from Montana there, who felt pastrami was just too weird -- most of them got burgers. My friend Y comes from a restaurant family, and looooves to eat, and we've spent many late nights at the original location. Chocolate babka, no matter how stuffed we were, was always dessert no matter what.

When my father passed away a few days before Thanksgiving, one of my first nights out of the house with friends was at Y's house around Xmas. Y made a glorious meal with her boyfriend at the time, and I brought a whole babka from the 2nd Ave Deli (if I did that today, I would have made it myself.) We ate a vast quantity, and then there was the babka. We didn't eat a piece of the babka -- we ate the WHOLE babka. The babka was love -- love for my friend, love for my father, love of my time I spent in that restaurant with them. I rolled out of there with a seriously distended tummy and when I got home, got promptly sick.

When Y asked me where I wanted to go to lunch, it was the obvious choice. Starving from yoga and hoping to cycle after, I thought a pastrami sandwich would be quite enough. However, I could only eat half of it -- in my entire life, whenever I've ordered a full pastrami, I've eaten it. I had a few of Y's fries, sure, and the health salad and the pickles, but by the time half got down, I was just....done, and being with Y, desert was not optional.

There is half a left over pastrami sandwich in my fridge. Man, I guess I'm not the same person I was when my pops was around.

ADDENDA:
Thing is, the pastrami was good...but not that good. Too lean, needed more fat -- if you're going to eat something as nutritionally dangerous as embalmed meat, it has to be macho -- you go large or you go home. Anyone who purposefully orders a lean deli sandwich, that's up there with sugar & fat free ice cream, caffeine free diet coke and turkey bacon. Just pointless.

BREAKFAST: 10am, cupcake, banana, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
It was either eat a cupcake, or throw 'em out. It was nice that I could taste the slight staleness -- a real cupcake, not a preserved industrial convenience store thing.

LUNCH: 3:30pm, health salad, pickles, half a pastrami on rye with mustard, a few french fries, water, a couple pieces of rugala, small piece of babka, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, small cup of vanilla ice cream, a few tiny graham cracker cookies, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

Bagel Love

I picked up hot-out-of-the-oven bagels and sour pickles from a pickle stand on the way home in the morning, a nice local produced (and unintentionally totally kosher) meal. Spreading cream cheese on the bagel, I was reminded of a strong food memory.

I must have been 9 or 10 and on a rare visit at a friend's house. Seth's mother was there, and she served us bagels with cream cheese. She spread her cream cheese very thinly, just a skim coat so you couldn't see the bread underneath, but not much else. My mother would lard on the cream cheese like frosting on a cake, generous and peaked. My first reaction was YUM!! -- my mouth isn't being gummed up with a ton of cheese, I can taste the bagel, it's just yummier. I hadn't come up with the concept of 'balance' yet, but that was the beginning. Then I had another reaction that came around like a swinging hammer.

This other mother, not my mother, wasn't overly friendly to me, certainly didn't love me like my mother did. She prepared this bagel for me not out of love and devotion, but because she was obliged to because I was in her house at a meal time -- was she just skimping on the cream cheese because she didn't love me? Was the unpleasant blanket of cream cheese a sign that my mom loved me?

Today, I spread my cream cheese thicker than Seth's mom, but thinner than my mom. I look forward to showing my love with a better sense of balance to my kids, so they can associate love with the best a bagel has to offer.

B came home early and went into the bedroom for a nap and I went into the kitchen. She wanted broccoli, she said. So I roasted some in the oven, coated with a little bit of olive oil, diced garlic, cubed portobello, sea salt, fresh ground pepper, and freshly toasted panko crumbs. When it came out of the oven, I hit it with a nice raw milk sharp cheddar cheese that made it scream, "ALLAWAGAWANDA!" Or something.

C-school was in full effect in making the protein. I cleaned and deveined a bunch of shrimp, butterflied them, then used a bacon press to keep them flat and get them to quick fast on the caste-iron grill pan. When I saw it stuck, I killed the heat the the shrimp released themselves in a minute to be flipped. I took a small sauce pan and placed the shells in there with a rough chopped carrot, two pepper corns, some dried shallots and some dried porcini. Covered it all with cold water, brought to a boil, then let simmer for an hour. Strained it into an ice bath, and once cooled into the freezer with a 'homemade shrimp stock' label -- next time I make shrimp or shellfish for guests, I'm gonna fashion a wicked pan sauce with that stuff.

Around 7:15, I was seriously craving sugar, had no sweets in the house, and did not feel like going to the corner store. So I poked my head in the pantry, took note of what I had, and -- c-school in effect! -- made chocolate pudding, using this recipe as a guide. I only had baking chocolate, so added an extra quarter cup of sugar, and doubled up on the eggs, as I only had medium. Upon tasting the hot pudding, it tasted a bit on the bitter and unsweet side still, so I added a shot of honey, a splash of vanilla and an extra pinch of salt. Into the fridge, drat, the recipe says cool for 2 hours, if I eat it hot, then it's a mousse, right?

ADDENDA
An exciting morning in the courts for jury duty; I was excused early so I can return Tuesday for selection on a case involving the multiple murders of presumed contract killer. Oooh, am I invalidated by writing that here? The vending machines were quite scary in the back of the waiting room, but at least now there are computer stations with free internet...

BREAKFAST: 7am, organic chex with good milk, banana, quart of water ,1 bowl, hunger 4/5

BREAKFAST 2: 11:15am, fresh onion bagel with cream cheese, 3 small 3/4 sour pickles, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACKLES: 2-4pm, pretzel chip things, spoonful of peanut butter, potato chips, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6pm, pan-grilled butterflied shrimp, roasted broccoli with sharp cheddar, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, hot chocolate puddin', .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Poet's Walk

ADDENDA:
I've for a long time thought a lot of problems in this country could be solved if food wasn't so cheap. Now with the crap economy, we're on the verge of seeing food prices rise, I'm afraid more problems will be created world wide than solved locally, with food-riots in places where people already spend more than 50% of their incomes on getting fed. Yes, we'll eat out less, eat small portions and maybe not eat so wastefully, but must that be accompanied by people in other places starving? It makes me ill at ease, especially when I'm at the markets buying up the finest ingredients possible.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, good yogurt with cashews, honey, and vanilla, 1 banana, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1pm, lamb on pita, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
After spending a few hours wrapping up a project in the offices, grabbed a lamb pita from the good vendor, with the real lamb and hand-made condiments. Sat in Central Park at the Poet's Walk while eating it and making phone calls. I used to sit here with my father every time we came to the park together, sit and read, be quiet, usually between a movie, museum or opera and a meal.

Soon after my father died, I dreamed that I came to this spot and he was there, elderly but in good health and able to walk on his own. We sat, and he apologized for dying, and said he already missed me and mom horrendously, and he thanked me and my mom for being so good to him in his last few years, when yes, we could of dumped him in a home but every effort was (successfully) made to allow him to spend his last months living in his own home. He said to look after myself and my mother, and then we hugged. As I squeezed him, I closed my eyes and -poof- out of my arms he dissipated like smoke. I woke up from that dream feeling a bit more settled about it, and I was happy I got to see him again. I've had a few dreams over the years where I've spoken with my parents, all conscious that they are dead.

