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This is not the blog of a gourmand. Or one by a witty American living abroad who has somehow managed to master the cuisine of her new. I don't come up with interesting foods with which to feed a classroom full of kids with short attention spans. Still, this week I will try to come up with some way of keeping you interested, entertained and coming back for more. If I must resort to discussing the old standards - sex, drugs, rock & roll - I will not hesitate to do so. I am shameless! My DC-area compadres know me a bit, so will some of the kind NYC folks. For the rest of you, feel free to check out my bio for some background. You are most welcome to post random questions, as well as comments related to my postings. In this blog, you'll find random musings on the role of food in my life as well as descriptions of meals in the restaurants of DC, my attempts at cooking and an ever-growing list of why I find it so difficult to cook well and with frequency. Lately I've been trying to add new dishes to my repertoire. Before Christmas, I mentioned this to a family member or two and as a result, I received several cooking-related gifts including a large set of Henckel knives, a food processor and some cookbooks. Pretty cool. I have only sliced myself once so far. My inspiration? I have a boyfriend who cooks. He, who shall be known from here forward as PLM (short for Privacy Loving Man; I also contemplated using PITA for Pain in the Ass, but I was feeling nice as I typed), is a fantastic, inventive cook and has marveled/teased/harassed me about my inability or unwillingness to cook. The message only took a year and a half or so to sink in, but recently I've had this weird desire to try to cook! I've always enjoyed baking, making desserts and sweets, however unless I'm working from a recipe, every non-dessert dish I make ends up tasting the same. I guess I tend to rely on the same spices w/o a recipe and as such, it doesn't matter if it's pork or chicken, same overall flavor...not very exciting. I'm not sure why I've steered clear of recipes (duh!), for the most part, until recently. People had always suggested that but I guess I embraced my status as a non-cook rather than making the effort and finding out that I was simply a bad cook. My other excuses (and these are just the tip of the iceberg): Reason #1 Ingredients spoil quickly when you're a single girl. Reason #2 I really enjoy eating in restaurants/ordering takout. Previously when people would ask me if I liked to cook, my stock response was "No, but I'm excellent at dialing the phone." Reason #3 I'm a creature of habit. I can (and have) eat the same dish every damn day without caring. For years, this has meant "pasta and peas." Every roommate I've had since college has known about pasta and peas. The recipe (it's not one I suggest you follow, but I'm sharing anyway): Boil pasta. Preferred shapes include cavatelli (frozen, if available) or tortellini. Next would be penne. Macaroni doesn't hold enough sauce. Defrost some of Mom's spaghetti sauce in the microwave. When she and my father visit from PA, I can always count on a fresh supply, delivered frozen in small tupperware containers carried in a refrigerated bag looking like an organ for transplant. Add peas. Toss cooked pasta with a bit of butter or olive oil, adding salt (seasoned, if available) and pepper (red pepper flakes work), some milk or cream (to create that imitation vodka sauce taste) and finally, the warmed up spaghetti sauce. When it's all mixed and hot, it's done. Add fresh parmesan or romano to taste. That dish got me through many weeks and years! But I know I can do better so it's time for change...

Torakris tagged me while I was taking a nap so I guess it is me this week. Since it is Monday in Japan I will start now. I just finished my last homemade ginger molassas cookies that my friend's mother made. I have never liked them before but this time they were increadible! Soft and chewy, it was like eating candy. If I wasn't following an amazing month of blogging (Thank you Ronnie, jackal and torakris) I suppose I would be less intimidated. On the other hand I will be eating a bit better than I normally do (which isn't saying much). I have had a stomache virus since the beginning of December and just started eating normal food New Year's Eve. Since it has been so long since I ate well, I am eating whatever my heart desires. One disclaimer: I am a terrible speller, so plees bear with mee! Here goes........ Edited because I think faster than I type.

