Maintenance dose

BREAKFAST: 9am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10:45pm, 1 cold potato samosa, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Picked up some ingredients at Wholefoods, felt a little nippy. Not very good.

LUNCH: 12:15pm, tomato soup, half a salami and tallegio sandwich, a piece of bread, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
After a baby book reading group, grabbed lunch with a couple of the muthahs. Sandwich was surprisingly tame, was expecting a bigger flavor.

PM SNACK: 1:45pm, a bite of white bean dip, a square of cookie crumble, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5
At the playdate drop in, would be rude not to try the organizer's homemade snacks.

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, slice of streetza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER PT 1: 5pm, large green salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
I knew I was going to be downtown and would probably be unhealthy, so got this in as an appetizer before leaving.

EVENING SNORT: 6:15pm, 1/4 pint of a Guinness
I was surprised to find my wife didn't know I didn't like Guiness. I don't mind stouts, but Guinness never seemed to balance the bitter/smooth for me.

DINNER PT 2: 7pm, shrimp empanada, McDonalds "Medium" Fries, small plate of tuna rolls, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
As B enjoyed a reading by a friend a a bar, me n' Edie enjoyed the warm weather between the tall buildings of the financial district. Lots of fast food. Stopped in three joints to complete this meal. Always amazed by the size of McD's fries. What they call a medium was my childhood's extra-large. And yeah, when I finished them, I craved more.

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, ice cream cone, small quantity of chocolate chip cookies, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
As Edie slept in the carrier, I swung by a drugstore before going home. I did not want a repeat of last night. This was like a maintenance dose of heroin for a junky, not enough to get me high, just enough to curb the cravings and get a good night sleep.

Evil Snack

B went out with friends this evening, so Edie's welfare was really on me today. After having a go at a few bottles of milk and formula, I decided to feed her some rice cereal around 4pm. Extra thick I prepared it, to see if a) she liked it that way, b) if it would cut down on the mess, c) if it would make any difference with her level of satiation. Definitely positives on A and B, C harder to tell. She definitely enjoyed the paste-like rice cereal, panting excitedly between little baby spoonfuls. Ridiculous!

I spent the day knocking out laundry, food shopping and cooking. Bleah pancakes in the morning, and 3 large pots of double-strength chicken stock all afternoon. This is a key ingredient in making the Israeli cous cous grain salad for a baby shower this weekend, as well as proper stuffing for the 200+ people me and my students will be feeding on Thanksgiving. Stock-making is a time-consuming and messy task, and I just don't have that extra day with the kids to just do this step, so I'm knocking it out at home with Edles at my side.

After dinner, had the biggest craving for sugar, but resisted -- I had to, as there are no sweets in the house, and Edie just got to bed, and there is no way I'm either waking Edie or leaving the house with her alone, just to get a sugar fix. Thank goodness I ain't a junkie.

BREAKFAST: 10am, buttermilk pancakes, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
While the laundry was in process and Edie was in a happy state, I dug up a random buttermilk pancake recipe and went for it. Made a lot, enough for another 3 breakfasts in the freezer. However, did not like how they come out. There was a 1 to 2 dry to liquid ratio, and while the result was very tender and moist, even the very-cooked ones tasted on the verge of being mushy/raw. Very filling.

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, glass of apple cider, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Cider season is here again. Gotta constrain myself -- this stuff has just about as many calories as corn-syrup-laden soda.

LUNCH: 3:30pm, large green salad, small quantity of potato chips, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, seared pork loin, mushroom rice pilaf, a large swig of apple cider, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5 Mushroom pilaf came out ok, just ok. Sauteed long grain brown rice in butter, along with some minced dried mushroom and shallots. Salted it, added chicken stock from the last batch, and cooked slowly covered until soft. Not enough salt, mushroom flavor fell flat. The pork rocked, though. Cut the loin into cubes, salted, then made the pan super hot with chicken fat in it. After resting the meat, I found I had cooked it just as I liked it. Crispy seared crust on the outside, juicy with a hint of pink at the middle. Pat myself on the back for that one.

EVENING SNACK: 9:15pm, the good yogurt with extra honey, homemade vanilla extract and cashews, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
I thought the sugar craving would fade as dinner worked into my system, but it just got worse. This breakfast became a good after-dinner sniggidysnack.

EVIL SNACK: 12-1am, potatochips, pancake
Not so much hungry but craving fat, craving salt. Very odd. Am I pregnant?

Hello old friend

Odd eating day. Woke up late and had to rush off with Edie to Grand Central. Got a commuter muffin in the station, a big ungainly thing that was more like a corny cake thing than a muffin. Went up to Tarrytown to hang with J, ended up spending all our time by the river enjoying the weather that there was no time for lunch. Me n' Edles ate again in Grand Central, stopping by the 2boots booth I used to lunch at often when I worked up there. A big vegan slice of spinachy goodness down, rocketed home and left again to go purchase the old bike I road cross country on.

I'm not the biggest hoarder of material goods, but when I picked up this bike and started riding it down the west side drive, it was like being reunited with your best friend you went to high school with, you haven't seen them since graduating, and he/she just moved into your neighborhood after living overseas all this time. When you start speaking, all the time rolls back and it's like your back in high school, having the time of your life. This bike, this bike...I'm not about to go cross country again, but come spring, I'm going to drop out for a couple of days and do an overnight to Albany on it....

Got home, ordered in pizza with the B and the E, was a good night.

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, big-ass corn muffin, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, kitkat bar, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 2:45pm, cheeseless earth mother pizza, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, half a large pizza, Caesar salad, 4 pieces of short bread, water, 2 bowl, hunger 4/5

Get behind me, burger meat

BREAKFAST: 9am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10am, several pieces of chocolate dipped short bread, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 3pm, burger, fries, a small portion of tiramisu, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
B ordered a veggie burger, EK ordered some veggie wrap, I almost ordered something less meat-o-centric but just felt like ordering something contradictory. I asked for the burger well done, especially after reading that NY Times article on the beef industry and...it wasn't worth taking my health in my hands to eat chopped meat, straight up.

