Only an edible Stewart and Colbert would top today's perfection!

Glory was achieved on this day, which commenced with Stewart and Colbert's joint effort to restore sanity and or fear to Americans and ended with a delicious piece of carrot cake! It would have been epic without the carrot cake but cream cheese frosting makes life better, in general. Words cannot convey the enthusiasm or the overall good intentions of the crowd on the Mall this afternoon. Americans proudly displayed their "reason" and or "fear" on their eclectic signs with witty and mostly relevant phrases such as "I like my Tea with reasonable discourse," "Loud noises," "Bacon - nature's other candy," "Make muffins, not war," "They told me it was Tea (with the Kool-Aid logo)", "I like ice cream,""Dinosaurs are people too," "The Hamburgler," "the Right to arm bears," "Hitler is a Nazi," just to name a few.

I was so excited to support Stewart and Colbert in fact that I scarcely noticed my hunger, short of the "Why isn't this rally catered?" sign! I cannot help but boast that I refrained from urinating for 4 hours because of my limited intake of fluids and nourishment. Although it isn't prudent for this public display I mention my remarkable restraint to more appropriately convey today's abnormal circumstances, considering my infamous and frequent bathroom trips!

Besides those modest descriptions I am limited by language to impart the overwhelmingly warm and fuzzy feeling I felt surrounded by my fellow John Stewart and Stephen Colbert enthusiast! Perhaps this entry digresses from my typical subject but The Rally to Restore Sanity and or March to Keep Fear Alive is a memorable moment in History and I am proud to be a part of it! In conclusion, go America and Thank you Comedy Central for providing such admirable figures to the public!

I apologize if I disappointed any foodies, but have no fear and look forward to delicious content soon!

Friday - Deconstructed

Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Not Monday!!!!!!!!
-Not Tuesday!!!!!!!
-Not Wednesday!!!!!
-Not Thursday!!!!!!
(not Saturday)
-Not Sunday!!!!!!!!

At 7 am Friday mumbles and rolls over, "It has been a long week!"
Three minutes later Friday stares at the wall, "Let's get this over with."
"Do I have to?" It questions at 7:05 AM.
"What else would you do, write your papers?"
7:06
It throws off the covers and shivers.


Friday curses and scatters cranberries on the floor and steps on them in the dark. Yet again, it burns its tongue on oatmeal while it smirks at last night's episode of "The Daily Show," then brushes its teeth.

Friday rolls its eyes at the mention of "mitochondria," which isn't as stimulating as the bright florescent lights or as comforting as its bed at 8:37 AM.

Friday mutters under its breath and tries to follow the caffeinated instructor in Aerobic Fitness Class at 10:17 in the morning.

Friday limps into the shower and hastily makes lunch before the second flood of academia.

As interesting as society's anxieties regarding homosexuality in the 18th Century public and private spheres are riveting, Friday struggles to focus at 1:23 PM.

If only Friday can reach the cross light before the red hand then it can compare the commercialization of the Eastern versus Western female body until 3:25 PM.

Friday stands up, "Not dead yet!" At 3:26 PM and scurries to the bathroom.

Friday ponders "what's for dinner" as it washes its hands and escapes the white building.

"Let's go out," It suggests, "Because its Friday!"

Heads start.

Dear delectable subjects:

Mom's home-made meatloaf.Rich Mango cake. Julie's pumpkin pie crunch. Aunt Jessica's onion dip. Carrot cake and cream cheese frosting. Tuna melts loaded with mayo and Swiss cheese. Cookie dough. Canton's honey chicken. Butter milk biscuits. Fish baked in herb butter. Freshly toasted bagel with butter. Mom's hot chocolate. Baked french toast. Mom's home-made potato soup with bacon pieces and chedder cheese. Spinach and artichoke dip. Pumpkin Pie. carvel Ice cream cake. Pad Thai. Cream cheese squares. Mom's Thanks-giving stuffing. Dark chocolate truffles. Pancakes dripping with maple syrup. Warm Penne with sweet potato, fennel, sage and Parmesan cheese. Chicken Caesar salad with freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Oreos. Fried rice. home-made Macaroni and cheese. Mexican food. Chocolate fudge cake. A warm chocolate Brownie with vanilla bean ice cream. Oven-fresh chocolate croissants. Deliciously vile take-out pizza. Peanut butter Captain Crunch cereal. pumpkin muffins with cream cheese center. Baked potato loaded with sour cream, green onions and bacon. Warm cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting. Cream cheese frosting. Cheese-its. Loaded Oatmeal raisin cookies. Eating the entire Flannigan Shananigan. Frosted Lemon cake. Key-lime pie. White bread and butter. Cuban Sandwich.