I will start off by saying there is no way we are going to be eating nearly as well as Jackal10! Secondly this next week is not going to be a typical week for me, most Japanese workers started their week long holiday yesterday (my husband starts his today) and the kids are home for a close to 3 week break. This means I need to cook "real" meals 3 times a day, so you are going to see a lot more prepared foods than I normally use. This is also a busy week in that we have a lot of plans to go out, where we normally only eat out once to twice a month. Today I am off to Tokyo (only a 25 minute train ride from my house in Yokohama) for shopping, eating and dancing with 4 fellow American friends (we are all by the way married to Japanese men.....) Just some quick information about me, I am 33 years old, I was born and raised in Cleveland,Ohio in a family of 8 kids to a mother of Italian descent and a father of German. I married my Japanese husband almost 9 years ago and have been in Japan ever since. We have three children. Mia is 7, Julia is 6, and Hide is 3. I have no background in food I just love to eat! Here is the most recent picture of the family (taken by fellow member Texan during our dinner together while she was visiting Japan) By the way I am drinking a large tumbler of iced coffee as I type this and I am off now to prepare breakfast (it is 7:00am here in Japan) because my family is screaming for food! This morning for breakfast we will enjoy toasted onion bagels (from Costco) topped with fried eggs and ketchup for everyone but me, eeewww!)

8am... Why did I volunteeer for this? I'm sure I will lose any reputation that I might have as a serious foodie...need more coffee. This is not going to be about elelegant restaurant food, but bourgeoise domestic cooking. For those that don't already know Jill and I live about 5 miles west of Cambridge, UK where it is currently dank and raining, but not too cold. Some forecasters predict the weather will turn cold and snow, but a white Christmas is unlikely. Our main meals tend to be in the evening, except for holidays and the odd Sunday. Unless otherwise noted, breakfast for me is a mug of coffee (mix of 1/3rd Old Brown Java, 1/3rd Kenya Pea Berry, 1/3rd Mocha Mysore, all medium roast and made in a press pot) with semi-skimmed milk. Probably made stronger than coffeee in the US, and when I'm in the US I find there is something strange about the milk usually served with US coffee. Powdered milk, or NDC is not acceptable at any time. I usually skip lunch, or graze. For the holidays this year we are expecting this year Jill's grown up sons plus their partners, one of whom is vegetarian, and various waifs and strays. We are not religious, so this is a secular celebration, encompassing as many traditions as possible, but rooted in English customs with a fair bit of Provence influence. Currently I plan. eG folk, please comment and advise. Circumstances may change, and it may not all happen. Today Saturday 20 Dec. First day of Chanukah Supermarket shopping at Tesco's, 100,000 sq ft of supermarket for most of the basics. Start making Pannetone. Has to be Latkes, and I guess Brisket for supper. Maybe kale or cabbage or sourkraut to go with. Sunday 21 Dec Winter Solstice, Yule Get in Yule log, holly, Mistletoe, Xmas tree, (which my brother, being frum, calls a Hannukah bush) Finish Pannetone Baked Ham, parsley sauce Monday 22 Dec Dunno. Leftovers or take-out Tuesday 23rd Dec Company (www.artimi.com) Xmas dinner at the University Arms Hotel. Rubber turkey I expect Wednesday 24th Dec Xmas Eve Bread baking: Pome a l'huile Making mince pies to the sound of King's College Carols Provence style Gros Souper, meat free maybe: l'aigo boulido, a garlic and herb soup, cauliflower (gratin), Salt cod balls or en raito, celery with anchoïade. Cheese. Trifl; the "trieze deserts". As we don't go to Midnight Mass, we wont follow with the Souper Gras Thursday 25th Dec Xmas, and Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday. Late Xmas lunch Amuse: Truffled Brandade and Tapenade crostini Caviars, blinis etc Truffled consomme dore (shot glasses) -o0o- Turkey, with all the trimmings - Fois gras truffe - Sausage meat and a vegetarian chestnut stuffing (for the veggie) - chipolatas, bacon rolls - cranberry and bread sauces, Jus - roast potatoes, parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) - Sprouts, carrots Christmas pudding, hard sauce Cheese Mince pies, tangerines, walnuts etc Friday 26th Dec Boxing Day Brunch Invited to supper by our neighbors Saturday 27th Leftovers: Soup, maybe devilled turkey wings, a pie, or Risotto... Sunday 28th Standing rib roast Monday 29th Leftovers: Tuesday 30th: Stew? Wednesday 31st New Years Eve Cock-a-leekie Haggis Syllabub and shortbread Cheese