DINNER: 8pm, sauteed shrimp with sofrito rice, 2 pieces short bread, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

Sofrito revelation

Spent the morning doing laundry, cooking rice n' beans, developing the Thanksgiving menu for the school and cuddling with Lil' E. Went out to lunch in Soho with Y, then met up with B after work and walked home.

BREAKFAST: 9am, pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese and sable, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH 1: 12:45pm, sofrito rice & beans, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
I've thrown around the word 'sofrito' but really haven't gone whole hog on it. I've cooked some of the ingredients of this Spanish cooking base together (onion, bell pepper, garlic, cilantro) but didn't take the last step. I noticed an old jar of commerical sofrito in the fridge at school....and it is a paste, not chunky. Hmmmm.

So I minced and softened a large sweet onion in olive oil, added minced red bell pepper and a wallop of minced garlic. All till almost mushy, hit it with a little wine and cooked off the booze. That all went into a blender with a large handful of cilantro and blended to a paste. BAM! Sofrito. Brown shortgrain rice, 2 cans of black beans, water, bay leaves, salt and a pinch of red pepper into the rice cooker, along with all the slightly-grean sofrito paste.

After an hour of cooking, I ate a small ball and....wow. I usually don't surprise myself, but this is really good, better than rice and beans cooked with chicken stock....maybe not salt pork and pork fat, but a big big flavor.

PM SNACK: 2:15pm, pumpkin donut, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH 2: 3:15pm, sesame noodles, large spinach salad, hijiki soy patty, some frozen vanilla yogurt, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
At Dojo with Y and Edie.

DINNER: 8:30pm, Stouffer's french bread pizza, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Not the healthiest, but the alternate was much worse. I was cooking another batch of shortbread cookies -- I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from everyone who tried them, so wanted to make them again, but with a little bit more attention. But I knew if I was hungry, when they came out a large number would disappear down my maw. The only quick and easy thing I could make while on cookie duty were the frozen pizzas.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, 4 small wedges of fresh short bread

Winey

Wanted a smoothie, but B went bananas and ate them all. Spent the morning at the restaurant, sipping on wine, then to an informal mother's group in the neighborhood, also sipping on wine. B & I ordered in food, and she suggested cracking open a bottle, but I had to put my foot down.

Randomly started reading a chick-book, about something I find very attractive in women but never quite understood why. Now if I can get B to indulge me....

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, organic cheerioes with organic dead milk, cheesecake, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Cheesecake messed with my sleep again last night, so thought maybe if I STARTED the day with it, it would be a little easier on the back end...

LUNCH: 11am, apple-wood smoked duck confit, farro&sausage, Manhattan Special, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5
At the restaurant. I brought L the farro and kasha, and he had a sample of duck confit from a supplier, so he heated both up in caste iron. L liked the farro, which was nice, because as out-there as he is, his palate is very discerning and honest.

PM SNORT 1: 12:30pm, mouthfuls of 6 different high-end wines
Wine tasting of tasty reds at the resto.

PM SNORT 2: 1 glass of malbec
Tasty red at an informal play group with a bunch of local mommas.

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, hunk of smoked mozzarella, .1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6pm, sushi, tempura, green salad, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Ordered in with the B.

Varnishkes

Spent part of the morning planting garlic cloves in our little plot of garden by the side of the building. Who will enjoy this? The rats or my friends and family? We'll have to wait until spring to find out!

Prepped left overs from last night for Yomomma, who came down to look after Edles while I was away teaching. We made kasha varnishkes, something I never made at home or c-school, but it came out perfectly anyway -- my self-confidence cooking just stepped up a small notch. I've been eating packaged frozens stuff my whole life, it's really nice to be able to replicate it without having done it before, and coming out better than the packaged stuff. Yep, chicken fat vs. soybean oil, there ain't no competition, sorry!

BREAKFAST: 8am, toasted bagel with cream cheese and sable, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Felt queasy from a lack of sleep due to too many pumpkin cookies and cheese cake. Still wanted to eat breakfast.

LUNCH: 12:30pm, large green salad, pea soup, 5 pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 6pm, kasha varnishkes, farro & sausage, a couple of juice boxes, a soda, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 9pm, more kasha and farro, a piece of cheese cake, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Wow, cheesecake is still here. Two more slices, two more days to go, unless B wants a piece...

Ooooh cookies!

While in the local crappy supermarket picking up sponges and buttermilk (for pancakes this weekend), I gave a close look at the bags of beans and grains -- I'm doing a class tomorrow on grain, making a simple rice pilaf and a farro & sausage dish. I saw a box of buckwheat, and it made some bells ring -- kasha varnishkes. I have some in the freezer, the same brand I've been eating since my parents introduced it to me as a kid.

The real thing is some serious Jewish Eastern European soul food -- like matzo farfel, it's a bit of a delivery system for chicken fat. I looked up some recipes on the iPhone and it's really dirt simple -- cook some buckwheat in stock to fluffy. Caramelize some onions in chicken fat. Toss with egg bow tie noodles. Season with salt and lots of black pepper. We already have the fat, stock and the onion at school, so I'm gonna bring in some egg noodle and buckwheat as a bonus recipe...

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Two new elements to the standard smoothie: frozen organic raspberries and a teaspoon of homemade vanilla extract. This was a seismic shift to the flavor profile. All of a sudden, it tastes somewhere between fruit punch and a red lollipop (in a good way.) Curious what pineapple would do to this mix.

