Post-Dinnerfest Wrapup II

ADDENDA:
Despite the late indulgence, slept like a rock - having Betsy by my side was what I needed. Funny, I didn't really miss her THAT much until yesterday afternoon and I was finishing up my work and she was back in NYC uptown helping her mom. Then I was, like, enough already, I miss her!

Rereading yesterday's post, I didn't really do a Dinnerfest post-mortem. Some random observations.

1. Making a lasagna from scratch is an intense 5-hour affair.
2. Everyone loves homemade icecream, but if you over-aerate it, it's not nearly as intense.
3. When I cook something complex a 2nd or 3rd time, it's almost always better (specifically the risotto and the 2nd round of arancini.)
4. Diverging from a recipe is a good thing 2/3 of the time.
5. My friends are pretty awesome.
6. I really enjoy cooking, but I'm still fuzzy if I want to do this for a living. However, I more now than ever want to go to Culinary.
7. Pizza-fests are the easiest go-to fun meal for a crowd, but I need to find a good dough recipe.
8. I gotta cure my own bacon, too.
9. Dinnerfests generate a LOT of dishes, and a lot of Wholefoods bills (and a whole lotta leftovers - the mini freezer is stuffed with ice creams and brownies!)
10. A lot of people don't want to eat vegan. Even the HVS pulled a boner.
11. The only thing Rufus has with misery is a love of company.
12. Marinating pork for 3 days then browning it on high heat for 7 minutes on one side and 5 minutes on the other results in a restaurant-quality piece of meat. Up until Dinnerfest, I was a bit unsure of my skills handling real, un-grinded meat, but now I have the confidence for MORE PORK!
13. Both my brownies and lemon muffins were (I think) superior to mixes, and not much harder to make.
    
14. All my life when I made salad, it was a standard green salad with a very limited ingredient list. However, the baby spinach salad I made with the roasted nuts was so enjoyable, I think I'm going to start mixing it up. Salad season is upon us!!
    

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, good yogurt with honey and nuts and vanilla, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5
Ate 1/3 of a carton rather than 1/2, was still pretty satisfying.

LUNCH: 12:30pm, 2 slices streetza, green salad, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5pm, 1 arancini, .5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Man, these things are good. I should do the same for the mac n' cheese I'm making - ball up old leftovers, bread it and fry it!!

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, 2 spoonfuls of almond icecream, ramakin full of pistachios, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, small portion of mac n' cheese, a few strips of prosciutto, small piece of chocolate cake and cheese cake, 1 glass wine, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Potluck dinner for B's cousin. Surprised how few people (no one other than me, really) brought home-cooked food. I made a mac n' cheese, took about half an hour to prep and an hour to bake, and it was still hot when we got it there. Disappeared pretty quickly.

Post-Dinnerfest Wrapup

ADDENDA:
The plan was to go up town to meet a friend for lunch, then yoga, but I got wrapped up on a piece of freelance typesetting that's due tomorrow morning, and before I knew it it was 5pm.

Got a good amount of sleep, but feeling vaguely sick, headachy, groany. I'm ready for Betsy to be home.

BREAKFAST: 10am, organic chex with good milk, .75 bowl, hunger 2/5
Got 9 hours of sleep, still groggy and a little headachy.

AM SNACK: 11:30, 2 short bread cookies, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5
Need a nibble to keep focused on work.

LUNCH: 3pm, lasagne and 2 arancini, small cup almond ice cream & 3 pieces shortbread, water, 2.5 bowls hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7:30pm, large spinach salad, boca burger on sprouted wheat bread, water, 2 bowls, hunger 3/5
Not very hungry, but I'm afraid if I don't eat, I'll get hugnry at a late hour and eat regrettably.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, small cup of almond icecream, 1 piece shortbread, hunger 4/5
I shouldn't of ate this, this purely serves to keep me fat. But I was in a celebratory mood, as my Betsy is back and I wanted her to have some. And once it was out....

Dinnerfest V: Lasagne Laboratory

ADDENDA:
Long day capped the final night of Dinnerfest 2008. Couldn't fall asleep last night till 3, woke up naturally at 7. Had a good interview uptown, then picked up stuff at Wholefoods. Ate, chilled, and before I knew it it was 2pm. Cooked straight till 8pm, finding making such a large quantity of fresh pasta in such a multi-layered dish. A few peeps cancelled at the last minute, but Karen & her Chandler came which made everything all right, if only a lot more stuff for the freezer than I expected.

It's now 10:15 and I'm completely burnt. Hopefully desert won't keep me up tonight...

BREAKFAST: 8am, organic cornflakes with good milk, .75 bowls, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, pork medalions, brocoli, rice pilaf, brownie and almond icecream, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Pork was still moist and tasty after a night in the fridge...

PM SNACK: 4pm, 1 piece of whole wheat shortbread cookie, hunger 4/5
Just baked it, had to try it. Gooooood.

DINNER: 8pm, arancini with baby spinach salad dressed with oo&v and roasted cashews, meat & dairy lasagne from scratch (including the pasta), almond icecream with shortbread, 1 glass wine, seltzer, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
The arancini this time were so much better, I breaded them with panko that just made the rice balls SCREAM, and I deep fried them longer for a thicker jacket o' crust, an excellent compliment to the salad. The lasagne was technically extremely difficult to get together, between all the differnet parts (a ricotta & spinach layer, a mozz-duo layer, a ragu layer(which was made last week), freshly made tomato sauce on the bottom and top, and all those sheets of fresh pasta that almost didn't come off because doubling the recipe doesn't quite work right, he he.

I think Rufus is tired of me cooking so much food every night, he had a bite of shortbread then curled up on my head for the night....

Dinnerfest IV: Powered By Pork

ADDENDA:
Saw the latest Anthony Bourdain show this evening, where he went back to the restaurant that made him famous and worked the line for a night. I'm sure they took some liberties with editing, but it looked like a huge pressure-cooker of a cluster-fuck for anyone not ready to submerge in a vat of no-think-just-do for 12 hours daily. Cooking for Dinnerfest is definitely a beast of a different nature than cooking professionally. I'm just playing the guitar for a few friends in the living room, they're out on tour with Michael Jackson.

BREAKFAST: 7:15am, 2 lemon muffins, coffeecup full of chocolate soy ice cream, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

Before leaving the house at 8:30 to do family chores, baked brownies from scratch to accompany a new batch of ice cream tonight, whose mix I cooked up last night before going to sleep. The pork loins have been marinating for 2 days... tonight's meal definitely is taking the most pre-thought.

LUNCH: 1pm, 1 pint pork fried rice, shrimp toast, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
I was far uptown and my bicycle was crippled by 1.5 foot deep pothole, so popped into a Chinese take-out for some oral entertainment on the subway ride home. For some reason, they did not give me any utensils or napkins....the shrimp toast was easy enough to pop in my mouth, the fried rice not so easy.

The train wasn't crowded, and once I got on I realized the appetizer made me hungrier, and some how the rice had to find a way to mah belly. I opened the container, firmly gripped within the paper and plastic bags, and using three fingers as a spoon, I lifted the rice close to my face and shoveled. As the train would come to halt at stations, I'd stop to grab the bike to make sure it didn't fall over. As I'm eating, I realized I probably look totally nuts - I'm the nut on the subway. No one was staring, and I WAS careful not to get rice anywhere other than my mouth. I know if Betsy was there, she'd be three shades of purple, but I probably would of not of busted out the rice till I got home.

PM SNACK: 3pm, 1 tiny square of brownie, hunger 3/5
Just wanted to see if it was the brownie of my dreams....no, but a lot closer to it...

