On a beautiful ride out to Orchard Beach & City Island, I stumbled upon this potato chips at a local bodega. Salty, sweet, vinegary, couldn't taste much pepper, was like salt & vinegar with the sharp stabby notes of the vinegar removed.
Weird packaging, stressing the "all natural" on the front and a list of ingredients to make a bell pepper relish on the back (though no method -- for that you have to go to the website.) Potato chips are freakin' potato chips, they may be all natural but they sure ain't healthful.
Last week's ride I blew out after 20 miles, but I should of eaten. On this ride I had a healthy lunch at mile 28, and didn't blow out until mile 41 or so. I even packed a cliff bar just in case, but it didn't come to that. Will I be ready for 100 in mid May? I think I may have to take more drastic actions...
I listened to a podcast of an NPR interview of Mario Batali, on a book tour promoting a new cook book about simple Italian dishes that are focused on what is made in the homes of Italy, not restaurants. He described how there are no big meat main dishes, and that a typical meal would be a tiny bit of protein (if any), a small amount of starch (like pasta) and mostly vegetables. A 1 lb bag of dried pasta in Italy feeds 5 people, but in the U.S. it feeds 2 people. I weighed my pasta this evening before cooking and....it was indeed 6.4 oz, an ounce and half away from being half a pound! A big batch of pasta is a good recovery meal after a long ride, though.
BREAKFAST: 9am, organic chex with dead milk, banana, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Wanted to save dinner for the evening, but my usual first snack on a long bikeride is the fabulous donuts from my local shop. So in the spirit of doing something friggin' differently, I swapped it out with a super ripe banana, very sweet and satisfying.
LUNCH: 1:15pm, turkey with let, tom, oni and roasted peppers on wholewheat roll, oddly flavored potato chips, 20oz of Gatorade, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5 From a friendly small-town feeling deli on City Island, with which I pedalled over to Orchard Beach to sit on a picnic table by the beach to eat.
DINNER: 6pm, large green salad, mini cheese raviolis with homemade chili, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5 The 50 mile ride blew me out, and took a nice bath. After, I set up the boiling water while ate salad, then cooked the pasta. Pasta and red meat, 2 things only to be eaten once a week. Well, I think I made it to Saturday! Tomorrow is Dim Sum, so rules are suspended for that then...
EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, half a small chocolate babka, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Indulgent, homemade, felt right.
EVENING SNACK:8:30pm, wholewheat waffle, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5 I can't believe I was hungry enough for this after that chunk of babka, but I was, and it was good!
Friday started well -- I did the laundry last night, so it only needed folding this morning, giving me time to get down with the wafflizing. Me n' Edles did a few chores outside, but I just wasn't feeling it, despite it being a beautiful, warm, sunny day. When I hit the couch after dinner around 6:30, I just kinda shut down and was in bed snoozing by 8. Maybe fighting an approaching illness?
BREAKFAST: 9:15am, 2 wholewheat waffles, 2 slices of bacon, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5 In today's waffles, I used straight wholewheat flour, not ww pastry, and replaces white sugar with light brown sugar. Whole wheat gives a much more interesting flavor than white in this application, though there is a slight grit that I could imagine turning off a palate that is used to silky smooth white stuff. I held myself to 2 slices of bacon, rather than the usual 5 or 6, so while it's not in the rules, it's a good limit to live by. Two was lagom: Swedish for "enough is as good as a feast", words to live by...
LUNCH: 3pm, green salad, homemade mushroom brown rice, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Thought I could skip lunch because of the heavy breakfast and early dinner, but by 3 realized I was too hungry. Ate around the kitchen, stuck to the good stuff.
DINNER: 5pm, falafel platter, half a veggie burger, half an order of fries, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5 With B at Petisco, the local superior diner. B didn't finish her meal, so I vacuumed it up for her.
BREAKFAST: 8:30am, organic wholegrain cheerios with dead milk, banana, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH:11:30am, 3/4 of a wholewheat waffle, the good yogurt with roasted salted mixed nuts & a little honey and vanilla, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Thinking of sardine sandwiches, but didn't feel like something fishy, in anticipation of what may be eaten this evening. I bought a bag of salted and roasted mix nuts (walnuts, almonds, macadamias, fiberts, a few others but no peanuts) to up my nut intake, and it really made this yogurt a much more interesting experience than my usual raw cashews.
Which reminded me of the Alton Brown episode that inspired my recent dietary direction. He pretty much dismisses raw foodism as a nutritious way to alter one's diet. While it is true that uncooked food has more nutrients then cooked food, which breaks down and destroys some nutrients, what is also is true is that the nutrients locked in raw food are much harder for the human body to absorb. While the raw state has more nutrients, the cooked state has more nutrients...that can be used by the human body! I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, but it kinda makes sense within reason.
PM SNACKING:3-6:30pm, one small wedge of roast beefsandwich, 2 cubes of brownies, a few mouthfuls of shrimp salad, a mouthful of pasta salad, 3 juice drinks, 1 can of seltzer, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5 Me n' my students cooked for the PTA, so I couldn't just make tofu n' whole wheat everything. Pasta and roast beef is yellow because it's once a week, and I think that was the first time....though I suspect some pasta n' chili will be a nice post-bike ride meal tomorrow...it WAS a small amount...
