Stomach in my Stomach (Sunday)

ADDENDA:
I know I loosen up on the food obsession on the weekends, but this was not a normal Sunday - for today was Betsy's bridal shower, and I had no idea of what that entailed, food or otherwise...

BREAKFAST: 10am, 3 pancakes and 3 pieces bacon, hunger 4/5.
Residual hunger from yesterday's ride, good thick sleep. This was my opportunity to make pancakes from scratch for Betsy and her mom, experimented with adding more milk and whipping the eggs in the mixer, they came out fantastic (my horn: toot toot!) Really good vibe to cook for B's mom. When my mom was ill and I was taking care of her, I made pancakes and bacon often, it reminded us of when my dad would cook breakfast.

AM SNACK: 11:30am, medium wedge of watermelon, hunger 3/5.
B and Momma gone, alone. B implied there would be food at the bridal thing, so I resisted eating a full lunch.

PM SNACKS: 2-4pm, a few crustless finger sandwiches, fancy chocolate cookies, a piece of coconut cake, a little mozz & tomato salad, a few bites of a gingerman cookie, a few chocolate pocky, a couple of glasses of seltzer.
When I nervously entered B's cousin's house (Hi Cathy! Hi Janet!), Momma quickly grabbed me by the arm and threw me to the wolves, but not before an impromptu photo session. Someone behind me stuck a gingerbread man cookie in my hand, and not knowing the significance of it, promptly bit it's arm off - I was hungry! A few crustly sandwiches, some yummy cookies, the gourmet fumes of a party well presented. The meet n' greet aspect, like a bike ride, kept my stomach tight n' quiet, fortunately, but the sweets did give me a headache after a bit. I found there was a matching bride-cookie, uneaten - doh! Good thing I didn't eat the head. The paraplegic groom and the well-dressed bride cookie came home with me and B.

On two side notes, I was surprised when Janet told me she was reading this blog. A) I haven't really advertised it, but I keep in public to help me stay honest and B) it's kinda boring, isn't it? But it was really nice talking to her about it and her own diet dilemmas. I told her that I obsess about everything that goes into my mouth here, on my blog, so I don't have to obsess about it at all other times - that never really occurred to me till it popped out of my mouth! And on a second side note, during a conversation with another about the diet this person ate to lose weight, she mentioned something called 'diet bread'. That gave me the heeby-jeebies on a few different levels. Not quite sure why yet, but maybe I'll work it with Ilsa!

LUNCH: 6pm, 3/4 of potato spinach kinish with mustard. 3/4 of a can of diet Sprite.
Not starving, but knew I was going to be hungry soon, and dinner wouldn't be until later. This was the last can of Sprite in the house, couldn't finish it because it just tasted.....thin and chemically bitter under a false sweetness.

DINNER: 9:45pm, (add the adjective 'wonderful to al the following) a few pieces of bread, 2 marinated chickpea bruschetta, a large portion of warm tripe a la parmegiano, a bit of green salad, a fistful of tender cold green and white beans, beef cheek ravioli with truffles and a goose liver reduction, pistachio chocolate semifreddo, 5 little samplings of different sorbets, one glass presseco, lots of water.
This was a meal to remember, to celebrate life with, to bond with and recognize life-long friends. My BFF Tamar took me out to a dinner of my choice to celebrate the end of my bachelorhood, as she originally couldn't make my bachelor party. I was a bit tentative about choosing a restaurant, as Tamar is a strict vegan (she eats no animal products what-so-ever). I love and respect that about her, and enjoy changing up and eating vegan-friendly when I'm out with her, but if given a choice of any restaurant, it'll by default probably involve tasty animals.

So I threw out Babbo, Batali's premier spot, and she scored reservations. I've never been, and had an idea of what to expect judging from his television shows, writings, cook books and interviews I've taken in over the years. I did know I would have to eat stuff I didn't normally go for, and that stuff would not be shared with Tamar. I know Ilsa wants me to expand my palate, but I don't think this is what she had in mind.

Everything was exceptionally fresh and well presented. The waiter was mercifully totally prepared to arrange a menu to suite Tamar's needs, and she was pleased as punch, which made the shared enjoyment of this meal more so. Uhhh, pleasing. The green bean appetiser was cold, but the beans were blanched then iced to a perfect crisp but not fibrous consistency - I gotta dig up the technique in the cook book. I've never eaten tripe, so this was a challenge. The portion was surprisingly large (I guess it's not flying out of the kitchen!) and looked really good, like little strips of a cross between fajita meat and octopus, bathed in a fresh tomato sauce with just a sprinkling of cheese on top. Putting it in my mouth, my first thought was, "Hmmm, tastes like what a zoo's monkey cage smells like!" - very gamy to the point of funk curling up my nose a little. The feel, the bite of the meet was wonderfully moist and just the right amount of springiness. The grilled bread that came with it cut the funk nicely, and before I knew it the plate was gone, and my stomach was full of stomach. Next time I have Chinatown dimsum, I'm definitely gonna join Danny for a selection of tripes (a cow does have 4 stomachs, after all!)

The beef cheek ravioli is as signature Batali dish, so I had it thinking, hey, how weird can a beef ravioli be? Again, gamey. This cut of meat is very flavorful, and how it was prepared with the liver and truffle seemed to accent the gaminess rather than hide it. The pasta wrapper had a nice bite to it that was similar (but somehow better) than the pasta I've made....something to aspire to.

I didn't know what a semifreddo was (why not just go the whole freddo?) but the pistachio chocolate thing (a pistachio mouse with a chocolate shell over a thin chocolate cookie surrounded by a pistachio sauce) was really good, and thankfully not gamy at all. Despite not eating most of the day, I was beyond stuffed and slowly pedalled my way home. Tamar is da bomb. I hope something good happens to her soon, so I can take her (and B) back there soon.

Apple Turnovers from Heaven (Saturday)

ADDENDA:

I woke at 5am to make a 6:20 train to Garrison with my road bike. Off the train at 8, my lungs were burning and my legs were screaming about five minutes later as I pushed my way up the steep grade from river to hilltop. Three miles east lay my parent's gravesite, which I visited and had a good cry and an outloud conversation, saying things I would of taken great pleasure in saying to them if they were here.

Thing is, I did this journey a few weeks before I left for my cross country bikeride - I wanted to attack and climb the hills of the Hudson Valley to get me ready for the climbs of the California mountains and Ozarks. This time I went more to commune with the folks, get my head clear as we come closer to my wedding day.

On the previous ride, I distinctly remember my hunger and what I ate - a slice of pizza outside of Croton-Harmon and a big plate of Chinese food around Irvington. Add to that a huge case of the runs in the public bathroom outside the 1 train in Van Cordlant Park.... This time, my mood was more....serene. The ride went by in a flash, the hills weren't as challenging as I remember (bumps compared to the Ozarks) and what I ate was considerably different....

BREAKFAST #1: 5:30am, toasted bagel with good butter, hunger 2/5. Not hungry, but too early to buy donuts. Even Dunkin' doesn't open till 6am.

BREAKFAST #2: 10am, BLT bagel, bag of linden cookies (lots of water), hunger 3/5. Outside the graveyard at Adams Corner's, me and mom ate snacks here several times when we visited my father. The smell of bacon tempted me. This is the first time having conventional bacon in a while, and I was kinda surprised how much I didn't like it - salty to the point of unpleasantness, it actually interfered with the porky, smokey flavor that makes bacon so good.

AM SNACK: 11:30ish, swig of fizzy water (lots of water). Ilsa gave me a packet of something as an alternative to Emergen-C, which I was hoping to use as a low-sodium replacement for Gatorade. Emergenn-C tasted like pee to me. This stuff tasted like burnt pee. I think I'm going to invent my own sports drink involving fresh citrus and apple juices (from a juicer), honey, water etc. Doesn't this Emergen-C stuff come in a pill?

PM SNACK: 1pm, apple turnover (lots of water), hunger 2/5. I passed through a huge farmers market in Peekskill about 10 miles away from Adams Coerns, but I was still bacon-stuffed. Another 20 miles up and down, I was grinding up the hill in Ossening, I remembered the farmers market there from the previous mountain bike ride, but I just was not hungry. As I squeaked past the turnoff, the idea of CIDER DONUTS raced through my mind, and I immediately turned back and shot down the hill. The donut peeps were there, but this time I had a big apple turnover.

Oh man. Growing up, I loved them hostess apple pies, with the little bits of dehydrated white apple in syrupy apple bath enveloped by a flakey crust. As an adult, I rarely eat these, as they're way too sweet and kinda crappy tasting. This apple turnover was the adult version. The crust was light and flakey, encrusted with granulated sugar but more buttery than sweet. The insides was a dark brown apple mush, equal parts sweet and tart, and overwhelmingly apple-y - absolutely no syrup, and didn't need any. I got a good slow sugar rush, that pushed me back up the hill.

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, large wedge of watermelom, hunger 4/5. Taking the train home from Van Cordlant, I realized I had enough energy to ride all the way home, but not enough time. Had a cliff bar on me, but just wasn't hungry. By the time I got home and relaxed, my stomach loosened and my jaw slackened and down went the watermelon. Yum!

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, 3 graham crackers with organic peanutbutter, hunger 4/5. Ravenous.

DINNER: 7:00pm, large mostly vegetarian Ethiopina meal, hunger 4/5. Ate with B and her mom, whose never had Ethiopian food before. Ordered a weird beef n' kale thing to go along with, my muscles were a little burnt and long-chain proteins like beef help quicken recovery.

PM SNACK: 9pm, cherry italian ice, hunger 3/5. Jonesing for sweets, felt good.