Hi All, Just realized that I'd been tagged for this week. For some reason I stopped receiving notifcations about last week's blog thread and forgot to check in. Frankly, if my head weren't screwed onto my body, I'd probably leave it somewhere. Once I count on not having to remember something, I generally don't. guajolote mentioned that I was having a crazy week and it's true. My wife and I are hosting a holiday open house for 150 this weekend and we've been cooking and prepping for it every night since last Friday. This is, I think, around the 22nd year that this holiday party has taken place, my wife used to host it before I came into the picture. But, before I get into that, I should probably review the more notable 'regular' food moments. As some sort of crazy self-punishment, I've been back on Atkins for the few weeks leading up to this party. Because of that, I've been eating a lot of salads, meats and frankenfood bars. When the party starts on Saturday, Atkins will be officially over through January 2 at least... I love Atkins and I hate Atkins...more on this later (hopefully). But, Tuesday was a good food day because for lunch we had some delicious carnitas from a place at 41st & Ashland (in Chicago) called Kiki D's Carnitas (don't go breakin' my heart). The carnitas were amazing and so were the huge pieces of home-made pork rinds they make on premises. From an Atkin's perspective, this is about as good as it gets. While a couple of my co-horts indulged in the corn tortillas, I and another guy in the office (who seems to be permanently on Atkins) indulged in a 2 pound order of carnitas...I solo'd a small portion of the pork rinds since no one else would go near them, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. At the end of lunchtime, there was probably still at least a pound of carnitas left but no one could eat another bite. I took them home but didn't get to them last night. My wife had made a small rib roast and some steamed broccoli with butter and fresh lemon. I wasn't really hungry because of my carnitas indulgence but I muddled through it and put most of the roast in the fridge. Going back to Monday, I have nothing spectacular to report. I had a Chef's Salad with caesar dressing from Seul's, the tavern across the street from our office. For dinner, we had Han's brand Chicken Sausages with spinach and feta. That was it...other than a caffeine-free diet coke. No bun, no side dishes, no nothing. Because of all the party work we have to do each night, the regular meal schedule is suffering a bit. BTW, I almost never eat breakfast during the week, so this blog will be comprised of lunches, dinners, snacks and party prep. Each morning starts with an iced, venti no water, Americano from Starbucks unless I happen to have scored some better beans or been given some by a friend who roasts his own. It's getting a little crazy here at the office, so I'll bow out for a bit and be back later with some more. =R=

I arrived at work this morning to discover Shiewie had tagged me by PM simply because nobody had done a foodblog from Australia before. This week will not be a typical week of eating because husband is on afternoon shifts (2.00pm until 11.30pm) so will be raiding the fridge whilst I am at work an eating everything I was planning to cook that night!! We are currently experiencing Spring (an exceptionally chilly one at that) following on from a drought. I should explain that I live in country NSW (New South Wales) at state of Australia in a city of about 60,000 people half way between Sydney and Melbourne (each are about 4 1/2 hours drive away) so we don't get quite the variety of restaurants, markets, food quality etc that you would find in either of these cities. That said, we do have an excellent farmers market once a month, have a great butcher and fabulous wines!! A girl could do worse. Being a food blog I suppose I should mention food. Had I known I was being tagged I would have had something more exciting for dinner I had steamed asparagus spears with a poached egg and parmesan cheese on top (actually to be truthful there were two poached eggs just to make sure I had enough runny yolk to be scooped up by the asparagus.) I made a poor mans tart for dessert by using frozen puff pastry cut into a circle and thin slices of fresh mango arranged on top. Sprinkled with dark brown sugar and cooked in a hot oven. I ate this with whipped cream into which I had mixed some crushed fresh ginger (I love ginger and mango together!) Later that night whilst I watched a stupid film on tv I had some pistachio nuts and finished off the bottle of charddonay. Am going to find something to eat for breakfast from the bakery now