DINNER: 8:30pm, 2 arancini (pictured below), pork loin with an onion sherry gravy, roasted brocolli, mushroom rice pilaf, almond icecream and a brownie, 2 glasses wine, 1 small cup Guiness, seltzer, 3 bowls, hunger 4/5
This meal was the best yet in Dinnerfest, if only because all the dishes that I made previously, this time they were markedly improved. The arancini (deep fried balls of yesterday's risotto with a speck of mozz in the middle and coated in egg and flour) was so much better because of the addition of a fry thermometer and much denser risotto - this time, surprisingly ungreasy. The brocolli was as good as usual....the pork, oh the pork, I cut the loin into small 1-serving hunks, just a palm size piece, and browned them on three sides before putting them aside to rest...moist, tender, just a tease of pink in the middle - not perfect, but 2x as good as the pork chop I made a week ago and 10x better than the dry husks I cooked up a month ago. The pilaf....eh, I used all the good ingredients and toasted the hell out of the rice before puttin g it in the cooker, but after 2 tries with hard grainy results, I added more liquid by a cup and it came out mushy. Peeps liked it, but it's not the risotto of my mind.

I served everything on the small 'salad plates', and the plate looked relatively full with a normal conservative portion. If I put them on our 'dinner plates', it would of taken up 1/3 of the real-estate, rediculous.

Dinnerfest III: All About Ilsa

ADDENDA:
Unfortunately, the Hungry Vegan Society pulled a boner and couldn't make it, so tonight's dinner was all about the singular guest of honor, my nutritionist, Ilsa. Funny, one sure way not to over eat is to become friends with the person helping you manage your eating, then invite them to a homemade rich meal.

I kinda wanted a second helping of risotto, as it took a good 45 minutes of elbow grease, but I'm glad I didn't - after a small single serving of soy icecream, I really was content.

Never worked with rice pizza dough. Early in the cooking process I made a little sample 'za (pictured - ain't it cute?) to see how it reacted to the heat and pizza stone - Ilsa said it was really good but the whole cracker-like non-chew of the crust bugged me out.

Earlier in the day, I got an interesting email from Ilsa. I asked for some specific kind of meal plan to focus on to get my weight reduced a bit. She wrote:

Hi Noah,

at our last session you asked me to give you an ideal meal plan.

First things first: no more snacking and no more late meals (no food after 8 pm) and no more boxes of cookies. You have enough awareness by now to know when to say when and you need to put that into practice.

I suggest the following and we'll tailor it to minimize suffering and maximize results.

1. start the day with breakfast. 3/4 of a bowl. I'd suggest you take a page out of the Isreali breakfast. You want to eat foods you enjoy, that will nourish you and jump start the metabolism.

2. make lunch the biggest meal of the day. I'd suggest you eat the pork medallions at lunchtime. 2.5 bowls

3. a small something, ONLY if you feel hungry around 3 pm.

4. dinner: this meal needs to become smaller and lighter. More vegetables. 1.5 bowls.

Last but not least no more take out chinese food. Seriously. You can have take out chinese once per month and that's it.

Keep track of when hunger (grumbling stomach) hits so we can adjust according to your real needs.

also: please be very smart about this weight loss. You're going to feel different. As you lose the weight toxins will be released into your blood stream this will affect your moods. I'd suggest you start to drink more water to help flush the system.

We've also got the cleanse coming up at the end of the month and the cleanse will involve drinking more water.

I have not mentioned specific foods b/c you are going to have to start listening to what your body wants. I can't tell you what's right. I've asked that you go to whole foods and contemplate the fruits, vegetables, and meats and I'm going to ask you to do this again. You have to begin to listen and hear which foods are resonating with you. Those are the foods you should eat.

Please add seeds, nuts, and olive oil and more fruits: apples, pears, bananas.

I hate to say it but I think your palate is a bit lazy and you're going to have to strengthen it by varying your diet.

Your weight loss plan is a work in progress but let's try what I've outlined here for a month and see where that gets you.

Talk to you soon.

Ilsa

Oh dip! I got served! Lazy palate 'n all. After reading this, I thought, "Hmmm, I haven't had Chinese in quite a while, should I go for a brick?" He he. Actually, the last brick made me feel so crap, I can't see that happening. But after cooking so much this week, I may kick back with a pint of pork fried rice...

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, 2 lemon muffins, water, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
Funny, I forgot I made these and wasn't going to eat breakfast because I just didn't feel like eating anything. Looked in the fridge and 4 beautiful, fresh muffins in tupperwear stared back at me. I instantly became a little hungry.

LUNCH: 12:15am, fresh hummus with a handful of baby carrots and a hunk of superhippy bread,water, 2 bowls hunger 4/5
Not much to eat in the house other than ingredietns for dinner, so I whipped up a batch of hummus, whose ingredients happen to be lying around. And if I'm going to try a Euro-Israeli breakfast, it's a key staple...

PM SNACK: 4pm, 1 small cup of vanilla icecream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7:45pm, rice crust olive oil & garlic pizza, mushroom & sherry risotto with roasted broccoli, small cup of chocolate soy icecream, 1 glass wine, seltzer, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
The rice crust pizza was a bit skeevy by my pizza-standards, but I guess if you can't tolerate wheat, you could disguise it with good cheese, sauce and olive oil. This was the second time I've made risotto, and even though it was 2x better than the first time I made it, it sat for about 15 minutes before serving and became a little bit gluey - that there is some sensitive stuff. The roasted broc was good as usual. I played a little with the soy chocolate ice cream, using both melted baking chocolate and coco powder - it became intensely chocolaty, almost to the edge of bitter but not quite. A strong chocolate that pulls no punches.

Dinnerfest II: Brunch Edition

ADDENDA:
Woke up, felt good, yesterday's yoga didn't hurt me too much. Today's dinnerfest was a relaxed affair, four friends and a comfortable rolling afternoon.

Got the key ingredient to make magical brownies today, gonna bake it for my birthday.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, nuts, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Time to peel the 'taters...

PM SNACK: 1pm, veggie booty, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

BRUNCH: 3pm, 3 small lemon muffins, 5 potato latkes with cream fraiche and apple compote, vanilla ice cream, 2.5 bowls, 2 mimosas, seltzer, hunger 4/5
Made bacon, but only enough for the other four guests. The lemon muffins were from scratch and quite good, used whole wheat pastry flour. The latkes were a challenge, the oil being either too hot or too cool. The apple compote came out surprisingly well, simply cubed apples slightly sauted in juice and lime juice with a little sugar and corn starch. The ice cream was again rather rocking.

DINNER: 8pm, 5 potato latkes with a little bit of cream and compote, water, 1/5 bowls, hunger 3/5
Was tempted to dig into ice cream but actually stopped myself because a) had no sugar craving, as the apple compote was sweet enough and b) thought it might interfere with my sleeping. It's bad enough not having Betsy here, for her to not be here AND have insomnia, that would be worse.

Dinnerfest I: Pizza Nite

ADDENDA:
Woke up late, bathed and whipped up lunch, then went to a yoga basics class, hit the farmers market, cleaned the house and prepped for Dinnerfest. Four friends came over, none know each other, but I knew all were quality peeps and was a great vibe, emails were exchanged and all the fod presented was eated, with 2nd all around. With the left over ingredients, made calzones for peeps to take home.

LUNCH: Noon, shrimp in a stock and sherry reduction with mushroom brown rice, 1 bowl,, seltzer, hunger 4/5
After making it and eating some, realized that I had made about 3 bowls worth of rice, but was content at less than 1.

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, 1 mutzu apple, chunk of raw milk onion edammer cheese, seltzer, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Went to the farmers market after yoga, didn't buy much other than this snack. Damn, that apple was crisp and fresh!

