Passover, Round 2

ADDENDA:
Spent the day cooking and reviewing a hagadah for the Seder I'll be leading and partially feeding this evening. Put the sauer braten in the oven for hours, then made the spent marinade into gravy. Prepped vegan stuffed mushrooms to be baked at my friends house closer to time of serving.

BREAKFAST: 9am, 4 homemade lemon muffins, water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Since I couldn't make it uptown for a brunch with B's relatives, I woke up and ran into the kitchen to bake these muffins from scratch before she split. They were pleasantly lemony without being bitter, but not overly sweet either. I experimented with mixing a little zest with dark brown sugar to sprinkle on top, but it didn't form the caramelized crust that plain cane sugar created last time.

LUNCH: 12:15pm, homemade cheese ravioli w/ olive oil, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Good ravioli, but a lot of them formed a big frozen ball in the freezer again, despite drying them before storing them. Hmmmm.

AFTERNOON TASTINGS: 12:30pm-4pm, a gingersnap cookie (for the gravy) here, a teaspoon of vegan stuffing there, a taste of gravy here (needs more sugar), etc etc, hunger 3/5
I wonder if this is the kind of stuff that'll make me fat in C-school...

PM SNACK: 5pm, pistachios, .25 cup, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, salad, gefilte fish, matzoh ball soup, sauerbraten, gravy, vegan stuffed mushrooms, potato kugel, flourless chocolate cake, 2 glasses wine, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
For this Seder at my friend's Karen house, I definitely was not in a passive role. I lead the Seder as best as I could, adding as much of my mom's anti-religious pro-feminist pro-socialist flavor as possible, gave a little rant about gefilte fish and made it quick. At the same time, I was running into the kitchen to try to give order to things, plating and sending out the fish and soup courses, carving the meat and plating the various side dishes.

Unfortunately, the sauer braten was dry, but I know why - if it was served within 30 minutes of it's cooking, it would of been very juicy. 5 hours after it was cooked, a huge puddle of yummy meat juices were at the bottom of the container which no amount of gravy could help. Because I had to cook it at home and bring it, it was unavoidable. If I try another dish like this, it'll have to be cooked in the place it'll be served.

The stuffed mushrooms were over salted and over peppered, but the effort I put into chopping all the ingredients finer made for a much more appealing texture.

Kind of missed a few friends who I would of liked to of shared this with, next year either they'll be invited to this or I'll do my own, darnit! And after C-school, a passover brisket should be a piece of cake, right?

Cradle to Grave, in Food Signs

ADDENDA:
In the door to a pre-school, a cute sign announces the early programming of 'snacks' into a child's regime. It's healthy (yogurt, muffins, toast, fruit salad, p&j sandwiches), it's for sharing, it's so wholesome.

Elsewhere, the bat-shit insane eyes of a department store catalog model stuffing a burger in his mouth somehow connected itself to the previous sign in my mind. Somehow, as some grow up and get older and fatter, they go bat-shit insane and start stuffing burgers down our gobs for a 'snack' - 24 hours a day.

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, waffle and home fries, water, 1.5 bowls, hunger 3/5
Rolled over to East River Cafe with B, sat at a table facing the window to the street like I used to with my mom, sometimes with my dad and a bunch of times after he passed. It's definitely comforting, that sort of continuity, because we certainly ain't going for the food! The waffle is soggy on one side, the home fries are pedestrian. Since I had bacon (and pastrami) yesterday, it was easy to skip the over-salty industrial bacon here.

LUNCH: 2pm, spinach salad, 'butt-crazy' rice, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Through some interesting ingredients into the rice cooker with the brown basmanti and water - diced red onion, diced elephant garlic, freeze-dried chives, freeze-dried porcini, sea salt, good butter. It came out so good that Betsy asked me to name it. The first thing that came to my mind is 'butt-crazy', hmmmm....

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, slice o' streetza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
In Brooklyn, about to head for a bar for a friend's b-day thing, didn't want to have too empty a stomach. The pizza was surprisingly flavorless, but the crisp texture of the crust against the hot oil of the sauce and the gooeyness of the cheese almost made up for it.

PM DRINK: 4pm, 1 pint beer
A scary assortment of kiddy sweets were spread out, pixie sticks, pop rocks, tootsie rolls, yards of licorice. Yick!!

DINNER: 7pm, crusty bread and butter, .5 glass wine, lemon chicken soup, poached shrimp over slaw, hanger steak with grits, chocolate tart, a few bites of olive oil cake, mint herbal tea, water, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Nice meal amongst some of my best friends at ICI in Fort Greene, another birthday dinner in my honor, I think the 3rd this year, makes me feel a little embarrassed but in the end it was an honest expression of luv from my friends, I guess. Kinda like a much more cultured and adult version of Wednesday snack sharing time...

Duck, Duck, DUCK!

ADDENDA:
Only road about 26 miles yesterday, with a few hours break in the middle at the Bronx Zoo, but it was enough. Slept like a brick last night, a solid 9.5 hours of sleep. Spent the rainy day indoors at home, working up a freelance project, sending out 10s of resumes. Me and B are going to a dinner party of a friend of hers tonight, and she casually mentions this afternoon that we are to bring dessert....but it's ok, we'll buy cupcakes. No way I'm bringing store-bought stuff to a dinner party where someone is cooking, so I made the only thing I could with the ingredients I had laying around the house, an apple crisp.