I pedalled over to the Whitney to check out the Biennial, but the line was wrapped around the block. I was looking forward to checking out the Edward Hoppers, as he was my father's favorite painter and we would sit and stare at them together every time we were there.

PM SNACK: 2:15pm, shrimp summer roll, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Picked up ingredients for a dinner with B at WF, got this to hold me over till then.

PM SNACK: 5pm, shortbread, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Cooking up a storm, got hungry. Better to have sweets now than before bed.

DINNER: 7pm, spinach salad, a couple of raviolis, lasagna, half glass of white wine, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
I made cheese & vegetable ravioli from scratch, which Betsy had, while I had the Dinnerfest meaty lasagna. The ravioli was good - fresh egg dough, the filling made up of ricotta, fresh moz, parm, spinach, sauteed & diced portabellos, chives, shallots, sun dried tomatoes, nutmeg, eggs, salt and pepper. I lightly sauteed the raviolis in olive oil, elephant garlic, more chives, white wine and lemon juice, came out really interesting (in a good way). Made enough raviolis to cover a couple of counter tops, drying a little before I bag them for the freezer. B tucked into chocolate soy ice cream, but I resisted...

PM SNACK: 9pm, veggie booty, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, chocolate soy ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Serious sugar cravings, made me very cranky. I gave in.

Junk Food Armageddon

ADDENDA:
My first summer at summer camp, we had parent's day right in the middle of the month I was away. It was the very first time I was away from my parents, and I struggled with home-sickness for the first week. I was OK for the second, but then my parents visited.

It was a glorious day, and I cried when they left, probably the first time I ever cried for my parents (I was 10). One thing I remember clearly....most of the other campers were from Long Island, and came from much wealthier homes than I did. The camp fed us 3 squares a day, 'family-style', meaning you could as much as you wanted. No one was in need of food. Regardless, other parents would mail their kids all sorts of junk-food which counselors would collect and put into big plastic barrels to keep the animals out.

But when parent's day came, it was JUNK FOOD ARMAGEDDON. Parents would just bring tons of crap to eat all day, take their kids out off campus into the wilds of Pennsylvania to get 'real food', etc. I don't remember what we ate that day, but I do remember a small blue cooler which had some simple things for a light lunch, probably bread and cheese and fruit. My parents never gave me sweets, so it was a huge treat for my mom to give me a plastic baggie full of chocolate chip cookies she made (undoubtedly the recipe off the back of a Nestle's morsel's bag) before they split. I cried, hugged, it was difficult for the three of us.

That evening, the counselors and staff had all the kids take out the huge amount of junk food crap they received that day and put it on the picnic table in the middle of our bunks. Basically, we were told this has to be eaten now, whatever's left thrown away. I had not eaten a single one of my cookies because I wanted to wait till I was hungry and try to make them last for the 2 weeks I had till I saw my parents again. But, it was share and eat and throw away, and I really didn't want to share or throw away, so I took my bag of cookies and ate the whole thing - all these kids had this horrible store-bought cheesy-poof crap in vast quantities, and all I had was my bag of cookies, a little part of my mom right with me. I distinctly remember eating the whole bag, taking a few steps, and chucking my guts out. Wasn't pleasant, but I was glad those stupid kids didn't get any of my cookies, they wouldn't of appreciated them anyway. Still kinda glad.

(When I did a google image search for 'Junk Food Armageddon', this Hulk Hogan pic came up - he was at the height of his popularity when I was arounf 10....)

Brought my Easter candy to the office today, some others also brought theirs in, and put it on the lunch table for whoever to eat. Kinda like the adult version of the parent's day picnic table.

Weighed myself this morning, perhaps not what one is supposed to do the day after Easter dinner, 234. Though others might be disappointed, losing a pound over a few weeks seems right to me. Still, gotta step it up.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, 1 fuji apple, .5 bowls, hunger 3/5
Feel like I have a food-hangover, but I need to go into a client's to pop out some work, would be foolish to eat nothing.

LUNCH #1: Noon, tomato soup, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Swung by B's office and we went to lunch together. Not very hungry and just ordered soup, but once I ate it, it went down my throat fast, guess I was hungrier than I thought.

LUNCH #2: 2:15pm, handful of cocktail shrimp, prime rib sandwich on super hippy bread with b&b pickles, 2 bowl, hunger 4/5
Left overs from last night's feast, 20 seconds in the micro and still tender and juicy and yummy. Matched well with the toughness of the superhippy. Tried the Rick's Picks super-expensive pickles, was good, not as cloyingly sweet like industrial bread n' butters, but still, not a big deal, not worth the money. Guess I'm just not a pickle fanatic.

PM SNACK: 5pm, a headless solid dark chocolate bunny, .5 bowls, hunger 4/5
A little bit too much. Threw out the remainder of the Easter sweets.

DINNER: 8pm, 2 little rice balls, 2 little fried olives, spoonful of eggplant parm, 1 meat ball, gnocchi with sausage in a light cream sauce, about 2 teaspoons worth of various chocolates, 1 glass prosecco, water, 2 bowls, hunger 3/5
Birthday dinner for a close friend at a nice local restaurant, really good vibes. Cupcakes were also distributed, showed a rare restraint because after the tiny bits of fancy chocolates, the last thing I wanted was a cupcake.

Emilabar

ADDENDA:
Made these yesterday afternoon, adjusting a recipe that was passed on by Ilsa. I replaced the dried fruits with chopped almonds, organic brown rice crispies, shredded dried apples and dark chocolate chips, and added a shot of almond extract. It's ok, but could be a lot better. The three eggs in the recipe make it overly spongy, I'd like it denser. The rice crispies lost their crispness, not sure how to overcome that. The dried apple bits are too large, gotta chop them finer. The recipe calls for peanut butter, that's a nice note, should up the amount, goes well with the almond extract. Maybe experiment with other extracts on the next batch. Regardless, this should be a good bike-food this season...

I've eaten Cliffbars on the bike for the last 8 or 9 years, I could see a refined recipe taking over. Hmmm, what should I name them? Dude named his bar after his father, Cliff. Emilbars? Emilabar? Emilobar? Sounds a little bit like one of those meal-replacement bricks....

Got home around 5pm, feeling much more tired from the casual ride than I should, so I skipped yoga. Spent some time going through the earlier portions of this blog, tagging things to make them searchable. Noticed I got into my yogurt habit around the time I did a week-long desert-fast, wonder how that's related.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, boca burger on toasted sprouted wheat with ketchup and red onion, water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10am, half a homemade powerbar, hunger 4/5

AM DRUGGING: 11:30am, 500mg Vitamin C
Got a headache, feeling tired and achy. Got 6 hours, disturbed several times by Betsy's repeated alarm. Inner ear a little achy, may be an infection starting.

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, 2 brownies, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Quick snack before a casual bike ride. Needed to finish them.

LUNCH: 3:30pm, sausage and veg pizza, half a small cup of rich hot chocolate, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Took B's cuz and a few of her friends on a bike tour of the tip of Manhattan, then over to Brooklyn Heights with a stop at Grimaldi's. Took a quick walk over to Jacques Torres. Really nice.

PM SNACK: 8pm, 3 halves of small chocolate bunnies, .25 bowls, hunger 2/5
Snacked on a few bits from Jacques Torres with my B. One was white, one was milk and the third dark. Nice contrast, underlines that dark is the yummiest.