LUNCH: noon, Stouffer's french bread pizza, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6pm, spinach linguine with pumpkin, spinach and bacon, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, a small wedge of cheesecake, 1 glass of wine, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
B's friend A came over and we baked pumpkin chocolate chip cookies together from a Southern recipe. Shortening instead of butter, a wallop of freshly pureed pumpkin, they came out nice. We took bets as to how long it would take B to start mowing down the cookies -- A said 15 seconds, I said 30. When B got home and saw the cookies, it was about 8 seconds before she was gobbling. If she skipped the "OOO COOKIES!" shout, she probably could of gotten it down to 5...

I sauteed some pumpkin chunks with bacon lardons and some spinach, spiked it with wine reduction, grated parm, a shake of thyme and basil, mixed in a beaten egg at the end. Pretty groovy.

The cookies were OK, but it was the cheesecake that got me. Ahhh, sweet reward!

Cheesecake, it's a hell of a drug

Today B, E & I went to our little plot in the building's garden and laid down a raised bed of soil. This week, we plant garlic for the spring.

Got some cooking done. In the morning, made a batch of spinach linguine from scratch, took apart a few small pumpkins and roasted the flesh, as well as the seeds tossed in peanut oil, sea salt and paprika. The pumpkin will become pumpkin cookies and an ingredient in a pasta dish tomorrow. In the afternoon, I made split-pea soup from the recipe we did early on in c-school. We did it with lamb bacon we cured ourselves, so I replaced that with a beautifully fragrant piece of locally sourced (from a farm down state) slab bacon from Marlow & Daughters, which I had to pop over to to pick up some farro for Wednesday's class. I made one big batch with all the yummy stuff, bacon lardons, bacon fat and chicken stock, and another for B, with, ummm, water and salt. Fneh. I guess it can live in the freezer until the HVS comes over for another snickle conference...

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, toasted pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese and sable, 1 bowl, hunger 4.5

AM SNACK: 11:45am, small wedge of cheesecake, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
I'm determined to make this 8" cheesecake last. E brought it over last night. She told the story of when we were dating, my parents took us to a nice dinner in the East Village, then we popped over to Venerios for cookies and tea. My parents treated us to a small cheesecake to take home (E was living with me at the time.) When we got home, I busted open the cheesecake, but E did not want any. The next day, she went to eat some cheesecake and....it was gone. I had eaten it in one sitting. She was quite shocked, to say the least. That's the kind of thing I did back then. Cheesecake, it's a hell of a drug.

Last night with dinner I had a wedge, ate half of E's wedge, then caught B with the box, spooning cheesecake into her mouth, without thought of portion or control. So this morning while cooking other things, I slice the remaining cake into 5 pieces, ate one (because it looked so damn good), wrapped the remaining four in parchment, placed it on it's cardboard doily and into a plastic freezer bag, and into the locked freezer in the hallway. My challenge:

• Make this cheesecake last all week.
• No more than 1 piece a day.
• Share it with my wife.

Oy.

LUNCH: 4pm, hot dog with mustard, onion and kraut on whole wheat bun, large green salad, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

SNINNER: 6:15pm, puree of pea soup, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Damn this was good. Chicken stock and bacon playing against the rootsy/grassy flavor of the peas, with a few crisp hunks of bacon cubes giving a little texture....

Hypnotized

Woke up at what is now 4am, thought about riding bike, but it was raining. Fell back asleep 9ish, woke up at 11 and found us too lazy and hypnotized by Edie to even order in. Kitchen is out of almost everything, had to use a scrap of cheese to top a bagel, toasted in the broiler.

We eventually rolled out in the early afternoon, stopping for donut deliciousness on the way. Weird how B was insistent she would not eat any sweets on the way, and within 50 feet of the donut shop she started getting really excited about the idea of a pumpkin donut. Go figure.

Bought a lot of ingredients for several dishes this week, but on this lazy Sunday evening, E came over bearing, of all things, a cheese cake! We ate some freshly made salad, ordered in Malaysian, then had a little cheese cake.

BREAKFAST 1: 4am, organic chex with organic dead milk, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 11:30am, toasted pumpernickel bagel with cheddar, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2pm, donut, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5pm, potato chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, green salad, roti kanai, shrimp puff, Singapore noodles, cheese cake, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

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

Too Much Apple Crisp

B, Edles and I went to the local casual restaurant for breakfast, then took a nice walk up the East River in the rain. B had a few friends come over in the afternoon to hang out, and I spent part of the morning making an apple crisp.

Gonna continue with the fruit challenge after tomorrow, just don't have the mental energy this weekend.

BREAKFAST: 9am, blueberry pancakes, home fries, bacon, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1pm, leftover sauteed broc and spinach over vegan morel risotto, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK 2-6pm, too much apple crisp, a small pumpkin cupcake, 1/2 glass of white wine, roasted almonds, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Apple crisp is simply sliced peeled apples tossed with a bit of brown sugar, salt and lemon juice, and topped with a concoction of flour, sugar, cinnamon and butter, baked until soft on bottom and crisp on top. I was going to serve with ice cream, but a certain wife of mine who shall remain nameless stored the freezer barrel in the cupboard instead of the freezer, so I put a bunch of the ice cream batter (really, a Cream Anglais) and put it into a squeezy bottle to jazz up the squared off crisp. From something as assed-out as melted ice cream to something as elegant as a few swirls of Cream Anglais!

DINNER: 8pm, small amount of Chinese food, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Ordered a brick, but ate only a bit, the rest saved for after my ride tomorrow.

Fruity Week, Day 5

Got through chores in the morning with Edie at my side. One chore was to get back on the fruit challenge. As I stood by the counter gritting, I said to Edie, looking up at me in the carriage peacefully, "I do this so you don't make the same mistakes I did!"

I originally got three kinds of grapes, but the red grapes seem to have disappeared into the endless maw know as my mawful wife. So I got seedless white and seedless black out, as well as kiwi. I've used both in smoothies before, but never actually ate any of them whole and unprocessed.