Aaargh!! I've just come back from a horrid lunch and realised I've been tagged by herbacidal for this week's foodblog. And I had happily been lulled into the thought that it would be ronnie suburban or bergerka from her earlier post. Here goes: Monday Was late for work so breakfast was a Nature Valley Crunchy Peanut Butter Granola Bar and a kiwi fruit at my desk. Got hungry a little later so snacked on some salted fava beans in the common food stash that we have in our department. Just finished lunch and it was one of the most awful meals I've had in quite a while. A colleague was driving out to pay some bills so a few of us trooped along for the ride. As usual, we couldn't decide where and what to eat. The choice was dim sum, a cafe-type place, hawker food at local coffeeshops, Thai, Chinese vegetarian or Taiwanese noodles. There was a small voice next to me that suggested Burger King but that was ignored by the rest in the car. We settled on Chinese vegetarian out of deference to the driver who is semi-vegetarian (he still eats seafood for now). Haven't been to the restaurant before and I'll definitely not go again. Chinese vegetarian with its multitude of ways in cooking soy by-products as mock this n' that can be interesting. Sigh but the flavour of the day at this place was bland, bland, bland. Chose a "sui gow meen" - green (chinese spinach) noodles in a light broth with vegetarian dumplings, yau mak (sort of like Romaine lettuce), slices of dried Shitake mushrooms and some crunchy dough bits (mock pork crackling bits?!). The noodles were ok but the dumplings were doughy and tasteless. Also had half a guava that I bought from a fruit stall nearby...and that was tasteless too. Feeling most dissatisfied now. Edited to correct typo

Okay, it starts with a 9AM coffee from WaWa and a 10AM medium sized muffin me papa bought that was lying around the house.

Hi everyone! tammylc tagged me for the next week and I'm starting today since my menu will be a little more interesting since it's (Canadian) Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house. Starting tomorrow, however, you will be following me as I peruse the supermarket aisles looking for whatever's cheap, on sale, and halfway edible. I've been lurking on egullet for awhile, so I guess I should introduce myself. I'm a 4th year English major at UBC currently living in sin as I am staying with my boyfriend. Right now, we're trying to support ourselves while saving up for an apartment, and one area where we've had to drastically cut down on spending is groceries. I'm in school full-time, and work part-time as a private English tutor. I also work Saturdays at a tutoring center for peanuts. Anyway, onto Thanksgiving. I've been preparing food for tonight's dinner since Friday! It's my first time making an entire Thanksgiving meal by myself. I guess I should mention that though I'm on a shoestring budget, I do appreciate good food. I live in Vancouver, and my bf and I have dined at some of the nice restaurants like West and Lumiere. I enjoyed my food at West more. (BTW: I hope David Hawksworth reads my thread...he is my hero ) Today I woke up late and had to grab breakfast on the run. I ate 10 sourcream Timbits (from Tim Horton's, a sandwich/soup/donut chain in Canada) and a few fun-sized chocolate bars (Mars, Twix). I should mention that today's menu might shock some of you b/c of the plethora of junk food consumed, but I assure you I don't eat like this all the time. I just got caught on a bad day. Tim Horton's sourcream donuts are my favorite. The sourcream donuts are very dense, with an almost creamy interior. Not covered in a cloying sugary glaze. I brought donuts for my student...raspberry-filled, a couple of chocolate ones, some chocolate and coconut. Mmm... After our 2 hour lesson, I drove to Save-on-Foods to buy a pumpkin pie. Yesterday when I was there, I ate 8 samples from the (unmanned) sample tray. (BTW: That was basically yesterday's dinner. I told you I was poor. ) Today the sample trays held pieces of supermarket-quality Black Forest cake, birthday cake, olive and asiago ciabatta bread (which I love) and garlic toast. I had a sample of the Black Forest. Bleah. Got home, and ate a large piece of pumpkin pie. Since then, I've been picking at the rest of the pie every few minutes. I've already eaten more than a quarter of the 9" pie. No one else in my family will go near pumpkin, so I buy myself one every Thanksgiving. Also ate a handful of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. I then got started on a pistachio sponge cake and the cornbread. Cornbread doesn't seem to be very popular in Canada; I've actually only eaten it twice in my life. For the cornbread, I combined ingredients from 3 recipes that I found earlier in the week--1 from Epicurious and the other 2 right here in the egullet recipe archive! (I used mamster's Yankee cornbread and Rachel Perlow's skillet cornbread). Both the cake and the cornbread look good. The turkey is in the oven and I just poured 2 bottles of beer over the big pan of veggies. This is what I'll be eating for dinner tonight: -turkey/gravy/cranberry sauce -sausage, artichoke, sourdough bread, cheese stuffing--found the recipe on Epicurious, and I followed it but doubled the amount of sausage -cornbread (thanks mamster and Rachel) -taboulleh salad -garlic bread (No veggies or roasted sweet potatoes for me when there's so much better-tasting stuff around). For dessert, I made the pistachio sponge cake and I'm serving it with whipped cream. I also made this Cappucino-Fudge cheesecake on Friday for tonight's dessert. Here's the link to the recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=106231 I used Callebaut chocolate since you can get it in the bulk section of Superstore for 99 cents/100 grams. Unfortunately, my cheesecake doesn't have a pretty lattice top since my (cheap) pastry bag exploded when I was trying to pipe the ganache. I bought the pastry bag for 6 bucks! What a waste of money... I had to instead pour the ganache over the top of the cheesecake. Decorated it with chocolate covered espresso beans.

