I have always thought, Cheese & Onions

ADDENDA:
Woke up and got on the bike up to 57th Street to meet Katya at a gallery for an performance installation. Basically you walk into a bare room with white walls with a bunch of people sitting around on the floor. When someone walks in, they chant in unison, "ooooooOOOMMM WELCOOOOOMMMME" then recite a few quotes and start conversing. It was all very collegiate, until they unnerved us by asking, "What do YOU think?" I felt like I was back in college in a sociology graduate class, caught once again not fully paying attention.

But I had brought a small sack o' donuts and had a nice walk into Central Park sharing them. Katya works freelance and has a flexible schedule.

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, bowl of organic cheerios with good milk, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 10:30am, 2 halves of 2 really good donuts, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2pm, 2 glorious grilled superhippy cheese & onion sandwiches, 24 oz still water, hunger 4/5
I went to Brooklyn with Katya and we walked around a bit. After she split, I realized I was close to home and would be foolish to pass up the chance to cook, as I'm already obliged to eat Chinese tonight. Katya said she had packed a cheese sandwich for lunch, which inspired me.

So when I got home, I looked on line for a grilled cheese recipe, which made me feel silly in it's simplicity. But they say ya can throw on tomato, you can throw on bacon, you can throw on...ONIONS!!.....

I have always thought
In the back of my mind, Cheese and Onions
I have always thought
That the world was unkind, Cheese and Onions
Do I have to spell it out?
C-H-E-E-S-E-A-N-D-O-N-I-O-N-S-Oh no
My machine
Keep yourself clean
I'll be a has-been
Like a dinosaur
My device
For everything nice
You better think twice
At least once more

What a great song....anyway, I ended up using all greenmarket ingredients, superhippy bread and raw milk funky cheese (with caraway seeds in it), on a grill pan wedding gift with top-shelf grass-fed butter.

I've never been a fan of grilled cheese, my mom would make it with crappy crumbly white bread, American cheese and margarine. Restaurant versions are usually unpleasantly greasy and overly cheesy. My sandwiches, my lord, the dense bread took the butter and grill marks perfectly, the onions added a pleasant sweet note and the cheese (which I only had a little left) was more than enough with it's bold flavor.

Feel good but still finding my footing. Consulting with Ilsa tonight, she's my nutritionist but only source of any sort of therapy. I guess if I'm serious about culinary passions, it makes sense to consult my nutritionist for perspective!

DINNER: 8pm, roast pork & broc, beef in oyster sauce, shrimp with cashews, sauteed string beans, veg fried rice, water, a little tea, 1 fortune cookie, cup of almond ice cream, hunger 4/5
Went to a traditional Chinese restaurant with B and my cousin Iddo, Mandarin Court. The last time I ate there was with my parents and brother. Today was the 2nd anniversary of my mother's passing. Fortunately, with recent goings on in my professional life, I haven't dwelled on it too much.

Food was kinda crappy, but a fitting meal with lots of memories associated with it. I miss my parents.

Onwards

ADDENDA:
The weather was too nice yesterday to sit like a lump and get into a deep depression. Today, not so nice! Slept pretty well, wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. Perhaps after going through the loss of my parents, going through the loss of a job isn't nearly as daunting as it could be for some...

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, good pancakes with good bacon, hunger 4/5
Cut back on the milk to make 'em fluffy.

BP 10:15am, 130/84

AM WATERING: 11am, 24 oz still
Thirsty. Busted out my ex-work sippy bottle. Weird drinking from it at home.

LUNCH: 2:30pm, small green salad, homemade shrimp in garlic sauce, homemade roasted potatoes, 2 tofutti cuties, hunger 4/5
Spent the morning cleaning up, doing laundry. When I got hungry, read through a few cook books, found a recipe for shrimp in the NY Times seafood cookbook, a simple recipe for potatoes in the Batali cookbook. When I left the house to pedal over to Wholefoods, I was shocked by how warm it still is out - damn, I should of spent another day on the bike avoiding depression!