DINNER:8pm, 2 slices of streetza, 3 cubes of brownies, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5 B and her mom ordered in a mediocre pizza, but when I got home from an afternoon in a kitchen, didn't feel like cooking. Two slices in a 550 degree oven on a stone for 2 minutes really made then crisp and brown, the only way to make the best of crappy pizza. Still hungry after, so I dipped into some of the brownies that I brought home for B. Didn't feel too bad about it, because I didn't eat too much today anyway...
For a day whose eating was half dictated by professional obligations, it went pretty well. Breakfast and lunch were taken at home, and me and the students made all sorts of things for the PTA conferences tomorrow, but today we finished up vegetable soup and made many sheets of brownies. The mint recipe for the brownies were off, but still edible.
I restrained myself from eating much after class, and I swung by the restaurant in the evening and ate some pizza. I was offered a drink of anything, but it was all either too much sugar or too much caffeine. I'm glad I turned it down -- if anything is gonna change, I gotta change these habits.
BREAKFAST:9am, large piece of banana bread, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5 I'm giving this the green light because of the extra bananas, halving of sugar and the replacement of white flour with whole wheat. Part of me still feels this is a little desserty, but it tastes too healthy.
LUNCH: noon, several small squares of pizza, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Went to lunch at Pulino's with a bunch of moms and out babies. This was the second day this joint was open, and among others, saw the dude from Abba, Jude Law and Ed Levine all there chowing. Pizza was good. We ordered three of the 10" pies for 4 of us, and being the polite ladies we are, left over one square of each. Though not the healthiest, points for eating appropriate amount. Very tempted to get a beer because another mom was getting a pint, but the place offers no half pints, so I didn't indulge. Try to aim for my one alcoholic beverage for the end of the week..
PM SNACK:2:45pm, chocolate chip banana bread, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5 Made by the leader of the playdate. Very different than my banana bread, very moist, very sweet and overflowing with chocolate. There goes my one desert for the week, he he!
PM SNACK:5pm, large green salad, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER:8:30pm, chicken sausage with sauteed chard & onions over mushroom rice a la Noah, water, 3 chocolate truffles, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5 Got home late after Food Coop business, set up rice in the rice cooker before I split. Short grain brown rice, chicken stock, a blob of butter, salt, lots of crumbled up dried porcinis and morels, fresh diced oregano, pinch of cayenne, handful of sliced almonds, dried minced onion, and maybe even something else I don't remember. A big head of chard cooked down into a small fistful, cooked up with some softened onions in olive oil. The sausage from the market was surprisingly flavorful, redolent of red peppers and garlic. It would of been all-good, except that B had some people over and had 3 little chocolate truffles from a local chocolate maker on hand, and they just sat there and taunted me.
Never ate lunch OR dessert today, a good start to the week. Undoubtedly it'll be all down hill from here, with social occasions surrounding food taking me off the path....
BREAKFAST: 9am, organic chexwith dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
NOON SNACK:noon, grapes, piece of cheddar, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5 Easily the largest amount of grapes I've ever eaten in one sitting. Really easy to eat.
AFTERNOON SNACK: 1pm, whole grain bread with good peanut butter, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
AFTERNOON SNACK: 3:30pm, mushroom knish, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 On the walk back from the supermarket, I started building dinner in my head, and realized that by the time I got home, cooked what I wanted to cook then sat down to eat, I'd be out of my mind with hunger. This was from a proper knishery, not one of those horrible yellow fried squares. As I was eating, I thought I should of gotten the spinach knish, or for real green text, a sweet potato knish...
DINNER: 9pm, 'zen' pizza, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5 I got this nontraditional large slice from Viva Herbal, a spelt crust, no cheese, lots of green-tea infused soy products & vegetables.
Last day of the week, ended it with an indulgent food delivery and a large portion of homemade ice cream. Tomorrow is a chance to see how long I can stay in the green before going yellow n' red...
BREAKFAST: 10am, piece of wholewheat banana bread, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5 Is it a dessert? Is it a fruit? Is it a wholegrain?
LUNCH: 12:30, mock frito-pie, smoothie-sicle, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5 Took the whole grain corn chips, topped it with homemade beef chili and some cheddar, wacked in in a cast-iron skillet and into the oven. Pretty good, though a very different beast than what I sampled last Sunday. Didn't feel ill after one bite!! DINNER:6:45pm, small sushi plate, gyoza, shrimp and vegetable tempura, green salad, chocolate ice cream, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
A rainy, rainy soaking day in NYC. Ate too well for someone not moving their body. Baked banana bread for the first time in the morning -- extra banana, 1/2 the sugar of the recipe, and replaced white flour with whole wheat flour. Tastes pretty damn good anyway. Then spent the afternoon cooking up macarons, which occurred to me after making that I don't need to eat any, because they are perfect for passover -- no flour in them, just egg, sugar and ground almonds...