DINNER: 9pm, baby carrots with a little ranch, 1 homemade power bar, .75 bowls, hunger 3/5

EVENING SNACK: 1am, small superhippy bread cheese sandwich, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5
To help get to sleep.

Food Crime Then & Now: Iceberg Lettuce & Sausage Sticks

ADDENDA:
During the course of the day, I sat down to read my hand-written journal from my cross-country bike trek. I wrote down pretty much everything I ate, the good, the bad, especially the ugly, and a lot of thoughts about my parents, whose passings were still very fresh in my mind. Only once, the two subjects crossed. From my Marshfield, Missouri entry:

Heard a piece on the radio about some local hospital improving their food, choked me up, reminded me of the time my mom was hospitalized, her food, sharing pizza & Chinese food with her, bringing her chocolate. God I miss her.

Mom's hospital food was bland and gross, and my mom had no appetite due to the chemo. Still, she would eat bites of the pizza, Chinese & chocolate not because she was hungry, but because it was comforting and it was shared with her son.

The full weight of my mother losing her facilities came to bear due to her bearings in her kitchen. When she started her first course of treatment, they eventually sent her home, and every few days would make her way back to the hospital. I got a call from her one evening at work, a little panicked because she could not remember how to turn off the oven. I immediately left work and rushed to her apartment. When I got there, the oven was off - she had mistaken the clock time on the panel as a temperature. The next day I moved in with her and started making arrangements for home health aides during the day.

My mom was never a good cook, and it was almost a relief that during the time I lived with her, I got to prepare breakfast and dinner (I'd set aside easy stuff to prepare for the aide). I remember one dinner, I was making dried pasta and jarred sauce, and made a simple green salad with most of the stuff I grew up on - carrots, cucumbers, green pepper, celery, onion - and romaine instead of iceberg. I stopped eating iceberg lettuce years before because it tastes like nothing and is nutritionally void. When I served the salad, my mom asked where the iceberg was. I sighed like I was a snotty teenager again, told her this was much healthier, not to mention tastier, and it was HER generation who screwed up our eating habits by making silly stuff like that the standard.

Instead of getting into a raucous (and fun) argument with me about intergenerational food warfare and my silly teenage-like snottiness, she meekly said, "but I like it." I immediately felt horrendously guilty - I knew subconsciously she was dying and these were most likely her last meals (they were), but on the surface I was hoping to introduce her to new things, to things that reflected my way of thinking and seeing things. Suffice to say, for the next month till the end her house saw nothing but iceberg lettuce. I can't eat the stuff today without feeling a little guilty and sad.

Speaking of guilt, sadness, and nutritional corruptness of a generation, today's peeps certainly aren't guilt-free. Some of us have gotten a lot worse than just iceberg lettuce. I think I ranted about this product early on in this blog, but it's worth repeating. This morning I went to my local Pathmark to pick up bulky sundries like cat litter and toilet paper. I used to shop for my main groceries here before Whole Foods and Fresh Direct started up. After picking up my list, I wandered around a few aisles, where I would find the things that in the past I'd be there to buy. Industrial cereals, yick, diet soda, blech, frozen White Castles, ewww. I seriously considered buying something snackable from the freezer case, and I was also keep an open mind about alternative breakfast foods. Of course, the chocolate chip pancake-wrapped sausage on a stick came into my view and stunned me with all the power that it stunned me with months and months ago.

Really, any adult who bought this for their kid should be charged with child abuse. Looking through the freezer case, looking at fat and salt-heavy snacks called "Anytimepertizers", Jesus fuck, are we insane? I understand freedom of choice, but if economic activities that are arguably victimless like drug use and prostitution are illegal, shouldn't there be a class of "food crime"? (Personally, I think prostitution and all drugs should be legal and regulated, and so should so-called 'value-added' food products, but that's a rant for a different kind of blog....)

BREAKFAST: 10am, organic cheerios with good milk, banana, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, homemade mac n' cheese, homemade vanilla ice cream, homemade brownie, homemade seltzer, 3 bowls, hunger 4/5
Boy, I'm stuffed. Three relatively unhealthy foods easily available in large quantities at Pathmark - mac n' cheese, brownies and ice cream, all made from scratch, all simply delicious, even if frozen and in the fridge for a week.

DINNER: 8pm, assorted shared appetizers including beef bone marrow on toast with wine reduction, 1 boiled whole shrimp with touch of cream sauce, artisanel french fries, country pate, misc. vegetables in vinaigrette, saucon sec, mushroom ravioli, chocolate bread pudding, 1 glass wine, herbal tea, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Intense meal at Blue Ribbon bakery in honor of Katya's birthday, with B and 3 others. Read a lot about marrow, seen it on TV, felt like I had it before but upon eating it realized, ahhh, actually, I never ate this before. Presented in a cut shank of bone, the inner marrow is fatty and gelatinous, a cross between warm bacon fat and good butter, really rich and tasty and a bit overpowering if not spread thinly enough. Really tasty, awesomely non-vegetarian looking - when you look at it, you know exactly what your eating, unprocessed and unmediated - you're scooping goo out of the bone, near the joint, straight up. Ain't a burger made up of 20 different cows, ain't mystery meat.

Family

ADDENDA:
Going up to Albany with B today to visit my religious brother and his large family, stopping by my parent's gravesite on the way up. Tomorrow I go to Detroit for a couple of days to spend some time with my father-in-law, then B & I fly out for a week to London & Amersterdam. Haven't slept well the past couple of nights, must be careful as getting sick now would be a disaster.

BREAKFAST: 7am, bacon on sprouted wholewheat, hunger 4/5
Went down to the local diner around the corner at 6:45 for a BLT & homefries, but was still closed. So I cooked up 6 slices of my good organic naturally low-salt bacon and slapped them on 3 pieces of sprouted wholewheat, a triple-layer sandwich that just had 2 components, really brought out the flavor and texture of both without being messed with.

And if I'm going to spend a good part of the day in a kosher household, I better get some bacon in me!

AM SNACK: 10am, everything bagel, hunger 4/5
Noshing in the car.

LUNCH: 2pm, onion bagel with fresh homemade hummus, handful of vegetables, water, hunger 4/5
Had my brother collect all the kosher ingredients, and I made hummus with my nephews and nieces, was very cute.

DINNER: 6pm, french fries, large eggplant parm sandwich, hunger 4/5
At a rest stop in NJ on the way home. I ordered half a sub, but the thing was a full foot long!

An Interesting Development

ADDENDA:
Woke up at 7 feeling crappy. Was going to ride bike today, but after being up for an hour, thought it best to stay in doors and be quiet and still. Tomorrow, the grind starts again. A nap around 12-1:30 on the couch made me feel a whole mess better.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, bowl of organic cornflakes with good milk, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11am, 4 chocolate vegan macaroon-like sweet things, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, homemade squash soup, homemade chocolate soy ice cream, hunger 4/5
I woke up from my nap to an interesting, somewhat delicious smell. Something unexpected and totally invited happened: Betsy cooked something!! And it was GOOD! She made a fresh squash soup with a recipe from her momma's. Up to this point, for the 2+ years I've been with her, she's made....let's see, our first date at her home in Brooklyn, she made salad and a stilted pizza-like item by putting cheese and veg on a Mediterranean flat bred. She's prepared salad again over the years, presented fruit and cheese, prepared, reheated, encouraged ME to cook, but hasn't actually cooked a thing.

