Chinatown with Edles

After sleeping away a large part of the afternoon, I couldn't get to bed until close to 4am. Today is the last experimental Edie day for me, which really is to give B some time to herself to get her matters in order, as she returns to work next Tuesday. So I got up as B was leaving around 8:30, and after changed her diaper, Edie was calm until she started getting cranky.

She would stop being cranky when I picked her up, but I wanted to, ummm, do stuff like email and, urrr, blog. So after a moment of discordance, a -duhhh- realization came into my head and I popped her into the sling as I sat at the kitchen table eating my breakfast. She wiggled a little, shouted a little, snuggled her face a little tighter to where my heart was (literally! - and figuratively), gave a coo, then shut her eyes. Ahhhhhh! After a few minutes I laid her down on the bouncy, sling and all.

Looking over what I ate today, realized my body is recovering from a bug -- feel a little worn out for no reason, eating a little less than usual.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, 3 pancakes, a little peanut butter ice cream, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Freezer fresh, he he. Thing is, you can buy frozen pancakes in the supermarket, but a) they're about 3x more expensive than making your own from top-shelf organic ingredients, b) taste like cardboard because they were probably made months ago and c) involve a lot more packaging (OK, maybe c isn't a big deal for me, but it makes people happy!)

LUNCH: 1:45pm, "rice noodle with fishball", 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Leisurely walking through Chinatown with Edles, thinking about the "Chop Suey" book I've been reading, I noticed all the little hole-in-the-wall restaurants, which are more like food carts that evolved into shops, kinda like mobile homes that lost their wheels and ended up on cinderblocks. The only one that had any English at all had a handwritten sign, "Lunch Special: 3 items $3.25", and I'm sure that was on top of rice and not in a small portion. These places have buffet hot bars in front, a few dingy tables in the back. No room for a stroller, and Edie is just too small and unprotected to leave outside by herself while I popped in (how unEuropean of me, I know.)

It the corner of Rutgers and East Broadway, there was a street cart with a line of Asian peeps in front of it, so I got on. The tiny menu was in Chinese, with a few annotations in English. Their big specialty was Curry Squid, but I went for the more friendly sounding rice noodle with fishball. For $2.25, got a full pint of rolled tubes of meifun rice noodles, about 7 small fishy-tasting fried ground fish-balls, and on top the woman squirted 4 different sauces in rapid succession, a sweet, a salty, a spicy and something else I couldn't put my finger on. She shook some sesame seeds over the top for good luck, too. I ate it in the park while Edie slept, surrounded by Asian children and Asian grannies. I feel fortunate to live so close to such a thriving neighborhood, right next door to my thriving neighborhood. Only one block away from my noodle cart are the best pickles and best bagels in NYC!

DINNER: 5pm, pad thai, 3 little fried thingies, a beer, water, small cup of gelato, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Walked to the hepper section of the LES on Orchard to try a new Thai joint, walked Edles in the sling and met B there, ending her big day out without us. Food was surprisingly good, a lot of thought in the presentation and nicely balanced flavoring -- I could taste the galangal, a Thai sweetener similar to brown sugar, but with it's own special funk. Went to Laboratorio del Gelato after, where we both got 2 flavors in small cups and ended up eating half of each other's.

To be a Bohemian in the 1890s...

Woke up before dawn to prep for a bike ride -- I was hoping to do 100 miles. Got out the door by 6am, but as I was riding up the west side bike path, found myself getting more and more tired, less and less focused -- the opposite of what should, and usually, happens on a ride like this. By the time I was near the GWB, I stopped and ate the bagel I had hoped to munch on in the wilds of rural New Jersey. After eating it, got on the bike, pedaled a a few minutes and realized I felt even more drained than before the bagel -- something was not right.

I road home slowly, took a shower and put myself to bed, not arising until 3pm. I think yesterday's burger did a number on insides -- I like burgers, but ground meat that's not thoroughly cooked (like meat balls) never sat well with me. And if I have an Edie to look after, a burger is not a risk I should be taking!

I spent most of the day in bed with Edie while B did household chores, and got half way through "Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the U.S." I've been eating take out Chinese most of my life, but unlike pizza, know very little about it's history. The book is quite an eye-opener, starting from the first American trade ship to China in the 1780s, through the anti-Chinese problems in California after the railroads were completed, and right now I'm up to the part about NY in the late 1800s, when "bohemians" decided to stick a thumb in the eye of the upper crusties and started to be the first Westerners in the history of the world to thoroughly enjoy Chinese food. Yup, it took some uppity artsy NYers with a little money and a little annoyance with foofy rich people to get me today's mooshoo shrimp...

BREAKAST: 5:15am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 7:30am, pumpernickel bagel with peanut butter, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DUNCH: 4:30pm, egg roll, mooshoo shrimp with a little brown rice, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

A day out

B got out the door at 8:15am, and then it was me and Edies vs. the world. She got cranky so I got her into a stroller and out the door we went -- the motion immediately soothes her, or perhaps in it's the world around her constantly changing. We took the train over to the restaurant and I spent an hour with L talking business and menu stuff, Edles performed remarkably. Our first work-trip together, maybe it won't be the last!

We made our way up to Brooklyn Borough Hall and she slept while I ate a cart muffin. We trained it up to Grandmamma's house, and on the train no one gave me a seat while I squatted over Edie and fed her a bottle. Grandmama took over and I took B out on our first date minus a baby since Edles came.