PM SNACK: midnight, one bite of gnochi, small bowl of rice crispies and whole milk, hunger 3/5. Hunger from the day's activity reared up again. Tried making some frozen gnochi, but didn't let the water boil and it became an unappetizing porridge. The small bowl of cereal satisfied me.

Eatin' Like I Mean It

ADDENDA: Summer friday off work, too rainy to ride. Laundry, food shopping, cooking....

BREAKFAST: 10am, pancakes and 4 pieces bacon, a little seltzer, hunger 4/5. Experimented with adding more milk for a thinner pancake, much better. Also, paying attention to WHY this is good, I could taste everything clearly, milk, eggs, flour, the butter it was cooked in. Wolkfing down pancakes from mix, you pay too much attention and you notice the weird industrial flavors....

LUNCH: 1:15pm, whole wheat totinni with pesto and sauted mushrooms, lemon seltzer, hunger 4/5. Went to pathmark for groceries just before, thought to look for lunch too. Felt like pasta, but on Ilsa's advice, thought it best to experiment with whole wheat. Only two brands had whole wheat versions, Barilla had a 'whole wheat blend' which involved plain white flour, eggs and a chemical mix of vitamins. Only Renzi, imported from Italy, was just plain whole wheat semolina, period. Not even water! Made it, not as bad as I remember, still there was a certain iffiness to it's chew. Can try boiling it an extra minute next time.

PM SNACK: 2:15pm, cherry italian ice, hunger 2/5. Craving sugar.

DINNER: 7pm, pork over cold rice noodles, a vegetable dumpling and a piece of grilled eggplant, hunger 4/5. Not enough food.

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, 2 donuts from dunkin' donuts, hunger 4/5. Craving sugar. Hungry. Worried about effecting tomorrow's ride.

Binge-man Vs. Breakfast Zero

BREAKFAST ZERO: Last night I was determined not to eat any sweets or snacks. Ilsa said at some point I'm going to have to sacrifice to see any changes. This french fry ban is fine, but I'm not a big french fry dude. Obviously, my sweets intake is driven by something big.

I felt fine at 10:30 when I got home, though I heard the dulche gelato kind of calling me. I didn't say anything, but it must of been written on my face, because Betsy sweetly asked me to not eat gelato so late at night. Part of me wanted to eat some just so she didn't think I wasn't eating it because she told me not to. But if I ate some, I'd have to write about it here, and how lame is that? So I showered, watched some TV, read more in the food-education book, put myself down around 12:30.....hungry, easily 4/5.

I remembered how when I travelled Europe by backpack, my food intake dropped drastically because of the language barrier, lack of cash and the lack of an open kitchen to graze in late at night in youth hostels. I went to sleep hungry often, because I had no choice. I lost weight. But now, 1:30am and staring at the ceiling, wide awake....I'm of the theory that if you can't sleep, you should get out of bed and do something till you feel like sleeping....but all I wanted to do was eat! Eat gelato.

So I got up to zoom in on the boob tube, and it occured to me. Weekends I can loosen up a bit and indulge. But 5 work days, I have eat in a more goal-oriented way. It's 2 in the morning. Rather than snack, let's do breakfast. Breakfast Zero! Toasted a garlic bagel, slathered it in the good butter. Enjoyed eating it. Clock said 2:12. Still hungry. Want more. This is the begining of a binge, I thought. OK, I will wait 8 minutes, and after those 8 minutes, I'll eat gelato. For the first 2 minutes, my eye kept wandering to the time, but then the TV distracted me and all of a sudden it was 2:30. Huh. Felt sleepy, went to bed. In the battle of binge vs. breakfast zero, zero won. I had a small twinge of pride - I didn't avoid late eating, but I did go waking hours without sweets.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, large bowl of hot oatmeal and a small banana, small amount of lime seltzer, hunger 3/5. Would of been hungrier, but was groggy and not feeling too hot. The organic oatmeal had no discernable difference than the usual Quaker Oats. I put in a pinch of sea salt and a pinch of evaporated cane suger - noticed it tasted too salty! Need butter and maybe milk next time. Banana was oddly satisfying, maybe my body is in a bit of a sweets-riot mood?

AM SNACK: 10am, 24 oz still water, mint.

LUNCH: 12:30, turkey and swiss on whole wheat, big bag of sunchips, hunger 4/5. At the deli accross the street, the smallest bag od sunchips was the 99cent bag, but the whole bag had 20% daily sodium, which for a pile of chips is low. When I ordered the sandwich, the counter person asked, "fresh turkey?" to which I said yes - it was real baked sliced turkey breast, not a salty pressed mess! It was a little dry and stringy, but tasted pretty salt-free. And only 2 slices of cheese, so what I thought would be a salt-bomb of a lunch was actually pretty reasonable. An hour later in a meeting, I found myself having energy and felt good.

PM SNACK: 5:15pm, 6 lindens cookies, hunger 4.5/5. Feeling very tired, groggy, very hungry, slammed by meeting all day. Almost went for a haagen dazz bar, but thought I should save ice cream for the good gelatto. Lindens are not organic, but at least they're baked in NYS. About 10x more ingredients than the organic cookies, and now that I'm payiing more attention to them, they leave a slightly unpleasant bitter feeling in my mouth after eat them which I don't get from the organic cookie. Hmmm. Wanted this snack because I'm going to Trader Joes after work to pick up something to go with the corn, didn't want to be starving...

DINNER: 8pm, sauted shrimp and mushrooms, sweet corn on the cob, gelatto. Hunger 3/5. Fun cooking raw frozen shrimp from trader joes, in a simple preparation of butter, garlic, lime juice and tabasco (and a dash of sea salt) - for some reason I never ooked shrimp, it was surprisingly easy, encouraged by the instructions on the bag. I want to learn how to peel and devein myuself, so I can get frsh from chinatown. The sweet corn from the farmers market was horrible, not sweet and a little gummy. Gelatto ruled as usual.

Soy 'Milk' is gross.

ADDENDA: Wore my il lab T-shirt to work today. Lordy, thats some good stuff. Ten pint tops get a free t-shirt. We're working on one for Betsy right now. Sorry, Ilsa.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, bowl of cornflakes with unsweetened soy milk, hunger 3/5. Even though I got the good milk yesterday, I forgot about the oatmeal, and now that I think about it, some bananas would rock a breakfast, too, and maybe help with the sweets thing. I still have this unsweetened soy milk in stock, and it would feel dumb to throw it away, so I had it with the cereal. It's kinda like slightly chalky water, now that I really focus on what it tastes like, and especially after eating cereal with the good milk last week.

AM SNACK: 10am, 24 oz still water, mint, hunger 3/5. Hot out. My breakfast wasn't big enough. I think that's a constant problem. Maybe I should have a second breakfast, like I have multiple lunches? Maybe something I can regularly pack?

LUNCH: Noon, falafel 'platter', shrimp & rice platter, hunger 4/5. Went out for falafel, felt like I needed something more substantial than just a sandwich. Got the so-called platter, which was just the sandwich packaged in it's individual components, with a little more lettuce. Walking back, saw the good lamb cart, got their nicely spiced shrimp with veg and basmanti, brought it back to the office. Now feel really full, in a good way. As I was walking between the carts, I thought about what I craved specifically....not sweets, it was a craving but also a stomach-clenched hunger....I craved carbs! Rice, potatoes, pasta, heavy starch. Weird, never thought of it that way. Maybe because I skipped out on a heavy starch last night?

PM SNACK: 2:30pm, organic chocolate chip cookie, 24 oz still water. hunger 2/5. Big lunch is sitting in my stomach nicely, but the cravings for sugar came on strong. These mad moose products are too sweet, which is odd, as they are not fat-free or something dumb like that. Like the person who formulated the recipe wasn't confident that the quality of their ingredients wouldn't shine, so they've decided to mask it by knocking you out with sweetness. About 30 minutes after this cookie, got a headache...

DINNER: 7:15pm, large cold sesame noodles, large spinach salad, hunger 4/5. Quick dinner at Dojo before the movie. The carrot ginger dressing tasted salty, used it sparingly. Ordered a big mass of noodles on purpose, see how it would make me feel, how it would satiate me. Well, I felt fine through dinner and when I went to Whole Foods on the way home to pick up oatmeal and bananas, I didn't feel like buyinig any sweets.

Sweets Memory

ADDENDA:

Over the ice cream cone after lunch #2 today, I was thinking about my sweet tooth, which impresses Ilsa so strongly. Part of it is physiological, undoubtedly, but part of it is emotional, going back to the gooey Parental memories. I only have really strongly positive and really strongly negative memories when it comes to sweets. I remember going to Clove Lake Park with my mom and brother when I was a little kid and she got us soft-serve ice cream cones. I remember mine was a swirl of chocolate and vanilla, and absolutely huge, as big as my head, and I ate every bite. Another was again with my mom and brother, outside of a shopping strip, and a woman was giving out free samples of Twix, which was a new candy bar then. I remember sitting in the car with my mom and brother, eating those small candy bars, wishing I had another but really enjoying it - a candy bar not only with the approval of my mom, but actually eating one with her.

I guess those are really the only two purely positive memories of sweets. Most of my memories involve sneaking cookies and brownies from the cupboard, and hoping my parents wouldn't find out. And I remember finding my dad's stash of candy and chocolate in his office at the top of our house - it had the same excitement as finding a stash of porn (but that's a conversation for a different kind of blog, he he). He too had a massive sweet tooth that my mom didn't approve of or indulge. My dad had vague memories of the sweet shops of his childhood in Vienna, which are famous for all sorts of cream cakes and tarts. I snuck candy (sno-caps: my first encounter with dark chocolate!) from my dad's shelf. Chocolate, sweets craving, love, guilt, all mixed in a sloppy stew.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, toasted sesame bagel with hummus, hunger 4/5. Woke up hungry, thought about making the last of the bacon but felt lazy. Wanted something heavy, realized I was out of oatmeal. Wah! Mmmm, oatmeal with butter n' bacon!!