I've basically made both of these recipes before by winging it. I must say, both came out 2x better this time. The shrimp would of been acceptable in a good restaurant. The potatoes had an extra step of blanching which made all the difference.

PM WATERING: 3:15pm, 24 oz still

DINNER: 8pm, carrot sticks & homemade hummus, 2 twoboots slices, 2 twoboots cookies, hunger 4/5
Felt restless, but didn't feel like cooking (oddly enough.) To order from Twoboots, there is a $10 minimum, guaranteeing too much food for one person. So I hopped on the bike, and was back with hot slices before 20 minutes passed. B mooched a small piece of pizza and a quarter of a cookie.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, 4 vanilla lemon goyisha macaroon-like vegan thingies, hunger 4/5
Snacking with wifey.

Out of Work Work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back at Work Work

ADDENDA:
Feels weird to be back at work. Unnatural. Just had a nice conversation with a coworker who is starting to make her own pasta, I enjoyed being able to tell her the best recipe for a beginner, which was just me a few months ago!

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, raw nuts, hunger 3/5

BP: 9:45am, 120/99
I took my BP after reading my work email. oy - mistake, I got several crazy readings, including this one.

AM WATERING: 10am, 24 oz still

LUNCH: 1:45pm, Indian lunch combo with spinach, chickpeas, lentils, rice & nan, hunger 3.5/5
Didn't feel hungry due to work stress until I started eating and realized I actually really was ready for a meal. B.B.T. (Before Blogging & Thinking), I'd of probably just not eaten till I all of a sudden couldn't function and realized I was hungry, then binge on cookies...

DINNER: 7pm, large green salad with organic Italian dressing, small frozen pizza, half bottle of seltzer, hunger 4/5
Weird end of the day at work, messing with my hunger. Frozen pizza been in the freezer for months, ate it before it went bad.

An Interesting Development

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh Deer!

ADDENDA:
Spent the morning at the food markets, the afternoon wandering around with B for vegan Chinese (way superior to Chinese Bricks!) and massages, and a nice unique & very personal meal in the evening.

BREAKFAST: 10am, small bowl of organic chex with good milk, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11:30am, 1 wholewheat saltfree pretzel with good peanut butter, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:30pm, vegetarian dimsum including mini lotus leaf rice, mixed gluten, monk dumplings, mock shrimp in rice dough, mashed taro treasure boxes, 1 bit of yuckily sweet red bean cake, hunger 4/5

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

DINNER: 8pm, 3 funky cheeses with bread, olives, baby carrots and ranch dressing, prosciutto, 2 kinds of braised venison over creamed parsnips with roasted baby onions and brusselsprouts, about 1.5 donuts with a little vanilla ice cream, 1 glass champagne, 1 glass red, a few pints of water
My friend Erikka's father is a hunter out in Minnesota, sent her a care package of deer-flesh. Her boyfriend has a professional history in cooking, and whipped up this meal. I think I've eaten venison before, and it was unmemorable. This time, fully paying attention to what I was eating, it was a bit of a revelation. Shawmir grumbled a lot about messing up the meat, not accounting for the lack of connective tissue in one cut. Granted, one of the two kinds of meat on the plate was a little tough, but still thoroughly edible (god knows I suffered through many cooked-till-pale-and-shrivelled lamb chops from my mom to know the meaning of inedibly tough!) and the non-tough meat was just as good as any shmancy cow steak at a bistro. I thought the flavor would be gamey, but it was pleasantly mild, and I kinda caught a uniquely 'deer' flavor.

Still Takin' Care of Bizniz

ADDENDA:
The bedroom is a much larger job than I anticipated. Gonna try to knock it off today, then pretend like I'm unemployed and see an afternoon movie...

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla and raw nuts, hunger 3/5
Out of just about everything else, need to hit up some markets.

