Cripes, Suzette!

Announcement: What I Had For Dinner Today

OK, I see you people are struck dumb by my pepper and egg sandwich narrative. I am not at all put off by the lack of comments on the previous post. In fact, it emboldens me to relate what I had for  dinner.

I didn't have dinner!

Psych! ( Do you know that some people express this as "sike"? We face the death of civilization.)

Because of my scheduled travel to Denver tomorrow, we moved the Thursday Night Martini Club to Tuesday. So I had appetizers at the bar for dinner. And two martinis. Made with gin.

So what I actually had at suppertime was loaded potato skins, deep fried green beans and Parmesan–Crusted Sicilian Quesadillas. Half price at the bar.

Are you inspired to comment yet? I have more. When I got home, I ate two rings of fresh pineapple.

Listen - I could go on and on. Its up to you. Tomorrow I will have orange juice before I leave the house, and then I'll get a bottle of water and a protein bar in the airport. If I'm feeling wild, I might add a Payday candy bar.

Or I might mix it up altogether.

Announcement: What I Had For Lunch Today

Although it has not been that long ago that I declared the baloney and cheese sandwich to be my favorite, I now rescind that statement and tell you this: the pepper and egg sandwich is where it's at.

The sandwich I had for lunch was perfection itself. I highly recommend getting this from a pizza place. Sauteed strips of green peppers fried with eggs, placed on the best quality Italian bread. The bread is split down the middle, buttered on the inside and then grilled only on the outside. After assembly, they wrap the sandwich - along with little packets of ketchup - up in foil.

That ketchup inclusion is key to the overall experience. The packets heat up from their proximity to the sandwich and when you squirt it onto the sandwich interior, there is no temperature discordance to distract.

My sandwich came from the pizza place across the road.  I ordered the small because it's even though they say it's a 7", it's really more of a 9 and that's enough. That's a lot of sandwich for $5.50.

For the record: as a sandwich purist, I didn't always use ketchup on this sandwich but I'm in with a bad crowd here and I'm easily influenced. Now it's too late for me to turn back. That's what happens.

This is the kind of riveting detail that you can expect here from now on.

And Now For Something Completely Different ...

I peeled off  my McCain/Palin bumper sticker today. I didn't want to do it but then my pal reminded me of those sad individuals who are still riding around sporting the Kerry/Edwards signs and that was motivation enough so i yanked it off.

It's too worrisome to read political blogs anymore. It's like watching the Weather Channel -if you got all of your weather information by watching that and never bothered to look out the window for yourself, you'd never leave the house. Same with the news sources and political blogs - too intense, too upsetting, too revealing of something that is definitely going to hit you - the only question is when. this happened to me after the last presidential election too - I had to shut off the politics and replace the minute-by-minute newwsfeeds with online gossip. but now that Britney Spears has straightened herself out and Tom Cruise is settled into an unvarying level of crazy, that doesn't do it for me anymore.

It's soup season here in the northeast and fan mail for The Soup has been steadily increasing. I just don't have the heart to go back there to blog bbecause the food blogging situation is different now than when I used to be The Soup lady. People are so intense, so anal. And there's that whole comment link/culture of happy me-tooism, like the Mommy Blogs or the Red Hat people. the same frantic cheerfulness, the same limited scope.

And, of course, I don't feel funny. And you have to feel funny to be a Soup Lady. Did you know that there is an individual who calls herself the Crockpot Lady and mimics my format of opening set up, followed by my layout of ingredient list and directions, then finishes up with the verdict? Maybe it's entirely coincidental. Whaevs. I don't think of myself as "The Soup Lady" anymore.

No, I think I'll stay right here and talk food when I feel like it. I have a nice little potato soup to try and I've made a commitment to make soup for the work lunchroom once a month so maybe you'll hear about that. With Thanksgiving coming up, there's plenty of opportunity to focus on food.

So, happy days.