Hi everybody! Schneier has tagged me to be next up for foodblogging. I'm afraid my blog won't be nearly as "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" as his. More like "10 weeks pregnant and surrounded by boxes in our newly purchased house." 10 weeks pregnant being the reason for the "Schocking Amounts of Food" subtitle - I'm eating for two, and have to eat about every 2-3 hours or my tummy gets very unhappy. Today I had my usual breakfast - frosted mini-wheats with skim milk. Then it was off to my first appointment with the midwife, where I got to hear my baby's heartbeat for the first time. (Insert gushing "awwww" noises here.) There's a baby in my tummy, and it goes "whumpa, whumpa, whumpa." Then they drew a whole bunch of blood from my arm, so clearly it was time to eat something to top it back up. I was voting for a Chicken Fajita Salad from Red Robin, but Eric (my husband) wanted breakfast, so we ended up at Denny's. Here my blog moves rapidly away from anything you read last week - I don't think Bruce would be caught dead in a Denny's... I had a hamburger with lettuce, tomato and mayonaise, with hash browns instead of french fries. And a Coke. I rarely drink caffeine in any form, but I haven't been sleeping well lately, and needed a boost if I was going to be able to make it into work. More later...

Hi, I'm Bruce. Looks like I got tagged for this week. I'm going to start with today, because I'm not sure I can remember yesterday in enough detail. Last week I flew to Hartford, CT on Wednesday, to San Diego on Thursday, to New York on Saturday, and home on Sunday. Karen met me in San Diego, came to New York, and we returned home together. The reason that's relevant is that there wasn't much food in the house when we returned. Yesterday we did a quick shopping trip at a co-op we had to drive by. I like co-ops, but it can be hard to get normal food there. The selection of breakfast cereals is pretty bizarre: nothing normal, only various brands of Healthy-Os. Tuesday Breakfast: Spelt flakes and milk. If quinoa is the super grain of the future, spelt is the regular grain of the past. It's got a nice nutty flavor, and it's not too sweet. (For more information, visit www.spelt.com--where else?) Oh, and a banana. (Sadly, you can also visit www.banana.com. "The banana plant is not a tree. It is actually the world's largest herb!" The Internet knows everything....) Do people still eat cereal and milk for breakfast? (Looks like www.breakfast.com is still up for grabs.) Bruce