We hopped in a cab and made a matinee of "Julie and Julia". I loved the half of this movie about Julia Child, her good spirit and love of food, the context of the times, etc. Like many watchers of this film, I think in the next few days I'll be making Beouf Bouginion (which from my understanding, is just a braised stew -- c-school 101, literally. Cube some cheap cut of beef, brown it, cover it in wine and beef stock, braise it, add some sauteed veg and bacon, finish with, I'm guessing, butter. Never made it in c-school, but did other similar French braises)

The other half of the film, about the blogger Julie Powell who cooked every one of Child's recipes from her famous cook book in one year, well, I liked the book, could have done without the movie. She come off as self-obsessed and maybe points out whats wrong with blogging in general (and I don't except myself here) -- it's all me me me, with little by way of substance. Julie Child brought substance into the world, Julie Powell just....cooked in her kitchen and blotivated. Me, I just blotivate! He he.

Which makes me think I should reboot this blog for a third time, less me me me-centric and more thoughtful towards a goal. According to the Department of Health's Body-Mass-Index, my ideal weight for my gender, age and height is around 165 lbs, and my current weight makes me 'obese'. I would have to lose over 55 lbs to be "normal" according to this index -- I think I'd look like a malnourished castaway on the edge of death. Should I attempt it? I dunno. Let's blotivate along here...

After, we went to a bistro with a lame menu, where I ate a burger, which was tasty but didn't sit well with me later in the evening.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, large piece of watermelon, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11:15am, street corn muffin, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1:15pm, cherry icee, popcorn, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 4:15pm, burger and waffle fries, some spaghetti & garlic bread, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 7:30pm, glass of mint lemonade, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

Terrible pot-head

Got to bed late, but B didn't wake me and I arose close to 11am. Between B on the phone with her dad, Edles crying for food and no bottle prepared, L from the restaurant calling me on the phone, and me just trying to package my special brownies for the freezer.... the thought did occur to me to sample a brownie, but the idea of not being fully present for my beautiful daughter (and not to mention, the better half of Team Wildberger) gave me the shivers in a not-good way. I'd be a terrible pot-head.

OK, OK, pizza and hotdogs, ice cream twice, but also 2 green salads and a large dose of fruit in the morning....

BREAKFAST: noon, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
It almost hurts when I get this smoothie right, because it makes me wish I measured everything out prescisely, timed the pureeing, etc. I guess it wouldn't matter, because it's rise or fall so depends on the quality of the fruit going in. This time: banana, red grapes, mango, kiwi, good yogurt, organic dead milk, spoonful of vanilla sugar, dash of sea salt and one thing I never used before: tiny wild Maine blueberries. Could that have made the difference?

LUNCH: 2pm, half a medium pizza, Cesar salad, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Lombardies with B&E, very mediocre, couldn't taste the coal of the oven at all.

PM SNACK: 4pm, soft serve ice cream cone, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, large green salad, hot dog with small amount of potato chips, peanut butter ice cream, 3 mini peanut butter cups, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Preparing the Kitchen for Edie

My friend is is off to the Minnesota State Fair for a week, so I met up with her before she left for the airport to give her a 'survival ration' made up of raw vegetable, hummus, high-fiber cereal and packets of lube from CVS (to assist with getting her pants on and off!)

As I was uptown and hungry for dinner, I swung by the noodle shop near my old employer for a meal. I remember enjoying the food highly, and I ordered a simple dish of sliced roast pork over a fried rice. For $6.50, it was easily 2 bowls of high-calorie dense vegetable-free food. Holy crap! I ate the whole thing, but I would have also been satisfied if it was half the size. Wow. I was packing this in while I was riding a desk for five years. No wonder even though I feel fat right now, I'm still 15-20lbs lighter than I was then.

In the evening, I made peanut butter ice cream and a round of "adult" fudge brownies. I had the key ingredient lying around for more than a year (I'm not a very good druggie), and figured better make something I can give away and indulge in maybe. Don't want stuff like that hanging around the house as Edles gets older. ESPECIALLY laced brownies! Memories of me scouring the freezer as a kid looking for treats, and finding my dad's pork breakfast sausages hiding in the back. These brownies will be gone before Edles gets to that point, that's for sure. And she will only find hidden stashes of healthy high-fiber unprocessed foods! Yeah!

BREAKFAST: 10am, 3 pancakes, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:45pm, hotdog with kraut and onions, potato nick, gatorade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:15pm, roast pork with fried rice, wonton soup, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 7:30pm, a few mini dark chocolate peanut butter cups, a spoonful of freshly made peanut butter ice cream, .25 bowl, hunger 2/5

EVENING SNACK: 10:15pm, ramakin of peanut butter ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
Very curious how this came out. I kinda made up this Philadelphia-style (no egg) ice cream recipe, trying to keep the number of ingredients to a minimum:

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 2 scraped out vanilla beans
• 1/2 cup cane sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1 pt heavy cream

Creamed the peanut butter, vanilla and sugar. Used the good peanut butter, ground fresh at the market, with nothing else in it. Added the milk and let it loosen everything. Added the cream and loosened some more. Into the ice cream machine, then into the freezer.

Tasted clean and pure -- can taste the peanut, can taste cream, not too sweet, just sweet enough. Next time may play with a maple or molasses sweetener to play against the peanut flavor. A dash of salt probably wouldn't hurt.