PM SNACK: 6pm, veggie booty, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Spent the last hour cleanings the house, something Betsy somehow doubted I would do before having guests, like I was some uber-slob before she moved in. Hrumph!

DINNER: 8:30pm, spinach salad with olive oil & balsamic & roasted cashews, various pizza slices, small cup of homemade vanilla ice cream, 2 glasses red wine, 1 beer, seltzer, 2.5 bowls
The first night of Dinnerfest went swimmingly, but I must admit, it did feel a little bit like a punt - I've done the pizza thing for 5-6 people before. Still, I did this nice appetizer salad - baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, cucumber minus the seeds, balsamic and olive oil, and some crushed freshly roasted cashews in butter and fresh thyme, really yummy.

I discovered with the pizzas that if I role it out to a 6" disc then let it rest until I need it, the dough becomes VERY loose and barely needs to be rolled, it can by stretched by hand! And tossed, I imagine.

I am....the CARBONATOR!!

ADDENDA:
Fell asleep before 10 last night, woke up at 4:30. I wonder if only having about 4.5 bowls of food had anything to do with that.

Making a list to go shopping for the first few days of Dinnerfest 2008, which starts tomorrow. Haven't really given it too much thought, but now that I am, looking forward to some things I've never done before. Tomorrow, a restaurant-worthy appetizer salad to compliment the pizza, on Sunday brunch lemon muffins to compliment the vanilla icecream...

Betsy got me a home-carbonation kit for my birthday, I guess because I was grumbling how that GuS soda is so lovely, but probably easy to make if I just had the right equipment, he he he. I guess it's put-up or shut up time, I guess I may try for some homemade sodapop for dinnerfest... regardless, I used to go through a good $100-$150 worth of carbinated waters every few months - between the packaging and the importing, ridiculous. I'm not a huge green-fiend (hi, HVS!), but I am a huge fan of NYC tap water, it's my #1 drink of choice because it TASTES GOOD. And now I can have carbonated NYC tap water!

BREAKFAST #1: 5am, good yogurt with honey, nuts, vanilla, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

BREAKFAST #2: 9am, boca burger on sprouted wholewheat, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11am, baby carrots, cucumber and red pepper with ranch dressing, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Just hungry this morning, avoiding hammering down something heavier.

LUNCH #1: 1pm, homemade cheese ravioli with olive oil and grated parm, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH #2: 3:30pm, 1.5 grilled cheese sandwiches on superhippy bread with raw milk emmanthaller and grilled onions, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5-7pm, about 3 cupcakes, from batter to frosting, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Baked 3 dozen vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting, came out ok, better than the last batch.

DINNER: 8:30pm, half an Isabella's Oven Margerita DOC, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, 1 bite of homemade pizza, 1 cup sangria, water, hunger 2/5

I See Dad People

ADDENDA:
After an interview, popped in to see an afternoon movie. As I was going up an escalator, an elderly man was on the opposite side coming down. Elderly, slightly stooped, the gray-white pallor I recognized from my father in his last few years. The man was wearing a goofy fully-brimmed fisherman-style hat my dad wore too and my mom would make fun of. The man was wearing a non-descript jacket a size or two too large, which probably fit him fine a few years ago, just like my father would wear it.

I remembered when I'd go out with my dad, I conciously knew that I had to cherish the time in the present, because I knew there would be a day when he'd be gone and I see some other little old man on the street which I would be able to mistake for him from a distance. Though I knew it, I didn't quite believe it.

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, organic chex with good milk, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM WATERING: 11am, 24 oz still

NOON SNACK: Noon, 1 slice pizza, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
After some interviews, stopped by the '99 Cent Pizza' place behind Port Authority. The slice was hot and fresh, but small, doughy & undercooked, undersauced and tasted more like hot dough than pizza...

LUNCH: 3:30pm, homemade pasta with meat ragu, 1 cupcake, 2 bowls, hunger 4.5/5
Hungry, road bike hard home, which made me hungrier.

DINNER: 7pm, vegetarian Ethiopian food, water, 1 bowl, hunger 2/5
Dinner out with B, not hungry at all, but still enjoyed it.

Betsy & Noah Poop! CC

ADDENDA:
Good day yesterday, despite only 4 hours of sleep the night before. Made another batch of experimental cupcakes today, as I don't want the first time peeps eating my cupcakes to be the first time I made them. This time I used a recipe that claimed to be Magnolia's, sifted the flour, changed out the kind of flour and....much cupcakier. As good as Magnolia's, and definitely just as unhealthy.

Right after I whipped these out, I made homemade powerbars from a recipe from Ilsa, more for Betsy to replace the industrial bars she's been wolfing down at an alarming rate. Think I may make it again, but minus the dried fruit, and plus nuts, organic rice crispies and, he he, chocolate chips.

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, good yogurt with raw nuts, honey, vanilla, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Woke up well rested and hungry. Stepped on the scale, 233, but I assume that's just a normal variation.

BP 11:45am: 131/89

LUNCH: 2pm, roasted broccoli with tofu, mushroom, onion, panko, a GuS soda, 24 oz still water, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Whipped up this dish again with ingredients laying around, this time adding sesame seeds for a good kick, held the cheese. Two bowls of food, plus the soda as I was vaguely craving sweets.

PM SNACK: 4pm, 2 cupcakes (one batter, one baked), .5 bowls, hunger 3/5
Mmmmmm good. Got a headache. Good thing it ain't bedtime!

DINNER: 8:30pm, Russian meat dumplings with yogurt & vinegar, salad, 1 cupcake, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 11:30pm, unsalted roasted pistachios, 1/3 bowl, hunger 4/5

Good Morning, Cupcake!

ADDENDA:
At 7:30am, I feel something crumbly against my lips and my wife squealing, "Guess what this is!! Yummy!" I smell chocolate and feel a little bit like a dog having his nose rubbed in his poop - after 4 fitful hours of sugar-addled sleep, the last thing I wanted to wake up to was the source of my bad sleep rubbed in my face! But at the same time, it was wonderful to wake up to a giddy, wired Betsy. The remaining dozen or so cupcakes were taken by B this morning to her work for distribution, I wonder how many actually made it...

Last night's session with Ilsa was interesting. She in no uncertain terms said based on this blog, I'm eating too much - not too surprising, as what I'm eating has been maintaining my weight for a while now. Of course, though fuel in, energy out and the metabolism that governs it is not a totally simple equation (if it was, all determined people would be skinny!), Ilsa made some interesting recommendations about hitting lunch harder, low-lighting dinner and adding more snacks. Funny, she didn't push me to eat less, it almost seems like she's asking me to eat more, though she hinted the pain is comin'...

Past few meetings, she also has been highlighting my parents - ocassionally, I go off on tangents on this blog when food memories trigger parental memories. Thinking about it, theres a lot there, don't know how comfortable I am disgorging it all here, but I guess it can't hurt...

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, waffle, water, 1.5 bowls, hunger 3/5
At a diner with a friend I'm helping with a PowerPoint VC pitch. Looking at the menu, found nothing that would really be Ilsa-approved other than eggs, which is not going to happen this life time. Usually I would of done bacon, but I suspected they'd have ridiculously salty industrial stuff.

The friend I was with, whose been in my social circle since high school, used to be a bit of a tubbo, but for the past 4-5 years has been very trim and healthy looking. For breakfast, she ordered a plate of eggs over medium, cornbeef hash and potatos, and took most of it to go (she said she ate 2 eghgs earlier that morning). I wanted to get into a detailed conversation about her weight, but felt it wasn't the right time - a) we were talkin' business and b) you just can't spring a conversation on a lady like that unless it comes up smoothly...