I remember your seductive ways and your desirable scent. No, you have not been replaced, after all, who could replace you? You bring warmth on a blustery day.

I try to keep our distance except on rare occasions, although you delight me. I still love you, and in fact my admiration for you has grown. This is safer, however, because your temptations render "moderation" meaningless so I loose control.I carefully plan our encounters with great anticipation while you wait in fear. This predatory relationship unfortunately benefits one champion - myself, or so I would like to believe. I will warn you then, as I scheme our next rendez-vous.
Adieu.

Yours affectionately,

A Humble Admirer.

Calorie Counting Insanity!!!

There is a fracture in my universe and gravity feels weightless. I am spinning in a vortex of calories and meals lack their usual pizazz. How can this be so, you ask, well let me explain.

My enthusiasm for food has been threatened since I was assigned food journals for two classes this week.To my dismay, I now imagine carbohydrates instead of a sweet potato and wonder if I am eating enough or two many calories per day. I eat when I feel hungry and I stop eating when I feel full, typically. Why can't we leave it at that? Calculators have no place in this instinctual exchange! My prehistoric ancestors didn't use the terms "fat", "carbohydrates" and "protein" and they weren't suffering from epidemic obesity! It seems the more we inquire, the less we actually understand. Is that what this assignment is for - to examine my failure in the simple task of eating?! A wild bear apparently knows more about eating than myself, so how does that reflect my intelligence, or lack there of? I would hire a bear tutor, but I'm not too keen to be listed between berries and honey on its food journal!

These assignments have interested me to compare my diet to that of other student's . I realize that I am not your average college eater, which has made it more challenging to calculate my caloric intake. I never believed that I would be desire the clear nutritional information provided on packed "foods." I use the quotations by the way, because I don't consider most processed items as actual food, since they are produced in factories and basically lack any nutritional value. My healthy diet's nutritional break-down requires detective expertise, ironically compared to my fellow Ramen Noodle enthusiasts!I even contemplated stealing my friend's "Burger Diet," and yet I wasn't certain my teachers would believe that I regularly consume meat patties, ketchup and Chips-Ahoy cookies! Some people have remarkable metabolisms, though, I was never one of them.

On a side note, curse the male gender's capacity to demolish whimsical pizzas at 10 pm at night! Women deserve that, and not men! We bear children! Enough said. Moving along.

On the bright side, I can't wait to finish this dietary obsession and celebrate with a diabetic coma! The occasionally pint of Ben and Jerry's triggers the unnaturally rapid formation of glucose and confuses my ill-adapted digestive organs. Thank you, Western Civilization for engineering food products that out-smart our biology. Hooray for obesity!

Okay, so maybe that's not the best idea, so why does it sounds so delicious?

A foodie's remorse...

What would I do for a kitchen?
For a home-made dinner?
For left-overs?
For even a steak!?

I would embrace Costco's hoards,
its frustrating check-out lines,
the miserable loading and un-loading process,
the long dinner parties,
the last-minute trips for ingredients,
just to make curry from scratch!

Oh, how I miss saucepans,
stove tops and ovens!
Man, how I ache for a spatula
or a standard size fridge!

Would some lemon zest be asking too much?
oh, right, I have no grater!
My teeth are useless,
I've tried.
plus, my dentist already hates me.

I'm drowning in oatmeal, yogurt,
nuts and dried fruit,
hard-boiled eggs and salad.
The pita and hummus splurge,
for those whimsical moments!

A glob of crunchy Peanut butter
keeps my taste buds alive,
til Afghan or Indian chefs serve me
with the closest to home-made meals I can get!

Holy Crap - Butter IS NOT evil!!!!