BREAKFAST:9:30am, organic cheerios with organic dead milk, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH:12:30pm. two sardine & avocado sandwiches on wholewheat, 2 pickles, small piece of freshly baked banana bread, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
PM SNACK: 3-6pm, little bits of almond meringue cookie, little bits of chocolate ganache, caramel ganache and vanilla pastry cream My fried MAP came over and we made macarons together, in three colors and three flavors. They came out better than the first time, but still not bakery-level. A lot of fun, a good way to spend the rainy afternoon while B was out doing girly things in Brooklyn and Edie watched us from her high chair and walker in the doorway.
DINNER:7pm, homemade wholewheat pizza with onion, mushroom and pepperoni, 1 beer, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5 MAP stuck around and helped me caramelize the onions properly while I tiled with the rest of the set up. Pretty good. Drank the beer before even thinking about the rules, whoops. Still, far from being an issue.
A nice day, maybe not the best eating day, BUT writing it up this morning, realized that no desserts slipped down my neck! After an early dinner, felt tired from walking with 20 lbs of Edie strapped to my front all day and hit the hay around 10pm
BREAKFAST: 8:30am, pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese and sable, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
PM SNACK: 1pm, small amount of green tea Met up with K uptown for lunch, but work was too busy for her so we just slipped into a Starbucks for 20 minutes so we could amuse ourselves with the cuteness that is Edie. I ordered green tea, which is on the every-day list, but all they had was "orange blossom green tea", where tangerine rind and ghoji berries overwhelmed any honest green tea flavor. It tasted like unsweetened Sunny-D-Lite. Gross. I picked up a pack of good green tea last week, I think I'll make a pitcher of lightly-sweetened brewed ice tea this week with it.
LUNCH: 2:45pm, Ethiopian combo plate, 1.75 bowl, hunger 4/5 Not sure where this falls. There was no obvious forbidden or once-a-week elements, and I think the injira is made with a whole grain (teff).
DINNER: 6pm, shrimp saag, a little naan, a little rice, 1 onion bahji, 1/2 a vegetable samosa, lentil crackers, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5 Lunch came a little late, dinner came a little early due to social obligations. Didn't eat most of my food.
Despite me not purposefully eating multiple sweets a day, when I look back at the color codes this week, I'm going to find a sea of red, all from bits of deserts flying down my throat. On the positive side, most is home made or on the way to homemade, but still, it causes one pause. On the other hand, I don't know if it's psychosomatic, but I definitely feel more energy and a little bit lighter on my feet...
BREAKFAST: 9am, organic wholegrain chex with organic dead milk, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 1:45pm, fillet of sole, whole wheat waffle, large green salad, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5 I gotta get some frozen fillets of oily fish. Still, cooking fillets from raw is a whole lot better then nasty fried breaded fish sticks out of the freezer. Some whole wheat waffles I made last week also came out and crisped up nicely on the pizza stone.
PM TASTING: 2:30pm, a bit of chocolate ganache Filling the macaron cookies I made earlier in the week, to bring to a casual dinner party this evening. Unfortunately B ate a bunch of the cookies AND a hunk of the chocolate I had on hand to make the ganache, so this batch ended up only being 5 measly macarons!
DINNER:6pm, small green salad, a few olives, mushroom ravioli in red sauce, 1 piece of bread, 1 whiskey cocktail, one chocolate macaron, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Watched an episode of Good Eats this morning all about....beets. Roasted, pickled, as a salad. Fneh! And the show was sponsored by....Hershey's.
This morning instead of baby food, I fed Edie bits of very ripe banana and a few spoonfuls of full-flavor Fage yogurt. Fruit is nature's baby-food.
My eating day was dictated by professional obligations -- first the after-school culinary class I teach, then at the restaurant I consult at afterwards. It's fine, but it underscores the fact that I need to control the habits I keep outside of these times.
BREAKFAST:9am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 I replaced milk with aica juice this time, which lead to a much sweeter taste. All the other usual suspects in tact: fage yogurt, fresh ground flax, banana, grape, cherries, blueberries, mango, splash of vanilla, pinch of salt. The aica juice straight tasted too sweet, generic berry flavor.
LUNCH: 11:30am, demi-hippy bread with good peanut butter, small bowl of tabbouleh, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER pt 1: 6pm, small panko-crusted chicken cutlet, small portion of swiss chard & onion, whipped potatoes, small fruit punch, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER pt 2: 7:30pm, 2 small slices of pizza, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
EVENING WATERING: 9:30pm, 2 liters
EVENING SNACKS:10:30pm, handful of ginger roaster almonds, a large bowl of freshly popped organic popcorn in grapeseed oil, lightly salted, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Got uncomfortably hungry, ranged around the kitchen looking for snacks that would be nutritionally acceptable. Almonds were a no brainer, but wondering about the popcorn -- technically, isn't it a whole grain? I dunno, must do some research..
A busy day, capped with B coming home early so I could get on the bike and ride out to Coney Island. Was great, but I definitely feel the early-season weakness. I almost bonked 2/3 of the way in and had to stop to eat. Next time I'll be more prepared.