AM SNACK: 11am, 24 oz water, mint, hunger 3/5. How is an altoid any different than a lifesaver, really? They're like the rounds left over from making the holes in the lifesavers.

LUNCH #1: 12:15pm, large green salad n' dressing, hunger 4/5. Brought in from home

LUNCH #2: 1:15pm, lamb pita and a chocolate cone, hunger 4/5. From my favorite cart on 45th and 6th, where the chef used to cook at the Russian Tea Room. I was paying attention to it's flavor - it tastes VERY strong and full bodied and, uh, tasty, but only tastes a little salty. Does this mean it has only a little salt in it, or was it the hand of skilled chef who used a large amount of salt appropriately?

PM SNACK: 4:45, samosa chat, hunger 4/5. After making plans to go to Whole Food to pick up groceries and make a healthy fun dinner for me & B, I realized it would be almost 4 hours till then, so I went out looking for something more than a snack, less than a meal. First thing that popped into my mind was PIZZA, but then I thought I should save the indulgence for salty 'za when the 'za is something special, not just to get me through the day. The second thought was FRIES, from McDonalds, very convenient if not a little evil, then I remembered fries have been sacrificed. So I went by the Indian joint on 46th, usually packed out with people, nice and empty - so I ordered something from the kitchen instead of the trays. Two fried potato samosa with chickpeas in a weird white sweetish and red vinegar sauce. Still felt hungry after eating it, thought of more ice cream or a cookie. Ten minutes later, it passed.

DINNER: 7:45pm, breaded sea scallops with bacon, steamed asparagus, corn on the cob, small bowl gelato, hunger 4/5. Went a-shoppin' at Whole Foods and got asparagus, and sweet corn too as a backup incase it wasn't good. Found simple directions online, steamed the aspargus for 10 minutes. The first few spears were ok to good, but I noticed they got mushier as they sat on the plate - AH, that's why they give this kind of stuff an ice bath on TV! The corn is in season and amazing, I could eat it everyday. I think I just might try that....corn n' mints all day long....I found a recipe for baked sea scallops on line, which involved an egg and bacon - two ingredients I had. Made the bread crumbs in the blender with a roll, they came out really good, a lot of fun to make. No salt in the recipe, other than what came off the lower-sodium bacon.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, small bowl gelator, hunger 3/5. I wasn't in the mood for sweet right after dinner, but Betsy HAD to have some, so I ate along with her. A few hours later, I was in the mood. Dulche de Leche flavor, oh my.

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, small amount of saltless pretzels, hunger 2/5. Why did I eat this? I was feeling restless....

Minted Monday

ADDENDA: Went by the local greenmarket yesterday afternoon, it was looking a bit anemic, and the lone veg seller had a small, wilty selection. Will try to stop by the world-renowned Union Square green market on the way home for a full salad. I hear they have meats n' other good stuff, too....

BREAKFAST: 8am, one altoids mint, hunger 1/5. Last night's mac n' cheese attack was weighing on me this morning. I wonder how long I can go on mints before needing real food....

AM SNACK: 10am, another mint, hunger 3/5. A little hungry, but bizzy with work. Ah, Ilsa will be thrilled with this nutritional experiment....

LUNCH: 12:45pm, megasoy burritto with black beans, chips and salsa, mint & 24 oz still water. hunger 4/5. Haven't been back to Burrittoville since starting to think about my diet more. I thought it would be much saltier than it was, oddly enough. Eating the corn chips, I started to feel a bit guilty - these are really the equivalent of french fries, aren't they? Was tempted to get an organic cookie when coming into the building, but thought I'd have a mint now, and go for a sweet when I REALLY craved it this afternoon. Got a VERY slight headache after, but I think it's because I haven't been drinking (mint and water eaten after walk back to office)

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, organic chocolate brownie, 24 oz still water, hunger 3/5. Too sweet, this 'Mad Moose' brownie is front loaded with sugar and too light on the dark chocolate. Funny, I'm jonesing for sugar but when I eat this thing, it's too sweet. I bet I can make a much better all-organic brownie....

PM SNACK: 6:30pm. Small handful of saltless pretzels from the green market, hunger 4/5.

DINNER: 7:30pm, large green salad and italian dressing, 2 ears sweet corn with salt, butter, grated cheese, bowl of left over mac n' cheese. Hunger 4/5. We went to the green market in Union Square and bought the ingredients for a glorious salad, wow, it tasted good. The jersey corn tasted like it was injected with sugar, so good and fresh. Unfortunately, it was not enough and I finished last night's mac n' cheese, which again tasted salty.

EVENING SNACK: 9pm. saltless pretzels and peanutbutter, hunger 4/5. Good thing that chocolate wasn't here, or it would of been gone. This snack was Betsy's suggestion, and it did the trick. Got a good night sleep after. No serious sweets!

I Coulda Killed Someone with that Chocolate

ADDENDA: Betsy found the kilo of Jaques Torres chocolate, openned it and ate a big piece. That made it irresistable to me - when it was sealed, it was off limits and awaiting baking. Once openned, I found myself craving it more and more. After the second piece, I realized unless it disappeared, it would be chocolate for dinner and breakfast for the next few days. So I tossed it out the window - I couldn't bear to toss such an high quality piece of chocolate in the garbage, as I'd probaby go into the garbage at a later point to dig it out and clean it off.

Almost 5 pounds in block form - if that hit someone, it would of made a heck of a headline in the next day's Post - "DEATH BY CHOCOLATE" "WIFE'S CHOCOLATE CRAVING LEADS TO MAD KILO TOSS", etc. If there is a next time, it'll go in the chute in the hallway to the compactor.

Betsy got me a box of wintergreen altoids mints to help me with my sweets cravings. I'm kinda hesitant to believe in their power as much as Betsy, but I'm willing to give it a shot.


BREAKFAST: 10am, half bagel with good butter, lot of water.

LUNCH #1: Noon, veg dim sum (mock shrimp in rice paper roll, mashed taro tresure boxes, mini sticky rice in lotus leaf, small mixed gluten, red bean thingy, spinach dumpling)

PM SNACK: 1pm, wintergreen altoids mint

LUNCH #2: 4:30pm organic low-sodium bacon on toasted bagel, large square of dark chocolate, seltzer

DINNER #1: 7pm, half a trader joes pizza.

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, half square of chocolate, then out the window!

DINNER #2: 9pm, bowl of Annie's mac n' cheese. Hunger 3/5. Salt fiasco. This box of pasta and sauce powder has been in my cupboard for a while - the entire box (of which I'd usually eat) has about 125% of the daily recommended sodium. I ate half the box, and again, this is the first time I realized how salty it tastes.

Right now, I'm reading How I Learned to Cook, (Witherspoon), a collection of essays by famous chefs. On the way to work, one mentioned when he discovered salt - without it, a steak was just eh, but with it, it brought all the flavors to life. More notably, he cooked steak after steak, starting with a few grains then going up till it was just right and more until it tasted salty instead of good. Hmmm. That mac n' cheese tasted salty more than it tasted good. I'm going to make a simple mac n cheese with whole wheat pasta, lots of good butter, and grate a high quality parmesan for the correct balance of salty cheesiness. It won't be a low-sodium meal, but it'll be a lot less than that box crap.

The Discovery of Pancakes

ADDENDA: I rarely eat popcorn at home, but I felt the urge to make it late last night, but not with the airpopper, but fried in oil. Is this a symptom of me not wanting to deny myself anything? At the movies a few nights ago, I skipped the popcorn because the sodium would of been over the top....

BREAKFAST: 11am, humerous pancakes with a little water and nothing else, hunger 3/5. After last night's binge, my stomach was a little queazy this morning, but I was so looking forward to making panckaes from scratch. I used the mixer we got from the registry for the first time, making a batch of dry mix, using all organic ingredients. Then I took a measure and mixed in some organic whole milk and eggs, and fried them up in the good butter. Oh my. If I got these pancakes in a restaurant, I'd be DAMN, these are some fine pancakes! Fluffy, just a tinge of sweetness, you can taste notes of fresh egg and milk, nice chew. Wow. I totally forgot to fry up some bacon, and didn't need it, this was enough to focus on.

LUNCH: 3pm, BLT on whole grain with sprouts, avocado, diet black cherry soda, watermelon, hunger 3/5. Nice ordered-in sandwichs with B and old HS friend in town for tonight's bachelor party. Funny how bacon appealled because I skipped it this morning.

DINNER: 7pm, various pizza with little cheese (lardo, pepperoni, spicey cheeseless), vegetable and meat crudo, various gelato, 1 beer and 2 glasses wine. This was my bachelor party's dinner at Otto, mmmmm pizza and icecream! As with real good pizza, a little cheese goes a long way. And the Lardo (basically a crust that has a little bit of garlic, olive oil and squares of cured pork fat) was really weird but tasty. Pork fat pizza.....

EVENING: 9pm-1am, 3 beers, one shot. The dinner kept me 75% sober.

Cuffed

ADDENDUM: I just ordered a one-touch digital blood pressure wrist cuff from Amazon. After my dad's stroke, my parent's got an old school blood pressure cuff, with the inflation, the deflation, the needle going round. They took each other's pressure regularly and took mine. I wish I paid more attention to what they were doing and talking about, I wish I could talk to them about it now.

