Half-a-Pastrami

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Back On It

ADDENDA:
Meant to weigh myself this morning but forgot. I tend to forget things I have no interest in/really don't want to do. Looking forward to getting back into healthier eating habits. Before it was new and a little struggling, now it's starting to be the new routine. Brought an apple & stinky cheese to work, not because I'm on a sugar fast, but because it's damn yummy...

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, good yogurt with honey & vanilla & raw nuts, hunger 2/5

AM WATERING: 9:15am, 24 oz still

BP: 9:30am, 130/93

LUNCH: 1pm, small pastrami sandwich with pea soup, slaw & pickles, water, hunger 4/5
Satisfying sit-down at Junior's around the corner on a rainy day. Reading the beginning chapter's of 'The Omivore's Delimma', oy, how corn is a vessel so we can all eat fossil fuel in many different foodstuffs, including the beef I just ate.

PM SNACK: 4:45, apple and funky-ass raw cheese, hunger 3/5
Funny how stinky cheese becomes yummy with a good apple.

DINNER: 7pm, shrimp in a wine sauce with mushrooms and onions, wild rice, almost a full pint of chocolate mint soy icecream, hunger 4/5
Made another pound of shrimp, threw in wine and veg and high-heat safflower oil into the wok. Definitely better than the last time, but still not....very good. I'm missing something or a step, may have to read a recipe. Cooked this weird black long-grain wild rice with low-sodium organic chicken broth, come out kinda crunchy and unappealing. So when I was finished with the meal, just felt unsatisfied, but I was glad there was no more gelato in the house....uh oh. I had soy icecream in the house, to feed the HVS at the last pizza-blowout. Well, I hadn't inhaled a pint of icecream in such a long time, so I did it. I ate it in front of the TV. The soy icecream itself wasn't so great, but the sitting, the leisurely eating of it, the wave of satisfaction, it was mmmmmm. Figured hey, I'm not a robot, this is an uncommon indulgence, and you better not make a habit of this or I'll have to dislocate my leg and kick my own ass....

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.

Mofungo would be a cool gelato flavor

ADDENDA:
Ilsa's meeting was good, we're going to focus on a little weight loss. She referenced the New York article about how exercise encourages weight gain because people don't use self control when indulging an out of control appetite. Well, Ilsa has given me a direct order to control myself when I get off the bike after a long ride.

Up till this point, the weekend is the time I kind of let loose a little and relax. But really, if I want change, I have to change, this ain't the commercial for the miracle pill where you can eat anything and still become a fitness model.

I was a little surprised at her attitude towards my yoga - basically, if you're not feeling it, don't worry, it's not for everyone. Kinda makes me want to give it a full hearing before issuing a judgement.

Ilsa spoke of kinda hitting the self control a little bit harder, using the intensity of work as kind of a lever to focus on, get my mind off, say, a WHOLE day without sweets! Insanity! Derangement! Got the lockable freezer today, I think making a pint of gelato last for a few weeks instead of a few days will be a fun challenge with B....

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, organic cornflakes with good milk, hunger 3/5
Nice that there is no corn syrup, just fructose, and the salt is sea salt.

LUNCH: 12:45pm, small pastrami sandwich with peasoup, pickle and slaw, water, hunger 4/5
Needed the comfort, and the break from the office. Sat down and forced myself to be still for 45 minutes while I finished the Animal Vegetable Miracle book, good stuff. Any book that ends with hot turkey sex (and cute lil' turkey babies) is alright in my world. Really riding the edge of overload at work, but haven't gone over the edge yet...helped that I got my ass in here a little after 7 to figure things out...

DINNER: 7:30pm, mushroom risotto, tuscan panzenella (a salad of tomatos and torn up bread), garlicy white beans and bread, water, hunger 4/5
Wanted to go home and cook, but feeling totally blown out from the day. Was supposed to go to the movies with friends, but I would of fallen asleep during it AND been stressed, so would of been no fun. Fortunately, B was coming home at the same time so we met on the street, and I made a snap decision to skip the cooking and have a nice calm meal out with my wifey. She's good for that!

My Mom's Laterday Peasoup

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm Gettin' Married, Y'all!