Peanut Butter Cup Reverie

I remember when I was a young teen at summer camp, food was pretty regimented, with all campers and staff piling into the dining hall three times a day, every day, for communal meals. On top of that, there were afternoon snacks distributed in mass, ocassionally ice cream on sticks, but too often unpopular fruit.

The exception to this was the canteen, where we could buy junkfood. Only at certain times, and limited in amounts. The prices were less than in the real world, so they weren't doing this for a huge profit -- it was more to head off the 2ndary black market that would emerge when kids would get care packages from parents then distribute the junk food for cash and power.

My parents weren't big on the sending of junk food, so the canteen was where I got to indulge in a way in which my parents would not approve. One thing I loved were Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I just loved them. I loved them so much that when the camp took us on a day trip to the Hershey's Amusment Park in Hershey, PA, I went and got myself a Reese's t-shirt. So at every opportunity, I would purchase the cups at the canteen. The problem was, once I ate them, they were gone...

So I remember one summer I decided to save them. When I got back home, I would not have such easy and casual access to the peanut butter cups. I would not be able to eat them in the presence of my parents, would have to dispose of the wrappers carefully if I ate them at home. I remember that by the time the summer was over, I had horded about 20 packs of peanut butter cups -- that's 40 or so individual cups. Seeing them piled geometrically in my wooden cubby was a pleasure. But the summer was over, and here was my well-curated collection, a supply of pleasure defered, that if were to be greeted by my parents, would be at best doled out to me over time in limited quantities, and at worst confiscated and destroyed.

This only occurred to me the day we were being brought back to the real world to be reunited with our parents after the summer. On the 3-4 hour bus ride from the Poconos in PA to NYC, I ate the entire collection of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups right up, first quickly, them working through, a little bit slower. I was sitting next to a friend, and shared, but he could only get through 2 packs. I didn't eat breakfast that morning, because barfing would of been such a waste of cups. I remember feeling queasy getting off the bus but happy to be in my parent's warm and loving arms. I was proud of myself that I was able to ingest all my peanut butter cup freedom before coming back to my parent's control of my diet. It was a duality I never really resolved. I hope Edie never has these issues.

As I was struggling with tummy issues stemming from my peanut butter cup gorging in the morning, came upon this article in the NY Times. Food for thought, indeed.

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, organic cheerios with organic dead milk, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10:30am, dark chocolate peanut butter cups, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
B took Edles this morning and met up with a gang of her gal friends for early afternoon alcohol while I made a matinee movie. I brought the bag of peanut butter cups and reverted to a 14 year old in the dark for a few hours.

PM SNACK: 2:15pm, watermelon, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, Shrimp Scampi a la Noah over fresh spaghetti, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Sometimes when I wing it, it comes out the way I hope. Jumbo shrimp unfrozen, shelled and deveined. Salted water boiling, 1 serving of pasta in for 4 minutes. Fry pan heated, olive oil to 1/4 inch, minced shallot and shrimps in. Salt. 2 minutes, flip. Add a dash of Worcestershire, a dash of hot sauce, a pat of butter. With a minute left, crush 4 small cloves of garlic into it, turn it all together. Pasta drained, plated, pan of shrimp and sauce poured over, mixed. Freshly grate parm over.

The buttery garlicky scampy came out with just the right amount of subtle spicy kick, shrimpy in a fresh balanced way. Pat myself on the back. Now if a) I can figure out how to make pasta where it doesn't stick together then b) duplicate this for multiple people, I'll be in business.

Lacking peanut butter satisfaction

Woke up to rain, but still longing for the long bike ride out to Montauk that I was missing. Momma-in-law came over in the morning, so I cooked pancakes for everyone, came out tougher than I thought it would, made a dozen for the freezer. In the late afternoon B, E and I went out to dinner then a nice walk up into East River Park.

BREAKFAST 1: 10:30am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Blended a shot of dairy milk with the coconut flesh yesterday and let it steep over night. Strained into the smoothie, had no notable coconut favor. Good yogurt, banana, blueberry, pinch of vanilla sugar, pinch of salt.

BREAKFAST 2: 11:30am, 3 small pancakes, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Yomomma came over, I made pancakes using the c-school recipe, though this time I tried following it to the letter. Two things I don't like - a 4oz ladle makes a HUGE pancakes, the kind that covers a lot of a plate, I prefer mine the size of a large palm. The other is it calls for wiping down the pan in a neutral oil like canola -- I much prefer sauteing on a sheen of butter.

PM SNACK: noon, ounce of vanilla sugar
Used my vanilla sugar in every thing this morning, only had a dab left, not enough for much. So I ate it with my wet finger. Reminded me of that horrible candy thing when I was a kid, which was like 4 attached packets of different colored powdered sugar, and two compressed-sugar sticks to lick and scoop out the sugar. Yes, it was sweet.

DINNER PT 1: 4pm, large green salad, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
A good strategy: before going out to eat in the neighborhood, fill up on a big green salad at home!
DINNER PT 2: 5pm, marinated mushrooms, bread, fresh pasta with clams, 1 meat ball, chocolate tort, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
At Frankies, where me n' B had our rehearsal dinner. It's the summer, clams are in season, but this pasta dish was overwhelmed by lemon juice. Linguine with clams is a simple dish. Fresh pasta, olive oil, a little salt and pepper, freshly shucked clams simply warmed by the pasta, and a squirt of lemon. The two things I should taste are oceany clams and wheaty pasta -- the oil and lemon should just highlight those, not overwhelm them. Makes me wanna make this at home.