LUNCH: 1:15pm, center-cut pork loin chop with gravy over homemade pasta, seltzer, cupcake ring, 3 bowls, hunger 4/5
First bite into the pork evoked two immediate reactions. One was, "Holy CRAP!", the second was, "there is no way is there going to be any left over chop!" I've made pork medallions a few times before, and they were dry, tough, not very tastey and over all similar to my mom's horrible lamb chops (hmmm, that's a story for later, and the "puke chicken", too...) The first bite of this was moist, bursting with that yummy cooked flavor, and all together appetizing. Taste-wise, yes, this was restaurant fare. Presentation-wise, it looked like a mess, but hey, whadaya gonna do. As I was finishing the gravy, a head-hunter called to set up an portfolio review, so I let it thicken more than I would of otherwise, but it just intensified the flavor.

The pasta was good, my first time eating homemade from frozen. Unfortunately a lot of it stuck together into one big lump, how do I avoid that?

To avoid being wasteful, I used up the excess cupcake batter and frosting in a bundt pan, making the shallowest bundt cake ever, and burnt on underside to boot. Still, I ate about a 1/3 of the ring, and it was weirdly good/bad. Cupcakes need work.

DINNER: 8:30pm, hijiki tofu burger on ww pita, large spinach salad, small(?) portion of sesame noodles, 3 bowls, hunger 4/5
Picked up some work at the old job in the eve (nice to get a day rate for an hour's work), then did a basics yoga class with the HVS, was nice to do something physical. Walked down to Dojo after for a vegan meal, a meal I used to enjoy when I was vegan myself and is still pretty satisfying. Funny, the 'large' spinach salad didn't seem so large (except for the honking cup of carrot dressing, which I used 1/4 of) and the noodle appetizer was easily 1.5 bowls by itself. I guess in the future, I can drop the noodles....I know conciously that with out them I'd still roll out of there satisfied, but somewhere less rational I just don't believe it...

Wired

ADDENDA:
Met with Ilsa this evening. When I mentioned I had a huge pork chop marinating in the fridge for dinner AND the cheese & bacon sandwich was still sitting in my stomach, she calmly & rationally suggested maybe a pork chop wasn't what I should be eating that evening.

She was right, of course, and throwing in some veg with the broccoli came out really good (my first experience with leek!) But it left room for more desert....I didn't pound a lot on purpose, it just kinda slipped down my throat... light dinner and heavy desert is a bad combination for me - I was up till 4pm, wired on sugar.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, organic raisin bran with good milk, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 1:15pm, 2 grilled cheese & bacon sandwiches on super hippy bread, half bottle of seltzer, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Used 4 strips of bacon, and used it's grease instead of butter. Came out goooood, though next time I will use butter, too.

DINNER: 8:30pm, roasted brocolli with tofu, onion, leek and mushroom, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, about a total of 5 small chocolate cupcakes, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Eaten in the form of both batter, hot out of the oven, and cooled with butter cream frosting. Made from scratch, the cupcakes were unpleasantly dense and a bit too much like cakey brownies, but the butter cream frosting was over the top good - used a boutique butter recommended in Saveur magazine, was dead simple to make and confirmed my suspicion that those jars of Betty Crocker 'fudgy' frosting my mom would buy were nutso.

Cheeseburger Cheeseburger

ADDENDA:
Kevin Smith's blog-book is a tome of culinary horrors. After filming a movie, he cops to having over eaten without thought for three months, so goes to a hospital to participate in an 'opti-fast' liquid diet, where he eats nothing but 6 shakes a day. In about 2 months, he has lost 50 pounds. He doesn't go into details, but it sounds like a huge pain in the ass, as a lot of his business and social life revolves around food. He doesn't say when he goes off it, but at some point he's back to hitting up the usual McD's, Baja Fresh, Quiznos etc etc for 3 meals a day. What a retard.

BREAKFAST: 10am, small handful of chocolate chips, seltzer, hunger 3/5

LUNCH #1: Noon, 2 McDonalds cheeseburgers, bottle o' water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Highway service pavillion, B insisted on stopping but she got some healthy veg wrap at some no-name place. I was craving familiarity and sense memories of my parents. I skipped the fries and diet coke and just ordered 2 little cheeseburgers, now considered children's portions but back in the day were the standard size. Not good, not bad, exactly as I remember it when we went to McD's with my grandmom.

LUNCH #2: 3pm, 1 small clam pie, water, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
White clam pizza at Frank Pepe's in New Haven, Betsy & I's 4th trip there. Half an hour wait in the cold with other pizza fans, was fun. This may be a birthday destination?

DINNER: 8pm, boca burger on toasted whole wheat sprouted bread with chili sauce, large handful of baby carrots and red pepper with a splooch of ranch, 24 oz still water, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Wow, NYC tap water tastes so good. Water up in Bahstan was assed-out.

EVENING SNACK: 10:30pm, mushroom potato knish, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

Saturday In Bahstan

ADDENDA:
Kevin Smith is so in love with McDonalds that for breakfast, he brings his co-star, Jennifer Gardner, a McGriddle sandwich while she's pregnant. If I was a a crazy Christian, I'd say that's a form of child-abuse...

BREAKFAST: 11am, toasted bagel with hummus, seltzer, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3pm, saltines with almond butter, 1 square dark chocolate, .25 bowls, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 5pm, 3 bbq ribs, 2 slices scallion pancake, 2 large pork dumplings, 1 crab rangoon, small amount of pad thai, small amount of shrimp & brocolli, water, fortune cookie, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
B, Hermomma, and I went to a Chinese restaurant over the border in Salem, NH that is owned by the family of one of my best friends. Her mom greeted us, ordered the food for us, and didn't let us pay. We came home with ridiculous amounts of food. I only ate till I felt moderately full - I think in the past, I would of eaten as much as possible, to the point of bursting, but I know better now. Still, there is a late night snack coming up....

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, 2 dumplings, pad thai, one bowl, hunger 3/5

Off ta Bahstahn

ADDENDA:
Taking the train this afternoon with B to Boston to hang with her mom at the old homestead together for the last time. I remember the last time I went to the home I grew up in, it was to move furniture into my first rental in Manhattan. That was probably my first big life change in regards to realizing my parents were not only getting older, but possibly mortal, too.

ANYWAY, I look forward to it.

I'm currently reading the book of Kevin Smith's personal blog, of whose film work I am a fan but not a big fan of his self-absorbed writing. However, I'm shocked/horrified by what he writes about....what he eats. He wakes up and rolls out to McDonalds/Baja Fresh/Carl Jrs/Quiznos to get breakfast for his family, and when they go out for breakfast they go to a deli. And he, being a big fat ass, snacks on 'low carb ice cream' and diet soda. WTF? This is an intelligent dude with lots of money and a great career and happy family and friends and an (apparently) sunny disposition, so why is he eating like a cracked-out garbage truck? Shit, looks like he's eating garbage on the cover!

Speaking of fat asses, after breakfast I weighed 235, same as ever. I guess that feeling of lightness was just that, a feeling.

BREAKFAST: 9:30 am, good yogurt with nuts, honey and vanilla, half a gus soda, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Felt the urge for a shot of sugar, but even though the soda is relatively low sugar, half a 12 oz bottle was enough.

LUNCH: 12:30, a few pieces of bread and olive oil, margherita pizza, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Brunch in Brooklyn with a friend at Savoia, has a wood-burning oven. The crust had a nice chew and char, but the small pools of boring hard moz kinda made it mediocre.

DINNER: 5pm, 3 inira, 2 summer rolls, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Eh japanese in Penn Station

SNACK: 7pm, whole wheat pretzels with good peanut butter, .5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Train, brought with.