LUNCH: 12:45pm, wholewheat pasta a la Noah, quart of tap water, hunger 4/5
Felt lazy, indecisive, rearranging and painting the apartment all morning. Got a flash of inspiration, and cooked up some pasta, and took a bunch of garlic and onion and sweated them with olive oil and butter, then threw in a little white wine, Worcestershire sauce and salt and let it reduce, finished with freshly grated parm. Damn, was pretty damn good, though not sure what it's officially called. Could of really used some mushrooms, maybe a little less Worcestershire - three shakes out of the bottle was pretty strong. After finishing it, felt good for cooking and not ordering in or just reheating something. Good to be able to cook a casual lunch.

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, 3/4 bag of popcorn, hunger 4/5
Two movies in a row at the multiplex, with a popcorn in between, like I was unemployed. This is vacation.

DINNER: 9:30pm, curry noodle soup with tofu, water, hunger 3/5
Mediocre meal at Thai resto in the hood.

Takin' Care of Bizniz

ADDENDA:
The real vacation continues. Got a lot done yesterday, laundry, sourced touch-up paint for the house, replaced a duvet cover Betsy had ill will towards, dinner with B and a good friend. Today I have an electrician taking care of business, gonna redo the placement of furniture in the bedroom, retouch the paint on the scuffed walls, get a new light fixture for the bedroom, cull my closets and my cooking pans, and catch a 3pmish train up to Westchester to spend the eve with another friend I don't see often enough. Well, I'm sure I'll get through some of it!

Betsy reported she got a good scolding at from Ilsa for changing up her diet so extremely without consulting her - funny, I also kinda went beserk on B for the same reason! (not consulting Ilsa, not me) Ilsa also expressed her concerns that I'm falling back into bad habits - that Chinese brick a few weeks ago scared the bejeezus out of her.

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, raw nuts, hunger 4/5
Woke at 8:30 to the electrician calling, delayed eating as he was doing his business. Certain fixtures haven't worked in years, but they were relatively minor and a hassle to call a professional for - but perfect when your off the first week of the year and electricians are not!

Never delayed breakfast like this, surprised how hungry I got after about 90 minutes.

LUNCH: 1pm, whole wheat bagel with homemade hummus, glass of seltzer, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5pm, 6 'deluxe' chocolate-filled cookie tubes, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, sushi tray, small green salad, 6 shrimp shumai, 2 ok chocolate truffles, 1 fortune cookie, water, hunger 4/5
Ordered in at my friend's house in Westchester. She proposed our only choices were pizza or Chinese. I chose Chinese, wondering what I would order that wouldn't be brick-like. Fortunately, on the other side of the menu was Japanese, so I stuck with the sushi. As I was pondering the Chinese, saw their list of bricks, remembered how I felt ill the next day, and I really didn't want to waste my time off regretting Chinese...

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, 3 vegan chocolate macaroon-like thingies, 1 whole wheat saltfree pretzel, 2 mint chip tofutti cuties, hunger 4/5
I guess dinner wasn't enough, and had insomnia on top of it.

The Real Vacation Begins

ADDENDA:
Holidays are over, everyone is back to work, but because I did 3 quiet days in the office between the holidays, I'm off till next Monday! Time to eat 4 deserts a day and bricks o' Chinese for lunch! Kidding, Ilsa! Save yer wrath for B...

BREAKFAST: 7am, a bunch of mini-pancakes, hunger 4/5
Fell asleep at 9:30 last night, woke before 5am this morning. Added cinnamon and made the pancakes tiny just to change things up. Nice having B around again, twittering her way into getting ready for work, taking pictures of me while I try to eat my egg/milk/butter-laden breakfast!

AM WATERING: 10am, 1 pint tap water

LUNCH: noon, large bowl of left over wholewheat pasta with homemade meat/spinach stuff and homemade tomato sauce, 1 pint water, hunger 4/5
Never cooked with spinach before. Really good.

PM SNACKS: 3:30pm, bowl of veggie booty, half an apple, wedge of yummy weird raw cheese, a few handfuls of curry cashews, hunger 4/5
My farmer's market apples were mushy, so I ate B's left over golden delicious. The cheese had caraway seeds in it, really good. Sent in my check to the Traditional Nutrition Guild today, hopefully sometime soon I'll be chowin' down a few different raw-milk products.