And I noticed something odd about the pasta that took me a few minutes to figure out....the flat roundness of the linguine noodle is something I'm used to in dry pasta but expect a sharp edge in fresh. This pasta was extruded through a dye, not cut by a roller like I do at home. Hmmm.

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, 2 peanut butter tofutti cuties, 6 mini dark chocolate peanut butter cups, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
On the walk back this evening, we stopped in the local super market. We were both desiring something sweet, neither that hungry. B expressed concern that since she ate meatballs for dinner, dairy would be hard on her system. So I purchased some peanut butter flavored tofutti cuties, which tasted like cold watery soy milk with a touch of peanut in it. So when she started saying that the dark chocolate peanut butter cups she had were the most amazing thing ever, I had to stop in at the CVS on the way home and pick up a bag.

They were good, but not great. Both the cuties and the cup promised peanut butter satisfaction but neither quite delivered. My next ice cream must be a peanut butter or peanut butter fudge creation....

Another Pizza Fail

Overcast and rainy all day. Tomorrow was to be an organized ride to Montauk, but it looks in doubt. A ride in the rain would actually be fun, but because of dying hurricane off the coast, it looks like a potential coastal flooding situation and predictions of 30mph winds from the east - a head wind. If it were coming from the west, it would be on like Don Cornelius.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, smoothie, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
I got a selection of fruit from the local conventional supermarket yesterday. The mango and kiwi, when cut open, didn't look right so I tossed them. Banana, blueberries, grapes, good yogurt, dead organic milk, ice cubes, vanilla sugar, sea salt. And then there was coconut....

I picked up a coconut at the market, thinking it could add an interesting angle to the smoothie. We never did coconuts in c-school, so when I got home, got on google and found howtoopenacoconut.com. I got the nail and hammer, and put all sorts of holes in the nut, but only a few drops of water leaked out -- I suspect maybe they were drained by an evil coconut water conglomerate? With a towel and hammer, knocked it into pieces. With a paring knife, I cut the white meat from the shell, rather poorly, leaving a lot of meat behind.

This morning, I first placed some coconut meat in the blender with some milk, and pureed for a minute. Stuck my finger in and....fiber and grit. It's like I placed some balsa wood in there. Not much coconut flavor, either. Everything else in, let rip for 3 minutes. Pour, taste, first reaction is to throw it out. Sat with it, four sips, mouth full of grit. So I passed it through a fine metal mesh strainer, and now it was quite smooth and nice....but really, not as a healthy as when I leave it unstrained.

What did I do wrong? Does the coconut need to be baked, like a gourd like squash, to be usable? Any one have any ideas out there in Internetsland?

BREAKFAST 2: 9:30am, 2 pieces wholewheat toast with hummus, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Betsy said she was hungry. I was hungry. "Hey Betsy, are there eggs in the fridge? I can make pancakes." Betsy says yes, she was planning to hard boil them. Then makes me promise I'd make her banana walnut pancakes. Get to the fridge, no eggs. -sigh- She thought a box of butter were eggs for some reason. I love my wife, but if she were the cook, we'd starve or...

AM SNACK: 11am, popcorn, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5 ....eat popcorn every day as a major meal! But I used butter as the popping agent -- no air popper or neutral oils.

LUNCH: 2pm, burger and small quantity of fries, small piece of "chocolate pizza", water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
At Max Brenner below Union Square, B, E & I dined with friends of B visiting from Boston, a group of 3 other adults and 4 other kids. I don't enjoy restaurants like this, with a hokey theme that sacrifices quality for entertainment -- the theme being a retarded Jaques Torres crossed with Willy Wonka. A big menu, I was looking for something light and painless. But everyone at the table ordered burgers, which indicated to me this place must move a lot of them, and if I ordered something from an obscure corner of the menu, perhaps it wouldn't be fresh.

I was impressed by the size of the meal -- a relative scant amount of fries (by American standards), 2 large pickle spears, a large but not stupid burger. I guess this makes sense, as the desert menu is even larger than the food menu, and room must be left for this profit center. As it turns out, one of the owners of the restaurant was doing a taste test of new dishes right next to us, and some of the kids were staring him down. So he sent over a complimentary chocolate pizza for the table.

After being impressed by the meal, I thought hmmm, maybe I misjudged this place, especially if their signature -- chocolate desserts -- are good. And it's pizza, right? Oh boy. Basically, this was nutella and roasted marsh mellows on a crust, similar to the smores pizza I've made in restaurants and at home. The marsh mellow was neutral, the milk chocolate spread was ok, but the crust was gross. Obviously machine stamped, obviously pre-baked who knows how long ago, reheated quickly to melt the toppings. The result was a bready, tough crust that just made me fall back to my original position that this place is for tourists, kids, and kid tourists. Still, it was very nice of the owner to comp us. He kinda looked like a clean-shaven bald version of my cousin Iddo, who is also Israeli.

DINNER: 8pm, large green salad, vegetable Stouffers french bread pizza, 1.25 bowl
Feeling bummed about the weather and not being able to ride tomorrow. Frozen pizza of my childhood always meets my needs.

Epic Pizza Fail

Popped Edie into a sling, and took a walk into Soho to pick up a spice grinder for smoothies. Within 30 seconds of starting walking, Edles blinked out and didn't come to until I got home a few hours later. It's nice to have these pockets of calm with her, one on one. I guess I finally ate pizza with my daughter -- the next step is to have her eat some, too!