SNACK: 9pm, bag of potatochips, super-sized snickers bar, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Train, bought on. Thought it was a normal sized candy bar till I sat down with it and say it had 3 servings to it. Inspired by reading the Kevin Smith book, where I find he is on the Atkins diet, hence sausage patties from McD's in the morning and steaks in the evenings, and lowcarb frozen pizza and ice cream in the middle, yechchchch!

SNACK: midnight, half a bagel and half a bialy with hummus, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Snickity snack with B and her momma.

Back to the Old House, err, Office

ADDENDA:
Getting excited about Dinnerfest, lots of positive response. Starting to realize how much work it's going to be, which makes it more exciting.

Went to the office today to get some samples to send to some employers who contacted me recently. Brought lunch and ended up in the lunch corner of the office with ex-fellow coworkers, shooting the shit. Rather than being depressing, it was the opposite, it was really good to see those folks and they seemed genuinely happy to see me.

When I left the house this morning into the bitter cold, my moods elevated and I had a certain feeling of....lightness. Going to weigh myself tomorrow to see if it's based in anything.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, nuts, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Really, quantity-wise a half bowl, but the Fage is so rich and flavorful and dense, it feels like a full bowl.

LUNCH: 2pm, leftover homemade pasta & ragu, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, baby carrots, red pepper, cucumber, ranch dressing, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8:30pm, pernil with blackbeans, white rice, fried plantains, 3 greeeasy churros with dulce de leche, 1 whiskey sour, water, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Good time in Brooklyn with a friend and her new boyfriend, good vibe all around. This was a favorite restaurant of theirs, and when the waitress asked if we wanted an appetizer, both said no, the portions are large. They were right, my plate had about 3 bowls on it, and ate about 2/3 of it to save room for desert, which came off the 'light' part of the desert menu. I dunno, any fried dough that squirts grease in your mouth when you first bite it is a bit of stretch to call 'light'. Maybe because it came with 4 short fried sticks instead of 6 huge ones?

I didn't like the pernil (like the Chinese pork the other night, too much fat and the meat was stringy) - I think I just don't like braised meats in general...though I do like me a Cuban sandwich, I should try to make one....

Cafe Wildberger's Dinnerfest 2008!!

ADDENDA:
Betsy is leaving town to help her mother organize moving from Boston to NY - she'll be away from Saturday, March 8 to Thursday, March 13th. Last night, over dinner with Corinna, we were doing the run down of how our lives were, what was going on etc, and the one thing I expressed concern over is the week Betsy is going to go away - it's going to be lonely.

My mom on occasion would leave town on work trips, leaving my dad alone, who retired a few years before her due to health reasons. I would make a point of seeing him every day in those periods, and each visit was centered around food. One day he would make his day based on coming to midtown to eat at the cheap but good corporate cafeteria at the law firm I was designing at, then a digestive walk after. Another day I would pop by his apartment for dinner, either cook up a simple pasta and sauce from a jar, or order in Chinese, then TV or sitting around reading together. If it was a weekend, we'd go to the Village for either a movie, a museum, a play, an opera or shopping for books and music, but always a meal in a restaurant.

We never spoke much, I always thought he was just naturally quiet, though now that I'm married, I've come to realize that we were BOTH similar in our quietness. Alone together was our favorite way of being. I have no regrets, for when we did talk on that rare occasion, all that needed to be said was said.

He only said it once, but it kinda opened my eyes. Over some simple dinner in his apartment, he said to me, "Noah, don't tell her, but I really miss your mother. Even her yelling and nagging." I kind of knew he did, but for him to say it, to quote the Flaming Lips, a spoonful weighed a ton.

In the year my mom was alive after my dad passed away, she retired and for the brief window after she got over her grieving and before she was diagnoses with cancer, she started to come visit me at work once a week to the corporate cafeteria. After the meal, going down in the elevator for our digestive walk, she made some crack about dad (we both had very dark senses of humor and we greatly enjoyed making very inappropriate comments about dad's eccentricities, especially in his dotage.), which made me remember what he had said that time. In that elevator, I told her, you know, I remember when your way on a trip, dad said this. She didn't reply, and looked straight ahead at the closed elevator doors. I could tell she was holding back tears. For the first time, her silence was equally potent to my fathers.

ANYWAY, back to last night with Corinna. After mentioning my upcoming loneliness, we discussed her and her husband coming over for dinner - why not during that time? It's not ideal with B away, but still. Then the flash of memory of meals with my parents when the other was away and....why don't I have dinner with friends every night B is away? Why, I should cook every night, challenge myself in a new way - if I'm going to engage Culinary School properly and maybe even work in and around a kitchen, I have to do it in a concentrated way.

So in the next day or two, I'll be sending out an email to my friends inviting them to come over for a good dinner one night between Saturday and Wednesday. There will be one pizza night and one vegan night, the other three nights given to a pasta, a meat and a fish. Each night will have a starter and a dessert. Left overs will be reused the following night (risotto one night will be the next night's arrancini, etc.), though some dishes (like vanilla icecream) will be stretched to 2 nights. Hmmmmm.....the mind boggles.

BREAKFAST: 11am, organic cornflakes with good milk, .75 bowls, hunger 3/5
Woke up late, then B called inviting me over for lunch, within two hours. Wake up, lazy bones!

LUNCH #1: 12:30pm, tomato soup, 1 piece bread, 1.25 bowls, hunger 3/5
Lunch at Bar Stuzzini, not hungry. Betsy ordered this good-looking fried artichokes, but I just wasn't feelin' on fried food. I ordered 'tomato and bread soup', but the soup came surprisingly bread-free.

LUNCH #2: 3pm, baby carrots and red pepper spears with sea salt, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Rather than sprinkling the clumpy salt, I filled the bowl up with water and salted it, then poured off the water after 10 seconds. The veg is lightly and evenly salted.

LUNCH #3: 4:30pm, leftover risotto, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Damn, I love leftovers sometimes. Sitting in the fridge a few days softened the rice a little.

DINNER: 8:30pm, homemade ragu bolognese over homemade linguine with parm, lemon seltzer, 1.75 bowls, hunger 4/5
It took 2.5 hours from pulling the ingredients to eating, but was an fun meal to prep. The sauce is from the Batali cookbook, with pork, veal and pancetta, milk and white wine, oil and onion, celery and carrot, and a small bullet of tomato paste. Simmered for 1.5 hours, it thickened up nicely. Finished it with sea salt and pepper, and is surprisingly tasty in that slightly funky, meaty round way. The pasta, all egg and bread flour, was as toothsome as ever.

Eating one bowl was easy, and fully intended to eat a full 2nd, but as I was eating it started feeling full. Now I wish I waited between bowls, would of probably eaten less.

Eating Out With Friends

BREAKFAST: 10am, 5 small pancakes and 4 strips bacon, water, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Heavy, yes, but it's from my own mix from scratch and it just satisfies. The four strips of bacon was just as satisfying as 7 - it's the American in me that says if 7 satisfys, then 14 will do doubly!

LUNCH #1: 2pm, 1 huge slice of 'Zen' vegan pizza, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Went out to the movies with Yana, who due to work in retail has days off during the week. Before hand, went to this 'healthy' pizza place that I used to hit up all the time when I was vegan. Had 1 slace, but it was huge, and thick, as it is topped with plenty of miso-marinated tofu, vegetables, and a green-tea infused crust. Felt like a lot of food.

And let's be straight, this was not pizza. Even the crust had no chew to it, it was like a quick bread topped with all sorts of non-pizza related stuff.

PM SNACK: 2:30pm, half bag of popcorn, 2 small but intense Japanese chocolates, 1.5 bowls, hunger 3/5
Yana had these chocolates her sister sent her from Japan, you can't get them here. I think them cows they feed beer and massage all day, they must of used the milk from them happy cows to make these chocolates....intense.