BREAKFAST: 8:15am, pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese and sable, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 "Pumpernickel" is the whole-grain equivalent of rye bread, and while historically it has had a dark color due to the ash-content of the grain, nowadays it is mixed with other flours and dark coloring via molasses, cocoa or other means gives it back it's shade. I don't know if this is a 100% whole grain bagel, but it is soooo delicious. Sable is my favorite appetizing fish, and wikipedia confirmed it is an oily fellow, which made this a rather Brown's Rules-approved breakfast!
AM SNACK:11am, 2 freshly baked macaron cookies I'm running through a half batch of the cookies for the French macaron cookie sandwiches me and my friend MAP will be baking on Thursday. They're a little tricky, and I took notes on what to try differently then. I had to taste to test -- good, but Thursday will be better.
LUNCH: noon, bowl of tabbouleh, 1 piece of demi-hippy bread, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Good, but the tabbouleh tastes a little flat. Salt? Unsatisfying.
PM SNACK: 2:30pm, 1 oatmeal cookie, 1 chocolate chip cookie At the mutha's group, 2nd sweet of the day.
LUNCH 2: 3:45pm, large green salad, handful of "whole grain" tortilla chips, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
PM SNACK: 7pm, slice of streetza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5 Didn't want to, but out on my first proper ride of the season, 30 miles to and from Coney Island. My body was about to shut down if I didn't eat something. Next time, will bring a clif bar...
DINNER: 8:15pm, tofu & broccoli in brown sauce, pork fried rice, pork egg roll, smoothie pop, water, 1.75 bowl, hunger 4/5 Needed a Chinese brick, but damn, pizza and Chinese food? Regardless of the ride, if I'm going to lose any weight, this won't do. But I was frazzled, it was comforting to go to the same take out spot me and my dad would go to, to take food out, and I think I made a selection that could of been a lot worse.
In the side bar to the left, I've color coded the lists: dark green for every day, light green for 3x a week, yellowy orange for 1x a week, and red for never. I'm going to color the text of meals for a while, so I can see if I'm in a sea of green or flailing around in a world of yellow and red.
I spent the day doing laundry in the early morning, shopping for food in the late morning, and cooking in the afternoon. I assembled a bag of Russ & Daughters goodies for my brother-in-law for his birthday, so I was inspired to cook off a bunch of chocolate babkas. It's a lengthy process involving 2 rises, and 2 parts (dough and chocolate filling), but the result is fantastic. During the 4 hour ordeal, I made salad for the week and a large bowl of tabouli. I didn't use a recipe, I just looked at some ingredient lists on line and free-balled it. Got bulgar wheat from the bulk section, soaked it in hot water for 15 minutes. Added chopped tomato, onion, scallion, garlic, red pepper, parsley, mint, a little olive oil, a drop of balsamic vinegar, the juice of one lemon and a dash of salt. At first it tasted a bit weak but as it sat and came together, I'm glad I left it alone. It's mild, but you can really taste the wheat and it has that tabouli flavah.
I wasn't planning to eat desert today, but life had other plans for me. After spending 4 hours knocking out the babka (and the vegetables and the baby and the clean up) when B got home, she made short order of one of the babkas. Once she started one, I had to have a small piece to see if it was good. (The dough was really wet, but I decided to see what would happen instead of adding more flour -- it became MUCH more tender than last time, really good.) I stopped at a 1" piece, but B made her way through the ENTIRE 8" pan!! Hrumph!
A few hours later, I was really desiring sugar, broke down and had another desert, officially breaking B's rules of no more than one a week. I know tomorrow there will be a sweet snack at the playdate drop in, and I'm baking macarons and going to a dinner party on Thursday, which will be another sweet spot. And no weekend is complete without desert. If I make it through the week with only 5 deserts, I guess it'll still be an improvement....for now
BREAKFAST:8:30am, organic cheerios with organic dead milk, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Woke up pretty hungry, but I wonder how much of that is due to only 4.5 hours of sleep. I know lack of sleep is a potential cause of obesity, due to messing with blood sugar levels...
LUNCH:2pm, two sardine sandwiches, 2 pickles, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5 I was nervous about this, but Brown hyped up the nutritional power AND deliciousness of this sandwich, but I had never really done sardines. Once I opened the can, two things soothed me -- first the heads, tails, fins, scales, bones and guts were all removed, leaving just little round fillets surrounded by skin. Second, the smell -- it smelled like a mild tuna fish! Ah hah! This isn't some scary little eyeball-and-gut crunchy thing, this is just sustainable, healthier tuna! I tossed them with a little cider vinegar and fresh parsley, and smeared some ripe avocado on the toasted whole wheat bread. They went down lickety split, I can't believe I haven't been eating sardines all along.
I always associated those tins with anchovies (funky salt!) and old people like my parents, though even my parents were all about the chunk tuna -- the sardines were THEIR parent's thing. Justine Timberlake can have his sexy, I need to bring sardines back.