In the fall out of my mother's generation of progressive feminism, we left cooking in the hands of industry, and they have not treated us like a parent who loves a child by nourishing them - they've treated us a like a mark to be lightened of the cash in their wallets. Betsy took a small but crucial step in righting some wrongs and guaranteeing the good health of our future children - imagine, BOTH parents liking to cook real food!

My mother was a horrible cook, who treated it like an annoying obligation meant to tie her to a history of servitude, my father didn't have enough time to enjoy it more creatively, letting that creative muscle atrophy over the years until in the end he ended up just making monster batches of hummus twice a year, a monster batch of spaghetti sauce once a year. I don't blame them, they were products of their time, as I hope to be of mine.

As a response to her call, I immediately made some chocolate soy ice cream in return, only takes about 10 minutes. However, this is the third time I made it and the 2nd time it didn't turn out as good as the first. Though it'll add a few hours to prep time, I think I'm going to cook the mix then chill it, I think that'll eliminate the slightly powdery consistency that's created when the hot melted chocolate hits the cool soy blend.

DINNER: 6pm, homemade pizza, hunger 4/5
Talked about going out for dinner, but neither of us felt like leaving the house, and ordering in didn't really appeal either, so I busted out the freezer for dough and sauce, sliced up some veg and sauteed in white wine. No mozz, just some freshly grated parm. One pizza I used the pan method and came out the roundest and thinnest of all the pizzas I've done, the other the dough didn't cooperate so I made myself a very doughy, calzone, probably the crappiest pizza thing I've made.

Upon reading the lunch entry, Betsy said, "Add that I'm a feminist!" Like actually cooking is somehow a repudiation or questioning of her feminist credentials. There in lies a problem. Has anyone written a book about resolving the socio-economic-environmental problems created by cooking becoming first gender-specific, then abandoned?

I just watched 'The Nanny Diaries' on cable, a crappy movie based on a crappy novel. The uptight Upper East Side mom insists that her son eat only organic and soy, the nanny bonds with the kid by feeding him corn-syrup laden peanut butter pre-mixed with jam straight out of the jar. At the end of the movie, where it's tied up all nicey-nicey, the formerly uptight mom eats the jar mess with her kid and admits it's good. Urgh, anality in any form is unpleasant, but dismissing eating well and non-industrially as somehow elitist, untastey and ultimately alienating is such a shitty message. But I guess the masses that eat up that Hollywood crap like to have their world-views confirmed! Rage rage rage! :)

Raviolios

ADDENDA:
Making ravioli last night was a lot of fun. It's the same tedium of making pasta, but with an extra layer of tedium at the end! Ha, no, the stand-mixer attachment kind of cuts 45 minutes of arm-breaking tedium from the process, and shaping and hand-filling the dumplings in a form was actually quite satisfying. Like sausage, the contents of a ravioli has always had an air of mystery, and to have made it from scratch was a little bit of a revelation. To start with whole wheat flour, a stack of eggs, a pint of ricotta, a few stems of parsley and a block of parm and turn it into rather sexy little pillows of flavor. Look at Betsy's face, you KNOW that ravioli is sexy!

My mom would call them 'raviolios'. I imagine she would have an even grander name for these, perhaps 'ravioliolios'....

Looking forward to hitting the farmer's market hard this Saturday, it's been a while since I made a proper salad, and now I have this new set of skills I want to play with. And perhaps a zucchini may be in my future next week...

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, organic cherios with good milk, banana, hunger 3/5

AM WATERING: 9:30am, 24 oz still

BP: 9:45am, 129/91

LUNCH: 12:30, big plate of shrimp/veg/fish tempura, bowl of white rice, miso soup, hunger 4/5
Needed a break from the curry pork. Something tells me the salt level in this meal was high. Didn't taste salty, but heard a report on NPR this morning about some new survey of American sodium intake, how it's out of control, and how you can't actually taste the salt because of processing. Salty potato chips are comparatively low-salt compared something like a frozen TV dinner, due to this factor. More fuel to cook from home.

After lunch Erikka and I took a walk to the new M&M store off Times Square. Three floors of prime real estate dedicated to the consumption and celebration of shitty-ass chocolate by kids and their irresponsible guardians. Right outside the window is a huge billboard fill of almost-naked ladies advertising the 'Vivid' brand of hardcore pornography. God bless America!!

DINNER: 6:45pm, 1 small buttery nan bread, wonderful grilled/cured venison appetizer with a small unsweetened baked apple, small shot of pumpkin soup, nicely spiced curry shrimp over a bed of brown rice pilaf with odd/tasty threads of vegetable matter in it, peanutbutter custard with concord grape granita over a thin chocolate wafer in a small pool of fresh grape jelly, 2 small filled-chocolates, 1/4 glass of presecco, hunger 4/5
Took the wifey to nice dinner at Tabla. She had cheese for dessert, I was more interested in indulging in something sweet, as this was the time to get something above and beyond. However, I couldn't help wondering hmmmm....maybe a cheese course could be more satisfying than a childish sweet? (The name of my dessert was "Peanut Butter & Jelly".) It came served with small handful of yellow raisins and some nicely shaped toasty breads. Made me regret forgetting to eat the apple and cheese I brought to work.

Gobble Gobble, Yo

ADDENDA:
Thanksgiving in Andover, a suburb of Boston, this year is the first time in my life I've spent this holiday away from my hometown, NYC. Though I guess I should of saw it coming a million miles away, I'm missing my parents horribly today.

Different wings of the extended family took different holidays, and our wing was Thanksgiving. This was the only time of year my mom would 'cook', and by cook I mean coordinate. My dad would be responsible for the turkey and the salad, my mom would put the potatoes in the oven to bake, I would be responsible for the stuffing. My mom would make a big deal about how I 'made' the stuffing, but in reality it was from a box of Stouffers. I remember one year I suggested we actually stuff the turkey with it before cooking, I think the level of complexity it entailed was beyond the pale for my mom. My Brazilian uncle would bring really good homemade chocolate mouse, a trendy thing in the 70s. Aunts would bring booze and other pies. My mom could NOT go to sleep unless ALL the dishes were washed and set up to air-dry. The house (and in later years the apartment) was always full of people on Thanksgiving, and it was always a home-cooked meal. My mom would buy the turkey at least a week in advance, the table would be set at least 48 hours in advance, the nervous tension she had the day of, hours before anyone were to come and the entire home was scrubbed clean and there was just nothing left to do other than lie down and watch TV.

I look forward to the day of regularly hosting a holiday in my home with family and friends, with homemade food and days of preparation.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, raw nuts, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 10:30am, veggie booty, liter of seltzer, hunger 4/5
Train to Boston.

AM SNACK: 11:30am, saltless whole wheat pretzels, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, bag of potato chips, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3pm, toated chiabatta bread with bruchetta stuff, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 4pm, squash maple soup, grape sorbet, turkey medallions with apple cranberry stuffing, whipped potato croquet, steamed carrots, lots of bread & butter, pumpkin creme brulee, water, hunger 4/5
Formal dinner at the very white, WASPy New England Andover Inn.

EVENING SNACK: 7:30pm, popcorn, hunger 3/5
A Thankgiving evening movie out, a first for me.