LUNCH #2: 4:30pm, 5 pork & chive dumplings, 1 bowl, hunger 2/5
After the movie, we went for a snack, her idea, I wasn't hungry and ate to be friendly. Five dumplings for $2 on 14th Street off of 3rd.

DINNER: 8:30pm, 1 piece white bean bruscetta, half a portobello mushroom salad, quarter portion of fresh spinach pasta in lamb ragu, half portion of crusted cod, bite of broccoli rabe, dark chocolate terrine, 1 glass presecco, water, 2 bowls, hunger 3/5
Met with Corinna for dinner - she's one of my best friends in the universe. Unfortunately due to us both being adults (and married to other peeps), we don't see each other as often as I'd like, but when we do get together, she just makes me happy to be alive - she's an inspirational person like dat. She just got news that an academic paper she's been working on just got a deal to be published, so to celebrate we went to Po in the West Village.

Talking about getting together again, she inspired me to come up with an idea....more on it tomorrow!

Pilafed!

ADDENDA:
As I was searching for an afternoon snack, I found the container of the soy icecream I made yesterday. It literally had a smear of ice cream along the side, and that's it - it made up a very shallow spoonsful. Ladies & gentlemen, my wife, Betsy!!

BREAKFAST: 10am, organic cheerios with good milk, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Tried a new brand of yogurt, but it look like baby's spit-up, tasted oddly bland and made me queazy. Fage it is for now.

LUNCH: 2pm, bowl of cucumber, baby carrots and red pepper with a little ranch, bowl of homemade rice pilaf, 24 oz still water, 1.75 bowls, hunger 4/5
The definition of a pilaf is a grain that is sauteed before cooking in a liquid. I grew up with pilaf out of a box, made on a stove boiled in water, tons of sodium. I took long grain brown rice and sauted it in butter with red onion, garlic and mushrooms, then plopped it in the rice cooker with lots of vegetable broth and more butter. The thing that impressed me was yes, it smelled 'pilafy' - the stuff I grew up on was an industrial imitation. However, the rice was weirdly hard and slightly undercooked. Still, very yummy and filling. Maybe stick with a recipe and use a white rice or do it on a stove next time.

PM SNACK: 5pm, boca burger on toasted sprouted whole wheat w/ ketchup, 1 meager spoonful of soy ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7:30pm, a few bites of fish jerky, a few bits of chinese sweet pickled cabbage, 4 pork soup dumplings, a bite of braised pork in special sauce, a few bites of boiled taro in scallion sauce, several flounder fish sticks wrapped in seaweed, brown rice, water, cup of sesame ice cream, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Dinner in a Shanghai joint with Yana, she ordered the real stuff and the real stuff was grrrross! The fish jerky actually looked like smoked short ribs, except it has little sharp bones in it and tastes like marinated, dry funky tuna. The cabbage was a scary sweet version of coleslaw. The dumplings were ok, but were oily and tasted a bit too much like woosterchire sauce. The braised short ribs glowed red and were 85% pure gelatinous back fat with a little stringy meat attached to it, and the taro were kind of like boiled potatoes with a weird consistency. The odd fishsticks were OK, except that the frying kind of eliminated the seaweed flavor, and the fish was very fishy. We jetted across the way to the Chinatown Ice Cream factory after to put a cap on it.

EVENING SNACK: 12:30am, rice pilaf, .75 bowls, hunger 4/5
Didn't eat enough at dinner.

Lagged

BREAKFAST #1: 3:30am, small bowl of organic chex with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
After falling asleep so early, woke up after 8 hours of sleep and couldn't go back. Feel weird, like jet lag. Took a bath and watched a movie.

BREAKFAST #2: 7am, 1 mutsu apple, a piece of raw milk ementhaller cheese, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Damn, I forgot how good this is - the apple was the right tart/sweet level and crisp as a juicy cracker, the cheese was wonderfully mild tasting with a silky sharp finish. This should be a regular breakfast option!

LUNCH: Noon, homemade cheese ravioli with pizza sauce, homemade roasted broccoli, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Took a 3 hour nap then made lunch for B & me. Roasted brocolli from a recipe I saw on tee-vee, with panko crumbs, garlic, olive oil, salt & pepper and a bit of cheddar, really straight forward.

I need to make proper pasta sauce and bank it in the freezer. Still, B said that the raviolis were as good as any she ever had in a restaurant, which made me happy. The sauce would of been a disaster, but the raviolis themselves were pretty good, pat myself on the back. etc.

PM SNACK: 2pm, homemade chocolate soy ice cream, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Needed something sweet, the only thing I had the ingredients to lying around was soy icecream. Was tempted to eat a 2nd bowl, but figured I should save some for B. However, scraping out the barrel ended up accounting for another half a bowl.
PM SNACK: 5pm, several handfuls of popcorn, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

DINNER: 8pm, vegan singapore mei fun, a couple of small vegan appetizers, water, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Dinner out with B & the HVS at Wild Ginger on Broome, a good meal. Portions seemed nicely constrained, but definitely more than one bowl. Went back home and served them soy ice cream, didn't have any myself because there was no craving. The HVS had 2nds, which I found very complementary.

Betsy is a 10

ADDENDA:
Ten brownies, that is! When I got home last night, my freshly baked tray of mediocre brownies were demolished. She blames a "friend" who "came over", but we know the truth.

MORNING SNACK: 8am, 2 brownies, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Woke up to go the farmers market. No milk for cereal. Needed a kick in the pants. After sleeping all I want the past few weeks, it was a good vibe to force myself up and hop on the bike to the market.

BREAKFAST: 10am, organic raisin bran with good milk, 1 bowl hunger 4/5
Tried a new cereal, not diggin' it.

AM SNACK: 11am, 2 brownies,seltzer, .25 bowls hunger 3/5
Cranky, waiting to start the day while Betsy does her thing.

LUNCH: 1:15pm, BLT on rye with mustard & mayo, pickle & slaw, small handful of fries, water, 1.5 bowls, hunger 3/5
Lunch at a diner with B & her aunt and uncle. The old school perception of a portion of bacon is 2, maybe 3 slices. I counted at least 6 on the sandwich.

PM SNACK: 3pm, a small handful of crackers, cheese, dip, .25 bowls, hunger 3/5
At an art gallery.

DINNER: 6pm, baby carrots, cucumber slices and some red pepper spears with sea salt, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Fell asleep at 7pm, didn't get around to eating more!

Bakin' Brownies!

ADDENDA:
While I was up late last night, thought about the ridiculous cookies I ate last night - there is a strong sense memory associated - I used to love them as a kid, used to scarf entire (large) boxes of them in one sitting in college. They just tastes like home. They also taste weirdly inauthentic, a certain shmudgy quality to it's base flavor that just doesn't taste right. Reading the label, there is about 25 ingredients, 15 of which I wouldn't of dreamt of using if I was making them myself.

So I found some simple recipes for brownies, which I happen to have all the ingredients in the house...later today, my first crack at brownies - my mom used to make them from a mix, but according to the recipe, looks ridiculously simple...

That calzone from last night looks freakishly large this morning, though it went down easy. I made a slightly smaller one for B, which she finished without too much struggle either. I needed to use the big plates, and still it hung off the sides. I should of made 4 calzones instead of 2, and saved one 1 two as left overs...

BREAKFAST: 10:30am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, raw cashews, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, homemade cheese ravioli dressed with olive oil, grated cheese, salt & pepper, quart of tap water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Lesson learned - add salt to the water for pasta, do not sprinkle it on after, as it'll be nasty. The pasta itself, even after freezing overnight, was absolutely fantastic - these toothsome pillows of fluffy clean-tasting spinachy cheese were a little overwhelmed by the oil and salt I through over the top. Got a big bag left in the freezer to romance B with later this weekend, though...will top it right then!