I really need to hit the supermarket hard - I'm still living off of dinnerfest leftovers!

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, organic chex with good millk, small apple muffin, .75 bowl, hunger 2/5
Woke up around 8, but stomach still felt full from the night before. Muffin was given as a going-away treat from Craft.

LUNCH: 2pm, homemade mac & cheese, seltzer, 2 bowls, hunger 3/5
In the mood for something lighter, but this was in the fridge.

PM SNACK: 5:45pm, handful of pistachios, .25 bowls, hunger 4/5

DINNER APPETIZERS: 8pm, variety of cheeses, crackers, roasted pepper, cocktail shrimp, 1 beer, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 10:30pm, braised duck, slice of fresh moz with tomato and basil, asparagus, apple crumble, sip of grappa, water, 1 bowl, hunger 2/5
Dinner party where dinner was served too late. The duck was ok, but it reminded me of my mother's 'puke chicken', so I just couldn't appreciate it. Everyone said they loved the crisp I brought, who knows what they REALLY thought, he he.

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.

Eat-ster

ADDENDA:
B & I went to deep dark NJ to a friend's family's house for Easter dinner, my first. It's an eating holiday, and there was about 3x more food than necessary for the 7 guests. After a huge spread of appetizers, I got B & her friend out on the 3 rusty bikes in the garage to pedal around the neighborhood for a wee bit, but when we got back were confronted by a gob-smackingly large dinner. It was fun but goyishly weird.

The other day at Grimaldi's Pizza, the server was slow with refilling our water glasses. Around us, almost every person in the place had 20-oz bottles of coke, diet coke and 7-up at their sides. For a hot second I wished I had a bottle of diet coke to wash down the pizza, then it hit me in another hot second - diet coke tastes like battery acid, what I really want is hydration and a palate cleanser, for which either still or sparkling water is ideal. It's the consumer culture, the push to charge me more, which tries to present sodas as the logical choice, when really it's quite insane and unhealthy.

BREAKFAST #1: 8:30am, fuji apple, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
B still asleep, feel 100% better, glad I didn't go out last night. Don't feel like eating, but the slight pangs in my tummy say otherwise. Apple beats caffeine hands down.

BREAKFAST #2: 10am, waffle, bacon, homefries, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Dragged B out to the East Broadway Cafe in our hood, a Polish diner of the old school where I used to go regularly with my parents on weekends. The food was definitely better (and less pretentious) (and a whole lot cheaper) than the place we went to brunch yesterday. Bacon was too salty, given, but sitting in the same seats where I used to sit with mom and pop with B at my side, made any sin of bacon a lot more tolerable.

DINNER: 3-9pm, shrimp cocktail, fritos with various dips including 'caviar pie' and chili cheese goop, bread with sundry dried meats and cheeses, water, prime rib, potato au gratin, asparagus, spinach, salad, chocolate, apple & blueberry pie, vanilla ice cream, weird spicy cookie, short bread, 1 glass wine, 1 glass prosecco, water, 4 bowls, hunger 4/5
So many tchokes on the table, we couldn't find the salt & pepper...

Out of Work Work

ADDENDA:
I got laid off yesterday, it was both unexpected and expected. Due to political upheaval that started months and months ago, my work load was dwindling and the department contracting. On coming back from vacation, I found myself with no new work and nothing being set up, so I asked for a meeting with my direct supervisor to discuss it - sitting around feeling uneasy for a day is quite enough - if I didn't ask for the meeting, how long would I of lingered?

To cut a boring cliched story short, the story of the political shifts explained, promises of recommendation letters were made, severance through February given (good, as I've only been there a year) and a card and a firm handshake.

Going back today briefly to tie up loose ends and clear out the desk, then uptown to a friend for dinner who has been abroad for the last 6 months and came back to find she got laid off from the job she was promised to return to.

Too early to think too much of the future, but I know it wants to involve food. Chef's school? Project management for food TV? Manage a kitchen? Start my own company? I think I need to go through the stages of grief before I really get into it.

BP 10:30am, 136/102
First time I've taken BP on an empty stomach.

BREAKFAST: 11am, organic wholegrain chex with good milk, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, 24 oz still water, 2 saltless wholewheat pretzels, hunger 3/5
Got on the bike, caught the 11:30 ferry to SI, went passed the house I grew up and other places that were rich with associations with my parents. Went to Silver Lake, where my dad would take me after preschool and let me run wild with a Big Wheel that he kept in the trunk. Sat on a bench where I sat with him once and read together, sat alone and read and talked to peeps and things. It was nice communing with memories of a much simpler, happier time. As much as I knock it, I had a mostly happy childhood.

LUNCH: 4pm, 1 slice of streetza, hunger 4/5
Road from the ferry to Times Square to take the corpse-walk at the office. As I was heading over, felt both really hunger and really not. I asked myself, as much as I really need to eat less and lose weight blah blah blah, would Ilsa really think positively of this? Of course not! So I stopped at the closest pizza place and grabbed a slice. Despite being hungry, it tasted bleah. The sauce was tangy and bland at the same time, the dough was crisp but too thick so it had a mushy layer.