BREAKFAST: 7:15am, hot oatmeal and half a diet sprite, hunger 3/5. Hadn't made oatmeal since the winter, it's usually a cold weather food for me, but I was craving something heavy, and another bagel is a little boring. So I prepared it as I always do, with water, a dash of sugar and a dash of salt....hmmm. Just finished the Quaker tube, gonna look for an organic brand. And use the evaporated cane sugar, the sea salt, and maybe whole milk and the good butter to make it a real treat. The diet sprite AGAIN tasted a bit....fakey and thin. Not different, just realizing that after cutting off the diet coke, I don't particularly LIKE diet soda!! Weird. It was such a staple for me for so many years. Ilsa warned me this might happen, discovering stuff that I was in the habit of eating might be found distasteful upon cutting back on them and reflection.

AM SNACK: 10:15am, 25 oz of still water from the sippy cup. Hot day, road the good bike to work, going to leave early and shoot out to Coney & back. I just learned it's 4 miles door to door to work. Thats 40 miles on a bike a week, just for going to work! That's so cool!

LUNCH: 12:15, shrimp curry & basmanti, dal, one pakora, 2 small pieces of nan, water, hunger 4/5. Relaxed afternoon lunch with Erikka. Cheap n' tasty.

PM SNACK: 1:15pm, 3.5 oz dark chocolate bar, hunger 3/5. After lunch went to the Hershey's tourist trap store to buy a 'Cacao Reserve' bar - Consumer Reports named it #1 in dark chocolate, which surprised my chocolate-snob self. On one hand, it's friggin' Hershey and it contains both milk fat and milk, which means technically it's milk chocolate and not proper chocolate (properly snobby chocolate only uses cocoa butter as it's fat), but after eating it, I must say it was damn good, a nice balance of bitter and sweet, smoothness. As I'm slowly eating it, hoping not to like it, I thought of the 'mindful eating' document Ilsa gave me. Without purposefully doing it, I was paying close attention to what I was eating, how it was interacting with my mouth and taste buds, how it felt from touching my lips to going down the hatch - it really does increase the pleasure. Regardless, the chocolate was really good, but in more of a generalized 'dark chocolate' way - Jaques Torres chocolate is still more interesting and tastier. So there.

DINNER: 7:30pm, sauted brocolli and mushroom with seitan over brown basmanti, small green salad, chocotlate hagen daaz bar. Hunge 3/5. Was good, but not as good as the first time, too bad as Betsy was eating with me. Maybe overcooked teh broc a little. Seitan wasn't as yummy as I remember it, from when I was vegan. After the meal, I was unsatisfied. I craved.....meat?

PM SNACK: 9pm, small amount of onion rings, hunger 4/5. Remainder from the freezer, not as high in sodium as I thought, but still not a health food. At least it had whole onions, unlike that weird industrial onion ring stuff I ate the other day.

PM SNACK: 12 midnight, bagel and humus. hunger 4/5. -sigh-

PM SNACK: 12:45am. Popcorn fried in olive oil, a little sea salt. hunger 4/5. Just hungry. Should of had meat. Thought of eating something sweet, but not desiring sweet, oddly enough. A different kind of hunger.

He-Man Hi-Bloodpressure Club

ADDENDA:
My friend Patrick just called me up and said, "Dude, I didn't know you have high blood pressure." I said, "HOW THE HELL did you know that?" Google. Huh. How about that. These internets are pretty nifty. He's on a medication which he is happy with. I gotta get a cuff to start seeing what mine is doing. If in the end my genetics trump my diet, it's an option I may revisit.

Over today's lunch I finished the Real Food book. The last chapter is about the Omnivore's Dilemma - for example, a Koala eats nothing but eucalyptus leaves it's whole life, and gets everything it needs from it. The downside is if the tree dies, so does the Koala. People can eat just about anything, and to get what we need nutritionally, have to eat a wide variety. The downside is not automatically knowing what to eat, but if a tree dies, we can move next door and eat the bush, or the animal in the bush. I really enjoyed the book, which is a de facto rational argument both ecologically and nutritionally against extreme diets and the effects of capitalism on our food, and scientific exploration of why whole traditional, non-industrial foods like raw unhomogonized diary, organic grass fed meat and wild fish, fresh organic fruit and veg are the way to go. (Real Food: What to Eat and Why, by Nina Planck, Bloomsbury 2006) Next up: a compendium of essays by various well-known chefs about how they came to love cooking and food....

(BTW, the title is reference to the Little Rascal's "He-Man Woman-Haters Club" - oh those rascally un-PC kids!)

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, toasted onion bagel with the good butter. Hunger 1.5/5. Not hungry after last night's late night nosh, but surprisingly tired. I've been staying up late (till 1am ish) the past few nights, but this is the first morning I'm kind of exhausted.

AM SNACK: 10am, 24 oz of water. Hunger 3/5. Really thirsty when I got to work, maybe the high temp? Sippy cup rocks!

LUNCH: Noon, roasted herb turkey breast, onion rings, baby carrots, Hunger 4/5. The side options were greasy looking plantains and mushy, pale looking veg. Fries looked appealing, but no fries, so onion rings....as I was eating them, I felt guilty....sure it's not fries, but isn't this the nutritional equivalent? This ain't the Attorney General trial, ignorance is no excuse. But they were damn tasty, though really tasting it, I noticed it's not really onion, but an onion mince that is shaped. I bet I could make an AWESOME wholly organic onion ring. (At some point after I get married in September, I'm going to go over this blog and figure out the things that would be healthier and funner to make myself). Turkey was actual real meat, not a roll or processed, but still tasted salty, and the 'gravy' didn't help.

No dessert there appealled to me, so as an experiment had the baby carrots to help with sugar cravings. Immediately after eating, my first instinct was "SUGAR NOW!" but thinking about it, I think that was more just habit than that gut-feeling of physically needing sugar. That so-called craving dissipated once I got up and split the caf.

PM SNACK: 3pm, 1 oz organic chocolate pieces, hunger 2/5. Not so much hungry as craving sweet. Back to the bad-sushi spot to explore their organic sweets, got a little baggy of small square chocolate pieces. Though not advertised as such, this was non-dairy dark chocolate, but they amped up the sweetness to mask the natural bitterness of the cocoa, not cool. As with pizza, I've expanded my palate over the years to appreciate chocolate like some dig wine. (I'm so classy - I'm a pizza & chocolate snob!) Though the sweet kick is coming from organic cane sugar and not corn syrup or malt, it's just unnecessary and makes the chocolate taste a little like an imitation of dark chocolate. At least there was no sodium in it...

DINNER: 7:15pm, 7 boiled perogis (meat, potato, kraut mushroom, spinach cheese), a smear of sauted onions, side of kasha with mushroom gravy, water. Hunger 4/5. Excellent yumminess at Veselka. I noticed that their kasha was a lot less salty-tasting than the frozen stuff. Makes me think I can really make it at home in a low sodium version....

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, bottle of chimay red beer, 1 small piece of fried sausage. hunger 3/5. Birthday drinks for a friend of B's, was slightly craving sweet, the beer damped it but didn't meet it. The little piece of snausage was SO tasty, but I wasn't that hungry and wasn't hard to deny myself from pigging out on it. If I didn't eat before hand, I would of gobbled up several fistfuls of that delightfully salty treat.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, cherry italian ice, hunger 3/5. Maybe the last few nights sleeplessness was from the icecream late? Gotta find something without cornsyrup and all that crap. Slept well.

State of Denial

ADDENDA: Before I begin, an answer to my own question. From the American Heart Association website (www.ameicanheart.org)

Healthy American adults should eat less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day. This is about 1 teaspoon of sodium chloride (salt). To illustrate, the following are sources of sodium in the diet.

• 1/4 teaspoon salt = 575 mg sodium
• 1/2 teaspoon salt = 1,150 mg sodium
• 3/4 teaspoon salt = 1,725 mg sodium
• 1 teaspoon salt = 2,300 mg sodium
• 1 teaspoon baking soda = 1000 mg sodium

• 
  

ONE FRIGGIN' TEASPOON!??! Anyway, met with Ilsa yesterday, good vibe. The takeaway from our meeting is that I have to start denying myself SOMETHING, anything. Obviously, the big gorilla in the room is Salt, with his mate, the ever-sexy Chocolate. (Mmmmm, salty chocolate!) But if we start with the biggun's, I just won't be happy so we're starting small. I eat french fries more out of habit than because I really like them, so they are the first to walk my nutritional plank. It should be easy, as it'll be messing more with convenience than flat-out desire.

Also on the agenda, is to focus on the breathing thing again, meditate for a minute or two on how I'm taking in air and releasing, ummm, co2 or whatnot. Thirdly, the broccoli was a good start, gotta work my way in the produce aisle a bit deeper. We also addressed a topic that's come clear from keeping this journal blog - I like them sweeties. I don't think I'm going to purposefully cut down on them more than I'm comfortable with, but I should focus on whats going on in my head and in my body cravings when I do indulge. Sweets may not be directly connected to my high blood pressure, but it's definitely connected to being a little bit chubby (which, in effect IS connected to blood pressure) and future diabetes.

I was hoping to make a low salt pancake from scratch this weekend, but what the hell is up with baking soda = sodium? Gaaah!

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, large piece of watermelon, hunger 3/5. Second night of insomnia, got to bed around 1ish, think the rich food the night before didn't help. With a sweet tooth in mind, thought a big piece of fruit would help curb it later in the day...in theory....maybe they can genetically engineer a chocolate watermelon?

AM SNACK: 11am, 24 oz still water, hunger 3/5. On Ilsa's sheet about sugar addiction, it says sometimes dehydration can be mistaken for sugar cravings.....B gave me a new water bottle for our anniversary, all over-designed n' everything. Now I don't have to move my neck to take a big swig!!

LUNCH #1: 11:45am, green salad and Italian dressing, hunger 4/5. After yesterday's bad sushi and last night's nudge from Ilsa, brought in the salad, this time a bit of dressing in a small plastic container to avoid the mystery stuff from the caf.