PM SNACK: 2:15pm, homemade brownies, .5 bowls, hunger 3/5
Surprisingly disappointing. A little bit more cakelike than I like, too sweet, not chocolatey enough, and slightly gritty because I forgot to disolve the sugar in the butter before beating in the dry ingredients. Still, I'm sure B will tear through the pan in a blink of an eye...

DINNER #1: 7:15pm, fried battered fish sandwich on brioche bun, french fries, pickle, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Not the meal I was hoping to share with Ilsa for the first time, but we (and a bunch of other friends) waited for 45 minutes at a weird Japanese business man lunch place but was just too crowdd.

DINNER #2: 11:30pm, 2 octopus balls, spicy pork & kimchee, 2 pieces asparagus wrapped in bacon, 2 chicken "meet" balls, small dish of surprisingly bitter green tea ice cream, 2 glasses saki, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Some of us went back after the show to the weird sake bar, and got seated after half an hour. We weren't that hungry, so avoided the more esoteric things on the menu I was previously looking forward to (fried gizzards, spagetti with ketchup) We were served some sea urchin that was oddly brown which I avoided.

This food over all was kinda gross, with strong sauces and smokey cooking methods to cover the fact that the ingredients were cheap cuts of meat and 2nd-rate staples. But, alas, it was dirt cheap and the saki was strong.

EVENING SNACK: 2:15am, 1 brownie, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Bowl Me Over

ADDENDA:
Had my bi-weekly with Ilsa last night. Of late our consultations have swung more towards my employment situation and more general matters, and now it's swinging back more on to our original topics at hand - mah big fat ass!

She pulls out a bowl. It is a ceramic 6.75" wide, 2" deep round bowl that holds about 2.5 cups of liquid when filled to the brim. This bowl is my new measure of portion. For now, I just need to be aware of how many bowls I'm eating a day.

My first thought was how many slices of pizza I could fold into the bowl. The second was, "Wow, that would hold a whole lotta bacon!" At home, I will eat out of it or measure from it, when I'm out at a less-fancy place, I may bring it at the risk of looking totally insane, but out with friends or nicer places, I'll just guestimate how many bowls I'm eating. Last night at the Turkish restaurant me and B ate at, I busted out the bowl and eye-balled the meal against the bowl. It's safe to say I ate 2 full bowls of food, though if there was an appetizer and dessert and drink, it probably would of added a bowl and a half.

This blog was originally a temporary tool to be used with Ilsa, but the thinking it's made me do has me continuing. However, I think this bowl is a tool which will help me with my thinking, but will not be a permanent fixture in my dining habits. Though if it is, maybe I should draw face on it, and attach legs and arms!

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, Noah's decadent Oatmeal (pictured above), 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
To inaugurate the bowl, I made organic slow-cooking oatmeal with whole unhomogenized milk (2 to 1 with water), grass fed butter, sea salt, unrefined cane sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. I used 1 cup of oats to 1.75 cups of liquid, which according to the cannister is two servings. As you can see in the picture, it filled the bowl but was not an obscene serving.

LUNCH: 2:15pm, homemade chirashi with tuna, 24 oz still water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Went shopping properly at WF today. Picked up a piece of tuna steak, and already had all the ingredients at home to make sushi rice. After washing the California sushi rice several times, put it in the cooker. I then cooked the rice dressing, which is rice vinegar, sugar, salt and mirin (a clear brewed flavored soy product) Plopped the cooked rice in a big wooden bowl, but an electric fan over it (instead of the traditional fanning by hand) and cut the dressing into it slowly, trying to keep the rice from becoming wet.

I took the tune and cut strips against the grain. The rice was a bit too wet, so rather than attempt sushi-style, I plopped the rice into the bowl and laid the fish on top, chirashi-style. I reconstituted some wasabi powder (really, horseradish) for a little punch in the corner of the bowl.

I wouldn't say this was very good. First and foremost, the fish was not fresh at all. Secondly, I overdressed the rice and it tasted REALLY tangy and strong. I used organic unrefined sugar, which gave a dingy tint to the white rice. The rice was a bit too sticky and wet, and I didn't let it cool enough. I've read about how sushi chefs will spend years just cooking the rice before moving on to cutting fish, which takes another few years, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

Still, making it myself was a little bit eye-openning. That vinegar/salt/sugar mix that flavors the rice really cuts nicely against the flavor of raw fish. When the fish is fresh and the rice done properly, it's really subtle - what was good about mine is all the parts were yelling so loudly, making how they fit together apparent (and apparent how out of wack they were in my creation!)

DINNER: 7:15pm, homemade mushroom cheese calzone, extra tomato sauce, water, 12 entemann's chocolate chip cookies, 3 bowls, hunger 4/5
I find the process of making ravioli is extremely wasteful, when the shapes are cut out of the form, a lot of excess dough goes into the trash. I did have extra filling that I couldn't bare to trash, but it wasn't enough for another batch of dough. Then it hit me - real calzones! The filling (ricotta, bufalla moz, parm, spinach, parsley, garlic, nutmeg, salt and pepper, egg) is perfect for a real calzone, not the stuffed pizza I played with before.

Bought a small box of cookies, felt a craving. It LOOKS like a single-serving box, as it's 1/4 the size of a normal Entenmann's box, but according to the label, a serving is 3 cookies. B had 2 cookies, but that still left me with 12, a full 4 servings! How the hell is 3 tiny cookies a serving?

PM SNACK: 12:30, 1 whole wheat pretzel with good peanut butter, hunger 4/5 Insomnia kept me up till 3, B thinks it was the cookies but I think it was more emotional.

Kosher Kashews

BREAKFAST: 10am, good yogurt with honey and vanilla, hunger 3/5
Turns out my raw cashews were kosher!

PM SNACK: 1:15pm, boca burger on sprouted whole wheat bread with ketchup, hunger 4/5
Boca burgers are weirdly tasty. 98% of them are made up of soy flour and wheat gluten. Still, they taste grilled even when microwaved, yet there are no weird liquid smoke ingredients or anything like that.

This was a freezer-fishing product, funny, a year ago it would of been a frozen pizza or a frozen buritto.

PM SNACK: 2:30pm, slice from the local, hunger 4/5
Unpleasantly salty tasting. It wasn't more salty than usual, just didn't pick up on it before.

PM TEA: 5:15pm, half a cup of crappy lipton, no sugar

DINNER: 8:30pm, donner kebab with rice pilaf and roasted potatoes, onion salad, babaganoush and hummus, water, hunger 4/5

Tots of Fury

ADDENDA:
My sister-in-law and her 4 tots of fury are coming to spend the day and sleep over. I see kosher food in my future...

BREAKFAST: 10:45am, organic cheerios with good milk, hunger 3/5
Got a solid 9 hours of sleep.

LUNCH: 1pm, one peanut butter sandwich on the whitest kosher rye bread ever, water, hunger 4/5
Their mother, Rebecca, went to the local kosher market and served up yogurts, bananas and creamcheese on 'Jewish Rye', which had no seeds, no tang and was kinda like an oval white bread. I toasted a couple of pieces and put my own good peanut butter on it.

I took them to the American Museum of Natural History, which my own mother would take me and my brother to regularly - though she'd say, "OK, meet back in an hour!" and we'd all seperate and wander around by ourselves. I see now what a luxury that must of been for a mom with two tots, an hour of quiet alone in the museum. Between the schools being out and the four kids pulling in four different directions, what a headache!