Grape. It's been my favorite soda flavor from birth. Grape jam is no stranger. Grape juice, and it's sophisticated fermented cousin is a friend. So why haven't I eaten grapes my entire life? Fear of the pulp, fear of the squish factor, fear of papery skin. So when I popped in the first white grape and chewed, it was a bit of relief/surprise. Sweet! Juicy! Smooth tender pulp! Like grape juice coming out of a rehydrated, tender raisin (in c-school, rehydrating raisins in wine was a kick). I....LIKE this! I could not detect any flavor difference in the white or black grapes. I think we have the first winner of Fruit Week. I still have to eat more, but I think this may become a regular item on my to-eat list. Matched with cheese like an apple, yummmm....

Kiwi didn't go so well. I used it in smoothies before for it's slimey consistency and tartness. And eaten straight, yes.....tart and slimy, only broken up by the gritty little seeds studding the flesh. This, I think, was not meant to be eaten straight, but as a counterpoint in a salad or smoothie. One piece was all I needed to learn what it was about. Kiwi, you don't fool me!

AM SNACK: 9:45am, 3 white grapes, 3 black grapes, 1 piece of kiwi

BREAKFAST: 11am, bite of "chocolate chip cookie", street pound cake, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
In the farmer's market I realized I hadn't eaten a real breakfast and was kind of hungry. One stand had a lot of baked goods and I picked up a three-pack of some attractive chocolate chip cookies. Walking out, I took a bite and....BLECHCHCH! WTF? There was a little piece of paper in the bag listing ingredients: flour, smart balance, sugar...wait, what? F@cking smart balance? Hydrogenated vegetable oil with added chemicals to make in "healthy"? And the last ingredient was "vanilla pudding" -- what, kozy shack chemi-pudding? This tasted like a cheap industrial product, a batrayal of the trust I have with the farmer's market.

So at the corner of Union Square, I got a piece of poundcake from a cart. I just made pound cake last week, so this was an interesting contrast. Lighter, hints of vanilla instead of lemon and....no butter, definitely soybean oil or something equally cheap and neutral. This is same lame industrial cooking as the farmer's market cooking, but more honest and cheaper.

LUNCH: 1:45pm, homemade potato leek soup, homemade baked ziti, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Momma-in-law came over and we ate together, before I took off to do some Edie-free food shopping. It's nice to be able to lean over and tie my shoelaces in the middle of the market without twisting Lil' E into a secure pretzel.

SNICKLEDINNER: 7pm, small green salad, sauteed spinach & broccoli over sofrito morel brown rice, vegan mint chip ice cream, 2 glasses wine, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
It's nice when you cook a meal with out a recipe, kinda decide how you want it to come out midway through, and it comes out just as you wanted. I had a half gallon of morel mushroom stock sitting in my freezer for ever, waiting for a vegetarian meal to prop up. I made a wallop of sofrito (slow cooked onion, bell pepper, garlic, cilantro) and put that in the rice cooker with the stock and short grain brown sushi rice. After cooking for over an hour, a shake of salt and it was singing.

T wasn't going to be over for another hour or so, so I large-sliced a couple of onions and caramelized them over low heat. Added sliced shitake, garlic, sake, a bag of spinach, and small-cut florets of broccoli, which I blanched and shocked earlier. Finished with sesame oil and chicken fat (KIDDING!) and sesame seeds, seasoned with salt, and damn if it didn't taste pretty good. The sweetness of the onions really played well with the greenery. Sweet balances bitter.

The starch in the rice really exploded, making the rice more risotto-like, which was perfect for the strength of the morel stock. The stock lent a low, broad base, kinda like when you're watching Star Trek Next Gen and the low hum of engines are always in the background. Anyway, I digress. T brought some ice cream, that was soft and ready to go outta the tub, a perfect way to end a meal.

Fruity Fail

Woke up early, got back to sleep, woke up again, had to get out of the house to get to the restaurant with Edie. Had to get back home to drop Edie off so I could meet L for some restaurant business, then we went to dinner at the 2nd Ave Deli. I was planning to do some fruit exploration in the evening, but my stomach was full and the queasiness that peach gave me was fresh in my mind so I passed. Tomorrow I shall resume.

However, I DID eat my share of fruit today with a smoothie, avocado in my sushi roll, and an apple donut!

BREAKFAST 1: 5am, organic cheerios with dead organic milk, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Woke up and could not get back to sleep for a few hours.

BREAKFAST 2: 8:30am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Used up the rest of the fresh blueberries along with the rest of the usual suspects.

AM SNACK: 11:30am, Manhattan Special, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, meatball

LUNCH: 2:30pm, small try of sushi roll, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, donut, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
From Donut Plant, apple cinnamon flavor -- does that count as a fruit?

DINNER: 5:30pm, half a pastrami sandwich, matzoh ball soup, fries, health salad, pickles, water, a drop of Cel-Rey soda, a shot of chocolate soda, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Fruity Week, Day 3

So while Edie continued to sleep, I mad myself a plate of fruit this morning -- orange, pear and peach. The first thing I noticed while peeling the orange was being transported back to hanging out in my parents' living room with my dad. He would snack on oranges all the time, all over the place, but the main place was on his Eames lounge chair listening to classical or klezmer, and reading a novel, while eating a fragrant orange that he bought in quantity in Chinatown for cheap. Just peeling it released a big orange smell that said Papa.

First down was the pear, the least scary as it looks like a deformed apple. The flesh is firm. This Bartlett pear wasn't very sweet, and wasn't very juicy. Hints of vanilla. A little bit mealy. Overall unpleasant, but very edible and not very challenging.

Next up was the orange. The first thing I noticed about it was that it looked like a big knot of pulp -- which it is, I guess. Not appealing. I put it in my mouth and started chewing, and the gush of juice coated my mouth, very pleasant -- almost made up for the chewy pulp it left behind. Soft, pliable, easy to swallow. Surprised how more complex it is than juice -- there is the sweetness, but another big note of bitterness, which allowed the 'orangeness' to blossom in the middle.