Took care of my loose ends quickly, said good bye, surprised by people's emotionality. The work itself wasn't horrendously captivating and I won't miss it, but the people were cool as hell. If not professional contacts, I've gained a few social friends out of the matter.

DINNER: 6:30pm, small green salad, rigatoni with homemade sauce, chocolate sorbet, 2 glasses red wine, 1 pint water, hunger 4/5
Road up to Washington Heights to visit an old friend who was in Helsinki for 6 months on a Fulbright, and just got back a few days ago to find herself laid off. It was nice meeting someone who wanted to talk about themselves (not because she's self centered, it's just that she had a lot to say - she met and got engaged to a dude there!!) AND could commiserate about the work thing (though she has lots of options and interests, I'm more of going back to the soil to grow something new altogether...)

She originally told me she was going to serve berries for dessert, and on the ride up I decided I was going to bite the bullet and eat berries for the first time since I was 5 or 6 years old. She said they didn't look that great at the market, so went the chocolate route....phew!

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, bowl of veggie booty, hunger 4/5
After spending an hour of intense/emotional/good conversation with the wifey, feel better about things. She went to bed, and my appetite returned a little.

New Years Eve Goes to the Dogs

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, 1 piece toasted superhippy bread & peanut butter, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 1pm, large serving of cheese pizza, a couple of small slices of vegan veg pizza, water, hunger 4/5
Met up with Beautiful B in New Haven, I took the commuter train, she too the Amtrak down for Beantown, after he week with her momma. I wore a suit and tie, and came bearing a gift and flowers. It was literally only a 10 minute walk to Frank Pepes, the pizzeria of note we hit up on the way to and from our honeymoon. Unfortunately they had no clam pie today, I guess it's not the season?

PM SNACK: 5pm, small bowel veggie booty, hunger 4/5
Tight time tolerances between coming home and going out!

PM NYE DRINK: 7:15pm, 1/2 glass champagne
A snort in the West Village with Lisa & Leroy. Road the tandem over, the Prince Street bike lane was a dream.

PM SNACK: 8:45pm, a few handfuls of curry cashews, a couple of vanilla-lemon vegan sweety things, hunger 4/5
At the HQ of the HVS.

DINNER: 9:30pm, shrimp basil fried rice, fried littler taro pockets, a little salad, steamed veg dumplings, water, hunger 4/5
We were the last ones eating in 2007 at this Thai restaurant.

EVENING SNACK: 11-12:30am, 2 glasses seltzer, 2 ice cream-cone cupcakes, hunger 3/5
Went to a nice relaxed party in Brooklyn with the HVS was a wonderfully friendly Rat Terrier there to help us ring in the new year. After midnight, the hostess served cute cupcakes freshly baked into flat-bottom ice cream cones. It was a thing from her mother, oh so 70s. I could think of nothing better to start the new years with. A freshly baked food-stuff passed down from some one's mom. (OK, it was probably a Betty Crocker mix, but that's what my mom would of done, too!!)

A Day at the Markets

ADDENDA:
Feel a bit out of touch with food, haven't been to the farmer's market since before Las Vegas. So I hopped on the bike and off I went....and felt what the winter market is all about. It's literally half as big as it was around Thanksgiving, and 1/3 as big as it was full swing in the summer. The meat/dairy/baked goods peeps were all there, but other than apples and gourds, there wasn't much in way of produce. I got the crazy-good lamb sausage and superhippy bread, but not much else.

I road to Wholefoods, and bought up a full green salad and supplies, focusing on a short shopping list of vegan stuff B wants to experiment with. I look forward to her (and the HVS) trying my home-made chocolate soy ice cream, it kicks some serious ass. It puts chocolate tofutti to shame, if I don't say so myself.

After the markets and before cooking, I felt lazy and didn't want to cook, but didn't want to order in food, as you're forced to buy a lot of food for a minimum order. So in true NY-lazy style, I wanted to go to the pizza place around the corner but didn't want to walk so far....so I hopped on my bike for the 120-second ride! I know in the suburbs people will get in the car to go around the corner to drop their fat-ass kids off at the bus stop, I now know how they feel....

BREAKFAST: 10am, good yogurt with honey and raw cashews, hunger 3/5
Outta vanilla!

LUNCH: 1:30pm, 2 slices streetza, bottle of water, hunger 4/5
After getting back from the markets, put everything away and pedalled around the corner to A1, the local slice joint. This is the place my parents would order pizza from. I like it because it has character - unlike a lot of other NYC slice places, these slices have a nice thin coat of sauce and a thinner, spotty coating of cheese - no goopfest here.

DINNER: 7pm, fresh wholewheat pasta, tomato sauce, pork/veal/spinach concoction, green salad, chocolate soy ice cream, lame biscoti, 2 glasses red wine, hunger 4/5
Friend just came in to town staying with me for a couple of nights, an excellent excuse to try some experimental cooking on someone (and have a friendly face to help washup! Thanks, Rach!) It was to be meat ravioli, but I failed to mix any white flour into the wholewheat and in the end it was both too tacky and too rigid to bend to shape into the ravioli forms.