We came in through the subway entrance on the lower level, and the first thing to confront us was not a dinosaur or a mammoth, but the cafeteria. I remember eating their on a school trip as a child, and thinking even then how crappy the food was!

After a couple hours in the museum, we took the kids into Central Park to run up and down the big rocks (another thing our mom would indulge us in - I see now it's an effective tool to run our batteries down!) I found myself starving - one peanut butter sandwich not a lunch make. I was tempted to buy a pretzel or something from a vendor, but I felt awkward buying something for myself that I couldn't share with the four children I was with.

DINNER: 5:45pm, horrible kosher pastrami sandwich, lots of pickles and slaw, 1 chocolate chip cookie, 1 bite of overly sweet chocolate cake, hunger 4.5/5
We went to the local kosher deli in my neighborhood, which happens to be named "Noah's Ark". I've only been their a small handful of times, the majority with my parents when my brother has been in town. The only two that stand out was a few days afte my father died, my mom, my aunt and my brother went there. A few months after my mother died, I was their to meet a few collegues of hers who run many of the Jewish social services in the area, so they could express how highly they thought of her over pickles and rye.

I must say the food is quite horrible. The pastrami was thin, dry and shockingly flavorless - and very pink, meaning health-destroying nitrates were added for no reason other than color. Three of the 4 kids got 'kids meal', which I were shocked to find were medium-sized adult portions - I would of been happy with the amount of food on the plate. One kid got a turkey sandwich, which was almost the exact same size of my own sandwich - WTF?!

Presidential Pancakes

BREAKFAST: 11am, 4 pancakes, 7 strips of bacon, 1/2 GuS soda, hunger 4/5
Slept well after initial insomnia, dreams were less crazed and stressed than the last few nights. I made a batch of pancake mix from scratch, then made pancakes, using up left-over heavy whipping cream and folding in some whipped egg whites. Oh boy, the extra dairy fat giving unctuous density balances by the airy eggwhites made for an over the top pancake (whose mix was 100% white whole wheat which gives a pleasantly strong wheat flavor and unrefined organic can sugar, which gives a subtle caramel richness without being too loudly sweet). I fried up farmer's market non-nitrate bacon, which now thinking about it, could probably eaten 1/2 the amount and still would of been happy.

After, had half a meyer-lemon soda, very tasty and not too sweet. Probably could of skipped that for a pint of water.

LUNCH: 2:15pm, string hopper kotta with prawn curry, various fried appetizer thingies, water, hunger 3/5
Sri Lanken food on Staten Island with some old friends and their new baby. Kind of like Indian food with a slight African twist. String hopper kotta was bits of rice vermicelli in an onion/garlic/tomato dry sauce, really yummy and spicy.

I grew up on Staten Island, and it was heartening to see an area I knew very well as a kid having a little bit of culture, something I instinctively missed but didn't quite know it yet then.

DINNER: 9pm, boca burger on whole wheat sprouted toast, small amount of baby carrots with ranch, chocolate babka.
I finished the babka, ate too much of it, but it is very much a comfort food. Had no problem falling asleep soon after midnight.

The Lost Weekend

ADDENDA:
From Friday to Sunday I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan and the surrounding areas visiting Betsy's father in the hospital and assisted living facility he lives in, along with Betsy's brother and of course, Betsy. Visiting a hospital to visit an ailing parent was a bit of an unexpected stressor, bringing up a lot of emotions and sense memories of what it was like to visit my own parents in the hospital, and all the drama surrounding the many entrances and exits to hospitalization and home life. The old poets had it right - the end is very much a twilight.

I'm not going to recount here blow-for-blow what I ate over the weekend, other than to say that two factors lead me to eat the crappiest I have eaten since starting this blog: 1 is the stress I just mentioned, 2 is the over-abundance of crap and poor quality food available in this region of the midwest. The first night there, on the way to the hotel from the airport, we stopped off the high way to a place called Stivers, a real burgers-n-shit kind of place, which very much reminded me of a lot of the honky-tonk kinds of bar/diners I lived off while biking cross country.

At the hospital, I went down to the cafeteria for breaks and ate foods out of the vending machine with literally hundreds of ingredients. I must admit, unlike before thinking about food, I really tasted what I was eating. The microwave 'deep dish' pizza out of the vending machine was both really really delicious and really really disgusting - it wasn't so much pizza as it was "pizza", an amazing cartoon simulation of what you'd hope pizza to be if you never really had a good one. There was a certain something in it's taste and texture that was really appealing for the first few bites, but as you get to the end you feel a little bit ill. How can they offer this in a hospital?

On Saturday I was so out of my mind from lack of sleep and overpowering emotions, I found myself badly needing to focus so I drank 2/3 of a 20oz bottle of diet coke, my first diet coke in who knows how long. The first couple of swigs very much had a lot of memories attached to it - I drank many of them at meals with my dad, who also drank it often. But after that, it just tasted acidy and medicinal - which was why I was drinking it, to get that caffiene.

Towards leaving time on Sunday, we sat down to some delivered pizzas and diet coke at the assisted living facility - it was B's dad's birthday, and like myself, find no food more worthy of celebrating with than pizza. The home even provided a vanilla-vanilla sheet cake. The pizza was ok, a bit doughy and generic, and I had a small cup of diet coke - the sweet bubbliness of it went well with the pizza - I think I should maybe make a homemade organic-cane sugar soda that will be specifically designed to compliment pizza!

Sunday night, finally home, at some yogurt and nuts because dinner never happened and my whole system felt jacked, needed something real to just chill on. Had a splitting headache at 2 in the morning, pretty sure from dehydration. Quite glad I know that I have a regimen of good foods that I can eat the next week to be able to get my head back on straight.

Valentine's Day is for (Chocolate) Lovers

ADDENDA:
Had insomnia again last night, was up till 2. Was it because of the not-small, not-large portion of (high quality) sweets I ate in the afternoon? I think it may be partly that, partly a lack of employment, he he.

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, raw cashews, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 2:15pm, half a pizza at Patsy's, hunger 4/5
Spent the afternoon with Marc, my friend Ellen's new fiance from Helsinki. He's a chef, and just spent the last couple of days on a try out for Daniel Boloud. Interesting talking to him about his experiences.

PM DRINK: 4:45pm, 1.5 pints of Newcastle at Fraunces Tavern
With Marc & Ellen.

DINNER: braised wheat gruten, curry rice vermicelli, spicy stringbeans, spinach dumplings, sticky rice, 8 pieces of fancy chocolate, some soy icecream, water, hunger 4/5
Ordered in vegan food with my B.

OK

ADDENDA:
Woke up at 8:30 after last night's insomnia, which kept me up till 1am. Weird thing is, the insomnia was even-tempered. I wasn't depressed or stressed out. I have concerns for B because she's under a lot of stress due to family issues, and I'm still actively looking for work and thinking about culinary school coming up (I signed up officially, btw - starting either late March or late April, depending on available seats) In the moment, things are ok, just need to stay focused.

BREAKFAST: 10am, organic cornflakes with good milk, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, camarones al mojo de ago, chips and guac, water, hunger 4/5
Went out to eat at La Palapa on 6th with a friend (in retail, she has 2 weekdays off), strictly mediocre. Shrimp in a gluey sharp garlic sauce reeking of uncooked-off alcohol.

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, half a big chocolate chip cookie, half a baggie of dark chocolate covered corn flakes, water, hunger 4/5
We went and stocked up at Jaques Torres for the holiday tomorrow, then stuffed ourselves at a movie. Indulgent, but like alcohol, if you do it socially you don't feel as guilty!

DINNER: 8:45pm, baby carrots with a dash of ranch dressing, medium portion of reheated wholewheat pasta with italian sausage, mushrooms and onion, hunger 3/5