DINNER: 7:30pm, 4 pieces bread & good olive oil, 1 little rice ball (very cheesy), a small amount of bufala mozz (surprisingly funky), a small piece of fried artichoke, odd little chickpea fritters, a few pieces of prociutto, a nice piece of grilled tuna with pesta, a couple of potato croquettes, chocolate hazelnut torte with a tiny scoop of gelato, 1 brown beer, 1 small piece of cookie, a few small bites of panetone, cup of herbal tea, hunger 4/5
Dinner out with B and my long lost friend Lidice at Bar Stuzzichoonikkipoopoo or whatever it's name is, on B'way above 21st. Really good food, a lot of little fried things I've read about but never tried.

Starting the Year with Left-Over Pizza

BRUNCH: noon, 1 homemade pizza, 4 pieces of biscotti, hunger 4/5
Nice 8 hour sleep, slow to hunger. Looking in the fridge, had left over dough, sauce, a small baggie of mushroom and onion. So I said screw it, sliced up some fresh garlic, grated a little parm, plucked the last basil off the plant I bought at the farmer's market, and slapped together a single pie to start 2008 off with properly.

Though you can't see it in the picture, I generously spread finely shredded parm, which wonderfully melded to the other ingredients to give a wonderfully funky overtone to the whole proceedings. Like cheese without cheese!

I experimented by putting it on a baking sheet, which then got placed on the stone, but the crust came out pale and flibbidy flobbidy, so I put it directly on the stone for another 3 minutes. This method actually gave the crust an interesting chewy/crisp character, I may need to look into that. The biscotti was not the lame stuff I got from Wholefoods, but a nice gift from Rach, which was far superior. Good to start my sweets off with something top-rate and friendly!

This, my friend, is how to live.

ADDENDA: I weighed myself before I ate, still 235. I'm surprised, as I feel fatter than usual. I guess it's in my head?

PM SNACK: 2:15, half bag o' popcorn, hunger 4/5
At the movies.

PM SNACK: 5:45 pm, 4 fresh shrimp springrolls, hunger 4/5
B & I stopped by Wholefoods on the way home from the movies, she bought a butternut squash in hopes of cooking it veganly, I bought a 'How to Cook Meat' book in hopes of cooking my next pork medallion properly!

DINNER: 7pm, left over homemade pasta with homemade sauce and homemade spinach/meat stuff, small green salad, another 4 biscotti, 1/2 bottle seltzer, hunger 4/5
The wholewheat pasta held up surprisingly well after 3 nights, as toothsome as ever. Went a little bit nuts on the biscotti, I think my sweet tooth may be kicking back in a bit. Gotta keep an eye on that.

New Years Eve Goes to the Dogs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Icecream 3x today - HOW'D DAT HAPPEN?!

BREAKFAST: 8:30 am, organic wholegrain cheerios with good milk, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 10:45pm, small bowel of haagen daz vanilla icecream, hunger 4/5
Looking after Erikka's kitty, the kitty drove me to ice cream and playing violent videogames

LUNCH: 1pm, mixed charcutrie, tuna carpaccio, taste of 3 cheeses, eggplant/salmon/roasted pepper crostini, bread, olives, water, apple tart with vanilla ice cream, hunger 4/5
Nice lunch with my friend Katya at Fig & Olive, fanciful fingery food is fine for reconnecting with friends who've bounced around the world before pinging back into your universe.

I ordered the carpaccio without thinking too much, other than that raw tuna in a light dressing sounded good. Afterwards, as Katya was at the ladies room, I thought about it and realized I had never eaten carpaccio before - I've read about it in books, heard about it in radio and TV food programs, but never actually ate any. It was really good, kind of like a slightly more fussy sushi, which is so simple so it can stand up to the mess. Funny, even though it's a new food for me, it felt old and familiar in a good way.