Addiction (Or: My Mother, the Junky)

ADDENDA:
My mom was a nicotine addict. My brother and I would beg her to put he cigarette out when she would drive us around in the close confines of a car. She underwent surgery when I was in high school to remove some of her lung, and afterwards she hid her smoking, despite her being 110% forthright, successful and strong in all other aspects of her life. Neither my brother or I smoke or drink coffee because of the unattractive side we saw in our mom abusing these substances (hey! did you here that?! I think that was my mom rolling over in her grave for being called a substance-abuser!)

Back in my early 20s, when I discovered I was totally addicted to diet coke, I quit it cold turkey - I didn't want to be dependent on a drink like my mom. How middle-class bourgeoisie uncool was that? It was all headaches, nausea, fuzzy-headed unsleepiness for 2 days, a little better on the 3rd, by day 5 it was over.

My dad tried smoking, I guess to share something with my mom, but gave it up before my memory begins. He was never a huge coffee-drinker, either. But man, he loved his sweets. Some of his fondest memories of Vienna growing up pre-WWII were the bakeries full of Viennese delights. He'd always have a sweets drawer in his office I'd take great pleasure in raiding as a kid. Like my dad, I do love my sweets.

Well, I'm coming to the realization that refined sugar has a grasp on me - and how uncool is that? I went without sweets yesterday, it shouldn't be this hard. It shouldn't be hard at all. So per Ilsa's advice, starting Sunday dinner until Friday dinner I will not eat any desert that has refined sugar. Fruit is OK, chocolate is not. I'll be stocking up on the baby carrots next week. Anyone have a recommendation on how to help curb my cravings?

Feeling the craving right now, it's in my stomach and my arms. Brought the last of the apple crisp and a good piece of Icelandic dark chocolate for a snack today - better than the conventional crap they sell around here.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, good yogurt with a small squirt of honey, vanilla, raw cashews, hunger 3.5/5
Woke up well and rested, slight craving for sugar revving up my appetite a little. Never thought much of it before, but honey is obviously a refined sugar, but in reality I'm only using about a tablespoon to cut the bitter edge of the yogurt, not turn it into a sweet confection like the conventional yogurts...

BP 10am: 126/90

AM WATERING: 10am, 24 oz still water.
Think I'm going to aim for 2 waterings a day. Hydration leads to slightly thinner blood, which results in lower blood pressure.

LUNCH: 12:30, shrimp tempura with white rice and a little dipping sauce, beef negamaki starter, tiny salad, hunger 4/5
Junior's was packed out, so went to the sushi place. I'm not sure if the portions were unusually small or my sugar-lust makes it seem that way. Felt full but the white rice revved up my sugar craving.

PM SNACK: 1:15pm, homemade apple crumble and good dark chocolate, hunger 2.5/5
The chocolate was in the freezer too long, was a little chalky in consistency. However, the second the first square hit my tongue, I instantly felt better - just like a junky when the needle hits the vein. Funny thing is, now that it's done, feel slightly sick to my stomach, headachey. This is not good all over.

PM WATERING: 2:30pm, 24 oz still water, 2 extra-strength tylenol
Headache worse, stomach feels like there is liquid plastic in it. Could it be shock from so much sugar after almost 36 hours of no sweets?!

DINNER: 7:30pm, long link of merguez lamb sausage, 4 pieces whole wheat bread with mustard, small portion of roast potatoes & onion, bowl of organic whole-grain crispex and good milk, hunger 4.5/5
As I was riding home, felt a little faint from hunger and thought I craved sugar - after thinking about it, I realized I was REALLY hungry, forgot to have a snack due to feeling weird. Was going to have sausage and potatoes, but there weren't many potatoes left, so I wrapped the sausage in whole-wheat toast like a hotdog. After the first two, I realized I wasn't really tasting the sausage as the mustard was overpowering. The actual sausage (from the farmers market) was delicious and delicate, not what you expect in a sausage and I think I kind of mistreated them by eating them like hotdogs - but I was so hungry! After eating the equivalent of 4 (healthy) hotdogs, still hungry. Usually, I'd snarf some sweets and that would shut me down, but I already had my sweets for the day. So I fast forwarded and had breakfast. That shut me down.

Donut Disaster of a Different Order

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, organic brown rice crispies and good milk, hunger 3/5
I got the salted version, still not very good.

AM WATERING: 7:15am, 24 oz still water

AM SNACK: 10am, 1.5 vegan donuts, 1 small piece of baklava, hunger 4/5
Brought these in for T and coworkers, not very impressed with them (the donuts, that is) but after hauling them around the city since last night, had to try. Gosh, is that my sweet for the day?! Disaster!

LUNCH: 1pm, brick o' samosas, brown rice, pumpkin noodles and curry veg, hunger 4/5
Quick eats as I pumped out freelance work over my lunch.

PM SNACK: 4pm, conventional brownie, hunger 4/5
Falling asleep, needed sugar, felt cranky. Was a quick pickmeup and got me through till 6:30, but felt really shlocky after.

DINNER: 8:30pm, BBQ ribs and fried rice, egg roll, seltzer, cupcake, hunger 4/5
Tired, cranky, feeling bad about spoiling date night with B, needed comfort food. Wasn't planning on more sweets, but B brought them in special just for cranky little me. Thought of how much fun it was ordering Chinese food with my parents, the ceremony of walking down the street with my dad to pick it up because the tip for delivery seemed like a waste of money. I really enjoyed those little walks, then coming back and my mom set the table, like that's the equivalent of cooking!

More stress

ADDENDA:
Yoga was better than the week before. Rather than be ridiculously easy with points of being ridiculously hard, it was more even in it's challenge. Moving from pose to pose, focusing on my in and out breathing almost clicked a few times - I could see myself doing it mindlessly while physically being mindful... The downward dog to plank and back, to a lunge and then standing and pointing my hands up, while measuring my breathe, something just....felt right - a little. It felt mostly awkward, and I felt very tight and inflexible.

Towards the end, we put our legs on the wall above our head, coming down into 'corpse' pose and laid there again in the dark with the 'ommm' music and the teacher went around greasing up our feet. I cleared my mind, but it didn't stay clear for long. The teacher mentioned letting yourself become heavy and join the earth....in 'corpse' pose....I thought of if I were entering the earth from wence I came, I'd be with my parents again....I was on the plains of Kansas, which took me a solid 10 days to bicycle through. It was windy in the grainfields, and the sky was dark, red and angry. There standing in front of me were my parents, standing maybe 20 feet away from me, and them standing a good 5 feet apart from each other. I conversed with them, no greetings, just like it was any other day, told them about my wedding, how well it's going with B, my new inlaws, how hard I'm working at my newish job they never got know about, they told me how they were proud of me as usual, how much they enjoyed following me on my bike trip across the states, how they were fine and were sorry they weren't around.

They were kinda shapeshifting between different ages and hairstyles that I have of them. I remember them as a child when they were in their 30s, as a teen in there 40s, as 20-something in their 50s, 30-something in their 60s. They were not fixed, they were them, only more so.

On a semi-related note, I got to work yesterday morning at 7:30 to try to get a handle on this large, unruly project. After 10 minutes I looked around, confirmed there was no one there, then wept openly, sobbing that I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I collected myself in a couple of minutes, then charged through what I had to get through to the best of my abilities. (As the day rolled on, I realized I wasn't as lost as I thought.) That was the first time I've cried in sadness/frustration for something other than my parents since my dad died over 3 years ago. Huh.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, good yogurt with raw cashews and honey, dirtpill, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 1pm, big falafel sandwich on whole wheat pita, 24 oz still water, hunger 4/5
Took 30 minutes outside, day is intense and things are not resolved, but feel more at peace with it. REALLY looking forward to riding bike tomorrow.