Consumer and Consumption

A week on the road is not good for thoughtful contemplation of food intake. Here are my excuses:

• I didn't pick the menus. What could I do that wouldn't be ru-u-u-de?
• Grits apleny.  FYI -"Gourmet grits" means a big cheese bomb is going to land right on your good intentions.
• Fancy salads. Nuts, dried fruits, goat cheese - sheesh. It's like eating a dessert.
• Akahol. I do not regret.

On the plus side:

• I had access to umlimited bottled water.
• I had a Curves nutrition bar (100 calories) that tasted like a Rice Krispy treat, if Rice Krispy treats had 80% more air.
• I ate more fish this week than I have in the last three weeks. Someone please measure my mercury level.

Also, there were some unfortunate food choices made when I walked into the door last night after a long day of flight delays back to Newark Liberty Airport. (Hello Mr. Bagel - let me introduce you to my pal Cream Cheese. Let's call up the Triscuits and Pepperonis and see if we can all get together tonight.) So anyway, I'm back to using the Daily Plate and I plan to go fairly low cal/low carb today to get back on track.

Running calorie count: 225 649 887 1232

Breakfast: egg and pepper omelet with pepperoni.
Lunch: cold chicken with mixed lettuce and cole slaw
Snack: light yogurt
Another snack: cabbage soup
Dinner: cold chicken with cole slaw and a tomato and a pear

• 2 eggs = 160
• 1/4 cup green and red peppers = 15
• 5 slices of pepperoni = 50
• 3 oz. orange juice in 8 oz. water = 33


• 4 oz. cold roasted chicken breast = 188
• 1 cup cole slaw = 184
• 1 cup mixed greens = 20

• 6 oz. Breyer's light yogurt = 80
• giant giant bowl of cabbage soup = 158

• 3 oz white meat chicken = 141
• 1/2 cup cole slaw = 97
• one tomato = 7
• one pear = 100

This is the type of thrilling content that keeps the blog world churning. Perhaps tomorrow I'll post some pictures of kittens and half-finished knitting projects. Just kidding - I'm lame but I'm not that lame.

Is it wrong to be impressed by the fact that a car dealership has its own bottled water? Because I am impressed. That's how lame I am.

Pop For Breakfast

I had two superfoods for breakfast today, so watch out, world.It was a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with walnuts, so now I'm loaded up with anti-oxidants and fighting cholesterol while I'm sitting here typing.

That's not the best part about it of course. The best part is the way it pops in my mouth when I chew it. I like a food that pops and is the main reason I undercook fresh peas and insist on crispy-style canned corn in soups. I just realized that the masago is the real reason to eat a California roll. Hooray for smelt eggs.

After a full week of using The Daily Plate to track what I eat, I have to tell you that I'm totally in love with it. Also, I'm irritating everyone by talking about it at every possible opportunity. (Hard to believe, no?) People don't want to know, but I tell them anyway - 37% of my caloric intake yesterday was from fats, one serving of pistachio nuts is 49 kernels, and fyi - here is the caloric breakdown of a California roll.

Irritated yet?

Recommended Guidelines For A Happy Interaction With Your Scale

How to insure a good reading on your scale:

- Weigh yourself only in the morning after you have gone to the bathroom.
- Weigh yourself completely naked.
- Never weigh your self with wet hair.
- Never surprise the scale by jumping onto it. This will cause a falsely high reading. You should gently place one foot on the scale platform and slowly transfer your weight while sneaking your other foot onto the platform.
- Exhale.
- Never weigh yourself after running up the stairs, exercising or otherwise inducing a pounding heartbeat. Vigorus heart action I'm quite sure is refected in the amount of pressure on the scale.
- If you should somehow dehydrate yourself thru exercise, prolonged exposure to the sun or an attempt at alcoholism, ignore Rule #1 and weigh yourself to see what your body "really" weighs without all that pesky circulating volume bogging you down.
- Flip the switch on the bottom of the scale to have your scale read out in kilograms.