Gulp. Missed my cue, did I? So be it: keep up with me if you can, kinfolk... Monday breakfast didn't happen. Running too fast... Monday lunch, inhaled at the desk with a micromanager hanging over my every bite, was sushi: couple kinds of nori rolls and Diet Coke. Monday dinner: consoled myself with leisurely saute of cut-up tomatoes/crimini mushrooms/asparagus/small amounts of chopped parsley, basil, oregano, all over penne pasta with Parmesan. Good chunk of good bread (can't complain; I baked it, back on the weekend). Hess Select Chard to drink. This is the last meal I will be able to cook until Saturday, for a variety of reasons which will become clear to y'all during the week. Tuesday breakfast...didn't happen. I blush. But I needed the sleep more than I needed to eat. Tuesday lunch is what I'm eating now, at the desk again: a more-than-merely-decent attempt from downstairs White Hen at a chicken Caesar salad. Produce is surprisingly nice -- but gotta lose the oversalted pink gloop they think is salad dressing. A dark-chocolate Dove candy bar provides both consolation and blood-pressure medication. Can I rationalize or what? But the RFQ (Request for Qualifications) I was hacking out got done. Correctly. It's notarized, duplicated and in the correct City of Chicago agency's hands, a sumptuous hour and a half ahead of deadline. Gah. Tonight, lugging a seven-point-six pound notebook full of mostly hand-copied and/or multiply photocopied music, I will go to sing a three-hour rehearsal at a local Conservative Jewish congregation, as a member of their choir for the High Holy Days. Dinner is gonna have to be fast, cheap, and commercial, at a nearby IHOP (International House of Pancakes). To be continued...

Traveling is always tough. I had my first bite to eat on Northworst en route to Minneapolis, aka "the Kremlin" to the oldtimer Nortwest employee. It was a Quaker oat and raisin Chewy with a cup of luke warm black coffee. Turbulant flight over the Dakotas. The next segment of the trip I opted for the turkey sangie. It came with that Hellman's Dijon Mayo, small bag of Fritos, a tiny sealed cup of Spring Water and an apple. It was dinner roll sized, but not all bad. The apple was sour. Alaska Air was dismal. "Juice" service with salty Beer Nut brand peanuts. The juice was in these little 3 ounce sized portions. I felt like five years old again while taking a sip from these. I opted for the apple juice. I sat a bit in Seattle and people watched. One of my old regulars from Sitka's Pioneer Bar was on board the same flight! I got to Sitka and had the worst watered down Belvedere Martini, up, I've ever encountered. Back up plan -- my favourite Alaskan Amber, but somehow it wasn't the same beer I adored a couple years back when I lived here. Maybe it was the pint glasses and excess soap (from washing and not a thorough rinse) killing my enjoyment. But before the martini flop, my aunt and I took a brisk walk through town. New food happenings here. A new sushi place appears days away from a Grand Opening! My friend's Mojo moved (a small cafe that used to have odd operating hours). It still looked quite styling in its new location and remained as ecclectic as its artistic owner. In the old Mojos was a new place called Luigi's. It looked postively charming. Must stroll by when I'm not power walking and huffing and puffing to catch up with my very cardio in shape aunt! What a gloriously sunny day. I thought it looked odd that many of the pituresque mountains didn't have any snow on their caps. Nor the volcano. *yawn* It's late. Good night y'all.

Here we go. Fasten your seat belts and try to remain awake. Emma woke at 1am after having a bad dream, then it was Ian's turn at 2am, just as we had fallen asleep again. Woke this morning at 6:30 feeling less than refreshed. Breakfast: 2 cups of hot coffee, more or less. I can never keep track because as soon as what's in my cup cools off, it gets poured out and replaced by fresh. I large chocolate chip cookie - snagged before Scott whisked the rest off to the office with him. Fixed pancakes, orange juice and sliced banana for the kids. One slice of cheddar and half an apple as a midmorning snack. Eaten because vitamins + coffee + empty stomach is a recipe for disaster. We put off grocery shopping yesterday, so it will have to be done today with both kids along. Ack!