DINNER: 7pm, large green salad with chili shrimp, a few spoonfuls of homemade tabouli, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
EVENING SNACK: 8pm, small slice of freshly baked babka, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
EVENING SNACK:10pm, 3 graham crackers with chocolate and peanut butter, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
A good Sunday. After cooking up a healthy significant breakfast, helped B clean up the house bit before some cousins and friends came over to kick off the bike season with a small tour around the tip of Manhattan. An afternoon jaunt to Greenpoint for some authentic Polish food, small in quantity, topped off with sprint down to Red Hook for a drink in a salty bar. A good edge-of-Spring day. Didn't stick to Brown's rules (which are now in the left hand column of this blog) strictly, but getting better. Next week will be improved. Let's say the week starts on Monday... BREAKFAST:8:45am, 2.5 wholewheat waffles, 3 slices of bacon, 1.75 bowl, hunger 4/5 Hungry for a real big breakfast, and didn't want to give up control to a restaurant. Made my waffles, replacing white flower with whole wheat pastry flour. I also left the eggs out over night to bring them to room temp, and zapped the milk to make it slightly warm. The melted butter did not seize, and the egg whites became much more solid, making for a lighter waffle. The taste of the whole wheat was very mild, in a pleasant nutty way. Definitely the new standard. Gonna experiment with brown sugar and AP whole wheat next...
Brown's rules permits red meat but once a week, which at the outset I imagined as cow. Does red meat also mean pork, lamb, buffalo and bear? Isn't pork the other white meat?! -sigh- I guess it is, I just love pork so much. On the negative side, I ate red meat for breakfast. On the positive side, it was well below an 8 oz serving and half of my usual breakfast bacon intake... PM SNACK: 2:15pm, bite of bagel with creamcheese, bite of pizza, half bite of dry ruggelah Riding around with cousins and friends, doing a bit of the tour thing. Didn't want to eat, but ya gotta take a bite to be a participant.
LUNCH:4pm, 6 mixed perogies, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5 Two potato/cheese, two kraut and two meat. Again, went against Brown's rules and had another bite of ride meat, but much less than a serving, maybe an ounce. How do they make this meat in the perogie? I suspect it's been ground then boiled to make stock, then tossed with a few spices, and stuffed.
PM SNACK:5:30pm, 1 pint of beer, 1 bite of frito pie, a small quiver of french fries, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5 D, E, K and I popped over to Red Hook for a drink. E ordered a horrible looking frito pie -- a crock full of fritos, topped with a very generous portion of all-beef no-bean chili, and a layer of what must of been cheese-wiz. I didn't want to taste it, but when I refused, E asked me if I was a food snob. Urg! I'll eat anything!! It was as gross as I expected, but makes me want to make some at home. I'll use my "whole grain" tortilla chips, my home-ground skyline chili, and a good quality raw milk sharp cheddar. Red meat IS allowed once a week.... DINNER:8pm, baked sole with herbesdeProvance, kale and brown rice, chocolate ice cream, small amount of dark chocolate and 3 graham crackers, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5 Three small fillets of sole (6 oz) baked with some herbs and a little pat of butter, small delicate flavor, needed a little salt. I reheated the mushroom brown rice from earlier in the week, and cut up a full head of fresh kale into it. Threw in some chicken stock, and let that cook the kale down a little and revive the rice. Still a little too salty, but a good save.
After a second portion of kale and rice, realized I had ridden about 20 miles today and was a bit undercalorized. Rather than wait until 10 to lose my mind, I powered through a delicious desert, full on. B berated me for risking my sleep tonight, but hopefully the bike ride will counter it.
Edie had some dramatic moments between 9 and midnight, which I took care of while B slept. Still, though I wasn't hungry, I wasn't full either, and the call of the chocolate ice cream in the freezer was calling to me. "Oooo, Norbert, you so sassy. Donchu just want to put me in yo mouf, and wiggle me around? Bow chicka wow wow!" Some how, I resisted it's siren call.
Woke up hungry, hungrier than usual, due to last night's sninner, I suppose. A large part of the eating day would be out of my direct control, so I added a banana to the whole-grain granola. The eating day didn't go too bad. Other than a small bowl of pasta, I was relatively in Brown's rules. I was going to make a big dinner of waffles, fish and kale, but I just wasn't hungry enough.
BREAKFAST: 8am, homemade granola in organic dead milk, banana, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
AM SNACK: 11:30am, home-roasted almonds, a small piece of challah
LUNCH: 1:30pm, 1 piece of Italian bread, small salad, appetizer portion of ziti in red sauce, fillet of flounder in wine sauce with potato and steamed carrots, string beans and broc, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
I think I negotiated the day well today. I think I'm going to post an interpretation of Alton Brown's plan for eating as a side bar, as I'm starting to refer to it over and over again, but the casual reader wouldn't have a clue to what I'm talking about.
On the way home from a late lunch, stopped by the local humungo supermarket and poked around. I picked up a couple of cans of....sardines. Brown went on and on about the nutritional power of these buggers, and I really really hope I like them. A simple preparation with parsley and vinegar, garnished with avocado on whole wheat bread is in my future...
BREAKFAST:10:15am, organic chex with organic dead milk, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5 Inspected the ingredients of the cereal -- about 7 different grains, all whole, well within the comfort zone of B's rules of whole grains every day.
AM SNACK:11am, slice of fresh pineapple Cut up a whole pineapple for B and ate some. Inoffensive, but not great. Hints of vanilla.