So I scrapped it and went with linguine, with the stuffing as a side of meaty stuff. I got the recipe for the meat stuffing off the internet, and it was all wrong, I adjusted a few things to keep it reasonable but it failed. It needed white wine. Also, I bought pre-ground meats, it was a bit too chunky. I need to get a meat grinder attachment for the mixer to make nicely smooth meat paste! (Mmmmm! Meat paste!)

The only non-home made item was the biscoti, which reaked of fennel, oddly enough. But the soy-ice cream (silken tofu, unsweetened soy milk, maple syrup, cocoa powder, 70% dark chocolate) came out surprisingly rich and tasty, not tofuy at all or oily-fake like tofutti. We ate it straight from the machine, so it had a smooth, soft-serve consistency.

PM WATERING: 10pm, 2/3 of a bottle of Perrier

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, small bowl of veggie booty, hunger 3/5

My Wife Done Leave Me

ADDENDA:
Only for the week, though, to be with her momma while I stayed behind to attend to work! Feel good. Starting to miss B a little - it's nice having her flittering around the house, getting ready for work as I emerge from the fog of sleep. She's kinda easy on the eye, too. And a lot less furry than Rufus, who woke me up by pushing his side into my face just gently enough not to wake me up, but so I couldn't breathe.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, wholewheat pancakes and good bacon, hunger 4/5
Good night sleep, whipped up a new batch of pancake mix using 2 different kinds of whole wheat flour, unexpectedly yummy. Why are whole-wheat recipes so hesitant to use 100% whole wheat?

AM WATERING: 11:15am, 24 oz still
Rolled into work late after communing with Erikka's cat all morning.

LUNCH: 1pm, 3 potato samosas, cold pumpkin noodles with tofu, turkey chili over brown rice, hunger 4/5
A nice hunk o' food from the organic hot bar trough at Green Symphony. Had the turkey chili just to have something different, was surprisingly enjoyable, though the meat is so processed as to be generic "meat stuff" - it might as well be a soybean-derivative.

PM SNACK: 3pm, large chocolate chip cookie, hunger 3/5
Got the sugar cravings, haven't felt them in a while, so I indulged it. All that was available was a grocery store generic cookie in cellophane, no ingredients listed. YUK! I ate it, my stomach felt icky for 2 hours. Never again.

DINNER: 8pm, 1/2 pastrami sandwich, matzoh ball soup, mound of cabbage salad, 2 pickles, handful of fries, large piece of chocolate babka, water, shot of chocolate soda, hunger 4/5
Went with my friend Yana to the new 2nd Ave deli, where we used to go regularly when it was located on 2nd Ave. Food just as good, memories of me and my dad eating there a lot, too. Unfortunately, though I tried to limit myself to just a half sandwich and soup, I over-ate anyway. I wanted to share 1 slice of babka, but Yana insisted on getting our own. Oof! Chocolate Babka is a magically delicious food stuff, but next time, I'm going to insist on sharing a piece!

PM SNACK: 10pm, half a pint of beer, hunger 1/5
Out at a bar with a good DJ with Yana and friends, but I was just too full to fit in more than 8 oz of beer. Even then I didn't feel good. But there was a photobooth!

Cookin' With Booze

ADDENDA:
Made multiple trips to the bathroom through the night, the late night Indian did not agree with me. Was weird wandering around my home in the middle of the night without concern for turning on lights or watching the television loudly. Rufus slept where B sleeps, wasn't quite the same thing. Except in the morning he usually chews and head butts HER, this morning he inflicted his Rufusness on me.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, raw nuts, hunger 2/5
After last night's roiling, didn't feel much like eating but wanted to start off on the right foot.

AM WATERING: 10:30am, 24 oz still

LUNCH: 3:30pm, beer-boiled shrimp in a wine butter sauce over a baked potato, vanilla soy ice cream, hunger 4/5
Felt tired, left work around 2:30. Picked up shrimp and a potato and improvised this meal. Have left over beer from the party that I'll never drink so sacrificed 4 of them to boil the shrimp in. Made a sauce, starting with a roux just like the mac n' cheese, but added fresh garlic and white wine and a drop of lemon instead of milk n' cheese. Microwaved a potato and through it all together in a bowl, looked so purty I had to take a picture. The smell was....French n' stinky, but good.

DINNER: 8:30pm, sushi & sashimi plate, edamame, small green salad, tea, a cookie, a few chocolates, hunger 4/5
Road my bike up to 102nd on the west side and back to visit a friend I don't get to see nearly enough. She almost cooked, but couldn't get her stuff together so we went out for Japanese. The food was nothing special but her company was, which is the point of most restaurant food, I guess.

Sunday Slips Away Quickly

ADDENDA:
Had a good time last night, but between getting to bed at 1am and drinking a little too much, it was a struggle to wake up after 10 hours, shooting my chances at yoga in the foot. Well, it's the holidays. Thinking of holidays past, I'm grateful for not being depressed right now. More on that later.

BREAKFAST: 11:15am, organic chex with homogenized organic milk, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 1:15pm, 8 mixed boiled perogies, water, hunger 3/5
Little Poland on 2nd Ave and 12th has the greatest perogies. 8 pieces, and 7 different kinds! Potato, sweet potato, cheese, meat, kasha, kraut, spinach. True soul food.