BREAKFAST: 9am, organic chex with organic dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM BITE: 11:45am, moz & tomato foccacia, hunger 4/5
On me n' Edles walk, I stopped in Balthazar Bakery for a sweet. I was desiring pizza, but I was so close to this world-class patisserie, might as well have pizza later and get a tarte or pain au chocolate now. When I got to the small counter, there were three piles of focaccia: potato and rosemarie, a mixed vegetable and....a moz and tomato, which looked suspiciously like pizza!

I got excited -- the head chef I externed for got hired by the Balthazar group to help open a new pizzeria this fall. Is this the first signs of her influence? I must try some! And the moz and tomato was the logical first step. The counter person asked if I wanted it heated, I said yes, I saw them put it on a metal warming tray and into a small oven in the back. Hmmm. Warming tray. That's not going to crisp anything. I should have run out then...

For $4.75, I got a very hot, very attractive square slice of "focaccia", but I'm not sure this really was focaccia -- focaccia is supposed to be thick, at least an inch, and this was less than half an inch. On the first bite, everything that was wrong became very apparent. Under the (admittedly high quality) moz were two layers of rounds of fresh tomato, giving off a LOT of water, diluting any salt or spice that may of been added. Underneath the overcooked tomatoey mess was a flibbidy flobbidy base, pale on the bottom, dissolute on the top. One bite was just unpleasant. The second bite found me putting the rest in the trash.

OK, they weren't selling this as pizza, but if this were focaccia, it's still an unexpected epic fail.

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, crepe with lemon and sugar, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5 At Creperie on Ludlow. I got a little too much powdered sugar on Edle's head.

PM SNACK: 1pm, slice of streetza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Almost home, at the Rivington slice place that was surprisingly good last time I had pizza there. This time, just ok, I guess they can't be that good AND consistent.

DINNER: 7pm, large green salad, curry shrimp with string beans, chocolate chip cookies, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Cookin'. Boiled the beans for 2 minutes then shocked them, could of gone for another minute or two. Marinated the shrimp in a mix of safflower oil, Worcestershire, kuzu and a large dose of curry powder. After pan frying the shrimp, tossed in the beans and remaining marinade. Either the powder has expired, or I was missing something, it just tasted a bit chalky. Maybe a little sugar and salt would have made it pop.

Soothe

Edles was up late last night, and B was out at her bookclub, and I did everything I could to keep Edles on an even keel. Feeding her, bouncing her, singing to her, walking her around in my arms, patting her back, giving her a floaty bath for the first time while holding her head up (so cute!), sitting down in spurts.

When I woke up today, I just felt a little....beat up, and found myself just wanting to stay on the couch as long as possible and do nothing. While the night before wasn't horrible or frightening or bad, it was a bit of a combination physical/mental athletic event. I need to get in shape for it!

BREAKFAST: 11am, chocolate babka, banana, water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, a few little bits of pretzel, large piece of chocolate babka, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
B, E and I were supposed to take an adventure our, so I ate this to hold myself over. A bit gluttonous.

LUNCH: 4:30pm, fresh spaghetti with homemade sauce, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
They kept sleeping, I got hungry. What looked like a small portion in the freezer was actually two small portions, he he. Gluttony again!

SNICKLE DINNER: 8:30pm, small miso soup, vegetarian maki roll, a spoonful of lemon-vanilla pudding, a bite of oaty sweet cookie, water, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Out to Souen with the HVS. It was a little hard extracting myself from the day indoors, but she's going to her country of origin for more than a week, so it was snickle now or forever hold your peace (forever, 10 days, same thing). We spoke of perhaps me and the family and the HVS dog this trip together in the next few years, which would be amazing -- Snicklevacation!!

The meal itself was a bit ick, and not being hungry did not help. I'm down on 'build your own' things at restaurants, because with the exception of certain sweets like Sundaes, the general public will not appreciate the art of matching flavor and textures consciously, and will disappoint themselves -- people who order pizza with pepperoni or bacon matched with any lightly flavored topping are silly, as those meats will always dominate everything (cheap pepperoni will even dominate cheese and sauce!) So with this build-your-own maki roll, I just ordered 4 things I liked, without consideration: ume (pickled plum), avocado, seitan and burdock. The ume was a salty pickle instead of the sweet I'm used to, the avocado with hard and unripe, and the seitan and burdock will indistinguishable. I couldn't finish it. A chef who is familiar with the kitchen and it's ingredients would of never of made (or presented) this combo. I should of stuck to the list of the kitchen's combos.

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, hotdog, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Edles up late again, eating strictly to soothe.

Antsy

Between waking up a little late, and B going out to lunch with a colleague then out all night to her bookclub, most of the day was either in front of the computer or entertaining Edles. In the afternoon, she seemed a little antsy and I put her in the sling and just went -- no supplies, no food, no nuthin'. We didn't go far from home, in case we needed anything, but the motion and fresh air and ambient noise put E to sleep for a solid 90 minutes. Sitting on a bench in a park, sleeping baby strapped to my front, spouse out livin' it up, this is what a parent is.

BREAKFAST: 9am, smoothie, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5
Stomach felt a bit off after last nights feast. Used up the rest of the fruit, had to toss the rest of the cherries as they were a bit shweaty.

AM SNACK: 11am, momma style salad, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Dressed simply in olive oil and salt.

LUNCH: 12:45p, 1 hot dog, potato nic, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, chocolate babka, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, Stouffer's french bread pizzas, chocolate babka, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Was going to cook something, but the distraction of a baby on the edge of being cranky made me keep it simple.