PM SNACK: 1pm, 24 oz still water. This new water bottle is, if we are honest, an adult sippy cup.

LUNCH #2: 2:30pm, fried flounder on hero with lettuce, a little Italian dressing, hunger 4/5. Meetings kept me from going earlier. From the "FOOD IS LOVE" food cart. The bulgogi and gyoza looked tempting- an American-styled food cart that has random Korean items, because the proprietor is Korean - could be either really good or really bad. Wolfed it down walking back to office. Thinking about dessert and sweet teeth, decided to wait a little before something sweet to see how my craving goes.

PS SNACK: 4pm, a large organic chocolate chip cookie. Hunger 4/5. Poked around the same stall I got the suspicious sushi, noticed they are now carrying a line of organic cookies and brownies, made in Brooklyn. Huzzah! The last three ingredients are organic baking soda, organic baking powder and....salt. Not sea salt or organic salt, just salt. Bleah. And no clue of how many mgs of sodium, either.

I was intending to sit and mindfully eat this cookie, but I was so driven to eat it, I started munching it on the elevator then kind of sat infront of the computer and did business while it disappeared into the center of my face. How'd dat happen?! I enjoyed it, but I didn't really appreciate it as much as I could of. Is that how I eat sweets? Ewww.

DINNER: 8:30pm, bibimbop, small amount of japjae, kimchi and weird fibrous veg, hunger 3/5. Went to movies with Danny, was hungry and usually would of gotten popcorn to indulge my hunger, but didn't want to write about the copious amount of salt here. Dinner in Koreatown, really good, though the kimchi was pickly but so good, and the japjae was spectacular as always but I was more concious of it's soy dressing.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, chocolate haagen daaz baar. Hunger 4/5. Craving sweets. Got these bars as an experiment, as one feels a little bit small, but 2 too much. With a tub of gelato, it's a free for all. Relatively little sodium in this.

EVENING SNACK: 10:30pm, 3 small Jaques Torres dark chocolate cornflake clusters. Hunger 4/5. Oh my, these are tasty.

EVENING SNACK: 11:30pm, about one third of a dollar bag of ranch-flavored sun chips. Hunger 4/5. Didn't notice these before, Betsy's. Foraging. Tasted surprisingly good, except for the fake-flavoring, but the grainy flavor of the acutal chip was appealing. According to the labelling, pretty low-sodiumish and not too fatty.

EVENING SNACK: 12:30am, largish hunk of potato nik, hunger 4/5. Just hungry. Craving more chocolate, but I know that would keep me up. Potato nik surprisingly tasted a little salty, not expecting that. I think I didn't eat enough at dinner.

Everything in the World is Salty.

ADDENDA:
Today I meet with Ilsa, so I need to recap the last couple of weeks, can't go in there with an empty head. Ofcouse, immediately after, I will be taking B to shmancy restaurant to celebrate our 2nd anniversary since our first date, where I will violate all sorts of rules and scripture. Actually, the restaurant local sources most of it's product, so it'll be a step above KFC.

I salted the brocolli yesterday. Exactly how much salt is a miligram? The low-salt cook book Ilsa gave me at my last meeting scares me a little - each recipe is obsessive about how much salt, down to measuring the trace amounts of salt in salt-free ingredients. EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD HAS SALT IN IT. I get it, let's move on. Plus, a lot of the recipes call for scary industrial things like 'low-salt bullion cube' and name some brand. I thought cooking means you use the unprocessed elements, and you use them like blocks to build something more than the sum of it's parts. Some of this low-salt cooking is more like low-salt preparing. Boiling dry pasta in salt-free water and throwing jarred sauce over it is preparing. Making pasta from flower and water by hand and throwing sauce over it you made yourself is cooking. I've been preparing for years, just like my mamma used to. I wanna cook.

My friend Tamar is going to ride the NYC Century with me in early September - she's not a dedicated cyclist, so this is a big deal for her. I would love to have her for company on a ride like this, so motivate her I promised that if she completed the century, I would take a month of yoga classes. I've never done yoga and think it's all a bit trendy and hyped, but she's just as hardcore about yoga as I am about cycling, and in September after the wedding, I'll have a head to focus on stuff more constructive than menus, guest lists and registries.

Rereading this blog, I don't know what I've learned these past few weeks...I guess my sweet tooth is larger than I thought, it took recording it open my eyes. My dad had a big sweet tooth, too, it lead him to diabetes in later life. Kicking diet coke was no big deal, don't think about it or desire it. Chocolate gelato, on the other hand....5 donut Sundays.....he he he.

I got broccoli and not asparagus yesterday because I was feeling lazy and never cooked asparagus before. I've seen veg like brocolli cooked on various food television shows and dealt with it before, but Asparagus is the great unknown...I've had it at restaurants, usually it's good, but....I gotta get out more.

BREAKFAST: 8:15 am, off-brand rice crispies with unhomogenized whole milk, hunger 4/5. A little insomnia last night, strong sugar cravings but knew it would keep me up longer. Couldn't sleep because felt excited about me and B's 2nd anniversary the next day, Tamar riding with me and yoga, good things at work. Woke up hungry, which is a nice feeling. You know you're alive. Fun to shake the milk, too. This was my first time drinking this milk, I only used it for pancakes before. Wow. It has this dairy flavor to it, and thickness to it, too. Sweet but not cloying.

LUNCH #1: 12:15am, 2 small trays of sushi, hunger 4/5. From the lobby shop of the building, absolutely horible, must of been sitting there for a few days. Just craving sushi. Did not use soy sauce. Reminds me of when I was a kid, was at some boyscout summer camp my older brother was attending, me and mom went on visiting day. Went into 'town' to a bar that had food. They mostly did burgers, but there was pizza on the menu. Both my brother and I desperately wanted pizza, but my mom warned us it was not wise to order pizza in a burger joint. We got it anyway, and despite our large appetites, could not eat most of it - it was disgusting. (I've since learned it unwise to order pizza anywhere except in the 5 boros and Italy) Don't order pizza in a burger joint and don't buy sushi in a corporate lobby.

PM SNAK: 20 oz still water

LUNCH #2: 3:45, falafel sandwich from kosher cart, hold the pickle, hunger 4/5. Funny, my stomach went from feeling queazy for hours after that suspicious sushi to hungry in the space of 5 minutes. Avoided a salty pickle, but the falafel balls themselves taste kinda salty, the same way the kasha did, but not as intense. Felt good to be hungry again.

PM SNACK: Didn't want to eat it, tried to resist, but there was a birthday in the office, tried not to go over, but unfortunately I like the people in my office. Was hoping to feel a little virtuous right before going to see Ilsa, oh well....

DINNER: 7:30pm, roasted pork loin with cheek, fragrant sausage, small amount of gnochi in butter sauce, heirloom tomato salad, fava and pecorino salad, few pieces of bread n' butter, water, 1 glass presecco, half a choclate & peanut butter tart with caramel icecream, hunger 2/5. Unfortunately that dumb cupcake destroyed my appetite, but this was STILL a fabulously tasty meal with a fabulously tasty woman, my 2nd anniversary with B. The only thing I didn't think was 5 stars was the desert, the tart was good but underwhelming.

Monday, Time to Start Right Again.

ADDENDA:
After yesterday's salt-fest, want to try to start out right this week. Gonna focus on the produce this evening, then go home and cook for myself. The kasha yesterday gave me a slight headache, and after the watermelon, still greatly craved sugar. It took some will-power not to munch on the 2.2 lb bar of dark chocolate I got at Jaque Torres for baking....

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, 2/3 of toasted bagel with good butter, pint of still water, hunger 2/5. Felt tired but good, had good sleep. Not particularly hungry but want to start the week on the right foot.

LUNCH: 1:30pm, channa masalla, 2 dals, basmanti rice, raw onion, chocolate icecream cone, hunger 4/5. Meetings delayed me from eating earlier, got really hungry. This indian food was a little bland, but the little side of raw white onion that came with it really made it good - I never ate the onion that came with this meal until today - it's a kind of salt replacement. Meal was satisfying, but seriously craving sugar and something to cool my spicey onion mouth after.

PM SNACK: 20 oz of still water

DINNER: 8pm, cajun rubbed salmon fillet, stir-fried brocolli and portobello mushrooms, large green salad, haagen dazz icecream bar, small amount of JT dark chocolate cornflake clusters. Hunger 4/5. So I went back to Whole Foods to check out the veg, this time relaxed after a beer with B at a friend's going away party. I was hoping to be more experimental, but the onl hing that really grabbed me was the brocolli. I've cooked it a few times before, but it was never very good. So I thought I'd give it another go, it's been a few years. Got a piece of marinated salmon and some mushrooms. Stirfried the brocolli with the mushrooms with fresh garlic, ground pepper and some sea salt over high-heat till the green of the broc started shining. The fish smelly oddly like my cat's stinky breath.

The brocolli was GREAT! The wok was given to me a few years ago, but never really used it in any sort of traditional style like I've seen on tv - highest heat, keep everything moving, only cook for a few minutes. The brocolli was just the right combo of tender and crunchy, and the garlic, salt and pepper with the olive oil took away the bitterness and added a comforting buttery flavor to it (next time, gotta use butter!) The fish was surprisingly good, too - I never order salmon in restaurants because it's boring, but I cooke the fish close to medium rare - I chose a fatty cut, and it really added to the flavor. Nice being able to control that.

Not satisfied after, hoped another dose of chocolate icecream would turn me off, but it didn't. A handful of Jaque Torres dark chocolate corn flake clusters finally stopped me.

Brain off, Sunday gets Salty

BREAKFAST: 9am, rice crispies with unsweetened soy milk. Gonna try this with the unhomogenized whole milk. The soy milk is kinda watery and flat. No pleasure from it.