Last was the peach. I remember being scolded by my mom many times, why don't you just try this peach? It's so juicy and sweet! This was easily the hardest. Looking at the flesh, it looks like nothing I like to eat. A weird redness where the pit was. Skin is vaguely fuzzy. Flesh has a sheen. I popped one piece in my mouth. First thing I noticed was the consistency -- skin was a little tough and papery, the flesh was a bit slimy and gelatinous. Flavor, a tone of peachiness, mostly sweet. I chewed it fully and swallowed, followed by an exclamation of "yuck!" to Edie. I put another slice in my mouth and it popped back out, I just couldn't get myself to close my mouth. I took it to the sink to cut it into smaller pieces. Popped a smaller piece in my mouth and again it popped out! Damn, this is like trying to feed a baby, except I'm the baby!

Conclusion, pears are neither here nor there. Oranges, I think with more experience I could learn to like them. Peaches, I just don't like, and now I can say I've really tried one and I KNOW I don't like them.

AM SNACK: 9am, orange, pear, peach, .15 bowl, hunger 3/5

BREAKFAST: 10am, pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:45pm, baked ziti, mint ice cream, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACKING: boiled shrimp, a few spoonfuls of various mayonnaise, a few tastes of vegetable soup, coca cola, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
The vegetable soup we made in school was really big-tasting, and completely vegan -- I brought home a pint for HVS this Friday...

DINNER: 8pm, Stouffers French bread pizza, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Ahhh, the opposite of peaches!

Fruity Week, Day 2

Edie powered through 2 bottles of breast milk and 3 bottles of formula, a new Edie World's Record for quantity eaten in one day. In a week or two, we're going to start with a little bit of solid food.....

Woke up wiped out. Hung around the house doing laundry and prepping for class tomorrow before going out for lunch and the baby drop in at the community center. Picked up ingredients for a baked ziti, as I needed to use the tomato sauce I made weeks ago or watch it go bad.

EVIL SNACK: 10pm the night before, a few ounces of dark chocolate
Why do I not remember that when I do this, it keeps me up for hours? Didn't get to bed until I watched most of Schindler's List on cable and read a scary story in New York magazine about circumcision....

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, 16 blueberries, 3 blackberries, 3 raspberries, smoothie with those three, frozen cherries, banana, milk, yogurt, flax, vanilla sugar, salt, ice, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
The blueberries were the most familiar. The first taste was surprisingly bitter, but by the second, the sweetness came in and balanced it nicely. Between the two opposite tastes, a distinct flavor came through, nice. I would eat these when these are at the height of their season.

Blackberries were sour with almost no sweetness that I could detect. The little nodules that make up the body of the berry kinda weirded me out, like a face that can't be seen due to the overwhelming dense forest of juicy pimples that are waiting to squirt at you. The consistency wasn't so bad, after one chew the nodules became undifferentiated pulp, no big squirt. However, there is a dry bit of grit that holds the berry together that is a bit unpleasant.

Raspberries are of similar structure, but like blueberries, have nicely competing sweet/sour tones where a particular 'raspberry' flavor calls out in the middle. I think I've only had this flavor in jams -- for some reason I associate it with artificial berry flavor, though this is as real as it gets.

The smoothie is jazzed up with a teaspoon of vanilla sugar, to get over the blackberry bump. However, those damn blackberries lent a slight grit to my otherwise smooth smoothie that was just sucky.

Conclusion of the fruit experiment: blueberries could be a regular snack when in seasons. Raspberries are gonna get bought in the frozen form and added to my smoothie regime. Blackberries, there must be SOMETHING people like about these things -- must try again next summer when they're back in season. Otherwise, not gonna bother.

LUNCH: 12:45pm, fish ball with rice noodle, 2 lotus leaf wraps, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Food from the Chinese cart at the corner of East Broadway and Rutgers. Weird, cheap ethnic food makes our city great. Sat in the park with Edie eating, enjoying the mild weather and the mysterious fish balls.

PM SNACK: 1:45pm, 1 "zebra" cookie
At the baby drop in, the leader brings home baked goods every time. This was a simply merranguy chocolate cookie dusted with confectioners sugar before baking so when all the cracks form, it looks like black lines on the white surface.

DINNER: 6pm, large green salad, homemade baked ziti, small quantity of homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Fruity Week, Day 1

Day one of the 3-fruit-a-day challenge was easy: banana, tomato, avocado. It had to be, as that was what I had on hand. However, on the way home from a day out, I stopped by the market and picked up a whole mess of fruit. Some vaguely familiar, some make me wonder how to even cut into them. From most comfortable to most cringe worthy:

Pineapple
Pear
Mango
Orange
Grapefruit
Kiwi
Three kinds of grapes
blueberries
blackberries
raspberries
Peach
Papaya
Pomegranate

I skipped on strawberries and plums because the thought of putting them in my mouth made me gag. I'm going to attempt a minimum of three bites of each fruit unprocessed, and a minimum of a 1/2 cup serving processed into a smoothie. Peach is making me feel a little queasy, now that I think about it. This is gonna be a challenge, he he he.

BREAKFAST: 8am, banana, last piece of pound cake, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Banana was good n' familiar. Noticed how as I chewed it, it's slime factor increased, not in a bad way, just in a....familiar but strange way. It's why it's such a good base for a smoothie, I guess.

Too bad pound cakes don't grow on trees, or this challenge would have been a lot easier.

LUNCH: 1pm, croque monsieur, small amount of potato chips, diet coke, pink peppercorn bread pudding, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Out at a little cafe in Astoria with Edie and friends. The sandwich was good, the crisp toasted bread being the star of the show, the thin slice of ham barely there, just giving a nice porcine note. Didn't particularly want the coke, but it came with the meal, that or the corn syrup version. The bread pudding, something I usually don't eat, was actually really interesting, sweet and peppery. Are peppercorns considered a fruit?