DINNER: 6:30, bread & butter, wild mushrooms in a puff pastry, hanger steak with frites, chocolate mouse and a little chocolate souffle, 1/2 glass of wine, water, hunger 4/5
Dinner at Les Halles with the Israelis and co.

EVENING SNACK: 2am, handful of tortilla chips, hunger 3/5
Could not sleep.

The Long Weekend is Here (or: Food is All Sorts of Love)

ADDENDA:
At 11am, B is bringing me to Union Square for a 4-hour surprise involving pizza. I'm going to assume it's a pizza-making class or a pizza tour. Tonight, a multi-course dinner party at a friends house. I suspect today, like the last few days, will be an eating disaster. But underlining it is the association: food is love. Or perhaps the conduit of socializing on all sorts of levels.

Thinking about the last few days, I don't think I'm purposefully trying to fatten myself up, it's the holiday season. (Well, except for that Chinese brick incident, grumble grumble...) I would of thought my eating doesn't change much during this time of year, but I've never kept an obsessive blog about what I eat....

ADDENDA II:
A few months ago after reading about this particular pizza tour, I suggested off-handedly that it would be cool and weirdly romantic if we were to do an intense foodie-pizza journey together. So for Hanukkah, Betsy surprised me with this pizza tour today. Basically, if these two tours were ice cream, today's tour would of been a Carvel Fudgey the Whale, and the tour I wanted a fine selection of artisinal gelatos over a freshly baked puff pastry. We were on a tour-bus with a bunch of families from Florida, and the tour guide spent most of the time talking about movie locations and standard factoids about the city, interrupted by a total of two (2) pizzerias, one of which (Grimaldis) is good but kinda over rated. So once we figured out we weren't really the target audience, we decided to ditch at the first stop - which happened to be at Brooklyn Bridge Park right in front of Bubby's, where we got married!

The tour guide dude, Tony, was actually nice, and offered to arrange for someone else to use our tickets in the future. He then said, heeey, I know you.....you're Adam from Sliceny.com! (See picture to the right, huh, he actually DOES look a bit like me!)

So if you (or a couple of friends from out of town) would like free tickets for the Slice of Brooklyn Pizza tour (which is really a tour of Brooklyn with a couple of stops at pizzerias thrown in), give a hollah!

BREAKFAST: 8am, 3 spoonfuls of mint chocolate chip ice cream, hunger 3/5
Small but satisfying.

AM SNACK: 11:45am, 12 oz wicked hot chocolate from Jaques Torres in DUMBO, hunger 3/5
After ditching the pizza tour, we stopped by and bought a YOOOOJ box of chocolates for Jewish Xmas gathering at B's cousin's. We also got their famous hot chocolate, which I never had before. Basically it's melted chocolate in whole milk and cream, with a dash of spicy spices...yummy....but after only having a few spoonfuls of ice cream in the morning, found myself with not quite an upset stomach as much as a total lack of desire to eat anything....til...

LUNCH: 3:30pm, 2 sweet sopresseta sandwiches on sprouted whole wheat bread with grated parm, local mustard and a big side of leftover vegetables from Monday's party, hunger 4/5
Left overs made a good lunch. Sopresseta is kinda gross on it's own, but in the context of a thin layer on a sandwich with complimentary tastes, was quite good. Was good on that pizza, too. Funny how something by itself is nasty, but compliments foods so well.

PM SNACK: 4pm, small handful of tortilla chips, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 6pm, 3 slices mozzarella with balsamic vinegar, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8:30pm, 2 bacon-wrapped dates, 3 vegan stuffed mushrooms (much superior to mine), 1 piece of bruscetta, a handful of mini-blinis with smears of really good caviar, small amount of mashed potatoes, 1 small slice of foul-tasting sausage, small amount of pigeon-peas n' rice, 2 beers, 1 glass champagne, hunger 3/5
Pleasant dinner party in Brooklyn at Erikka and Martha's. One guest had a boss who received a gift of a $1500 tiny tin of caviar at the office, but was already gone for the holidays so he gave it to her. The only caviar I regularly come in contact with is the roe in sushi, which I absolutely despise. This black stuff was a different food altogether - I never tasted anything quite like it. It basically tastes like a good fresh mild smoked salmon minus the smokey part, salty in a neutral way, but somehow the consistency was both mushy and firm at the same time. And when you pressed it in your mouth with you tongue, the flavor intensified like if you were turning up the volume of a piece of music that you particularly like at just that moment. It was yummy, but not worth the $200-odd amount of it I scarfed.

Party at my house!

ADDENDA:
Good day. Was given the day off and a budget. Spent the morning chopping veg, then went out in the cold to hit up Little Italy, China Town, the Pickle Guys, Pathmark and a couple of cupcake bakeries. Spent the afternoon winging it on vegan stuffed mushrooms (surprisingly un-gross, HVS approved), 2 huge trays of mac & cheese and prepping the house.

Learned from my mistakes of the mac & cheese the day before, adjusted a few things and it came out pretty good, not to toot my own horn - if I was served it in a restaurant, I would of been satisfied - now if it was more bubbly/crispy on top and maybe had a Parmesan crispiness layer, now THAT would of been kick ass!

After 5 years of briefly attending depressing law firm holiday parties (and a year of no biz parties to go to), this was a welcome change in my life. A lot of cool people, cohosted by my partner in life, people who I see everyday but actually enjoyed having in my house and getting drunk with Rufus!