DINNER: 7pm, small green salad, 1/2 a garlic and oil pizza, pizza with 5 different kinds of mushrooms sauteed in white wine, homemade soy ice cream, hunger 4/5
Pizza with the HVS. The pizza came out really well, the oil and wine prep of the mushrooms went really nicely with the raw tomato sauce, which I experimented with a bit of vinegar and de-seeding the plum tomatoes, came out really well. However the soy ice cream came out weirdly powdery tasting, I don't know what was different than yesterday.

A Day at the Markets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Wife Done Leave Me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cookin' With Booze

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

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

AM WATERING: 10:30am, 24 oz still

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

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

Early Bike Ride Turns My Head Around

ADDENDA:
Got out of the house by 8am and road over to Park Slope to look after Erikka's cat. Very cute, all rubbin' up on me for the entire time I was there. Then I road up the waterfront of Brooklyn to the 59th St Bridge. Cold and crisp, with minimal traffic, maybe 10 miles. I've forgotten a little just how stress-relieving a bike excursion can be.

After all the holiday hullabaloo and house guests and stress, Betsy has now gone to Boston to be with her mom for the week, my house is empty, and work is deadly quiet. Maybe if the weather cooperates, I'll take the road bike out tomorrow morning to the cat and to work...

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, organic cornflakes with the good milk, hunger 4/5
Nice to wake up with an appetite - it's like being driven by a need for caffeine, only much more satisfying when satiated. I should try it more often.

AM WATERING: 10:30am, 24 oz still

AM SNACK: 10:45am, overly sweet corn muffin, hunger 4/5
Morning bike ride left me hungry. From the company cafeteria. I can taste the corn syrup and stabilizers.

LUNCH: 2pm, .5 lb organic cow burger on wholewheat bun, side of vinegary slaw, hunger 4/5
The HVS and I hit up Better Burger on 9th ave over 42nd St. I'm about 1/2 way through the Omnivore's Dilemma, reading about the meaning/meaninglessness of what we accept to be 'organic' - the author uses the example of an organic TV dinner as how an organic analogue of something at the end of a long industrial food chain is just that - something at the end of a long industrial food chain, just with less pesticide and petroleum-based fertilizer. I imagine the organic fast-food burger is in a similar bucket.

The burger itself tasted surprisingly salty, almost unpleasantly so, and tasted a bit gamey, not what I expect from a burger.

PM WATERING: 2:45pm, 24 oz still
Feel a bit parched from the morning ride. Really feel good from it.

PM SNACK: 5pm, homemade vanilla soy ice cream, hunger 4/5
Dinner with a friend is late tonight, so I was gonna get some donuts as a special afternoon sweet snack, but remembered the Donut Plant is closed Mondays. I plan to make soy ice cream for the HVS this weekend, so it occurred to me to try making it as a trial run before presenting it for mass consumption.

Surprised how good this tasted - like tofutti, but without the fakey aftertaste. Only 4 ingredients - tofu, plain unsweetened soy milk, maple syrup, vanilla extract, all organic. Came out of the machine kinda like softserve.

PM SNACK: 7pm, handful of tortilla chips, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 9pm, shrimp butter masala, a little eggplant curry, rice and nan, 1 potato samosa, muligatawany soup, water, 1 glass red wine, hunger 4/5
Nice dinner with a friend, makes the holidays much more tolerable.

Eating Through the Holidays

ADDENDA:
Like stirring cooking milk and bringing up black bits unintentionally, the relatives staying with me have brought up some emotions from the family strife I endured when my mother passed away. It's unintentional and I hold no grudge (towards my guests), but it's still a bummer.

BREAKFAST: 10:30am, good yogurt with honey, raw nuts, vanilla, hunger 3/5
Immediately from breakfast I whipped up a batch of hummus and mac n' cheese for B's cousin's Jewish Xmas thing.

AM MEDICATION: 11am, 2 tums
Knifing sensation in my chest, over my stomach and below my throat. I suspected it was an acid thing, so I took 2 tums and it promptly went away. I've never had a pain like that before. I suspect it's emotion/holiday-related.