EVENING SNACK: 9:30pm, popcorn, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Edles was in full cranky mode, and when she woke up an hour after I put her down with a full-throated wail, I knew it was time for freshly popped popcorn made with butter and sea salt...

Editions with the HVS

Woke up at 5, then woke up again at 6:15, fighting the good fight to get myself to an early edition of Yoga with the HVS. Had a hard night last night. It started ok -- B was released for a late edition of Movies with the HVS, which meant my first edition of Bedtime with Edles. It started off good, with the usual bouncy seat here, a bottle there, a little shower in the sink over there. Then she just cried, and cried, and cried. I never let it get to the 'bad cry', but it took up my full attention and physicality for a solid 90 minutes before she started to settle down. She blinked out on my stomach on the couch finally around 8:30, just in time for all my phones to start ringing off the hook, as B was looking for an update. Edles brief awakened state allowed me to quickly transfer her to the bed.

The three of us were all a little roley poley in bed last night, leading to a glazed feeling when I got up this morning. My tandem broke down on the way out to yoga, so I had a nice early morning walk over the Brooklyn Bridge with 50 pounds of rolling uselessness. When I got back to the neighborhood, I consciously did NOT want to be in a bad mood and transfer that bad mood to B, so I stopped in my local diner and had a bigger breakfast. Ghosts of my parents there in full force, we ate at this greasy spoon many times, every time a happy time. Makes me think -- since coming back to the city after school, pretty much every time I would meet up with my parents, it put me in a good mood. Not many people in this life have that effect. B, Edles, HVS, and maybe 2 others, and that's it.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, good yogurt with honey and vanilla, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

BREAKFAST 2: 8:30am, BLT on rye, home fries, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, potato nic, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Right before my second breakfast, stopped by Moishe's, my local kosher bakery. Picked up 2 potato nics and a chocolate babka. The old Yiddish woman behind the counter asked me if I was sure, because both were from yesterday, but I said it was fine. She discounted everything (I paid $9 instead of $15), and chatted about how she felt like how she was about to die, even though she's been doing nothing. I said perhaps its because she was doing nothing, and she gave me the same exact grimace/smile/sideways glance my mom would give me when I said something cheeky to her.

Anyway, at the birthday party/baby infestation I attended on Sunday, I had a long conversation with a guy my age about pickles and potato nic, we're both fans. No where else have we had potato nick like Moishe's, and we both have looked up recipes that resemble potato kugel more than what this dense savory potato bread is. Makes me want to reverse engineer it. If I had to make a recipe, it would be kind of like a cross between a potato kugel and a potato latke, with some whole wheat flour, salt and fresh ground pepper thrown in to shake it up a bit. Hmmm.

PM SNACK: 4pm, momma style salad, remnants of the ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
B decimated the homemade ice cream last night, and ate more today, so if I didn't finish it myself, B would have absorbed it through osmosis or something.

DINNER: 7:30pm, roasted and braised suckling pig, wagyu beef carpaccio, roast quail, cauliflower, puree of potato, Swiss chard, onions, gazpacho, bread & butter, chocolate souffle and cheesecake ice cream, water, 1.75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Took Y to Craft for her birthday, we ate like crazy. Haven't seen in a while, but when we sit and eat, it could be one day or 10 years and it just doesn't matter. Only with Y (and maybe E) could I pull out my fart-maker on my iPhone at the end of the meal and get a huge laugh from both of us, despite disapproving looks from the surrounding tables.

Sense memory

Went up town to see an ailing relative, was a bit of a bummer. He's doing well but brought up a lot of sense memories of both my parent's last days. Seeing what I ate today written out like this kind of makes it apparent how it is effecting my eating. Wow, I filled up on crap today.

BREAKFAST: 8am, toasted bagel and cream cheese, 3 pieces bacon, small cup of cookies n' creme ice cream, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Clunked out before 9pm last night, so when I woke up at 7, was hungry but not sure what -- haven't gone food shopping in a while. Had some bacon lying around, 1 bagel left in the freezer, and when all that left me desiring more, finished with something sweet. It looks like an unhealthy breakfast, but I feel satiated and comfortable. To lose weight healthfully, does comfort and satiation be sacrificed?

LUNCH: 1:30, 3 slices of streetza, 2 pieces of shortbread, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Up at Yomama's house, visiting the inlaws.

DINNER: 7:30pm, pork dumplings, beef with stringbeans over brown rice, cookies n' creme ice cream, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
B went out partying and pillaging with the HVS, so lil' ol' me was left at home all alone with Edles. She cried a lot, demanded a lot of attention. I was gonna cook something but realized I needed to simply order in.

Fried Coconut Fishburger

Road up and down the Summerstreets event with D, with a loop around Central Park. Met up with B&E at Petisco in the neighborhood for lunch. Then B, E and I hopped in a taxi to Eastern Parkway to a birthday party of a friend's 1 year old. Holy crap, this place was infested with babies, crawling all over the floor and walls. Edie slept through a lot of it. So this is what adulthood is like!

There was an especially clunky menu item at lunch. Due to several options on the item, I ended up asking for a "fried coconut fishburger", which was actually a lot more appetizing than it sounds.