ADDENDA:
As Britney Spears might of said once (or twice), "I'm gettin' married, y'all! Where's the cheetos?"

Tomorrow morning I'm going to mix up another batch of pancake mix, and have me a pancake n' bacon feast. Haven't been to the greasy spoon around the corner since I started making an effort to cook for a myself a bit, I really don't miss it.

Ilsa told me to just eat whatever I want, except to watch the salt. I wonder what it that I'll want. It certainly isn't a lot of the stuff I was only too content a month or two ago...

BREAKFAST: 7:45am, toasted garlic bagel with good butter, swig of seltzer, dirtpill, hunger 2/5
Third night of excellent deep sleep. Was up till 11 going over wedding stuff with the B and the best man. Things should be fine.

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

BP 10am: 127/88

AM SNACK: 10:30am, 1/3 of a bagel, half cup of OJ
Food served with meeting, nibbled to be polite. Reminds me why I despise OJ - tastes like fruity acid, with a bitter aftertaste. Why do people like this stuff?

LUNCH: 1:30pm, pastrami on rye, 1 pickle, water, hunger 4/5
Work going good. Catching up with the freelance PM being brought in to cover me while I get married. We went downstairs to Juniors, he paid in honor of my wedding. He had a bacon cheeseburger and fries - made my pastrami salt bomb look healthy. Find I have a slight headache less than an hour later, hmmmm.

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, small piece of pound cake, a little seltzer, hunger 3/5
Left work early to see my mother-in-law come in to Penn Station, then home. From here on in, going to try to relax and get stuff done in my own time till Sunday. The pound cake in the freezer needed to be tasted - it tasted better than when it was fresh. Heating it in the microwave makes it a little less dense.

DINNER PT 1: 6pm, half pound of freshly cooked shrimp in butter and garlic, hunger 3/5
Watching some cooking show, they're sauteing shrimp - remembered I have a bag of frozen raw shrimp. Dole out half of it, peel off shells - my first time peeling shrimp! All the little legs....makes me feel closer to it. Fresh garlic, the good butter, watching it magically turn golden orange in the pan....

DINNER PT 2: 7pm, four perogies, 1 potato pancakes, 1 cheese blintz, hunger 3/5
Looking around the kitchen, I realized with all the wedding stuff we failed to go food shopping. So I ordered from the East Side Cafe some polish home cookin'. The perogies were fried, but otherwise very much food my dad would of been comforted by.

No dessert! Only the piece of random poundcake! Yay! Unfortunately, I had another piece of poundcake around 4am when I was up for 5 hours, but that's already tomorrow...see ya on the 11th!!

Suppressed Memories: I Grew Up With a Tomato Patch

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, 2 pancakes and 4 pieces low sodium bacon, dirtpill, glass of seltzer, hunger 3/5
Made my favorite breakfast for B, Tania and Eli - even though we wrote "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" in frosting on it and had a piece of bacon for a mouth, he wasn't interested, as he was lunching on junk food all morning.

AM SNACK: 9am, 24 oz still water
Back at work. Gotta get my game on, yo.

BP 9:15am: 126/78

LUNCH: 12:30, half pastrami sandwich on rye, small cup of matzoh ball soup (didn't drink soup), small dish of vinegar slaw & 2 pickles, glass of water, hunger 3/5
If my normal well being is 10, and my sickest day was 1, today I feel 8.5. Work is going well - it's pressurized due to my absence, but I work with cool people and I feel like I understand where the pressures are coming from and why. Feel a bit low energy in the body, but my mind was so stultified by not leaving the house Tues-Sun, feel focused. But I needed this comfort food, desired red meat, a real craving! (My first non-sugar craving in memory!) Also, to be able to sit alone and read....

I'm into Kingsolver's book where she's describing the annual cycle of when vegetables are in season, and she spends a lot of time talking about tomatoes - big red hard industrial ones and boring Big Red Tomato seeds, vs. heirloom tomatoes. Then a large shard of memory just popped over my head, dousing my whole train of thought in tomatoes.