LUNCH: 2pm-5pm, bagel with hummus & smoked salmon, 3 large butter cookies, 10 or so small pieces of Jaques Torres chocolates, medium portion of homemade mac n' cheese, 1 glass presecco, water, hunger 4/5
Holiday party at B's cousin Cathy's house. This is the third time I've been to this party since I've known my wife, it's nice to see how these things remain stable year after year. My mac n' cheese came out pretty good, I've been refining the balance of ingredients and I think I'm getting closer. The hummus I made was way too garlicky, gotta pull back on that. Felt stressed thinking about my own family, overdid it on the chocolates, and my acidy stomach came back again.

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, 1/4 homemade cookie, 1/2 apricot turnover, seltzer, hunger 2/5
Stopped by another cousin of B's on the way home, an excellent baker he is.

PM MEDICATION: 7:30pm, 2 tums

PM SNACK: 9pm, small handful of tortilla chips, 2 saltless pretzels with peanutbutter, hunger 3/5

Merry Xmas, Goyim!

ADDENDA:
B & I had a nice bike ride over to Cobble Hill to lunch with T & friends. Nice Jewish Xmas eve with Ethiopian food (instead of the traditional Chinese, yer welcome, Ilsa!) and a movie.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, good yogurt with honey and vanilla, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 11am, curried cashews, saltless pretzels, baby carrots, water, hunger 3/5
Sponsored by the Hungry Vegan Society.

LUNCH: Noon, hummus with fresh pita, smoked salmon on a croissant with small amount of potatoes and salad, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, small amount of tortilla chips, large amount of baby carrots, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, Ethiopian vegetarian platter, vegan chocolate cake, water, hunger 4/5

Sunday Slips Away Quickly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feelin' like a lazy fat cat

ADDENDA:
Not to sound too much like a chick, but I do feel fat. The pants around my belly are tight, my back has been aching a little the past few days and I can't help but think it's because of the weight I'm dragging around. Not been riding my bike at all, no time for getting into the beginning phases of a yoga habit, haven't been to the farmers market in too long. Look forward to getting back in a rhythm.

BREAKFAST: 6am, good yogurt with raw nuts, honey, vanilla, hunger 4/5
House guests arrived in the wee hours, couldn't get back to sleep so I ate and watched the tube. Funny how interrupted sleep can rev the appetite.

AM SNACK: 8am, banana, hunger 4/5

AM WATERING: 10am, 24 oz still

BP: 10:15am, 129/97

LUNCH: 1:30pm, bread with three olive oils, asparagus over mushroom, pancetta and puffy dough, pumpkin & funky cheese raviolis, 1 glass white wine, chocolate soufle with vanilla icecream, 3 small pieces of chocolate, hunger 4/5
Nice holiday lunch at Fig & Olive on 13th street. The HVS forced those three chocolates on me, she almost got violent.

DINNER: 6:30pm, small green salad, assortment of pieces of homemade pizzas, chocolate and mint ice cream, 1 glass presecco, water, hunger 4/5
Cooked up a storm for some house guests, relatives staying with me from Israel. Pizzas came out pretty good this time. Used fresh sweet sopressetta as the featured meat - on the pizza, came out like the perfect alternative to pepperoni - thin so it got crispy on the edges, pleasingly fatty but did not leave pools of grease on the 'za.

In Praise of Dirt Pills

ADDENDA:
Though I don't really mention it, I've been taking 1 multivitamin a day since I dedicated myself to improving my well-being through diet. Yesterday, I ran out of a 90 tablet bottle, marking about 4 straight months of consuming these religiously. I was a bit suspicious when Ilsa recommended them - shouldn't I be getting all the nutrition I need from the food I eat? But if it wasn't going to do harm, I'd try it.

Unfortunately, I implemented a number of changes at the same time I started taking these tablets, so I can't say with certainty what they've done for me, but they certainly have not harmed me. The combination of cutting back the sweets, cooking more, thinking more about what food does to me, being married n' stuff.