BREAKFAST #2, 11am, fresh onion bagel with hummus. Went to farmers market to get salad stuff, and picked up fresh bagels from kossars. Their bagelly warmth and fresh unfrozen smell drew me in instinctively.

LUNCH: 1:30pm, blt with fries, half a piece of pie, half glass of wine, a biscuit. At Bubby's where we are going to get married. With B and 3 others, planning the wedding. Intense. Food was OK, not really that great, wasn't paying attention. A lot of salt upon reflection.

DINNER: 7:45pm, large green salad with italian dressing, diet black cherry soda, frozen satchet of kasha varneshges. The kasha is a food I gre up with, comfort food, bowtie eggnoodles in a moistish compote of buckwheat and ground pepper. I read the nutritional info - the whole thing had more than 1000mg of sodium!! After the afternoon fries, realized this was a bad day for my bloodpressure. Next time I eat this dish, I will make it myself. I'm pretty sure this is a dish my grandmother used to make for my mom, but my mom just bought frozen for me and my brother growing up.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, hunk of watermelon. Not so much hungry as craving sugar.

Baccus vs. Puritan in a Pancake

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, pancakes and bacon, 1/3 of a diet sprite. Hunger 4/5. Used the orghanic pancake mix again, this time used whole unhomogenized milk and a squirt of honey. Still tasted a little like grainy dirt. Used reduced-sodium organic bacon, still really yummy and not off the charts sodium wise, no nitrates and sea salt as the sodium source. Used the good butter for the pancakes, then went nuts and used the bacon fat to fry them in. It helped, but not enough. I think I should attempt to make pancakes from scratch, how hard could it be? Because I'm using the best stuff to mix in and fry, and it's still not very good. Had a bit of diet sprite after, but couldn't finish it - it just tasted.....fakey. Weird.

LUNCH: 2pm, pan-fried 14 dumplings, leek and vegetable in sesame oil

DINNER: 7pm, two meatballs in tomato sauce with french fries, 1 glass champagne, water, bread.

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, handful saltless pretzels

Homework: Fail!

ADDENDA:
After dinner, B went home and I swung by Whole Foods on my bike. Picked up a 'reduced sodium' organic nitrite-free bacon & organic unhomongenized whole milk for tomorrow morning. Ilsa gave me an assignment of checking out some produce and let a new, unfamiliar vegetable call to me, expand my palate so to speak. I slowly looked through all the produce, hoping one would grab me....but none did. I think having just eaten a big meal and needing to pee, I was not totally focused. Gonna give it a go again on Sunday at the local farmer's market.

BREAKFAST: 10:30am. toasted bagel with good butter, hunger 4/5. Slept 12 hours, from 9pm-9am. The edge of the sickness I've felt all week came to a head on my summer Friday, when I don't have to go to work. Instead of riding, stayed on the couch. Not hungry much.

LUNCH: 1pm. mushroom knish, piece of chocolate tofu pie, hunger 4/5. Felt better.

DINNER: 6pm. chilled rice noodle with crispy pork & lime shrimp, grilled corn with coconut & spicy mayo, shitake crepe, water. Hunger 4/5. Feeling a lot better, met B at Kampuchea noodle bar, excellent malasian street food.

EVENING SNACK: 7:30, chocolate cinammon gelato & chocolate cupcake. hunger 3/5. From Laboratoria and Sugar Sweet Sunshine, a fully local desert. Nice to go home and have desert at home with B.

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.

Alone Together

ADDENDA:
Feel like I ate a lot of sweets yesterday. Is it a reaction to or a cause of feeling a little ill? No snacking at all last night, and as usual B went to sleep before me, and I was up till around midnight. I wake at 7, and 7 hours is pretty much what I need to feel rested and focused, B tends to need 9. But just chilling, reading, knowing she's there for me sleeping, it's being alone but together with her. It's cool.

BREAKFAST: 7:45am, 1 slice tofu chocolate pie, lime seltzer. Hunger 1/5. Not hungry, feeling physically crappy, literally and figuratively, though mood-wise, I'm happy to be hanging out with Betsy. I just mistyped her name as "Besty", he. Tofu pie was pleasantly dense, though the olive oil crust was weird and needs more peanut butter.

LUNCH #1: 11:45am, 2 containers of sushi, hunger 3/5. Sushi not fresh or particularly good, but convient and easy from the cafeteria. Feel a little woozy, but better than this morning. The sticky vinigar rice in sushi is one of my favorite things, maybe I should learn to make it at home. Make Noah-Sushi.

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, chocolate icecream cone, hunger 3/5. Stomach a little icky, but my team invited me out for a walk to the icecream truck, so I went to be social and the icecream feels good in my throat n' tummy.

DINNER: 6:30pm, 2 pork medalions fried in butter w/onions, brown basmanti rice, green salad, diet black cherry soda, water, 3 pieces of tofu pie. Hunger 4.5/5. Hunger came back, salad was great - I think the weird after taste was either the dressing I used or a symptom of sickness. Ate huge amount, made up for not eating much all day. Felt a little light headed on the way home.

EVENING SNACK: 10:15pm, slice of local pizza, hunger 3/5. After eating all that, full but desirous for pizza. This is the first time I've noticed the taste of the salt in the pizza. Though I know conciously that it's a salty food, I never registered it through taste until now. I miss pizza.

EVENING SANCK: 11:30pm. piece tofu pie, hunger 3/5. Still hungry!! This settled me down, though.

Sweet tooth? Sweet maw!

ADDENDA: Last night's salad was great, looking forward to it again for lunch. Reflecting a little, my cravings are mostly driven by sweets. Is that the same as addiction?

Literally 3 hours after eating my salad from home, still have a weird aftertaste on my tongue.

I haven't been writing too much about my mood, because I unformly am in a good mood when I'm eating. I like to eat!

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, toasted everything bagel with good butter, diet sprite. Hunger 4/5. Felt the need for sweet, diet sprite fed that. No headache all morning.

LUNCH #1: 11:45am, green salad from home, caesar dressing, 20 oz water, hunger 4/5. Carrots are leaving a weird after taste in my mouth. Is that normal?

Lunch #2: 2pm, shrimp over rice with a bit of salad and sour-cream based sauce, chocolate ice cream cone, hunger 4/5. Delicious, but is it just wonderfully sharply spiced or salty? Both? After eating it, I was hoping to be satisfied but just had more craving for sweets.

PM SNACK: 4:15pm, 3 pack of Linden's chocolate chip cookies. Hunger 2/5. Went downstairs with a coworker to be socialable. I've eaten Linden cookies since I was a little kid in public school, the flavor just reminds me of so much.

DINER: 6:30pm, shrimp andoullie gumbo, 2 pieces bread, water, half a bittersweet chocolate pudding. "small" cup of icecream. Hunger 3/5. Dinner with Yana, lots of fun seeing her, though not particularly hungry. Great Jones Cafe food so-so, though desert was delectible. We both were jonesing for more sweets, so we stopped by Ben & Jerrys and I had a cup of choclate therapy, man, that was good. Even when not hungry, that stuff is great. The pleasure of hanging out with Yana definitely made the food fun.

Monday Morning Temptations

PRE BREAKFAST: 8am, small glass of water, hunger 1/5. Just could not even think of food, sat at kitchen table and read and felt vaguely nautious. Am I getting sick? Only slept 6 hours, but had a 2 hour nap yesterday afternoon.

BREAKFAST: 9:30 am, croisant and crappy donut, hunger 2/5. Work early on a rainy Monday, not really hungry but know I will be. In the rare situation of eating breakfast at work, I usually go quick and easy with a couple of pork sausage rounds and a small lump of tater tots. Looking back, a) it's a salt mine and b) I'd probably get a headache. So I denied myself - it looked both yukky and yummy at the same time. The croisant looked buttery and flaky, and I took the donut to make myself feel less denied, but after eating it, well, it wasn't nearly as good as the Saturday donuts - a waste of indulgence.

LUNCH #1: 12:15pm, 2/3 of a piece of ginger salmon on a kaiser roll, 1/2 of a large portion of mashed potatos, 20 oz water, hunger 2/5. Not hungry but it's raining out so the corporate cafeteria will be painfully slow if I wait. Didn't intend to get potatos, but the fish comes with one side, so it was either fries (salt!) or steamed veg (mush!) . Salmon is boring and not tasty, potatos nice consistency...but needs salt, butter and gravy. If I was hungrier, I would of felt denied something. Feel like....PIZZA. I think the one thing I've been denying myself without conciously knowing it is the 2-slice street pizza lunch I tend to do once a week or so. Hmmm. Wish I packed something yummy today.

LUNCH #2: 4pm, 3/4 of a very large falafel sandwich, 20 oz water, hunger 4/5. After the first lunch, got a rare acidy stomach, not pleasant. Hunger returned closer to 4, but had to rush through the sandwich to get to a last minute meeting.

DINNER: 8pm, half a frozen American Flatbread pizza, large green salad, diet black cherry soda, hunger 4/5. Salad made from farmer's market ingredients. Carrots still had dirt on them, tasted weirdly minty. Cucumbers had no wax on them, tasted more cucumbery than I remember. Red onion was weird but pleasantly sweet, no papery outter layer and a long green stem I never saw on an onion. The frozen pizza was good, expensive 'hand crafted organic blah blah blah' brand sold in Whole foods, but reading the nutritional information, the thing was three servings, with 57% of the daily recommended sodium intake! Which meant my piece was closer to 75%! I really should limit pizza intake to only the best, or cheeseless.