BREAKFAST: 9am, glass of lemonade, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:15pm, "fried coconut fishburger" with fries, a blueberry pancake, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2pm, 2 beers, half a small beef taco, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5

DINNER: 7pm, foot long Subway veggie burger sub, cookies n' creme ice cream, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

All Lamb, all the time

Spent another full day (8:30-5:30) with Edie while B went out, went well again. She ripped through three full bottles of milk, which was amazing, I guess due to the heat. While she was napping/staring/cooing, baked off another round of cookies, churned some ice cream and washed dishes.

In the evening, off to Brooklyn for a movie with D, went to the all-Lamb, all-the-time Yemeni restaurant, great food but remarkably shady. No menu unless you ask for it, soup, salad and wonderful bread included but not on menu. No check, just a number told to you at the end of the night, no tax included.

BREAKFAST: 7:30pm, good yogurt with vanilla and honey, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 9-11am, cookies and ice cream!, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Churned the custard and added the cookie crumbs for cookies n' creme ice cream, then baked off another round of c-chip cookies. Some just slid into my mouth, unawares!

AM SNACK: noon, glass of mint lemonade, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2pm, homemade spinach ravioli with salad, ice cream & cookies, lemonade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
K came over to hang and play with Edie, made a nice homemade lunch.

PM SNACK: 6pm, finished the cookies!, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 9:15pm, lamb chops with rice and roti, lamb soup, salad, water, small cup of sweet tea, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 10:45pm, 2 glasses lemonade, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Powernap

Woke at 5am after a brief night of restless sleep. Dark, hot and humid. Got my gear on and got out the door with the sun around 6 and road my bike up to Nyack, a 70 mile round-trip. Got home around 1:30, with the intention of hitting up yoga at 2:30. Showered, got on the couch at 1:45 with the idea of chilling for 10 minutes, and then....it was 8pm. -sigh-

Drank over 80 oz of water on the ride out of a Camelback, and stopped 3 times to eat instead of the typical once on this ride, due to high heat. Ate a really good pumpernickel bagel and lox in a very suburban neighborhood in NJ, a little bagel shop that was outside of any commercial district, just randomly thrown in a corner of a residential neighborhood. The fact of it's high quality speaks to the probability of a whole lotta fellow Jews in the area. We can do without a dry cleaner or a grocery nearby, but we better have fresh bagels and lox at our beck and call!

BREAKFAST: 5:30am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

BREAKFAST 2: 8:30am, lox and cream cheese on a pumpernickel bagel, 20oz Gatorade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 9:30am, cheesy poofs, 20oz Gatorade, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1pm, 1 slice streetza, 16oz bad root beer, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
At a place I like in Queens by the Triboro. On a plastic bottle of A&W Root beer designed to look like an old fashioned brown-glass bottle, there was a little call-out, "Made with Aged Vanilla!" It's unusual for a mass-produced soda to trumpet ingredients, so I had to try it. Same old corn-syrup sweetness, same old loud generic root beer taste....and conforming with the law, did not list vanilla as an ingredient, just "artificial and natural flavors". Hrumph.

DINNER: 9:15pm, big home made salad, sushi, shumai, seaweed salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

Cookilishisness!

I write "Hunger 4/5" over and over again, without much of a change, but I'm glad I do -- every time I type it reminds me to only eat when I'm hungry, and be hungry when I eat. Many years I ate out of habit, because of the idea of three big meals a day was what I was taught, disassociated from actual desire for food.

Woke up at 6 and did graphics work for the restaurant, made my power smoothie, then spent the morning at the shop. Spent the afternoon cooking: custard for cookies n' creme ice cream, chocolate chip cookies (so I can make ice cream cookie sandwiches tomorrow, with X-tra cookilishisness!), and a large batch of fresh pasta. Half cut into spaghetti for the freezer, the other half into small ravioli. I had some yummy spinach mixture from last week's pizza explorations -- chopped spinach, caramelized onion, criminis, salt, olive oil and added left over ricotta, nutmeg, parm and whole egg. Seriously good, after tossing off the rejects, got about 5 entree servings of nice and perfect looking dough dumplings.

BREAKFAST: 9am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Same as yesterday, though a little less of everything, still came out to 1.5 pints. Yummers!

LUNCH: 1pm, clam and bacon pizza, no cheese, half a sprite, half a Manhattan Special, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
At the resto, kinda lacking. No lemon, no salt, not enough garlic. L threw on some unasked for bacon, which I love, but like pepperoni, once you add that, any lighter flavor will be masked.

PM SNACK: 4pm, chocochip cookies and cookie dough, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6pm, fresh pasta scraps and sauce, more cookies, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
All the trimmings from making ravioli, instead of dumbly trashing it, simply cut into pieces and boiled it up for a dinner for 1. Pieces are irregular, some stuck together, but eating them seems like a lot more sane than trashing perfectly good food.

Smoothie Absolution

Rode bikes with a friend from the restaurant out to Coney, indulged in the Cyclone and a hot dog (in that order), then popped out to Breezy Point for a dip in the ocean. It is hot out.

Started the day with a healthful fruit smoothie, and quelled my post-ride hunger with a large homemade salad before going out to a restaurant. Feel good.

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, smoothie, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Filled the blender with: banana, blueberries, cherries, red grapes, half a kiwi, quarter of a mango, a heaping spoonful of the good yogurt, enough good milk to cover the blades, 5 ice cubes, a tablespoon of vanilla sugar and a pinch of sea salt. (I need to get a spice grinder, so I can add flax.)