LUNCH: 12:30pm, 2 local slices, bottle of water, hunger 3/5
Forgot to eat breakfast. Too distracted to be hungry

PM SNACK: 2-4pm, 32 oz bottle of seltzer, hunger --/--
Cooking.

PRE-PARTY FOOD: 6pm, baby carrots with homemade hummus, 1 cupcake, hunger 3/5

PARTY FOOD: 7-11pm, small plate of homemade mac & cheese, a few handfuls of green M&Ms, 3-4 homemade vegan stuffed mushrooms, 4-5 drinks of wine & beer (I didn't keep track), 2 cupcakes, 1 shot of Jack Daniels, hunger 4/5

I feel like crap

ADDENDA:
Woke up nauseous and tired, combination of jet leg and the late-night Indian food. Lolling around on the computer this morning, some interesting developments at work. On top of that, have 2 work-related holiday parties I'm not looking forward to...

AM WATERING: 9:30am, 24 oz still

BP: 9:45 am, 133/92

LUNCH: 1:30pm, curry pork with rice & cabbage, small miso soup, 3 pork dumplings, water, hunger 3/5
Stomach still feeling weird but head is clear, must be jet lag. Nice catching up with Erikka, it's like when I'm socializing over food, it actually makes the food more appetizing.

PM SNACKS: 7-9pm, 1/2 weird sweet mixed drink, 3 bottles beer, small amount of assorted snackies including mini-empinadas, small piece of cubano sandwich, meat n' potato ball, a few garlicky shrimp, hunger 3/5
Attended a few work parties downtown, was a lot more fun than I thought it would be, as despite the corporate shenanigans, I actually like most of the people I work with - some I'd even hang out with if I didn't happen to spend almost more time with than I do with my wife.

DINNER: 10pm, vegan garden burger on sprouted wheat bread with mustard, 2 small soy ice cream sandwiches, hunger 3/5
Got home, felt snacky but not hungry. A little buzzed but not really. B had done a little food shopping, so I ate of her harvest. The burger was bland and gooey (though the bread I got last week was really good, a nice light-weight counterpoint to superhippy bread). If the soy ice cream crap wasn't there, I would of been sweet-free today....and they tasted awfully fake, reeking of artificial vanilla and an oily mouth feel.

Lost in Las Vegas

ADDENDA:
Las Vegas was a lot to take in by itself, meeting my buffet-crazed father-in-law made for an interesting overlay. We managed to wrangle him into a nice eatery, the San Marco at the Venetian, the Las Vegas Batali outpost. Note in the picture our next-table neighbors with the hats. Them cowboy hats were everywhere. Also note that it was not actually al-fresco dining, but a not-that-amazing simulation in a large vaulted room with the ceiling painted like the sky, with the walls to give the impression we were in Venice...if Venice were packed with cowboys and branches of NYC restaurants...

Friday
BREAKFAST: 9am, 1 pancake, 1 cheese blintz, potatoes, 1 apple crepe, bacon, biscuit w/sausage gravy, smoked salmon, banana, small donut, water, hunger 4/5
The buffet at our hotel was pretty horrible food, and such large portions. The bacon was incredibly salty, and the sausage gravy tasted like someone dumped a whole shaker of salt in it by accident.

PM SNACK: 1pm, half a G&T, hunger 2/5
At the MGM Grand, my father-in-law advised that if we looked like we were gambling at the slots, we could order $1 drinks instead of $5 at the bar. So I toodled away the first gambled dollar of my life as we waited to place an order.

PM SNACK: 2pm, bite of crappy everything pretzel, hunger 3/5
At the 'New York, New York' casino. If they tried to serve this pretzel on the street in NYC....well, I guess tourists will eat anything, he he. I was tempted to get a slice of 'NY style pizza' there, but LOOK at it! My god, man!!

PM SNACK: 4pm, crappy chocolate gelato, hunger 3/5
The Bellagio is trying to be all hoity-toity, but the gelato in my neighborhood totally trumps that gooey crap.

DINNER: 7pm, chips, guac, salsa, shrimp with rice & refried beans, water, hunger 4/5
Crappy Mexican back at the hotel, me and B were happy with how the way went but too exhausted to go out to hunt a proper meal. The 'fancy' option in the hotel was Bennihanna....

Saturday
BREAKFAST: 7am, waffle & bacon, water, hunger 4/5
Room service, same crappy food at 10x the price.

LUNCH: 12:30pm, bread, prosciutto, zucinni flowers, small slice of goat cheese pizza, veal & ricotta meatballs w/ polenta, chocolate malt gelato, water, hunger 4/5
At the San Marco at the Venetian. Really yummy, as good as anything in NYC. The pizza was Batali-style, which I don't like that much, but interesting.

DINNER: 6pm, 1 sip of wine, shrimp cocktail, fried shrimp, eggroll, California rolls, carrots & cucumber, 3 bites of prime rib & stuffing, 1 small bite scary pizza, chocolate ice cream with choc syrup, hunger 3/5
Final crack at the buffet, wasn't very hungry but it was all about the company, not the food. However, the small bite of the buffet pizza was perhaps the worst ever...