How to account for a less than ideal reading on the scale:
- Subtract all items of food and drink that you have recently consumed. (1 10-oz. mug of coffee is 1/2 pound (the same volume of carbonated beverage is 3/4 pound because of the pressure exerted by all that fizz ) / a modest lunch is 2 pounds / a full supper is three pounds and if you have had a big tumbler if iced tea with it, then you are free to speculate to your heart's content.
- Predict what you would have weighed if only you didn't eat the dessert that someone forced on you.
- Say the magic word: bloat (applies to women only).
- Reposition yourself closer to the middle, front or sides of the scale platform to see if that gives you a differnt reading.
- Review your 24 hour food intake to scrutinize for high-sodium foods that have resulted in temporary water retention.
- Blame a stuck pattern of weight loss on all that damn exercise which has surely resulted in increased muscle mass. So even if you are losing fat weight, the scale will read higher because you are so muscular now that your smaller body is bearing down on the scale.
- Determine which phase of the moon we are in to attempt making a case for fluctutating gravitational pull.

How to avoid getting your hopes up:
- If you should get a very good reading, don't assume it is true. Try not to expect too much.
- Don't extrapolate your weight loss during the first days of your diet to the rest of your life. Example: just because you have lost three pounds overnight (you weighed yourself at night, didn't you?) doesn't mean that you will have lost 31 pounds by the end of the month or that by Christmas, you will be 269 pounds lighter.
- Remind yourself that even Oprah had to take a couple of stabs at it until she got it right. And she has servants and stuff to shop and cook for her and she doesn't have to go into the kitchen and find someone else's subversive PopTarts looking her right in the eye.

A New You

I'm not saying that you need it and I'm not saying that I'm doing it, I'm just saying.

1. Diet. Here's a good comparison of Weight Watchers vs. Atkins from personal experience. I will say that my greatest weightloss experience happened when I was a Weight Watcher, but the thing that is so wonderful about Atkins is guilt-free porkchops for breakfast. So, win-win as far as I'm concerned, but if you'd like more thoughtful reflection, this is the link for you.

2. Exercise. I know you think there's nothing new under the sun but that's because you have yet to be exposed to Dancing UFO.  (All of the products here are fascinating - can you tell me what the HICO is supposed to do? I've studied the page but still cannot figure it out. From the profile comparison on the bottom of the page, I'd guess it either makes your nose bigger or makes your nose smaller.)

3. Get It Together. Are you living in CHAOS? Change your life by shining your sink. Are you stuck in a life rut? Find a life coach. You want balance in your life. You want to focus on the most important people and things in your life. Franklin Covey saved my life, although if you want the truth, it was more Franklin than Covey.

4. Smoking. Please quit. I know I said that I wasn't going to tell you what you need, but if you smoke STOP NOW.  The Benefits of Smoking Cessation. R.J. Reynolds, R.J. Reynolds II, and R.J. Reynolds III are all on the list of Famous Dead Smokers. Johnny Carson and Peter Jennings haven't been added yet, but Jackie O gets two listings - one for herself and one that implicates her smoking in the death of her infant son. Harsh.

 

While I Do Freely Admit That The Food Is High In Quality and Varied In Selection, ...

I paid my first visit to Whole Foods today. I thought that by expecting it to be a little bit weird that I was prepared for the experience. But it wasn't a little bit weird at all.

It was creepy.Seriously creepy.

The vibe was creepy. The ethos was creepy. The shoppers were creepy. The workers were creepy. The food itself wasn't creepy except for the ambulatory marketeer who insisted on delivering his spiel as he trailed us through the fruit section , all but forcing us to sample and compare the red vs. black plums.

Creepmeisterfest.

Dear Creepy Shopper,

Don't you be thinking that your pit don't stink because you are filling up an entire bagfull of Rainier cherries at $8.99 / lb. because I was a guest at the Wynn last week and I took a bath in Rainier cherries. I sat on Rainier cherries and stepped upon Rainier cherries when I got out of the bed. Rainier cherries had to be pushed aside so that I could walk into a room.

Best regards, Suzette

Anway, Whole Foods. Moosewood Restaurant and Diet For A Small Planet meet Food TV and an MBA in marketing. With a lot of Talbot's and a few tattoos.

Creepy.

Clean Living, I Guess.

Part A. I'm not saying his name and I'm not saying where I saw him, I'm just saying that the man looked damn good. DAMN good.