Did you know that butter is actually healthier than most vegetable oils?!
Well, I did not know that saturated fats provide more nutritional value, while highly processed vegetable oils, containing high amounts of Omega 6 fats, are in fact detrimental to your health because our diets lack sufficient Omega 3 fats! Yes, this sounds like more nutritional bull crap, like the most recent scientific based nutritional trends that misguide American consumers, however it is one of the most authentic insights that has been tested by cultures for generations! To think, I have been judging butter eaters for years, ironically, when they have had the right idea all along! The "French Paradox," where the French are able to regularly consume saturated fats and even processed white breads without worrying about heart disease and obesity, like us foolish Americans suddenly makes sense!

In the past century and a half, the American diet has been radically altered from the strictly whole, unprocessed foods of our ancestors to mostly highly refined starches, which have even crept their way into our dairy products! Our bodies haven't had proper time to adapt to the foreign and extremely manipulated sugars that we basically shovel in our bodies, without even realizing the possibly fatal consequences! In addition to gorging ourselves with higher concentrations of sugar than nature alone could possibly provide us with, the sugars we consume are stripped of their nutritional value through excessive processing. Thus explaining America's obese, yet malnourished population!
For a country preoccupied with personal health, it appears we have it all backwards. The solution is to remove the anxieties of what to eat and what not to eat and instead to simply eat food! Nature provides only good foods when eaten in moderation and it is when humans interfere and "alter" whole foods in order to make them "healthier" that our tragedy begins.

Allow me to explain by stating that I have completely altered my relationship with food in the past few months. Upon finishing my second Michael Pollan book, all I want to do is to plant a garden and to basically cook what I grow, or what other local farmers provide, and then to I want to write about my experiences! I am flabbergasted, no, truly appalled by the consequences of our industrial economy and the realization that there is little that I can do to avoid it other than to become a sort of farming hippie! No, I don't want to completely abstain from my American society by refusing its products, however I am frustrated by how profit driven a majority of the food industry has become, at the sake of the consumer's health. I had no clue how far the American food system has departed from nature, and now it is too difficult for me to look the other way.

In a nut shell, eat "food" and not "imitation food"! If a human from the Paleolithic era would not recognize it as food, then it most likely isn't food!

Sorry to overwhelm you but I am a bit overwhelmed myself with all of this! If you are interested, I strongly recommend his books though, particularly An Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Nothing Pollan suggests is radical, but only what he reveals about our current situation as consumers is, well, horrifying and, currently all we can do is take care of ourselves and step back from Industry for a change.
Science, doesn't have all of the answers and food is a mysterious categories were tested common sense prevails over weakly proven scientific research.

But please, don't put down your forks and keep eating! Real food is a wonderful thing, the problem now a days is finding it!

Boredom, my nemesis

Do you wonder when its about that time, "Am I hungry right now or just bored? Should I eat something or should I wait until I'm certain I'm hungry?" You look at your watch and you think, well, if I wait much longer it will screw up my dinner, and I wouldn't want to do that, but then you remember that you're not hungry in the first place. You don't even have anything in mind, and in reality you only feel like you should be eating something. I think this is not hunger but boredom disguised as my appetite, and I curse my idleness.

"Why can't you be doing something else?" I ask myself but then I answer, "I'd rather be eating," then the whole cycle repeats because you are still not hungry! So you busy yourself with tasks but your mind occasionally drifts towards your stomach, waiting for hunger's earliest signs. You are about to take a sip of water but you realize that might trick your stomach so it believes its full. Then you wonder, have I already had too much water and now my belly is full of what it will discover isn't nourishment, and should I wait until then or will it be too late? I wonder what I mean, "too late," since I have no engagements and can eat when the time comes. But then I think, "What about dinner?"

Then you realize you are being ridiculous! It is simple, if you are hungry, then eat! What's the big deal? It's just food, anyway, its not like you don't eat at least three times a day! Then you wish you could pass on the responsibility to feed yourself, because apparently you can't seem to make any decision on the matter! Then you wonder, what does that say about you as an individual of a species if you fail on the most basic survival level? Maybe its not really my fault but I am merely a victim of my capitalist society?

Your heart stops and you ask, "Was that really hunger?" because at this point, you might interpret a toe ache as hunger.

"Screw it," You smile and open the fridge door.


Not like this ever happens to me or anything... I was just wondering ;)