Sunday

BREAKFAST: 7am, waffle, bacon, potatoes, water, hunger 4/5
In the diner at the hotel, getting ready to go, saying good byes.

AM SNACK: 11am, small Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza, hunger 4/5
The flight had no meal service, so this was the least evil of options near the gate. Pizza Hut pizza is very....greasy.

PM SNACK: 2pm-1pmish, airline cheesy crackers, airline cookies, good saltless wholewheat pretzels, small apple juice, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 10:30pm, chana sag with basmanti, pakoras, nan, seltzer, hunger 4/5
Starving when I got home. Ordered cheap Indian food from the hood, very satisfying.

Dessert-Fast, Day 6 (Or: How does a dessert-fast die?)

ADDENDA:
After the farmer's market, set out to Coney Island on road bike, but by the time I got to Prospect Park, I was just chilled to the core so set back home for a total of 15 miles.

B has a family birthday brunch thing, we're bringing....the good donuts. Oh, how does a dessert-fast die?! Like this, my friends, like this.....

BREAKFAST: 7am, whole wheat bagel with good butter, hunger 3/5

LUNCH #1: 11am, reheated plate of fresh pasta with a little sauce, hunger 4/5
Could really go for a dessert. Will hold off.

PM SNACK: 1pm, slice of pizza, hunger 4/5
From the local.

PM SNACK: 1:45pm, banana, hunger 4/5
Headache. Could it be sugar-related?

PM SNACK: 2:30pm, 3 saltless whole wheat pretzels, hunger 4/5
Still headachey. Must just be a little just plain sick.

DINNER: 6:30pm, bread, veg bruschetta, interesting sampling of funky & nonfunky cheeses, a little salami, polenta-like dumplings with mushrooms and melted cheese, 1 glass prosecco, water, hunger 4/5
Dinner at a shmancy Italian place. Felt tired and fuzzy headed throughout with B and her friends, not my finest hour. Really enjoyed the different flavors of the cheeses, some stinky and soft, some mild and hard, but cut nicely with the sweetness of the prosecco. Some dessert was passed around and shared by most, but I was so not interested. (and it wasn't chocolate anyway!)

I'm Nervous

ADDENDA:
Will I make it 5 days without sugar? How much will it hurt? The Hungry Vegan Society just donated a bag of shredded dried coconut for my future fruit salads....

BREAKFAST: 7:15am, good yogurt with a little honey and vanilla, hunger 4/5

AM WATERING: 9:45am, 24 oz still

BP 9:45am: 130/91

LUNCH: 12:15pm, half a pastrami sandwich, small matzoh ball soup, pickle, vinegar slaw, hunger 4/5
Pastrami was dry, and such small portions!

PM WATERING: 2pm, 24 oz still

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, roberts smart puffs, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:45pm, 1 glass saki, 3 tiny fishcakes, small portion of chocolate babyback ribs, small portion of thai beef salad, 3 large tiger prawns with small amounts of pineapple fried rice and jasmine white rice, small portion of rich chocolate cake with burnt-honey icecream and fried banana spring rolls, hunger 4/5
Fancy dinner out with B at Kittichai, really good food, smallish portions. Felt full after but not stuffed. Enjoyed the dessert perhaps too much.

Feh.

ADDENDA:
Got the new blood pressure cuff yesterday, will start using it soon. The stressful project at work is coming to a head today, but hopefully will be done before the week is out, if all goes well.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, decadent oatmeal, hunger 3/5

AM WATERING: 7:45am, 24 oz still water

LUNCH #1: 11:45pm, small Green Symphony brick, hunger 4/5
Very hungry this early, they didn't have the hot bar yet so I had some pumpkin noodles, sesame tofu, tomato avocado salad, lentils, some mushrooms. Meat is just not appealing to me right now.

LUNCH #2: 2:45pm, small falafel sandwich, hunger 4/5
From the local cart, tried the 'half' instead of the 'regular', still pretty sizable

PM SNACK: 5pm, bag od Robert's Smart Puffs, hunger 4/5
Gonna cook for B, don't want to be too hungry too soon.

DINNER: 8pm, medium green salad, sea scallops baked in wine and butter with fresh wholewheat breadcrumbs, baked potato and butter, 1 glass white wine, half a tub of mint chocolate chip gelato. hunger 4/5
Made this meal to B's taste, nice evening together. We both kinda went nuts on the gelato, but as B says, "But it was SO GOOD!!"

Unsweet Day

ADDENDA:
Still processing last night's 4th and maybe final yoga class. The chanting and meditation, which I thought would be the goofiest part, was actually quite interesting. The trying to hand stand against the wall part, well, that was more like what I was expecting!

Didn't quite forget to have sweets yesterday, just kinda tried to reign in my sense of somehow being owed sweets every day. Probably from my mom withholding sweets so I wouldn't grow up to be a fat-ass. Gotta think about that more, too. When I got home last night, made 2 apple crumbles, one for B's dad and one for a party I'm going to tonight. Wasn't tempted to eat it or the funky gelatos in the freezer or even the really good dark chocolate bar I bought along with the apples (don't worry B, it's locked away!) Hmmmm.

Gonna try to avoid sweets till the party tonight, though I don't know if my body will object, we'll see...