I grew up on Staten Island, with 2 parents and an older brother. We lived in a big 3 story house on a quiet street on a hill, with a terraced front yard and a nicely sized rectangular backyard, one side of which was fenced to avoid people falling off the wall to the driveway, the otherside a dirt-hump up to the neighbor's yard. When I was really young, probably 4 or 5, my parents grew vegetables on about a third of the space. All I remember is the tomatoes - how they made a big deal of the big red tomatoes they grew, always chopping them into salads. At some points they'd have too many, and give them away to friends. I think there were a few other vegetables they grew, but I don't remember what they were.

After a couple of years, they stopped, I don't remember why. I distinctly remember at the very end, my brother and I moved away and they sold the house to move into smaller digs - the grass on the 1/3 of the backyard that they grew vegetables was thicker, greener and longer than the grass anywhere else in the yard after all those years.

I really was a typical disgruntled kid growing up bored in the suburbs. Little did I know that little vegetable patch connected us to the entire history of the agricultural world in such a direct, tasty way. I wish I could talk to my parents about this, find out what they were thinking. They were so not just a boring, typical middleclass Jewish couple like I snottily assumed then, they were doing something quite cool and thoughtful, especially for the mid-70s. I was such a little dumbass, I miss them so much.

BP 3:30pm: 129/81
I noticed today is pressurized, and I'm feelin' the heat. Indeed, my bp is a little bit up. I wonder if there is a psychological method to lower my BP at times like this. Ilsa's breathing thing, perhaps?

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, bag of Robert's Smart Puffs, hunger 3/5
Tired. Good productive day, train only wobbled, never left the tracks. Gonna go home early.

DINNER: 8pm, small pork loin, quarter of kinish, mushrooms, one corn on the cob with butter and salt, one scoop of gelato, 1 small piece of homemade poundcake, hunger 4/5
Home made meal with the B and the guests. Nice. Kid is on a crazy eating schedule so had to wait till 10pm to serve up his birthday cake. Really yummy and dense, a little too sweet.

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, small piece of pound cake, hunger 2/5
Here is a new one: I wasn't craving sugar! I popped this in my mouth with a goal - I wanted to taste my cake with a clear palate, free of pork or icecream or whatever, to appreciate it's flavor. I (with the help of a hyperactive 4 year old) made this from scratch, and I was curious to focus on it's taste, not scarf it for it's sugar. I followed a recipe strictly, and I think on the next go around I'll reduce the sugar and up the lemon flavor...

Goin' Coco-nuts

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, a glass of water, small handful of unsalted pretzels, hippy tablet, hunger 1/5
Couldn't fall asleep till 4am due to wedding anxiety - yesterday was really the first day that was totally taken by wedding-related matters and nothing else. Fortunately, I know the #1 cause of my wedding anxiety and plan to address it tonight, hopefully resolve it as best as I can. Woke up groggy, food the last thing on my mind. But I knew I'd feel worse if ate nothing, so choked down some pretzels.

AM SNACK: 10:15, 11 oz coconut water, hunger 2/5
My friend Tamar read about my Gatorade dilemma and brought in a box of coconut water for me to try. Pleasantly but not overpoweringly sweet. Not as coconutty as I thought it would be, hints of pineapple. Slightly creamy mouth feel, like milk. High in sugar and potassium, hmmm, this definitely needs to be put to a bike-test, perhaps when me and T go on the NYC century together.

BP 10:30am: 126/95

LUNCH: 12:45pm, half a pastrami sandwich on rye with mustard, small cup of split pea soup with croutons, small bowl of vinegary slaw with 2 pickles, hunger 4/5
Work going well, but feel physically in need of comfort food, and a proper sit-down restaurant where I could read away my lunch hour. There is a Junior's on the ground floor of my building, and for this purpose, is perfect.

I'm in the early chapters of Kingsolver's book, and she's writing about what food culture is - it's not invented by a corporation, but comes naturally from the ground over time - "national and biological integrity". While embalmed cow is not quite what she had in mind, it is part of my personal food culture - this is what I grew up with, what my parents grew up with, what my grandparents (well, my dad's side, at least) grew up with. It's not the healthiest, but it makes me feel more connected to the world through my plate.