EVENING SNACK: 9:30pm Tofu peanutbutter chocolate pie batter, hunger 3/5. Feeling craving for sweets but not feeling more diet stuff, so made the pie I had ingredients for. Experimented with using olive oil as the lipid in the graham cracker crust, added peanut butter to the batter for flavor. Read all the info on the packets, split 8 ways, each piece of pie has about 100mg (about 6% daily) sodium - and most of that is from the graham crackers. Need to source a low sodium graham cracker, or make a flower crust with another fat. It was fun to whip up a pie and experiment rather than just shovel in some chocolate.

Five Donut Saturday

ADDENDA:
Spent the weekend not thinking about my diet, other than when I was putting food in my face. I guess this post is more indicitive of my 'real' diet than when I'm constantly thinking about it.

Saturday - Woke up early to ride up to Croton Resevoir on my new mountain bike - fell off three times, took 10 hours, and was a truly epic ride. Not listed is about 200 oz of tap and bottled water.

BREAKFAST 6:15am toasted bagel & butter, 2 donuts, seltzer, hunger 2/5. Gotta start the ride right. Took the 2 donuts from teh Donut Plant on the Subway, so the sugar would still be hitting me when I got on the bike at Van Cortlandt park.

LUNCH: 1pm turkey and swiss on kaiser, corn chips, lots of water, hunger 4/5. In Ossining, realized my stomach was tight, disguising my hunger - on a ride like this, if you get hungry-hungry, you're too late. Ate this meal out of habit - it's what I always eat on a ride like this. A lot of salt, hmmm.

PM SNACK: nasty emergen-C water - During the ride, I tried this out instead of Gatorade, on Ilsa's advice. 3 packets in 22 oz of watert, pretty much to the packet's instructions. IT TASTED LITERALLY LIKE URINE, if I were to imagine what pee would taste like. Chugged about a 1/4 of the bottle, but couldn't drink anymore. Going to experiment with a less intense mix and maybe some honey.

PM SNACK: 3 cider donuts, hunger 4/5. Back in Ossening, went to the same deli for a 1.5 liter bottle of water, noticed the farmer's market across the street - why didn't I go THERE for lunch before, I thought. Without thinking before, it didn't even register. There were assorted baked goods I totally could of vibed to. So I had 3 smallish cider donuts, moist and delicious and fresh., an excellent sugary snack to keep me going when my energy was starting to get tapped. Had a slight headache before this, headache got bad soon after, undoubtedly egged on by the riding. Went away after a few miles.

PM SNACK: 6pm, cliff bar, hunger 4/5. Back on the train going home, starting to tighten muscles, loosen stomach. Had this for emergency use, and if I didn't eat it, I would of bonked. Got me home!

DINNER: 7pm - huge bowel of pasta in pesto & 2 pork medalions, hunger 4/5. Ridiculously large bowl of pasta, 2 big pieces of meat, very satisfying - and no headache or stomache ache, too. First time I've cooked myself read meat (excuse me, the other white meat) of this sort, pan fried with a little olive oil, sea salt and fresh pepper. Reminded me very much of when my mom would make pork chops in the broiler, always tough and overcooked. I thought I cooked them just right but forget they keep cooking themselves when you take them off the heat, which caused mine to be a little mom-like, but still delicious.

EVENING SNACK: 8:30 sugar free lemon ice - not hungry but desired something cold and sweet

EVENING SNACK: 11pm 2 graham crackers with nutella, hunger 3/5 - Cravings.


Sunday

ADDENDA: After breakfast, B took me to a slightly shady back rub place in Chinatown as a little gift. During the 30 minute rub down, my face was straight down in a hole in the table, nothing to distract or amuse me other than the hands beating the crap out of my muscles and bones. I thought of Ilsa's recommendation to try and take 2 minutes a day to focus just on breathing. When I did, I found myself catching my breathe, the same way it becomes hard to blink when you think about your automatic blink reponse. Weird. I gotta try it again when a little chinese woman with too much makeup isn't working me over.

BREAKFAST: 9am organic pancakes with organic bacon, seltzer, syrup, hunger 4/5. Pancakes were dry and a little bitter, going to experiment with adding whole milk and a little honey to the batter.

AM SNACK: Noon, raw stringbeans, hunger 4/5. On the ride back from the massage, we went to our new local farmers market for the first time. Got a lot of produce, some really yummy looking, some straight up weird - I had to be directed to the red onions because they were unrecognizable in their fresh, unprocessed form - both purple and white, with long green scallion-like stems, and no dry outter skin. Gonna make a rocking salad.

LUNCH 3pm - philly cheese steak with fries, tofu stick, 1 beer, water, hunger 4/5. Road bikes with B and a couple of good friends, wound our way out to Red Hook, to a bar. Could of ate something healthier, but desired this, something I usually don't crave. Felt ok, not great after. No headache. Noticed they served their fries with sea-salt.

PM SNACK: 4pm pint of mint chocolate chip soy icecream shared 4 ways, hunger 2/5. Sat on the outside deck of the Redhook Fairway looking at the water.

PM SNACK: 8pm diet sprite, not hungry at all but desirous of something sweet.

DINNER: 9:30pm 3 corn on cob, good butter and sea salt, hunger 2/5. Not hungry enough for dinner, but got this corn at the farmers market. SWEET and AMAZING, best corn this summer so far.

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, piece of potato nik, hunger 3/5. Afraid I'd get hungrier if I didn't eat something. From freezer, a savory potato bread from a local kosher bakery.

NYC: Home of the 1am Slice of Pizza

ADDENDA:
Despite not getting to be till 1 last night, still got a good night sleep thanks to the new bed. Found myself craving pizza after those crappy shrimp dumplings. Is not getting dressed and going out and hunting down a 1am slice denying myself? Or just sane?

BREAKFAST: 8am, toasted sesame bagel with the good butter, glass of seltzer. Hunger 3/5. New toaster! Felt more like bacon, but not special time yet.

LUNCH: 12:30pm, beef teriyaki bento box with shrimp and veg tempura, white rice, miso soup, water. Hunger 3/5. Headache before and after this meal. Eaten at this place before, always with Erikka and always out of convenience. It's just not that good, and thinking about it, incredibly salty. Out of convenience, I'll eat there again, but will forego the salty soup and stick with sushi and sashimi. As the old Jewish joke goes, the little old ladies complain about the food that not only is it awful, but such small portions. I just wasn't filled by this crappy meal, and kinda wanted something big and sweet immediately after, but decided to delay by an hour or two so the calories are spread more evenly through the day.

PM SNACK: 2pm, apple crumb cake, Hunger 2/5. Still desiring something sweet to 'finish' me though not horrendously hungry. Was gonna go chocolate but thought that may amp up my headache. From the lobby commisary, not very tasty as it should be but what are ya gonna do? BRING better food to work? That's just crazy tawk!

PM SNACK: 6pm, a glass of red wine, a handful of goldfish crackers, a couple of chocolates, 2 chocolate covered cookies, hunger 3/5. At a small gallery show of a friend and our wedding photographer. Offered the wine, didn't want or like it but wanted to be sociable. Hugnry, supposed to have dinner immediately after...

DINNER: 6:45pm, miso ramen soup with assorted pork, fish cakes. Hunger 4/5. Good Japanese, ironically next door to the Japanese place I ate lunch. Not a low salt meal, though I did try to choose the least evil ("salt-flavored soup" I skipped) Reqally enjoyable and filling, but being a restaurant where English is a second language, the menu didn't exactly say what the salt conent was.

EVENING SNACK: 10:30pm, chocolate ice cream cone from truck near subway station. Hunger 3/5. Hot night, feeling the urge for sweet on the way home.

I Can't Believe It's Butter!

ADDENDA:
Last night's steak was very pleasurable, enjoyed it more than i thought i would - perhaps it was the context of the celebration and the warm vibes of two good friends catching up after a long time apart. The ladies ordered boring entrees - a seared tuna salad and a sauted salmon, zzzzzzz. Though they both claimed they were too full for desert, when my chocolate cake came they definitely had their share. So much so I had to go buy a couple of madelines after to get my sweets in.

Ilsa asked me to write in this journal not only what I'm eating, but what I want but choose not to eat. Thing is, I'm not one to really deny myself what I want. What I choose usually IS what I want. I don't know if this is self-delusion or something, but I don't feel like I've denied myself anything up to this point. Diet coke, whatever, it's nice but I don't miss it. Had a half glass of champagne last night, not because I was trying to be good but because I've never really liked alcohol, taste or how it makes me feel. Denying myself what I want is not fun, so should I really pick apart the subliminal process I've developed to let me feel like nothing is being denied? I guess self-knowledge is better than fear of upsetting the applecart.

This morning in the shower, NPR mentioned an upcoming interview with author Barbara Kingsolver on her book about eating locally, and how eating is one of those rare ocassions where acting ethically coincides directly with increased pleasure. Another argument for my grass-fed butter infatuation!

BREAKFAST: 7:45am Onion bagel with grass fed butter, pint of lime seltzer. Hunger 3/5. Felt good, good sleep on the new bed, though hunger did wake me up several times this morning - Rufus's hunger! He was meowing like he was James Brown. Ilsa has suggested trying flat water instead of so much carbonated water, I'm going to limit my seltzer intake on a trial basis, but it's an excellent breakfast treat. Now if they could carbonate bacon...

LUNCH: 1pm cajun seitan sandwich with kale, sauted onions on a whole wheat bun, a little vegan mayo (salty), a side of coleslaw, water. Hunger 3/5. Quiet at work, pedalled up through Central Park to Candle Cafe on the UES. Water they serve is only a little cooler than room temp, and many times before people have remarked on the yumminess of there water. I wonder if it's tap or filtered. Tasted OK to me. I was really happy with the sandwich, but upon thinking about my baser instincts, I probably would of chosen french fries instead of coleslaw, but the slaw was quite yummy.