BREAKFAST: 8am, organic wholegrain crispex with whole homogenized organic milk, banana, hunger 3/5

AM WATERING: 9:45am, 24 oz still

BP: 10:15am, 133/90

LUNCH: 12:15pm, curry ramen soup, 3 pork gyoza, 1 large chocolate chip cookie ice cream sammich, hunger 4/5
Didn't get the pork, as I porked out last night. The ramen soup was curry-ful, but unsatisfying, not tasty enough and not enough food! So I got this dessert from the commissary in the building, very industrial tasting....but satisfying. Still, something is lacking in it. Like McDonalds, it's over-processed and full of shitty ingredients, so it gives the impression of the food it's supposed to be, but doesn't quite deliver.

PM SNACK: 3pm, handful of m&ms, hunger 3/5
Snarfed these in the common area, immediately regretted it. I blame the holidays.

DINNER: 6pm, sampling of hummus, baba, redbean stew, zuchini pancake with yogurt, bread, entree of grilled lamb and veg with rice and potatoes, 1 glass wine, small sampling of sweets including almond pudding, halava, weird moist grainy cake, baklava, water
Dinner at Turkish Kitchen with B, Corinna and Tom, a proper holiday-time couply get together over food. Ate a bit too much.

More Mood, Less Food

ADDENDA:
Had an interesting meeting with Ilsa last night. I'm feeling a lot of anger and ill will towards my work in general since the since-backed off corporate directives a few weeks ago, despite never feeling more happy with the people I actually work with day to day. That brick o' Chinese I scarfed the other day was probably a result of that pressure. I shouldn't let it get to me that way.

I had a friend who when she got upset at herself, would literally smack herself on the head till she bled. Is scarfing a block of sodium-infused lard with some noodles in it so different, especially when I'm not even that hungry? Ilsa is afraid pressures will cause me to backslide, when I should be simply maintaining my healthier habits through these cold winter months. I got to get a handle on this.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, good yogurt with raw nuts, honey, vanilla, hunger 3/5

AM WATERING: 9:45am, 24 oz still

BP: 9:50am, 137/91
Despite being tired, did not sleep well last night, kept on #2ing for a few hours, then watched bad TV for an hour. Determined to eat better today, aim to go home tonight and aim for some quality ZZZs.

LUNCH: 12:45pm, superhippy peanutbutter sandwich, hummus with carrots, cuce, red pepper, celery, a few bites of cod, hunger 4/5
Cod tasted fresh, but underdressed. Next time, I'll get you, Cod!!

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, organic Fuji apple, raw milk appeller funky cheese, hunger 4/5
Chocolate being spread around the office, I heroically resisted.

DINNER: 7:45pm, 4 fresh spring rolls with shrimp, sauteed pork medallions in a mushroom wine sauce over brown jasmine rice, liter of seltzer, hunger 4/5
Oh my, this was an interest mealing meal. Click on the pic for an upclose look! Too bad these computers don't do smellovision - while the final result proved this to still be in the experimental stage, the smell in the kitchen was overwhelmingly intensely delicious.

When Ilsa was scolding me about how she doesn't care if I eat good pork every day, as long as I stay away from the bricks o' Chinese food. So I picked up a thick pork medallion and mushrooms on the way home. Rather than simply grill it and throw it over rice, I went on line and got an interesting recipe. However, I kinda winged it and added white wine, subtracted whatever 'savory' is, crushed dried rosemary in a pestle, replaced chicken stock with a container of veal stock I had in the freezer (picked up on a random shopping trip ages ago) and let rip.

Two things surprised me. One is the veal stock. I bought it originally because I read somewhere that veal stock is the 'secret weapon' of many chefs - it has the magical ability to make anything tastier. And my god, it does! I've eaten veal stock many times before but didn't know it - it's that indescribable delicious mouth feel that is like eating velvet. Damn, it's good.

Second is even though I tried to undercook the meat (browned 1 minute on each side instead of 2, let simmer in the sauce for 10 minutes instead of 15), it was STILL a little pale, dry and overcooked. Next time I do this recipe I'm going to brown it at higher heat for less time, simmer it in the sauce for less time, and get a fattier cut of meat that is still on the bone.