Well - Fifi has tagged me so I guess I'm it. I hope my bizarre eating habits aren't too dull, or too revealing of my other *ahem* idiosynchracies. Started today as I always do. Big cappuccino from the dining room. One of the advantages to working for a restaurant is having the cappuccino machine downstairs at all times! Makes the long hours pass with a much higher level of alertness. Otherwise getting my synapses to fire in the absence of caffeine is like trying to spark a campfire with wet wood I've had a couple of North Star Farms peaches so far. Late summer peaches are SO good! Not terribly hungry today as lunar cycle issues are making me feel a bit queasy. Also like I'm birthing a small litter of porcupines, but this too shall pass when the painkillers kick in. Then I assume I'll be back to my usual hoovering self. Am I the only woman that feels like any foodstuff that isn't nailed to the floor isn't safe in my presence at "those" times? Particularly anything chocolate, fried or carbohydrate loaded. I'm having visions of a big plate of mashed potatoes... More later...

Suzanne F tagged me so here goes. The subtitle refers to the fact that I love to cook but I don't eat much. I like to eat, just not much quantity. (So why am I so fluffy?) Therefore, this thread may include what I am THINKING about eating as much as what I actually put in my mouth. I am starting this now because I am expecting everyone to notice the time. This is a lesson in dedication to BBQ. Gotta go start the fire and crank up the magic bullet. More on that later. This should get interesting. We are in the middle of tropical storm Grace. Think the rain planet in Star Wars. Coffee, Melitta brand Columbian, brewed strong, evaporated milk and sweetener added. A Keebler Club cracker... because it was there.

Oh, shit, I guess I tagged myself. I warn you all: don't expect any gourmet tap-dance. Okay, yesterday, Monday, August 25: vitamin pills, with instant iced coffee (Bustello dissolved in boiling water, ice cubes, water, and skim milk. No Sweet 'n' Low this time) 1 Le Petit Ecolier 70% Extra-Dark Chocolate-covered cookie Lots of tap water (mmmmmmmm, NYC water) "Lunch" (around 3pm): salad with balsamic vinaigrette, left over from Saturday's dinner, kind of limp but not yet slimy, with some kasseri cheese microplaned on top, and freshly ground black pepper. Dinner: Only one glass (!) of La Gitana fino sherry Lamb and artichoke stew out of the freezer, plus chickpeas (canned ) and artichoke paste. Potato-plantain spatzl (how's THAT for fusion? ), also from Saturday. Stir-fried green Swiss Chard The ever-present salad, with doctored Marie's Feta Dressing (extra feta, oregano, dill, and yogurt) 1/2 of the bottle of Wagner (Finger Lakes) 1998 Cabernet Franc That's it. HWOE finished off the Lychee and Lime sorbet that Rachel and Jason brought to the potluck, but I was too full.

Since Nero kindly passed the torch on to me, I'm going to start with what's happened so far today and update as the day progresses. I'm afraid I'm neither as entertaining as Nero or as poetic as maggie, but I'll try. Tuesday, 19 August 2003 LOTS of Poland Spring or whatever bottled water happens to be lying around throughout the day. Breakfast was plain Dannon yogurt, a banana, and a Granny Smith apple. Cup O' Soup noodles for a pre-lunch snack. Ever since our corporate cafeteria from hell was closed for renovations and a total redesign, I've been relegated to food hell of a different sort: takeout, sausage sandwiches and scrounging around in the wilds of Lower Manhattan. The cafeteria opens tomorrow, starting with breakfast. Ooooh I can't wait. Gone I suppose will be the radioactive looking frankfurters stewed with peppers, bologna, onions and ketchup that they serve for breakfast. I kid you not. The joke was that someone donated a shitload of hot dogs to the kitchen and they had to get rid of it somehow.... Went to a deli-food court across Water Street and got some minestrone soup (for an afternoon snack), and salad bar fixin's. Pretty good -- steamed brussel sprouts with butter, stir-fried snow peas with garlic, cauliflower and broccoli salad, yogurt marinated grilled chicken, and a couple slices of luscious roast pork. Berry, banana and apple smoothie to wash it down. Just had the minestrone. Nice mix of veggies and penne pasta. Dinner will probably be leftover takeout from Chola (see the Dinner thread for the gory details) unless I decide on something different. Soba