Yes, it is a salt trap of a meal, but a) the portion was a lot smaller than the usual head-sized meat portion, b) fries were sacrificed at the altar of Ilsa and c) no desert. Will this meal automatically raise my blood pressure, or is it more of a cumulative thing?

BP 1:45pm: 118/77

I guess that answers that a little. Feeling a desire for sweets. Greenmarket corn on the cob for dinner tonight, hopefully it'll help me contain a huge desert-fest....

BP 3:45pm: 118/65

LUNCH #2: 4pm, falafel on pita, hunger 4/5
Tired but feel good. Soul food from my mom's side.

DINNER: 7:15pm, large boneless porkchop with mushrooms in good butter and organic garlic, 3 ears boiled sweet corn with butter and salt, a large portion of dulche de leche gelato and 4 two-bite pecan pies, hunger=4/5
Left work early, browsed the Union Square greenmarket - some of the fruit and veg looked really good, but I have this hesitance - how do you cook it? I feel a subtle shift from fear to curiousity. In all my readings about the green market movement, it is said repeatedly that the Union Square greenmarket is both one of the first and one of the best. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that the only thing I bought from it for the past few years was wheatgrass....for my cat. Even my dad would shop there for veg....I thought he did it only because it was cheap....not because it was fresher and tastier.

Following some online instructions, I cooked the pork by browning on high heat then turning it down and covering the pan for a few minutes....it came up near perfect, if I was looking for well-done. Still juicy and porky, but I prefer it a little pinker. I'll get the hang of it eventually.

I purposely got a big, rich desert....with no chocolate elements. It'll be easier to resist later.

Torwards Pork Perfection

ADDENDA:
Last nights dinner was great. Sauting the split medalions in the good butter with sweet farmer's market fresh onions was a pleasure, and this time I pulled them off the heat before the red in the middle disappeared. By the time I was eating them, the red turned into a thin line of pink in the middle - moist and tasty. I did rub sea-salt into them, gave them a great flavor, but I wonder if I overdid it with the salt. I made extra brown basmanti rice (cooked with good live oil, bay leaves and sea salt) to have on hand, another first....I wonder how well it freezes and reheats...

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, toasted onion bagel, half cream cheese and half humus, pint of still water. Hunger 3/5. Surprised I was hungry> woke up 7am crappy figurative and literally, but by 9 felt a lot better and hunger came rushing back. Didn't think I'd be hungry for breakfast after last night's feast. Betsy think my crappy feelings came from mixing meat with dairy - the last time I got really sick in a bad way was from a steak in a creamy sauce with buttery milky mashed potatos. Maybe them kosher dietary laws had something to them, other than OCD...

LUNCH: 1pm, half pastrami sandwich, small matzoh ball soup, 2 pickles, small portion of health salad, about 1/3 of a huge slice of cheesecake, hunger 3/5. Not my choice, this was an important work lunch at Juniors, and there is no way I can go to a good deli and NOT get pastrami and matzoh balls, I would feel incredibly deprived. So I go to deli not very often. This would not of been my choice, gosh, I feel slightly guilty, after the huge pork n' pizza feast last night. Portion wise, I had the smallest meal of anyone there (and even skipped fries) and it was quite filling. Afterwords, now have a slight headache. Haven't had one in a while. Weird, haven't felt guilty about what I've eaten in....I don't remember ever feeling guilty since I was a chile and hid my sweets consumption from my parents...my first thought when I found out I had to eat at Juniors was, 'Yeah pastrami and pickles!', and the second thoughts was, "oh shit, I'm going to have to write about my so-called low-salt diet on that blog!" But it's life, it's not a habit, and I really enjoyed it.

PM SNACK: 4:30pm. haagendaz vanilla ice cream bar, hunger 3/5. Sweet tooth in effect, somehow forgot about the cheesecake and went for an icecream sandwich, but remembering the list of chemicals in it, went for this which has a shorter ingredient list. Feel kinda bleah, late afernoon snooze.

DINNER: 6:30, pasta with smoked moz and fresh tomatos, 2 small pieces of very cheesy pizza, moz and tomato salad, hunger 3/5. Restaurant downtown with B, did not enjoy it, too much cheese. Tired, did not feel good.