The Morning Afer

ADDENDA:
I brought some green M&Ms to work this morning, thinking I didn't want to eat them but peeps will. However, I had an unopened 2 liter bottle of Coca Cola I didn't think twice about pouring down the drain. Over lunch I just read the final parts of the third of the Ominvore's Dilemma about corn, and of all foods that are derived from corn, soda is 100% from that plant. I poured corn down the drain, which was grown with fertilizer that was refined from the same barrels of petroleum that gasoline is refined from. Pouring oil down the drain. Such a tremendous waste, no wonder countries with food shortages hate us.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, organic cheerios with organic homogenized milk, hunger 3/5
I could taste the difference in the homogenization, just tasted....less milky, more watery, despite being full-fat.

AM WATERING: 9:45am, 24 oz still
On the ride to work in the cold, I was actually looking forward to drinking water. The good thing about riding a desk for a living (and keeping this blog) is I'm starting to appreciate how this little things make a bigger difference than I thought. Maybe I should start watching my water intake closer on the weekends.

BP: 10:15am, 126/90

LUNCH: 1pm, setain sesame medallions over broccoli with brown rice, 2 spring rolls, large scallion pancake, 2 glasses water, hunger 4/5
Nice sit down lunch at Zen Palate.

PM WATERING: 3pm, 24 oz still
I guess I was a little dehydrated.

PM SNACK: 4pm, 1 small chocolate-coated ice cream nugget, hunger 3/5
Giving buckets of this stuff away at the general staff meeting. I'd rather have sick days paid. Is there any food stuff that can't be processed into nugget form?

DINNER: 9pm, baked cod with butter and garlic, 2 baked potatoes, large piece of mud pie, pint of seltzer, hunger 4/5
Never cooked cod before, did it very conservatively, came out eh. Realized afterward I cooked it EXACTLY like my mom would cook it. Grease pan, place pieces of hard butter over the top, through on a little crushed garlic in lumps, into the oven. Next time I will melt the butter in a pan, infuse it with sliced garlic, reduce some white wine into it, then kind of bathe/poach the fish. Maybe a little bit of sea salt, a few mushrooms or maybe stringbeans in the pan to enjoy the bath. Now THAT could be good.

Got the mud pie on purpose, just one large serving so as to not to let it roll over a few days that would otherwise be potentially sweet-free. In the past, I've gotten this cake to go along with store-bought gelato. Without it, it was just not that remarkable. Didn't enjoy it as much as I did, and the fact that it wasn't extinguishing some sort of sugar lust didn't help.

Party at my house!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All Day Breakfast

ADDENDA:
Woke after 10 hours of weird dreams and felt terrible. Spent a few hours in the bath with the Sunday paper and realized I was in no shape to go to yoga at noon. Cooked pancakes and couldn't move far from the couch. After pistachios, fell asleep on the couch and missed a Grand Street News event at 4pm, which B woke me up for...at 3:55.

Why did I eat that brick o' Chinese last night, when I wasn't even that hungry? Partially because I felt like I needed a proper third meal but my kitchen is too jammed up with supplies for tomorrow night's office-cum-house party to cook anything healthy. Partially because it's a personal ultimate comfort food. Partially after a crazed weekend in Las Vegas and an upsetting week at work, just needed that calming familiarity.

BRUNCH: 12:30pm, pancakes and bacon, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2:30pm. handful of unsalted shelled pistachios, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, toasted onion bagel with good butter, hunger 4/5

DINNER-LIKE SNACK: 6:30pm, a few meatballs on toothpicks, 1/2 a cosmo, 2 cups of seltzer, small portion of homemade mac n' cheese, two squares of weirdly greasy cheese n' onions on white bread toast, 2 fistfuls of crappy Hershey's kisses, hunger 3/5
Holiday party at a friend of B's, known for it's drinks-over-food policy, so this year I brought a tray of mac n' cheese. Tasted a bit bland to me, but will pump it up next time I make it....which will be tomorrow. This is the third time I've been to this party, definitely enjoyed it the most - this particular clutch of B's femmy friends are actually pretty cool.