LUNCH: 2:45pm, vegetarian dim sum, including mixed gluten, mashed tarro treasure boxes, mini sticky rice wrapped in lotus leafs, monk dumplings, tea, water, 1.75 bowl, hunger 5/5 After doing chores, not much else to do except be hungry. Bundle Edie up in the stroller and made our way to Veg Dim Sum. I ordered 4 dishes, thinking I was exhibiting control, but it was on the edge of too much food. Going solo, I gotta remember to limit to 3, which is less fun but really, now. Brown's rules area bit agnostic on this meal, except maybe for the tea, though I don't think it was green.
SNINNER:9pm, school-made salsa and "whole grain" tortilla chips, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Sninner: somewhere between a snack and a dinner! What exactly is "whole grain" tortilla chips? The ingredients are whole-kernel white corn, oil and salt. The texture was slightly grittier than the usual, but if I didn't know it was "whole grain", I wouldn't have noticed. I counted three whole-grain tortilla chips on the supermarket shelf, and all had the same ingredients. I only chose mine (Bachmann's) because it was the smallest (NYS as opposed to national) brand and had the least amount of fat per serving (though not by much.)
The salsa made in school was a bit lame, but we made it to demo knife skills, not make the best salsa in the world (and because the kids had only had cooked jarred salsas in the past, for them it WAS the best salsa!) Tomato, onion, jalapeno, onion, cilantro and tomato juice (ingredients: tomato, a few preservatives, salt), red wine vinegar, salt. No fat. So this sninner fit well within Brown's rules of order -- whole grain, lots of vegetable.
Spent the morning eating righteously, because I knew the balance of the day would be on thin ice. Edie & I met up with Cousin Jenni, in from Canada for a Bar Mitzvah we're attending this weekend. We met up at Katz's, because Jews can't get good deli in Canada (smoked meat my ass!) We split a meal that most people regard is a meal for one -- a pastrami sandwich, an order of fries. The plates are small but heaping. The customers in the cafeteria-style dining room reminded me of the people we saw in restaurants in Michigan -- large, overweight people, eating plates of large quantities of food. I would go to Katz's more often, but they don't sell half-portions.
In the evening, it was all about entertaining, not necessarily eating healthily. On the way home, we decided to pick something up fun that was of the neighborhood -- donuts from our increasingly famous local donut shop. Of course, when B got home about an hour later, she brings home....a big box of donuts. Great minds (and hungry stomachs) think alike.
So according to Brown's rules, I ate THREE once-a-week items -- red meat, pasta and desert. -sigh-. I was thinking maybe I should be much more strict 6 days a week, and go nuts once a week, but that doesn't make any sense -- that would turn this effort into a diet, rather than a lifestyle change. There needs to be flexibility and not a lot of self-loathing.
BREAKFAST: 9am, momma-style Israeli salad, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5 Baby carrots, cucumber chunks, a wedge of red pepper, a bit of Alpine-carraway cheese, hummus. AM SNACK:10:15am, handful of red grapes. After writing up yesterday's report about the surprising deliciousness of grapes, it made me hungry for something sweet....and there just happened to be grapes in the house! Not nearly as good as yesterday's. I guess that's to be expected when the fruit is out of season and imported from Chile.
AM SNACK: 10:45am, home-roasted gingersoy almonds, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5 Still hungry. Makes me think I need to make granola soon (as that is definitely both a) whole grains and b) chock full o' nuts)
LUNCH: 1pm, half a pastrami sandwich, half an order of fries, a small handful of pickles, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER: 7pm, homemade pasta with homemade tomato sauce, a little bit of cooked spinach, about 1.5 donuts, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
EVENING SNACK:9pm, left over pasta in sauce, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5 I found myself hungry after Jenni had left and the ladies had gone to sleep. My first move was to go for the homemade chocolate ice cream, but after thinking, realized that would be a second desert when I should be somewhere between once a week (B's rules) and one a day (for now, N's rules). So I ate the leftovers -- rather than a separate thing, just a continuation of dinner. Or at least that's how I rationalized it...
It's not a diet, as in something extreme that drops weight fast, then becomes intolerable and you gain all the weight back. It's a diet, as in the eating aspect of a lifestyle. Rome wasn't built in a day. I have plans to share a pastrami sandwich tomorrow, the once-a-week red meat, and their may be some home-made chili later in the week, but I can't really beat myself up about it. Though if it were up to the HVS, I'd beet myself up.
In the 30 minute program (which I've saved for review), Brown doesn't give a huge dissertation, and gives just a skeleton guideline -- rather than try to hold hands and answer every single dorky question, it's assumed that anyone who absorbs this information has a modicum of common sense (which makes the program all the more remarkable.) He limits red meat to once a week, and big-ups oily fish to a minimum of 3 times a week, but where does other meat and fish fall? Chicken and shrimp are neither every day or forbidden. I'm going to play the common-sense card and say 3 times a week, in 8-oz or less quantities per serving.
BREAKFAST:8:45am, organic cheerios with organic dead milk, smoothie bomb pop, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Checked the cheerios ingredients, indeed the first three ingredients are whole grains, falling well into the everyday category. Dairy isn't categorized, but in this case it's a vehicle for the whole grain product, as it is a vehicle for the consistency of the smoothie and the pop I made out of it.