I usually go heavier on the dairy, sugar and salt, but after the HVS's consternation yesterday, wanted to go a little lighter to....be more righteous or something. And survey says: excellent. The sweet and the tart worked in tandem, thick in a satisfying way. This thing is easily 2/3 fresh fruit, probably hard to make affordable in a restaurant setting.

LUNCH: 12:30pm, hot dog with kraut and onion, half a small fries, large lemonade, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Odd, I used to think 2 hot dogs was a meal, and less than that was somehow less than satisfactory. Out on a hot day at Coney Island, on the bike, ONE was a bit too much.

DINNER PT 1: 5pm, large green salad with olive oil and vinegar, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER PT 2: Shrimp in a tomato vinegar sauce, rice, chips and guac, ginger mojito, water, chocolate hazelnut gelato, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
B, E & I took a walk to the hipper part of the neighborhood and ate at Barrio Chino, then around the corner to Il Labratorio for gelato. My shrimp dish was way out of balance, so vinegary I thought it might have been pickled. When you taste something and you immediately ask yourself, "Does this supposed to taste like this?", it means it's either really good or really...not.

Smoothie Aggro

Woke up early and made an early yoga class with the HVS. Not getting into a grind and treating my body better has been on my mind later -- how will Edie be a happy baby if her caregiver isn't happy to be with her? Attempted a snickleride, but the tandem failed again, and ended up back at the bike shop. Spent the day napping, then went out and did a big food shop. Lots of fruits and veg in the house now!

SNICKLEBREAKFAST: 9am, blueberry banana smoothie, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
I watched the counterperson make this, and was very unimpressed. Ice, milk, frozen blueberry and mango, a banana. No yogurt, no sugar, no salt. It was tepid. The HVS expressed concern that by adding that stuff you make something thats rather virtuous something that'll clog my arteries. I think its all about balance. A spoonful of yogurt, a teaspoon of vanilla sugar, a shake of salt goes a LONG way in improving something like a homemade smoothie. Industrial food go CRAZY with the salt, sugar and fat, not caring for balance, just the right blast of stuff to addict you into getting more and more. When you have such an overload of that bad stuff, everything else will just taste wrong. My smoothie will be right from the getgo.

LUNCH: noon, rice pilaf, gatorade, spoonful of the good nutella-like spread, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3pm, blueberry muffin

DINNER: 8:15pm, boneless thick sauteed porkchop, brocolli and shitake in pansauce, corn on the cob, water
I'm learning that cooking with sweet wine (I've had an old bottle of rose in the fridge for a while now) just sucks, dry wine is the way to go. Bacony pan sauce was nice, though now that I've done it once, will do it differently next time. (Render bacon lardons first, then add onion and mushroom. Add broc with the wine, instant flavorful steam. Use pre-reduced stock so as not to overcook veg.)

Goofed on the meat, c-school came back to me as eating it. I seared one side, attempting to cook it half way...but it was 3" thick. After 8 minutes, the cooked color only came up .5", so I flipped it to find a thick, crunchy fond developed -- a bit too far. So I put it in a 400 degree over for 6 minutes while I finished the sauce, the veg and the corn, and when it came out the 2nd side had no fond, but after letting it rest for a couple of minutes, it was great -- very juicy, very flavorful, and cooked to medium-well all the way through. I was aiming for a medium-rare, should of cut back to 3 minutes in the oven. I never cooked such a thick fillet in school, it was always thinner, even the thickest steaks were maybe 2" thick...next time, I'll have my method down.

I am now a father. Or maybe baby-daddy.

Sorry for the unannounced break, I thought I'd be able to update from my phone from where I was, but realized I had to set some prefs on the account before doing that. It's for the best, as the last 36 hours contained some revelations.

I was invited by a friend to stay at their family's house in the Hamptons, we were all invited. B did not want to travel so soon, after our weekend out in Greenport, so I decided to go with a friend. Instead of the whole weekend, went out Friday late afternoon by train and came back by 10pm Saturday. I had a good time -- a beautiful house on the water, pizza by the water first night, a yard full of wild sea grass, a kayak across the bay, local clams on the halfshell, a beach with drinks, a raucous nude 2 year old acting the clown.

But still, I found myself missing B&E. Though it had all the bits of a perfect short vacation out -- great friends, great hospitality, great food, lots of cool non-urban things to do and relax -- it just didn't seem that great with out them. I couldn't help but feel that the entire time I was out there, some key element was missing from making this a truely great time, without it just kinda marking time until that element is back.

I guess you never know gravity is there until you try to defy it. I hopefully won't make the same mistake again. And hopefully when E is a little bigger, even if B is not up to it, I can take her out on little adventures like this.

On a positive tip, my friends were showing me their childseat bike rig, a fully padded a protected device that sits right behind the handlebars. They took their child on it as soon as she could hold her head up -- 8 months. And when their kid hits 30 lbs, they're going to lend it to me. It's rated for 18 lbs minimum (Edie is only 6 lbs away) and if she has full head control by then, nothing will stop us from riding across county on the drop of a dime! Nothing can stop us!

So far I've gotten up and played with Edie about 6 times since starting this entry. Today, B left out around 8:30am and won't be back until 6pmish -- replicating what it'll be like when she's back at work in early September. I'm finding wearing Edie in a sling around the house has been calming her and freeing me up to do chores, clean up, read the paper, etc....wait, she's crawling and wiggling in my arms again....

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, good granola with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10:30am, left over pad thai, Gatorade, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, prosciutto & moz panini, small salad, lemonade, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, rigatoni with homemade sauce & ricotta, watermelon, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5