Grab your Alkaseltzer tablets and hold on to the backs of your toilets, folks, because by request, here comes my Foodblog. Wednesday, August 13, 151 lbs.: In the morning, before class, I drank 3 cups of W.J. Upson's coffee (beans purchased from my friends Lin and Larry Czapla, purveyors of the fantastic Upson's Wine/Coffee store in Kalamazoo, MI). Then I ate something called a Turkey and Swiss on Rye that I bought out of the vending machines at school for $1 USD. The Garde Manger class wasn't giving up the goods, so I had to take emergency measures. The sandwich was remarkably tasteless. I think it had a *hint* of rye. I think (but don't want to believe) that it had margarine on it as well. During class (Baking 101), I ate a spatula full of Vanilla Pound Cake batter. My finished cake was rather flat, as I had not incorporated enough air into the batter. Oh f***in' well. Then I ate a Devil's Food Cupcake with Chocolate Glaze, and a piece of Chocolate Chiffon Cake with Raspberry Filling and Chocolate Glaze on the top. Then I drank a Mountain Dew! During lecture, I ate three pieces of the aforementioned Pound Cake--one with all butter, one with all shortening, and one with half butter, half shortening. Just to taste the differences. I had a Wintergreen Life Saver somewhere in there as well. Also during lecture, we had a Product I.D. Quiz, which means I ate wet-fingerfuls of each of the following: Cream of Tartar. Baking Soda. Cinammon. Iodized and Kosher Salt. Granulated and Powdered Sugar. Nutmeg. Allspice. Vanilla. Vegetable Oil. Cornstarch. The Chef *insisted* that we taste each product before we identified it. Cream of Tartar tastes so bad, I refuse to believe you can't get a buzz off that shit. Then I had another Mountain Dew to wash it all down. After class, I had dinner with my mom, her friends, and FRITZ BRENNER. But before dinner, I drank about 5 glasses of Crow Canyon Chardonnay. I also ate several cracker-thingies with some sort of cheese. And cold shrimp, but the condo had no cocktail sauce fixings, so we bogarted a sauce out of ketchup and caper juice. Yum! And I had another Devil's Food Cupcake. Dinner was a leg of lamb in a port-wine glaze, fresh-picked green beans with a bit of butter and salt, warm baguettes, and a salad that had beets and some other stuff in it. We had red wine with dinner--I think--probably Fat Bastard. I ate only about 5 pieces of lamb. After dinner I had some more wine, maybe 3 more glasses, and another piece of Chocolate Chiffon Cake, and then I went home. As a midnight snack, while reading "Poland" by James Michener, I had a handful of Ruffles with Ridges. Thank you for your attention. I won't be able to post again until Friday, when I will post today's intake, which is shaping up to be *quite* heinous.

Three days in iambic pentameter....

It looks like I've been tapped by Soba to do the next foodblog in this thread, so here goes... Lunch was wonton and roast pork soup with udon noodles and truly first rate cold sesame noodles at "Spade's Noodles, Rice, & More" on 37th and 3rd. A very cheap, surprisingly good Chinese restaurant for a quick lunch in Midtown East. Dinner was my version of pasta puttanesca: tomato, lots of oil-packed anchovies (there were no salt-packed in the house), lots of capers, gaeta olives and Sicilian colossal olives (pitted by me using the "whack with the flat of a knife" method), onion, garlic, red pepper flakes and plenty of fresh minced parsley. As I sat down at the table, I realized that I didn't have any pecorino -- my grating cheese of choice for this sauce -- and so I grabbed a chunk of bottarga di muggine... That sent it right over the top and into another category of deliciousness entirely. I probably would have made a salad, but was busy playing with the ferrets and didn't have time. Dessert was Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch -- my favorite. Tonight the ferrets are having a little bit of a whole chicken (including bones, skin, fat, giblets, etc.) that I ran through a grinder and lightly cooked. Perhaps I'll give them a whole gizzard or two as well so they can tear something apart.

Give us some clues, ok? Inquiring minds want to know. Soba