AM SNACK: 10:30am, roasted almonds, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: noon, brown mushroom rice and spinach, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5
PM SNACK: 2:30pm, 2 handfuls of red seedless grapes, banana Setting up class, shuttling in between the supply closet and the kitchen. Started to get hungry, and a BIG ASS BOX of individually wrapped portions of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies caught my eye. I could eat the hell out of a few of those right now, but....it's both dessert (1 a week) and a processed junk food (forbidden) (Brown's Rules) and it's a non-homemade dessert corporate junk food (lame) and a dessert in general (3 a week) (Noah's Rules). We were making smoothies today, and I knew we had fresh grapes and bananas in stock.... so I grabbed a handful of grapes, washed them, closed my eyes and thought of the Queen, and threw them back. Just like my week of fruit tastings, I was surprised again just how pleasant and easy these things were to eat. What up with dat? Why do I have this loop in my head saying fruit is yukky, when I know rationally it's pretty rocking?
PM TASTINGS: 5-6pm, a few spoonfuls of various fruit smoothies, a few spoonfuls of salsa, a handful of chips, snips of 5 different cheeses, a few apple slices, a few bread slices, a juice drink, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER: 6:30pm, half a beer, 2 small slices of pizza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5 At the restaurant sharing food with the staff. I was offered a Manhattan Special, which is both soda pop (B-verboten) and too late to have a megadose of caffeine (N-tortuous sleeplessness), so I went with about 4 oz of tap beer (B-once a week) but N-will assist in winding down.
EVENING WATERING: 8:30pm, a liter
EVENING SNACK:9pm, coffee cake, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5 This cake was given to us from a neighbor, for Purim. I just got hungry and itchy, and B left it out on the counter, all naked and exposed, it was just ASKING for it. OK, it broke all the rules, but I'm easing into this lifestyle thing, not all-or-nothing. And it wasn't very good.
Spring is springing, I can just feel it. Felt run down last night. Had some weird-ass dreams. (More on that below for those who care *) Before bed, I watched some TV, including my favorite cooking show, "Good Eats". The show took a left turn, and did an episode on weight loss via nutritional strategy. Usually the show is pretty religious about being about food, the technique and the science behind it. This time it started with a personal message from the host, about realizing that he was porker and set about doing something about it, following the rigor and logic that defines his philosophy. He dropped 50 pounds in 9 months, while producing his show and being a Food Network personality. Makes me pause.
He breaks it down into 4 lists.
First list is stuff you can eat every day in whatever quantity you want. The usual suspects are here, like fruit, veg, nuts and whole grains.
The second list is stuff that should be eaten a minimum of 3 times a week - oily fish, yogurt, broccoli, sweet potato and avocado.
The third list is stuff allowed only 1 time a week -- unlike the first two lists (more the merrier), this list calls for reduction, not addition - red meat, pasta, dessert, alcohol. Red meat and alcohol no problem, but desert and pasta once a week? Oof.
The fourth list is forbidden -- fast food, soda pop, processed meals, canned soups and anything "diet", a.k.a. artificially sweetened foods and reduced fat products that always taste crappier than the real thing.
I know desert once a week is not a realistic goal for me, but right now I'm hitting dessert 2x a day, the default position for my sweet tooth. It's not an all-or-nothing thing, I think I can adapt Brown's thinking to a workable plan for myself. Cutting dessert to three-times-a-week would probably make a pretty large impact.
Definitely gonna make some of the recipes from this episodes, where he focuses on the nutritional "super foods" that will prop up a diet based on the 4 lists. He roasted some almonds with some funky marinades which I'm quite certain will make B's toes curl (in a good way!) The sardines, I haven't really tried seriously since c-school, and in not very healthful applications, though I think I may have another go. And maybe some fresh mackerel, too...
BREAKFAST:8:45am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 One of the "ah hah!" moments in the Good Eats episode last night was when Alton advised that making extra breakfast smoothie is recommended as a snack -- simply freeze into pop formation and all the nutrition that is packed into it can be snacked on instead of ice cream at a later point. Duh! I've been tossing a few bits of smoothie out here and there because B doesn't eat berries, and it starts changing colors and getting funky after 30 minutes. I have these bomb-pop molds sitting in the cupboard for years, after freezing some juice and finding them lacking. So today I froze 4 pops using the overrun. Hmmm. Between the banana and the yogurt in this concoction, I wonder if this is the right consistency to make a very healthy ice cream...
LUNCH:12:30pm, spinach over brown rice, smoothie bomb pop, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5 Cooked up short grain brown rice in the rice cooker with plenty of chopped dried mushrooms, bay leaves, homemade chicken stock, a little cayenne, a little too much salt, black pepper and butter. Half a bag of frozen chopped spinach sauteed with a little stock, a little olive oil, crushed garlic and a little salt. A meal of whole grains and vegetable -- well within the every-day list. Not low-fat, or low anything, or even vegetarian, but nutritionally powerful...and very tasty.