DINNER: 7:15pm, half a bag of veggie booty, roasted curry lamb sausage with mixed fingerling potatoes, onions and mushrooms, hunger 4/5
Despite being dead tired, I cooked up this dish with all ingredients I got at the farmer's market last Saturday (save the olive oil and sea salt), and came out surprisingly good, though I got a clue how to make it better next time. Also whipped up an apple crumble for B's mom and family, who will be coming over to inspect the compound after dinner out tomorrow night...

Funny thing, the project that has been kicking my ass is only starting, but I think I'm somewhere between the ground and my foot in the saddle to pull myself up onto it. Things are good enough that I can put it out of my mind till Monday morning.

ADDENDA:
This may be the first day since the start of this blog that I didn't have desert. Bought gelato and chocolate to go with the apple crumble tomorrow, they're in the locked freezer in the 2nd bedroom, I'm just too beat to motivate....

Stringbeans of My Father

ADDENDA:
As I was preparing dinner last night, I popped a raw string bean in my mouth and the taste-memories came flooding in. The bean tasted really fresh, and it's flavor really took over my mouth in a good way. I remembered walking around the supermarket with my dad, and he'd grab a bunch of the string beans and start munching on them as we walked through the market - he'd give me some, too. This was slightly unnerving, as we hadn't payed for them. I know the few times my mom came with us, this really annoyed her. But it was fun, it was something I was doing with my dad.

Usually with guests, my dad would steam string beans until their color popped, and put butter and salt on them. I never liked them, but I never really tried them, either.

BREAKFAST: 8am, conventional cornflakes with the good milk, hunger 3/5
Bought this milk at the farmers market directly from the producer instead of Wholefoods. It came in a thick glass bottle with a $1 redemption - they reuse their bottles - that's REAL recycling!

AM SNACK: 10am, 24 oz still water

LUNCH: 12:15pm, chickpeas, black lentils, spinach w/paneer, basmanti rice, nan bread, lettuce and onions, a few spoons of yogurt sauce, hunger 4/5
Got hungry early. Decided to aim for 2 packed lunches a week to start with, as I felt a little overwhelmed to begin. Start slow.

Spiciness made me desire sweets, but I waited. Desire went away, but now it's 2 hours later and I'm tired and feeling the urge for sugar again, but I'm not hungry at all....

PM SNACK: 4pm, 2 sesame pretzel sticks, hunger 4/5
From Tamar's stash, way too salty, but good. These minus the salt would rule the world.

DINNER: 8:30pm, small salad, fresh pasta with a little sauce, stirfried brocolli, mushroom and onion, apple crisp with homemade whipcream, 1 glass wine, an extra serving of apple crisp.
Had Keliy (our wedding photographer) over to deliver the pics, figured make a nice celebatory night and cook, too. Used a lot of wedding gifts through out the meal, plates, pots, wine. Especially the pasta making attachments to the mixer - it helped me make the pasta in half the time (still took an hour) but it came out so much better, firmer to the bite.

Not feeling gelato, so bought a cup of heavy cream and whipped it in the mixer with a bit of vanilla and honey, was really good, though next time I'll use less honey and vanilla. Weird texture, nothing like the chemically stuff that comes out of a can. But very delicious.

My Mom's Laterday Peasoup

ADDENDA:
Forgot to pack lunch. So much for starting with my best foot forward. Me and B struggled (and failed) to get our old couch out of the house this morning, she's staying home to accept delivery of a new one. Maybe we can just place the new one directly on top of the old?

Slept for 10 hours last night. Again had very odd dreams. I was on the sidewalk in Tribeca, and Robert Deniro was driving a large pastel-colored car with Florida plates on the sidewalk coming towards me. I run up onto a wrought-iron fire escape, and watch Deniro cross the street and go into a tight alley. The building he entered the side of all of a sudden transforms from an ugly brick tenement to a modern glass-fronted luxury apartment. I notice on the fire escapes around me are Mafioso holding guns, pointing at each other, and I realise I need to get out of there quickly. Huh.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, yogurt with raw cashews, dirt pill, 500mg Vitamin C, hunger 3/5
Throat feels a little scratchy. People at work have been getting nose and throat infections that they need anti-biotics for. So I popped a vitamin C in hopes of heading off something more serious.

AM SNACK: 9:30am, 24 oz still water

LUNCH: 2pm, half a pastrami sandwich, peasoup, water, 2 pickles, non-mayo slaw, hunger 4/5
I needed to sit and be quiet, work is good but a bit intense right now. Salt be damned, sat down at Juniors, on the last pages of Animal Vegetable Miracle (I'm a slow reader). Rather than the usual matzoh-ball, I ordered the hopefully less-salty peasoup.....

.....and remembered. After my dad died, in the process of my mom getting over her grief, cooked a little. She made herself peasoup from canned peas. She mentioned it a few times in passing, that she made pea soup again because it was good. The few times I was over her place, she offered me soup, but I wasn't hungry and turned her down.

I think I tried not to acknowledge or even think about her peasoup because it was such a new concept - my mom cooking. It scared me. Things had really changed for her. She was not a woman who cooked, not for any lack of skill or desire (though she had neither), but because she was a life-long career woman who had other things to do. Her job and her kids took up her time, and she took more pleasure from laundry and cleaning than from any sort of food prep. My mom cooking for herself - she now had time - her husband AND her career were both over. She filled in this gaping void with peasoup. I felt so bad for her, so bad for myself, I didn't know how to acknowledge it.

I wonder how her peasoup was. I regret not trying it.

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, 2 potato samosa, hunger 4/5
About to go to Wholefoods before home to cook, didn't want to be too hungry while at the market. From Green Symphony.

DINNER: 8pm, tofu stirfry with basmanti brown rice, small green salad, 1 glass white wine, fresh apple crumble and dulche de leche gelato, hunger 4/5
Haven't made a stirfry in a while, this one had broccoli, portabellas, and kick ass farmers market German garlic and baby onions. Threw in good olive oil, a dash of sesame oil, a dash of soy sauce, some white pepper, quickly wokked it at high heat for 2 minutes until the broccoli was glowing bright green and WOW! it actually tasted kick-ass, not greasy and the flavors of each veg popping. Even the bland tofu got seared with the oils and soy and garlic to really compliment the dish.

Betsy was home today and finished the apple crumble (!), so I made another, this time adjusting the recipe to my taste, and it also came out kick ass. Some meals I feel like an ignoramus, but this meal I wish a whole bunch of friends were here to enjoy it too. Good thing I have Betsy to eat it with.

EVENING SNACK: 10:45, pretzel with fresh peanut butter, hunger 4/5
Craving sweet, but this'll do. Ground the peanut butter from a machine in Whole foods, so I know it ain't nuttin' but peaz n' nuts. These pretzels kick ass, everyone I've given them to agree. I should buy a few bags and spread the love....

Pizza of My Mother

piADDENDA:
Planned to ride today, but after hitting up the Union Square market at 8am, realized I needed to chill and take care of chores at home. Made a big salad, and an apple crumble for the first time.