His appearance hasn't aged at all in five years and he is certainly not any less energetic.  The look was more than just the sum of the parts. Sure, he was clear-eyed and lively, trim and firm, dynamic and vigorous, but it was more than that - the man actually radiated light.

People spotted him carrying around a glass of white wine but nobody can say for sure if he was drinking it - it may have been a device  to make others comfortable. His meals were taken elsewhere and unwittnessed by the hundreds who waited to see him. He's got to be a healthy eater, if not a full-fledged vegetarian.

For a fact, we know that he is a person who seeks nature's solitude and goes off with just a backpack into the mountains for a week. And as for rumors, we heard he became a Buddist and that his office was done in a very modest Zen kind of thing. He did kind of do that  little  hands-together / half-bow kind of thing every now and then and he quoted Ghandi a lot. A lot.

It's very easy to believe that he's driven by a higher power and holds fast to his ideals and does his best to inspire others to do the same. He seems at peace and on fire at the same time. I don't know else  how to explain it except to say that he looks extremely healthy. It must be what he's eating.

Part B. A list of what I ate today:

• plain low-fat yogurt
• GrapeNuts
• strawberries
• diet coke
• peanuts
• earl grey tea with coffee-mate in it
• 3  Chicken Selects pieces from McDonald's
• diet coke
• 1/4 of a 2-day old jelly donut
• Spanish flavor Rice-A-Roni  with green peppes and tomato pieces on top
• strawberries

I just checked the mirror and I am exhibiting no discernable glow so far. While that's not exactly health food and one could quibble about the wisdom of stopping at McDonald's, it's a lot better than I do on the average day. You can see that I made a healthy start of it, what with the yogurt and GrapeNuts and all and then I started to swerve off the road right around the peanuts, but in my own defense, I must report that I skipped lunch and then went  limp around 3pm, so I had to resort to the vending machine. Compared to all the PopTarts,  candy bars and day-glo orange cheese  crackers in there, the peanuts were a very wholesome choice.

How long does it take to grow a glow anyhow? I was thinking of Chinese for lunch tomorrow but I don't want to blow it if I have an incipient glow going on.

 

Did I Mention That I Am On A Diet?

Last night, I dreamed about a broiled salmon filet.

Happyland, With consequences

Do you happen to remember where I left my Somercise diet plan book? I have eaten a lot of food this week, friends - a lot. And with the specter of the Big food Hoidays coming fast upon us, I think a little preemptive intake modification is in order.

Tina and I spent time togehter this week - Just Us Girls Night - and the subject came around to the upcoming holidays. One of the things we look forward to every year is that our blended families make such a nice big crowd. Our numbers have been sadly diminished this year by death and infirmity but we both think its important to carry on with our holiday traditions instead of revisiting the past and clinging to what we no longer have.

The guest list is still up in the air since there were some people who came  as part of a package deal - they might not continue to attend. So we're regrouping. We have an idea or two to expand the invitation list and we're also thinking that this might be the year to diversify the menu.

There are some non-negotiables - the turkey, the stuffing, the grapeleaves, the pumpkin pie - but eveything else needs to be shaken up. I'm ready to try a 3-grain side dish instead of sweet potato casserole.   I had something nice* a while ago that was made of plain steamed brown rice, buckwheat groats and millet. Cat, do you know how to make anything like this?

I'd like to keep corn on the menu is some form. After all, pilgrims, Indiams, corn, survival - you know the story. Maybe this nice Orange Cornmeal Cake? And cranberries. I'm thinking about a very nice California coleslaw* that had dried cranberries, pineapple bits and almonds in it. Maybe its time to give that a try since the dueling Masters of the Coleslaw (my mother and Tina's mother-in-law) passed away this year.

If we come up  a nontraditional crowd-pleaser, we can certainly make it into our own Holiday Meal Must Have, the way that the monkey's Cranberry Relish has earned its permanent place in our hearts.

I'm open to suggestions.

* I had the rice mix at a Sheraton Hotel banquet and the cranberry coleslaw at a Marriott. This is what my life has come to: copying restaurant food. I seriously need a hobby.