Tried the frozen smoothie...definitely looses a little sweetness in the freezing, and it grew large crystals, giving it an unpleasant crunch. BUT it was satisfying enough to curb my urge to tuck into the chocolate ice cream in the freezer....
PM SNACK: 2:30pm, three small squares of bar - lemon, cherry jam and brownie
PM SNACK: 5:30pm, handful of pistachios, a few cashews, a handful of popcorn
DINNER: 9:30pm, 2 crab cake sandwiches on whole wheat and whole grain mustard, baby carrots, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5 After a Food Coop meeting, hit up the supermarket for some supplies. Trying to put together dinner that met the lists, but would come together fast -- it was getting late. Whole wheat bread, a bag of baby carrots, and some fish cakes out of the fish department. They were ok, but makes me think I should make my own -- it's be a hella lot cheaper, a hella lot more fish and less filler, and probably a lot less salt, and I'll be able to freeze a bunch.
EVENING SNACK: 10:45pm, handful of freshly roasted almonds Whipped these almonds out, not a big a flavor as I hoped. Smelled good, but missing something.
*I dreamt that Betsy had found some super-8 films of my parents and my family from my youth (which don't exist - my parents did not document anything in the filmic format), and secretly transferred them to DVD. The dream is B presenting them, then I sat down in the living room to watch them. The first footage is early 70s, I'm a baby, my mom has long hair, wearing a 1 piece bathing suit on the beach by the water, wearing garish early 70s makeup. I'm by her feet, looking awfully Edie-like. The second part of the footage is early-mid eighties, mom's hair is short, my hair is afro-like, and she's wearing much more conservative clothing, she's in an office, a little bit heavier.
The final part of the dream is I'm at the SI Ferry, waiting for my mom to come out of the bathroom. I'm now an adult and she's elderly. Instead of mom, my dad come out, and then I remember that my mom had passed away and I was looking after my dad (though in reality, the opposite happened.) As we did in his retired years, we walked off arm-in-arm. He needed the support, and he didn't like using a cane, and I really enjoyed strolling with him like that, like we were to Middle-Eastern best friends. Anyhoo...
Woke up feeling a little tired, which is not unusual (especially since the baby came), but my energy level never really lifted too far after the morning. Woke at 8:30 with last night's pizza still sitting in the stomach. Got the laundry done, Edie napped and fed, then took off to Union Square to visit the farmer's market and pick up some baby supplies. Got Edie on a swing for a few minutes.
By the time I we got home, I was hungry for lunch, though my appetite seemed to be behind schedule. By 4, Edie was cranky and fell asleep on my stomach, which lulled me to sleep. When B got home around 5, we woke up, and I felt discombobulated. I was supposed to go to a CSA meeting in the neighborhood, as well as do some food coop and restaurant work at home, but just pushed it off.
I weighed myself this morning, last time doing it at the beginning of February. I weight 235.4, about a pound or so heavier. Statistically, a meaningless increase. The HVS's challenge was to put more fruit and veg in the diet, but it's FEBRUARY -- it's literally unnatural to eat more fruit and veg at this time of year. That said, my bike is coming back from the shop soon, and a once to twice a week ride combined with weights at home, maybe a random yoga class and more fruit and veg to push out the heavier stuff is something to focus on now, not next week. A lot of good stuff will be back in season in the next 8 weeks, and come June 1st, I'll be confronted with an interesting challenge that may be the basis for revising this blog: cooking and eating everything I get from the CSA I just signed up for every week....
BREAKFAST: 10:30am, toasted bagel with creamcheese, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 3pm, small green salad, 2 fishsticks, mini cheese raviolis with homemade sauce, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER: 8pm, 1 French bread pizza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
EVENING SNACK: 10pm, 2 graham crackers with peanut butter and a little bit of chocolate on top, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
In early March '10, I was inspired by an episode of Alton Brown's television show, Good Eats, to attempt to steer my eating habits towards a more nutritionally packed series of foods. Brown breaks it down into four lists:
EVERY DAY: fruits, whole grains, leafy greens, nuts, carrots, green tea
THREE DAYS A WEEK (or more): Oily fish (wild salmon, sardines, etc), yogurt, broccoli, sweet potatoes, avocado
ONCE A WEEK (or less): pasta, one alcoholic drink, red meat, dessert
NEVER: fast food, soda, processed meals, canned soups, "diet" anything (no artificial sweeteners)
Our Need to Feed
Cooking is about processing food and combining, separating, and reducing elements to make something that's more than the sum of its parts. Feeding is cooking plus the additional goals of making honest food that not only sells and and tastes good, but supplies nutrition, health, is environmentally-friendly, and gives something intangible of the cook to the diner.
Having recently graduated from culinary school (see Culinary School Confidential), I now have a set of skills with which to cook -- and am also on the path to feed. And cook better. Maybe work in the food industry. Make my non-cooking wifey happy. Read more. And write about it all here.
Here I also plan to post my daily entries describing what I eat and how it makes me feel. I am currently consulting a holistic nutritionist named Ilsa Jule, who needs this information to help give me feedback. I've been diagnosed with really high blood pressure, and I want to be around a long time, so I can spend time with my future kids.
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