DINNER: 6:30pm, large green salad with plum tomato and avocado, small piece of pork loin sauteed in chicken fat and potato leek soup, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
So thanks to Buttery Peanut, I got 2 more easy fruits in today, tomato and avocado diced and mixed into my salad. Tomato is known to me, but I've never used avocado in this way -- I had it on hand because B loves it in her salad. It lent a creaminess to the more crunchy, fibrous surroundings which was pretty nice. I may do this again in the future, voluntarily!

Feeling fruity

In this evening's Simpsons, the entire town except the family turns into zombies because of burgers made from cows who were on all-cow diets. Bart is in his bedroom, windows boarded up, complaining, "I'm so hungry, there is nothing to eat", then says, "except that", and the camera pans to his side table, with a bowl of ripe, sparkly fruit.

Starting tomorrow and ending Saturday, I will attempt to eat at least a part of three fruits a day. I've been relatively fruit-o-phobic my entire life, and have only upped my fruit consumption as an adult by processing it into things like smoothies and pies. Apples and bananas are about it, things like grapes have always turned my off by their....squishiness. Oranges too....pulpy. Peaches too....hairy. This week I will attempt to eat around the produce aisle.

Rented a car and went up into Peekskill to visit my parent's grave site, the fist time with Edie on the outside of B's belly, and strapped to mine. Despite the rain, we gathered with my brother's family (5 kids and counting) and popped over the the general store at Tompkin's Corners. They have a small back room the 10 of us piled into, and then....all the lights went out. Outages in upstate during bad weather is not all uncommon, and the proprietor had electric lanterns to light the dark room. Quite romantic, eating processed turkey with 6 children and a couple of orthodox Jews in a darkened room...

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, toasted onion bagel with cram cheese and sable, rootbeer, 1.26 bowl, hunger 4/5
I was give a bottle of good IBC rootbeer earlier this week, but had to put it aside due to sugar fasting. I can understand while sweet things (donuts, muffins) are such popular breakfast items -- it really gives a lift to waking up.

LUNCH: 1pm, turkey & swiss on a roll, potato chips, diet coke, chocolate chip cookies, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
At the general store in Peekskill where I used to buy candy from as a child.

PM SNACK: 5pm, slice of streetza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Riding my bike home from the car rental, I went down Bleeker, past many, many pizza places -- John's, Keste, Monster. Went to the Pizza Box, an old school joint that's been there forever and enjoyed a standard street slice.

DINNER: 7:45pm, potato leek soup with sauteed shrimp, a few pseudo-healthy Betsy cookies, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Sugar, welcome back!

Sugarfast ends with a wimper.

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese and sable, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Weird, not hungry, as the french bread pizzas still seam to be sitting in my stomach but thinking about the sable I picked up yesterday, wanted to eat, looking forward to eating, enjoying eating, satisfied by eating, but not quite. Sugar kills hunger in a different way than more complex carbs.

AM SNACK: 10:30am, pound cake and mint chip ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
And it's ovah! Churning the ice cream, a few stray chips found their way into my mouth. Then a taste of the ice cream to test for fluffiness. Then a 2nd. Then realizing I needed to taste the poundcake to see if it was ok and if it went well with the ice cream like I suspected. Oh yes. They are good together.

LUNCH: 12:30pm, pork and chive dumplings, 1 bowl, hunger 2/5
Not hungry, but meeting K at the C&L Dumpling House on Chrystie, so couldn't NOT get dumplings.

DINNER: 5pm, shrimp cocktail, a hotdog, some baguette and random soft cheese, a diet black cherry soda, some mint ice cream and poundcake, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Odd combination of snacky foods at B's family gathering. Ice cream was well received, but kind of wish I made something savory to balance out the shrimp n' dog fest. I blame an imbalance in my sugar intake!

Someone's in the kitchen with Facebook...

My only plan for the day flaked on me, so I kept me n' Edles busy. Woke up early, got the laundry done, then out to food shop by 11. Passing by Donut Plant was a bit hard, wanted a donut but didn't feel a sugar craving -- it was a donut craving! As you can see above, I was looking for inspiration at the market and got it. Kinda wanted to make EVERYTHING suggested (like a homemade hotpocket and make some mac n' cheese and put it in a box) but already had plans to cook two other things -- since tomorrow evening is the end of my week-long sugar-fast, I made lemon pound cake and mint-chocolate chip ice cream today, a riff on the mint lemonade I made a bunch o' times this summer.

After getting home and eating, just spent the time juggling making salad and the 4 dishes with tending to Edie's feeding, diapers, need for snuggles and sleep time. By the time B got home, freshly roasted pumpkin seeds were on the table, soup was ready to go, ice cream custard chilling for churning tomorrow, 3 pound cakes cooling on the windowsill, and the pappardelle about 10 minutes out. It was as much fun as I could have had with Edie in the kitchen -- I can't wait for her to be old enough to help me turn some meals out!

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

LUNCH 1: 11:15am, 6" Subway veggie burger sub, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
I just don't trust their cheap super-processed lunch meats. Didn't want to be too hungry while food shopping.

LUNCH 2: 2pm, Yonah Shimmel potato knish, Nathan's hotdog on potato roll with kraut and onions, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Freezer-fishing after food shopping and before kicking off an afternoon of cooking. I never paid much attention to the Sabrett's brand "onions in sauce" jar before, but I couldn't help notice how sweet they were. The ingredients list sugar 6th, and the onions themselves were probably chosen for sweetness and are probably cooked to bring that out, so my sugar fast has not been blown. I think this kind of onion relish was designed to be a cheap swap for real caramelized onions...