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, 3 large pancakes, 5 pieces low-sodium bacon, dirtpill, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11am, whole foods cookie, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2pm, large fresh salad, 2 slices local pizza, hunger 4/5
Walked across the street and brought home 2 slices from my local. In my mom's lasts days, she and her sister ordered a pizza from this place a few times. I'd come over and eat up 5 slices.,, what they'd have Left. Not very good pizza, but it's the pizza of my mother.

PM SNACK: 4pm, large piece home made apple crumble, hunger 3/5
Craving sweets again! I made this today, from fresh apples from this morning's farmer's market and all organic ingredients, simple to make. Betsy sent me the recipe before she split this weekend to see her dad, I thought I make it for her to surprise her. I meant only to have a little piece, but I was shocked by how good it was, a whole 'nuther piece jumped up and lept down my throat!

DINNER: 8pm, lots of brerad, mozzeralla caprese salad, rigatoni with fresh tomato and cheese, one half glass of wine, one half of an over-sized gin&tonic., hunger 3/5
Went up to Westchester to celebrate an old friend's birthday. Restaurant was kind of awful, but didn't say anything as didn't want to be the snotty city guy amongst the local down-staters...

Wen to a bar right after, by a train station. I ordered a G&T to be sociable, and the damn thing came filled to the top in a 16oz cup! WTF?

In Jail, Waiting for My Parents

ADDENDA:
Got to sleep early, Betsy-style, last night again and again had some weird dreams. I was with my dad, he was in his later years, we were out shopping at the greenmarket, we were arm in arm as he needed me for balance (he hated using a cane, I was happy to be one for him.) This had happened before, though I wasn't very conscious of the greenmarket, I just thought it was my dad being a "cheapo", as my mom would say. In my dream, I asked my dad where my mom was. In real life, it was very common for me and my dad to go out together alone, because my mom was still working full time, and while she enjoyed it, when she was home she just wanted to vegetate.

Well, I asked my dad where my mom was and he said, "In jail." My mom never had anything to do with the criminal life, and I was quite upset. He didn't tell me why, but the next thing I know I'm on a long trip to a maximum security prison somewhere far away.

Had to go through several layers of security, wait in a crowded room with 100s of other folks, mostly poor and minorities. To pass the time, I started reading the New Yorker, which tends to have extremely long and involved articles. I look up, a lot of time had passed, and the waiting room was empty. I go to the front and tell the guard I'd like to see my mom now. She replies that visitors are only allowed once an hour on the half hour, and the time now was 5 o'clock, so I'd have to wait longer.

And that's all I remember. I guess I always felt the likelihood of my mom ever dying was about equal to her going to prison - just about nil. Part of me doesn't believe she's dead, just unexplainably missing, and I'm just waiting for her to come back to me.

When I was walking cross town yesterday looking for something different for lunch, passed a Brazilian steakhouse. I remember my dad raving about the tons of meat they serve you in a place like that - some of his chemistry professor buddies took him there, he went back with mom. I never went to that kind of restaurant - for the last 4-5 years of my dad's life, I was mostly non-dairy vegetarian (it was his illness that drove me to the comfort of bacon).

Why was I vegetarian for so long? (I'd say vegan, but that would confuse me with people who abstain from ALL animal products for ethical reasons, I just didn't eat it) I would have to say it was to feel the control over my own diet that I didn't have growing up. It was a clear directive - NO animal product in any form - it simplified the choices available. For me, didn't make it healthier or tastier - potato chips are vegan, and vegan pancakes taste like cardboard - though in intervening years I've experienced much better vegan dining (thanks T!)

Even before and after my flings without animal products, I ate a lot of sugar-free fat-free fakey foods. Diet coke, sugar-free Italian ices, skim milk, margarine (actually, that has all the fat and none of the flavor, WTF?), a general fear of whole animal food - cook it? Eat it? YIKES! I'm moving away from that fear. Yeah, the food supply is fucked by capitalism, red meat full of hormones and grains unnatural to the animal - but other peeps are catching up, and better tasting, healthier stuff IS here in NYC, I just gotta go get it. In terms of control, that fear controls ME. I would rather control that fear, and widen the variety of health-giving foods in my day-to-day routine. But I babble.

More super-hippy lunches. Less corporate sub shop lunches...

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, conventional cornflakes with good milk, hunger 3/5

BREAKFAST #2: 9am, toasted onion bagel with conventional hummus, hunger 4/5
Betsy woke up early because she's going away to see her dad this weekend. After my dream, I kinda didn't want to go back to sleep. Got a lot of chores done, but they left me hungry before work.

AM SNACK: 10am, 24 oz still water

BP 11:45am: 121/88
Researching more accurate blood pressure monitoring. All seem to agree an arm cuff is more accuraqte than the wrist cuff I've been using...but this is also interesting (from the Mayo Clinic's site):

Your blood pressure at home is usually slightly lower than it is in a medical office, typically by a measurement of about five points. For instance, a reading at home of 135/85 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) is about the same as 140/90 mm Hg at the doctor's office.

LUNCH: 12:45pm, pork tonkatsu with curry and rice, miso soup, hunger 3/5
Not too hungry but Erikka was. This was so damn good. This Japanese noodle place has a line infront of it every day, mostly with Japanese people, and it's easy to taste why.

PM SNACK: 3pm, two apple danishes, hunger 3/5
OK, today is a weird eating day, hands down. Craved sugar, went downstairs hoping to get something healthy-ish. Chocolate stuff looked too intense, ordered an apple Danish. Being it's Friday, they're looking to unload stock and gave me two. Thinking, urg, I'll give one away. Ate the first one....surprisingly not very sweet, in a good way. Then the second one stood up, attacked my face and jumped down my throat....

Feeling very full but not sick, or sugar-jumpy....yet.

ADDENDA: It's 4pm, and I got a headache! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me...

PM SNACK: 6:45pm, half a soapy beer

DINNER: 8pm, seitan satay, samosa, vegan jap chae, water, 1 cookie, hunger 2/5
From the danish binge to the beer, wasn't hungry, but it was Friday night out with T, so the food was more entertainment than nourishment. Wild Ginger was surprisingly good, if the Jap Chae was too spicey. Wandered to Wholefoods for dessert. I bought 2 cookies, while T bought 1...after eating one, it occurred to me why did I buy 2? One cookie always seemed like too little....but it was more than enough.

Check

ADDENDA:
Had a meeting with Ilsa last night and with my MD this morning. Funny, a whole lot of medicalization and concern for a person who isn't sick. This morning, my blood pressure was measured at 134/86, a disappointingly high number. A few minutes later, my blood pressure cuff told me 126/84. I think I need to invest in a monitoring device whose main feature is accuracy, not convenience. Also took a blood sample, if my LDL cholesterol is any different than last time (slightly elevated), I'll be getting a call on Tuesday.

My MD's advice was simple on the face of it: eat less salt and lose weight. He stressed that for naturally elevated blood pressure, outside of drugs, it's weight loss that'll have the most meaningful effect for a pudgy dude like me.