PM SNACK: 2pm, 20oz tap water that was poured before I left for lunch. Not hungy but thirsty, rode hard to avoid rain. I see what Ilsa says about water having more flavor when its room temp, but not sure whether thats a plus or not. Don't mind it, though.

PM SNACK: 4:15pm, largish chocolate chip cookie icecream sandwich, 20 oz sill water, hunger 4/5. Craving sweets, and hadn't had an icecream sandwich in a while. "Toll House" brand, sold in the commisary in the lobby, everything about it screams industrial...but where does one go to get a handmade organic icecream sandwich when your craving it? 320mg of sodium, damn. Slight head ache before I decided to go get this.

DINNER: 6pm. medium green salad with italian dressing, pasta with basil pesto and grated cheese, glass of seltzer, a few small pieces of baking chocolate. hunger 2/5 - Not horrendously hungry after the icecream sandwich, but I was supposed to go to an early evening kareoke thing with coworkers and thought it unwise to go on anything other than a near-full stomach. Despite not being that hungry, the pasta was delicious, pesto from whole foods. I tried to make pesto once, it came out bitter and gross, I think I used too much basil and too little oil.

EVENING: 8pmish. 2 saporro drafts. To be social, didn't give me any buzz thanks to dinner, but did get me through a cringe-inducing renditon of "Into the Groove"

EVENING: Midnight. 7 frozen shrimp dumplings from a korean grocery. Hunger 3/5. Sleeping really well last 2 nights, but was slow winding down this evening, the alcohol probably didn't help. I have all those frozen dumplings from Koreatown, I sometimes crave them but after eating these dumpling, they ARE kinda gross and salty. And after reading about all the insanely underinspected food imports coming in from Asia, it adds to a layer of creepiness. Rather than use myself as a trash can, I think I'm going to clear some stuff out of the freezer this weekend.

Deny your God, Worship your Land

ADDENDA:
Met with Ilsa yesterday, a lot of food for thought (no pun, I swear). In the next two weeks, I hope to experiment with a few things. One, I gotta hit up some farmer's markets, whole foods or whatever and kind of graze and find some veg I haven't had before and take it home and, I dunno, slather it in that yummy butter or something. Secondly, I've never been one to subscribe to 'organic', but after reading the 'Real Food' book, there may be something to tradionally manufactured food - whole grass-fed milk instead of soy milk may be a fun experiment. Happy meat, happy diary, happy veg, happy fruit and grain - if environmentally sound food happens to taste better and make me feel better, I won't become an environmentalist but I will support it's cause. If I'm going to change my diet for the better, man or Land, it has to be ridiculously delicious.

Naming these entries by date is boring. A long time favorite muscian, Julian Cope, just put out a new record dripping in his usual anti-Religion, Druidistic rantings, but on the inside of the booklet is scrawled "DENY YOUR GOD, WORSHIP YOUR LAND". If denying God will get me nicely yellow delicious grass-fed butter, then there's something to the argument!

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, large bowl of kellogs cornflakes, unsweetened soy milk, hunger 3/5. Felt like having diner bacon and pancakes (I did get a Fresh Direct order yesterday with organic pancake mix and nitrate-free bacon which has sea-salt instead of salt as an ingredient) Looking forward to experimenting with non-salt non-corn syrup morning cereals. Waiting for the bed to come. No headache this morning, but as I sit here an hour after eating, it's there, very slightly. Gonna save the pancakes and bacon for when I have time and it's a treat, maybe before or aftering biking.

LUNCH: 12 noon, large green salad from home with dressing from the cafeteria, 2 sushi rolls from cafeteria, 20 oz of still water. Hunger 4/5
Used Balsamic dressing, seemed the least evil of the bunch but who knows whats in it. Should experiement with making my own dressings. Salad was good, sushi was ok, not that fresh, pretty standard. No dessert, but feel like I could tuck into a mess of chocolate chip cookies right now. Headache has returned about 45 minutes after eating, slow and dull. Ate early because I needed too, breakfast with no snacks is not enough to satisfy me to a more normal lunch hour.

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, packet of 3 fudge cookies, hunger 2/5.
Craved them. Sweetness, chocolate. Headache got stronger. After eating them, headache receded, though not completely. A blood sugar thing?

4:45pm, 25 cent handful of plain chocolate M&Ms. hunger 4.5/5. Just hungry, no headache. Going to Balthazar with B & her friend, wanted to save my appetite, but this is just uncomfortable. I guess if I had no discretion, would go out and get a slice of pizza or two. This should hold me till dinner, which I imagine will be big n' yummy.

DINNER: 6:30pm, medium rare bar steak with fries, small portions of lobster risotto, walnut herb ravioli, warm goat cheese tart, white and whole wheat bread n' butter, half a glass of champagne, a few glasses of water, about a 3rd of a warm chocolate cake, two chocolate madelines. hunger 4/5. Went to Balthazar with B and her friend Patty, who was visiting town on business from LA. A bit of a celebratory meal in honor of our impending nupitals, I conciously decided to not overthink what I was going to eat and go with what I was in the mood for. I tend not too eat steak too often, as it makes me feel crappy - I'm that concious of what I eat, at least. But I desired it. It tasted SO GOOD. No headache after. Slept excellently (on new bed, with new bride, he he) and though I worried the steak would catch up with me, had a good morning.

EVENING SNACK: a couple of glasses of still water

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

BREAKFAST: 8am, 3/4 of a toasted sesame bagel, slathered in the fancy organic butter, hunger 3/5.
This grass-fed yellowish butter definitely tastes more....buttery than the industrial white stuff. Had a hard time getting to sleep again last night, despite being tired. Things going well at work and at home, feel good.

AM SNACKS: 9:30am, ramakin of chocolate chocolate chip gelatto, hunger 3/5.
At home waiting for a new king-sized bed and matress to arrive, feeling idle, and Il Labratorio makes such intense stuff, just calling to me. Wouldn't of indulged if I was busy at work.

LUNCH: 1pm, falafel sandwich with babaganoush, diet 7up, hunger 3/5.
After waiting for a delivery of only the matress showed up, finally took off (bed now arriving tomorrow morning). Feeling frustrated, but happy not to be cooped up. Road bike to coop office to get another delivery pass, stopped in on Franks to check on mountain bike I got off a coworker that I'm having rebuilt, then stopped by 1st Ave and St. Marks to eat - it was lunch timeish, and it would be silly to go to work only to go out to lunch when I got there. Food decompressed me a little, a pause on a nice bike ride on a warm sunny afternoon. Too bad about the congestion pricing bill floundering, too much democracy in action...

LUNCH #2: 3:15pm, fried whiting sandwich on whole weat, let&tom, small squirt of italian dressing, hunger 3/5.
Despite being late, work flowing smoothly. Corporate caf closed, went to the vendor carts, decided to try something new. Corner of 47th and 6th, a cart said "FOOD IS LOVE" on it's side. The sandwich was $3.50, a plate was $5, so I got the sandwich....which had 3 large pieces of breaded fish on it! This small lunch was kinda large, but satisfying and I ate it all as I wandered slowly back to work. Headache coming on slow, dehydrated?

PM SNACKS: 4pm, 20 oz of seltzer out of the dispensery. Diet coke tempting, but I suspect it may give me a bigger headache right nw.

4:45pm. another 20oz of selter and a 25 cent handful of peanut M&Ms, not hungry but persistent minor headache and feeling munchy. Work is quiet. Is this blog going to turn me into one of those people who obsessively count their food? I had 10 m&ms, somehow counting them justified them as being truly a small amount. Now that I ate them, I feel full in a slightly sickly way. Bleah.

DINNER: 8:30pm, shrimp diavialo w linguini, half a small cheesless pizza, a couple pieces of bread, water, apple pie. Hunger 4/5. Dinner with Jill, after meeting with Ilsa. The original plan was to go to Shake Shack, but ended up at a less unhealthy Italian joint. Kinda wanted cheesy pizza but thought this a better comprimise, the wood-fired crust and the pleasantly uncloying sauce with a sprinkle of herbs was satisfying. There was gelatto on the menu for desert, but that seemed excessive. I tried a small spoonful of Jill's gelato, and I'm glad I skipped it, not nearly as good as Il Labratorio's! On the bike ride home, the low-grade headache came back.

NIGHT: Had a few glasses of water when I got home 10ish, was thirsty.

Monday, July 16

BREAKFAST: large piece of watermelon, 7:45am, hunger=2/5. No diet coke, could use some right now, but gotta kick it. No headache in the last few days. This watermelon kinda sucks. After dinner yesterday, me and B went to the supermarket to buy salad ingredients and this, it's just not sweet. Is the watermelon season over already?

A.M. SNACKS: 9:30qam, 20oz of seltzer, hunger=3, tired, the diet coke is calling to me, but there is no headache.

LUNCH: 1:30, hale & hearty roast beef sandwich, terra chips, 2 cookies, 20oz of selter hunger=4.5/5, was hungry for a while but meetings prevented me from going out earlier. Went to hale & hearty with coworkers, all the soups looked like salt traps. Really enjoyed the sandwich, probably because I was hungry and enjoyed the company.

DINNER: 8pm, large green salad with ranch dressing, Scallops with garlic, organic grass fed butter and extra v olive oil with a dash of worstechester & unrefined sea salt, 2 baked potatoes, lemon seltzer, chocolate choclate chip gelato. hunger 4/5.
Swung by Whole Foods on the way home, picked up the fish and salt and gelato and fancy butter. Cooking was fun and was nice to sit down with Betsy. Reading the 'Real Food' book (Nina Planck), the whole argument for traditional diet rich in meat and dairy, but traditionally produced (organic, grass-fed, unrefined, cooked simply) against modern, industrial food. Felt full, satisfied