DINNER: 5:30pm, potato leek soup, pappardelle with pumpkin, chard and pancetta, 1 glass sparkling white wine, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Made the Facebook update on the walk over to Wholefoods, and by the time I got there, the menu was decided. Potato Leek Soup was no problem -- the blender soup method. Saute aromatic veg to soft, cover with stock and water, simmer and soften starchy veg, blend, finish with cream, season. Onion, carrot, celery, parsnips and a whole lotta leeks got softened in olive oil, with a little salt and near the end a few cloves of minced rocambole garlic. Unfroze a quart of homemade chicken stock and poured it in, then added water to cover the solids. Popped in two cubed, peeled waxy potatoes, another 20 minutes of simmering. Blender, a cup of cream, taste, season with a lot of salt, a dash of cayenne, a couple dashes curry powder and a couple dashes chili powder, and it was good.

The pasta dish was a little trickier, because I never had this specific dish before and just guessed. Butternut squash was swapped out for pumpkin, as I had one on hand and B has been hinting very unsubtly that she wanted me to cook with it. Graham suggested the dish, who I last hung out with when we were about 7, but is now a chef in a corporate kitchen, no joke. I would have preferred to make the pappardelle from scratch, but time was limited, so I bought a nice dried egg pappardelle. While my poundcakes were baking, I dissembled a pumpkin and laid out the flesh and the seeds on a pan, and roasted for a solid 30 minutes. Came out nice and soft, chopped to bite size pieces, and held. Seeds salted and put out on the table to await B's arrival. Deveiled a head of chard, cleaned it, blanched in boiling water for 3 minutes then shocked in ice water, drained and held. Minced a 1/4 pound of pancetta, then into a hot pan with a little olive oil. Once started to brown, tossed in the chard and pumpkin, got the pasta in boiling water. Drained pasta, tossed into the pan with everything. Beat an egg, coated the entire thing with the heat off- the dish was kinda reminding me of a carbonara, so why not? A little more olive oil, a little more salt, tossed in some shredded manchego. Plate into a little pile with tongs, top with more manchego:


EVENING SNACK: 9pm, small plate of the pasta, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, Stouffers French Bread Pizzas, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Oy. Just stayed hungry after dinner. The good thing about sugar is that it tell my body quickly that eating is over.

The sugar withdrawal abates

I think I'm over the sugar hump, no sugar until Saturday night shouldn't be a big deal. Was only at the restaurant for an hour with Edie, so no pizza and especially no Manhattan Special -- it would of been difficult to turn down if offered, and L would of grilled me about exactly why I was abstaining from sugar this week. I'd blame it all on the HVS -- he's sweet on the HVS.

Edie & I then took a subway to visit E in midtown, and went to PJ O'Rourkes for lunch. A very pubby restaurant, everything is expensive but the midtown lunch crowd can afford it. I wanted something I could eat without getting Edles TOO messy, so a sandwich and fried finger food was the way to go. It was still a bit too messy, but good and filling.

A quick vist from the HVS was totally rad, and Edles seemed to dig her. The evening was chillin' with B.

BREAKFAST: 8am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
The standard: banana, milk, yogurt, grapes, mango, blueberries, cherries, flax. Forgot salt this time, still pretty good, could of been better.

LUNCH: 1pm, crab cake sandwich, fried onions, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Quantity wise, maybe 1 bowl but because everything was fried, calorically felt like a lot more.

DINNER: 6:30pm, restaurant green salad, eggplant hero, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Ordered in from the crappiest local pizzeria, a large salad with ice berg lettuce and assorted unchallenging vegetables, and a large hero that tasted less like eggplant and more like breadcrumbs and freezer burn. I need to go grocery shopping ASAP -- gotta prepare for my sugar welcoming feast!

Fourth day of no sugah

Woke up with out first thinking about wanted something sweet. Focused on getting my lesson plan together and playing with a very smiley Edie -- she's so sweet, she was like eating chocolate cake! Last week I was a bit nervous, was nervous today but ate some salad to keep me full. Last time when I got home I snarfed frozen pizza and a pint of ice cream.

Class went by in a blink, again good with the students engaged and interested in the tasks at hand. I was hungry when I got home, picked up some Chinese and downed a lot of water, just thirsty. Not craving sugar until I sit down in front of the TV and the first thing on is a TV commercial for some mass-market chocolate bon bon things, urrrg, I could use some of that right now.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, toasted bagel with cream cheese, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: noon, large green salad, tortilla chips, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
I made this salad with two nutrient-light lettuces, boston bibb and iceberg. Iceberg was what I grew up on, and is definitely a comfort food now. Not as nutrient-light as, say, SUGAR (it's got water and a small amount of fiber, rather than no water, no fiber and a lot of fast, insulin-pumping calories) but it still gives me the heebies about all the era-specific poor choices my parents made with food. Did we really need to make brownies and cakes from crappy mixes when they were so easy to make from scratch? Mmmmm, brownies n' cake.....

PM TASTINGS: 4-6:30pm, bits of mashed potatoes, swiss chard and carmelized onion, water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7:30pm, beef fried rice, shrimp egg roll, lots of water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

No sugar, day 3

Ate a sweet, fruit-filled breakfast but it wasn't quite enough. I visited B's office and was drawn to the gourmet ice cream truck on one corner, the gourmet cup cake truck on the other. There is a new market outside of Madison Square Park which I checked out for lunch, but it seemed the only choices were BBQ from the crappy restaurant I ate at last week, crepes (sugar in the batter), waffles (same) and cider donuts. One artisan chocolatier was giving away samples of truffles....urg! Briefly considered Shake Shack, but their burgers are grotty and the only good thing on the menu is....ice cream shakes!

Went to a baby drop-in at the local community center as I do every Tuesday, and right in the middle of the floor were homemade chocolate oatmeal cookies, baked by the organizer of the class. Aaag! I feel like I should be in a 12 step program for sugar recovery. How did I ever get so readdicted to sugar without even knowing it?