Meeting with Ilsa went well, helping me refocus on goals and what I'm doing. What AM I doing? This whole blog thing is a bit of whipping post for myself to stay focused and disciplined. I am tempted to eat that extra desert or wolf down that plate of fries, a little voice saying oh just one time, it's no big deal, but my fingers say, "HA! Do that and you must confess your sins to the internets!!" It's a method of control. Ilsa thinks I wouldn't suffer from easing up a bit, maybe I'm better off and knowledgeable than I think. Like with the MD, easier said than done. The more I learn, the more I feel that there's even more I don't know! I'm the smartest dummy in the room!

More specifically, starting next week I'm going to push the envelope a bit more and try to pack lunch 3 times a week or so. That'll probably eliminate a large part of the salt and conventional food in my regular diet. And again Ilsa focused on my parents - I find it hard to talk about them without getting melancholy, I just miss them so much. More I think about it, the more I realize some of my bad eating habits were unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally!) set up by them. I'm sure my mom would of loved to argue with me that everything she did was perfect and that I'm crazy. But she'd say it in a semi-funny way, leaving the door open to suggestion. Forceful, but flexible. Probably that's why she was such an excellent executive for most of her career.

Finally, I think I just might go ahead and buy a locking mini-freezer. I could use the extra space to keep extra cold to deep-store home made stuff like spag sauce and hummus. But mainly, I can keep the gelato out of B's hands! I think it's a bit weird and controlling, but Ilsa sees the flipside, me helping B out.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, yogurt with peanuts and a little honey, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 9:30am, 24 oz flat water

LUNCH #1: 1pm, 6" turkey/swiss on whole wheat from Subway, hunger 4/5
Walked across town to look at clothes, wanted to eat something different, but so many long lines. Hadn't had subway in a long time. Looking at the ads, the 'healthy meal' combo involved diet coke and tasteless baked chips, yuuuuk. Used to like this food, now the turkey tasted almost unpleasantly salty.

It also occured to me that duuuh, I can make a kick-ass tasty sandwich at home and bring it to work. Superhippy bread, pesto-marinated thin-sliced tofu, mmmmm.....

LUNCH #2: 3pm, 2 potato samosa, sweet potato noodles, ginger tofu, hunger 4/5
On Tamar and Ilsa's recommendation, I took the effort to check out Green Symphony on 43rd off 7th, snuggled next to the old NY Times building. I heard an interesting interview with an economist who said he allowed economic theory to help him eat better. Restaurants on main drags with higher rents depend on volume, while those on side streets depend on the quality of their food and experience to create repeat customers. Well, Green Symphony is clearly the later.

It's a very small health-food shop near the heart of Times Square, clearly there for the people who work there and need an alternative to the McDonalds and Ben & Jerry's that is just a few doors away on 7th. I trawled through the hot and cold food bars, impressed at the number of organic dishes. Too much chicken - I'd much rather eat organic beef or pork than chicken. Too much fear of the red and other-white meat! Still, this carb-heavy snack was satisfying, and look forward to trying some of the more vegetable-oriented stuff on the two bars...

PM SNACK: 5:15pm, 4 oz of Sprite from the dispenser, hunger 3/5
Walking by the office kitchenette, a sprig of curiosity -will I still like soda? Not the fake diet stuff, but full sugar. Took a big swig of sprite...tasted a little like acidy lysol, lemony fresh. Burning acidy aftertaste all the way down my gullet, 5 minutes later could still feel it in my stomach. Overpoweringly cloying and sweet. Wow. Nasty.

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, 1 chocolate chip cookie, hunger 4/5
They were giving away freebies at Wholefoods! I was hungry! It jumped down my throat!

DINNER: 8pm, smoked scallops in a butter/wine/green onion sauce over whole wheat pasta, a large portion of cinnamon gelato, 1 glass white wine, water
An experimental meal, came out nice, but not restaurant-ready. I was originally thinking scallops and bacon, but these looked interesting. Unfortunately, I should of remembered B doesn't like smoked fish, and scallop and bacon does not equal a smoked scallop in her book. Oh well, live and learn, I will please my overly-complimentary wife yet!! (She will yell and moan that is was great, because she's a sweety, but bottom line is I goofed!)

I froze two meal-sized portions of the pasta, for lunches the next few weeks....

Anxiety

ADDENDA:
After my shower, Betsy suggested I step on the scale. She's been complimenting me left and right all weekend about how good I look. Me, I feel good, but haven't noticed any changes in my body. Stepped on the scale, 230, pretty much the same as it's been for the past 10 years.

Turned on the TV, it was a paid infomercial on the Food Channel. Chunky woman blubbering how when she got on a rollercoaster with her kid, she was too fat for the bar to come down over her big belly. But with this program, she never had to go the gym and she never had to starve blah blah blah.

Felt anxious. I want to lose weight, but I'm comfortable in my skin and how my body works. I fit in the rollercoaster! But I also want to be healthy, and losing weight will help control blood pressure, if not now then in the future. I don't want to be in this crazy vain body-conscious circus, but I want to feel like I can be free of worry.

I was a chubby kid. My mom gave me a hard (but loving) time about it, and I went through a couple of phases in life where I lost a lot of weight, felt good about it, but eventually my body adjusted to the lowered calories, I got discouraged, and fell into old habits within a year or so. I know I can lose a good 20lbs and keep it off for 9-12 months, but then what?

BREAKFAST: 7:45am, toasted whole wheat bagel with good butter and fancy smoked salmon, dirtpill, hunger 3/5
Got this overpriced Charlie Trotter-branded citrus-flavored salmon, cured with sea salt instead of the usual. As I was eating it, found I didn't like it that much and thought if I'm going to experiment with foods to expand my palate, it SHOULD be friggin' low salt! Just don't want to get bored....

BP 8:15am 126/85

AM SNACK: 9:15am, 24 oz still water

LUNCH #1: Noon, 2 small cool slices of crappy pizza, hunger 4/5
Meetins 11am-3pm straight, though a middle meeting provided pizza. Not very good, but got me through without falling apart.

LUNCH #2: 3:15p, fried whiting on whole wheat, 4 unadorned falafel balls, hunger 3/5
Weird, wasn't too hungry but once I ate the sandwich, got very hungry and got the balls. Got them as an appetizer rather than a sandwich, could taste it alone. Surprisingly salty.

On the first Tenacious D album, there is a skit where the two guys go to a drive in window of a generic fast food place. The gag is that while Jack Black is ordering almost the entire menu, at the same time he is ranting that he is on a diet - ordering stuff like a large cola - half regular and half diet, 3 small orders of fries because their small and not large. And of course, the fillet-of-fish sandwich, because, as he exclaims, "Because it's FISH! It's healthy!".

The whiting sandwich was yummy, but between the grease, the breading, the questionable origins of the fish and the nutrient-light tomato and lettuce, the term 'healthy' would be stretching it...

PM SNACK: 5pm, 24 oz still water

DINNER: 7:30pm, spinach gnocchi with homemade tomato sauce and grated cheese, big green salad, big square of dark chocolate with peanut butter, a little seltzer

EVENING SNACK: 11:30pm, full portion of yogurt with peanuts, honey and drop of vanilla extract, hunger 4/5
When I realized how hungry I was, I knew I did not eat enough for dinner. In the past at this point I would start binging, starting with the sweets, with the idea that sugar would kill be hunger, but it wouldn't do it fast enough so I'd continue to eat.

I knew I'd have to blog about my sins, so I just ate a (reeeeally) early breakfast, and 2 minutes after I wanted more, but 10 minutes later I started to feel contented and sleepy. Hmmm.