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, onion bagel toasted with good butter, hunger 4/5
Hungrier than usual this morning. Maybe from the lack of sweets?

AM WATERING: 7:30am, 24 oz still water

LUNCH: 12:45pm, beef burrito, chips and salsa, hunger 4/5
Long morning, long but good. Hungry for something heavy, so I went to Burittoville. I recalled not liking it so much last time I was there, thinking maybe I'm hungry for a memory of what I used to like rather than what I'm going to actually get. So I ordered something completely different after ordering only the megasoy burrito all these years and....it was disgusting, the beef stringy like brisket and oddly sweet. Yik. Ate it, but picked most of the beef out. Seriously wanted ice cream after (spicy food does that to me, it seems) but wasn't a sugar craving so much as a smooth cold craving, so it was easy to resist.

I think my Burittoville habit has ended, need to find a decent Mex place near Times Square...any suggestions, oh faithful 2 readers?

PM SNACK: 3:45, 24 oz of still water then a small handful of M&Ms, hunger 3/5
Broke down and went to the vending machine which gives you a small handful of M&M's for 25 cents. I kinda feel like a hamster sucking at a metal teat for it's nutrients. Really felt the sugar cravings. Hoped water would make it go away, but no. The very first M&M on my tongue and BAM the cravings stopped, but I got very hungry, even though I know I was not. Hm.

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, bowl of organic crispex with good milk, small square of dark chocolate, hunger 4/5
To tide myself over till I go out, B was freaking out for chocolate so I busted it out of the freezer. After today's episode not too anxious to snarf chocolate.

DINNER: 9pmish, 1 slice pizza, small plate pasta salad, handful of very salty sausage-stuffed mushrooms, apple crumble, 1 beer, 1 vodka tonic, hunger 4/5
Nice friendly party with good friends and good strangers, all out from the rain. Brought the apple crumble. Over the course of the eve, just two drinks, alcohol never greatly appealed to me and as I get older, even less. I would of liked to have gotten a little drunk, but if it meant drinking more, ferget it.

Bicycle yoga?

ADDENDA:
Woke up at 4:30am, meant to wake at 5 but was feeling a little unsettled and anxious to ride after the week I've had. Got out of the train at Yonkers and by the time I got to the trailhead, the sun was just coming up, lighting up the cliffs across the river. Taking the Old Croton Aqueduct trail means your under a tree canopy almost the whole ride, but there are a few spots where the sun breaks on a clearing....and at 8am after freezing for the first hour, finally waking up, it was glorious. I stopped to appreciate the sun, remembered that a whole bunch of the yoga stuff seemed to be in praise of living or the sun or something. So with the warm sun bathing my chilled face and chest, I put my hands together in the namaste position, raised them above an in front of my head in a good stretch, brought them down and did a few breathing exercises, where I brought my breathe in through my nose, and kinda snorted it out fast in rapid succession. Lotta snot came out (was cold), but had the desired effect of making the sun just seem a little bit....sunnier.

Drive train failed soon after I left to come back from the reservoir, walked for an hour and 20 to get to the train. Bummer about the bike and the ride, but it was a spectacular fall day, it was the best part of the scenic aqueduct trail to walk, colors starting to change, crisp air, and I lucked out and caught an express train from Croton that was running late so it skipped all stops til Manhattan! Probably the most joyous failed ride ever.

BREAKFAST: 5am, hippie crispex with good milk, hunger 3/5
A slight craving for sugar, not bad but unusual this early. New cereal from Wholefoods, an all-organic all-whole grain knockoff of Crispex

SNACK: 6am, large conventional donut, hunger 3/5
Waking up more, more sugar craving. Road to Grand Central, the good local donut shop not open yet. This donut was about 2x bigger than my local shop, and less than half the price, and being in Grand Central must pay crazy rent. OK, they sell more quantity, but I could just taste the cheapness and weird preservatives in the texture and weird overly-sweet frosting. Not very satisfactory.

SNACK: 9am, 3 small apple cider donuts, hunger 3/5
This is what I'm talkin' bout! Farmers market just opening up in Ossining, the apple people sell their own appley donuts, so yummy, you can taste the brown sugar, the whole wheat, little flecks of soft fried apple, mmmm....

SNACK: 11:30am, large handful of whole wheat unsalted pretzels, hunger 4/5
On the train home.

LUNCH: 1:30pm, beef ravioli with pesto, water, hunger 4/5
Craving sweets, want to avoid indulging till dinner. Filled, but not stuffed. Sugar would turn off my hunger, but just gonna wait.

PM SNACK: 3pm, a few handfuls of veggie booty, hunger 3/5

DINNER: 6pm, lots of bread, a few small samples of antipastos, cavatelli with hot sausage, water, 1 half glass prosecco, hunger 4/5
Went to Frankies with various members of B's family who we don't see often enough. This is where we hosted the dinner for out of towners before our wedding. One of the family-style dishes we served was this spicy cavatelli, which I didn't really like because it was too spicy. Funny thing is, I wanted it tonight because that flavor was so associated with that happy time and this restaurant - I only realized this after my first bite!

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, apple crisp with buttermilk gelato, hunger 3/5
Everyone came back to ours, nice that I could serve them a homemade dessert. The gelato, however, crystallized because the new bunker freezer is set too cold. Live and learn.