Ate salad while Edles was awake, then had dinner after I finally got her down. Am I hungrier without sugar? I feel like I'm eating a little bit heavier to squash any hunger pangs.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Banana, organic whole milk, the good yogurt, grapes, mango, blueberries, cherries, ground flax, a dash of salt. Salt makes mildly sweet things taste sweeter. Enjoyed it, but felt hungry for more sweets immediately after.

LUNCH: noon, pastrami on rye, french fries, pickles, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Tortured by the sights of sweets everywhere, decided to have a fatty, indulgent meal to satiate my hunger thoroughly -- any cravings after would be purely sugar-related, not because I was hungry or thirsty. Went to Eisenberg's on 5th Ave because it was convenient, would have rather of gone to the 2nd Ave Deli or Katz's.

PM SNACK: 5pm, large green salad, tortilla chips, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, cheese ravioli, homemade tomato sauce, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

16 POUNDS OF FURY!!!

Edie had her date with the doc today -- 16 lbs, a full 25% bigger than 3 months ago. Fully healthy and happy, though the round of vaccinations she underwent tested the maximum volume of her voice box and lungs. Other than the usual breast milk, I gave Edie a dropperful of infant tylenol to help her with her discomfort. She had some crying jags in the afternoon that would only respond to being held, sung to, and played the smooth, smooth greatest hits of Al Green.

I forgot to eat breakfast this morning, busy with laundry, Edie and getting it together to go food shopping -- I needed to be home early enough to get Edles to her 12:30 doctor's appointment. As I walked out, I told myself I'd just grab a bite on the way then I remembered....

I promised HVS to do a refined sugar-fast this week, until Saturday night. I didn't eat any sweets yesterday, so I guess it started yesterday. The only things available to me were little bodegas and a fine dining restaurant called Broadway East, which had a chalk board out front advertising delicious high-grade muffins at half price. There's no way to make a good muffin without sugar, so I had to pass. I thought of maybe some sticky-rice n' minced pork lotus leaves from the vendor usually at Rutgers, but it was too early.

Wandering through Pathmark with a hungry stomach, stuck close to my list. Read a fantastic recipe for shortbread in Cook's Illustrated on the train up to New Haven, would be ideal to bring to some mother's groups, but it's a SWEET! Gah!

On the walk home from grocery shopping, ran into neighborhood folks J, E and their kids. We had talked brownies a week or two ago, and I recommended a revision to J's recipe. She remade them, she claims they're fudgier like she wanted, and offered me one....I had to explain that I was in cahoots with a friend to not eat sweets this week. That kinda hurt, I really wanted to taste one! I can't walk down the street without people offering me sweets!!

In Union Square after Edie's appointment, walked through the farmer's market. Hot apple cider, that looks like something to have right now....d'oh! That's a cup o' sugar! Shopping for diapers, a case full of colorful cupcakes....d'oh! Where did all these sweets come from?

HVS also wants me to refrain from pizza, but I'm modifying that because I can't let the ingredients go to waste -- no shitty pizza, just for work and home made.

I was a bit restless in the evening, probably due to craving sweets. Surprised how sugar-obsessed I've become today.

BREAKFAST: 11am, pumpernickel bagel with whipped cream cheese, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Nothing like a still warm out-of-the oven brown bagel from the greatest bagel bakery in the world which happens to be located down the street.

LUNCH: 1:45pm, falafel on whole wheat, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
At Maoz on Union Square, HVS-approved!

PM SNACK: 4pm, large green salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Freshly made!

PM SNACK: 5pm, school-made fresh salsa and tortilla chips, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Waiting on B to get home to get the pizza in the oven.

DINNER: 5:30pm, homemade pizza, glass of wine, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Went heavy on the oregano, put cheese under the sauce, spiked the sauce with vinegar, 2 little pinches of vanilla sugar (not enough to violate the sweets ban) and sea salt. Preheated the oven and stone for an hour, which definitely helped. Wholefoods wholewheat dough, proofed it for an hour to get over the leadedness of whole wheat.

So greeeeeezy

Woke up at 6am with a sore back, which tends to happen nowadays when I sleep extra -- I got 11 hours, don't know why I was so tired. After lazing around, got the troops out to the local bistro to meet friends for a meal, then went our separate ways. Me and E road bikes around, got a pint and a bite, then home, where B's friend L and her brother were enjoying Baby Edles. A good sociable day.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, cashews, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

BRUNCH: noon, blueberry pancakes, bacon, homefries, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LINNER: 3pm, half portion of fish n' chips, pint of hard cider, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Not hungry enough to eat a full anything, we split a portion of fish and chips at the Telephone Bar and it was STILL a bit much. Just so greeeezy. Tasty, but a bit much.

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, piece of Ethiopian injera, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, butternut squash soup, whole wheat ritz crackers, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

Up in New Haven for the day

B, E & I trained it up to New Haven to get pizza at Pepe's. Technically this is Edie's second time, as she came up with us in utero last time. Edie slept or cooed through most of the train rides, no drama.

The white clam pizza again was a revelation. The large chunks of garlic, the distribution of oregano-spiked bread crumbs, generous olive oil and lots and lots of fresh clams. Other than the clams, the other star flavor had to be the subtle bitter char of the crust, flavored by the coal of the oven. Really good.

By the time we got home, I was surprisingly tired and hit the bed with Edie around 7pm.

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

AM SNACK: 9:45am, large cookie, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Pre-train snack at Grand Central.

LUNCH: 12:45pm, clam pizza, water, 2 bowl, hunger 4/5
Considered getting the small white clam pie instead of the medium, but after considering that 4 hours on a train was involved in getting this pizza, might as well get a bigger one and just skip the crusts.

DINNER: 6pm, apple pie, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Wasn't planning on eating this, but B left it out on the table and I could not say no. I made this pie a week ago or so and froze it.