A Thorny Week

Thorn is in bed, though not asleep. Some nights, if he is particularly cheery, he'll sing the "dadada" song, a vaguely verbalized homage to the old man, before he goes to sleep. This may be coupled with coos and vrooms as cars get in on the action. Not that I give him cars to sleep with, but one always ends up in the bed. Maybe toys do move when you're not looking...

It has been a momentous week for little Thorn. He has grown gastronomically and verbally.

As you may know, our child is a picky eater which, when compounded with his many allergies, makes Sparrow and I nervous wrecks at mealtime. Thorn will eat any green vegetable and all sorts of veggie-derived milk products, but it has been an uphill struggle to get him to eat fruit and meat. This week, as always, we tried a few new contenders. Not only did we discover he will eat kale like candy, but that he'll eat chicken if it is made succulent through Sparrow's genius. Coupled with jerky, Thorn is actually getting a non-soy protein for once! Another problem was solved in the fruit arena: red pears are apparently wonderful. Poor kid thought an apple I was cutting up today was a red pear. I should say poor me, because I got to clean up the results!

Even more exciting for us was Thorn's sudden verbalization of two new words this week. His first two-syllable word, "nummy," applies to all non-liquid food, and he now uses it a thousand times a day. A differentiation much appreciated! Even better was his sudden identification of me as "mama" this morning. I had begun to wonder how much longer I would be "dad" or a noncommittal grunt. I'd almost given up, but Sparrow was diligent, and it was he who got the precious "mama" out of Thorn's mouth. Preen, Sparrow, preen.

We took Thorn out today to our 13 week prenatal appointment. He was very charming, offering all and sundry items from his bag of gluten-free Cheerio alternatives. He sat between my legs and watched Dr. B curiously as she rubbed down my abdomen with various instruments to find the Raspbaby's heartbeat. These were ultimately to no avail. We were sent downstairs for a sonogram. While an active, headstanding Raspbaby was a great relief for Sparrow and I, such an image did not impress Thorn in the slightest. The bright red biohazard box did, though.

Afterward, even though we were getting into his naptime, we went to Red Robin, which Thorn loved. He watched everyone come and go, rocking and pointing at the enormous carousel horse decorations. The only food he can have much of there are the fries, but he did tolerable justice to them. I feel as though I am projecting the image of a bad mother, with my son sitting there eating fries with water. I want to explain to every passing frown that he's actually thin for his height. That he eats asparagus at home! Ah well. Strangers had best forgive what they don't know.

Craving Oranges

This pregnancy has been different from the last. Not very different, but different enough that I've needed something of satifying sameness, so that I could be assured, in my irrational pregnant way, that this pregnancy is as normal as the last.

Things which were different:

* This morning sickness came earlier and hit much harder. It also hasn't lasted as long, fading around the twelfth week. I was still sick nineteen weeks into my last pregnancy.
* Pregnancy brain has started earlier. I'm as forgetful as a... a...
* A much more intense sense of smell.
* I haven't put on nearly as much weight as I did in the first trimester, last time. Probably due to the morning sickness. Or running after a toddler.
* I don't have this sense of impending change. Partly because this was such a surprise that I'm still in shock; partly because I've done this before.

But never fear! One thing is definitely the same. I'm craving INSANE amounts of oranges. At least one every day, and juice. And anything citrusy, like pineapple on pizzas, blood orange sodas, grapefruit, even lemons. And I know this is because of pregnancy and not just because of this horrid infectious disease I happen to have, because normally? I despise oranges. Especially in juice form. I'd eat a thousand grapefruits before I'd touch one orange. I'd even eat a lemon in the raw before an orange. And yet here I am, devouring the things like candy. If the pregnancy didn't sink in before now, this is the turning point. I can't crave oranges and not be pregnant. No can do.

Recipes of the Week

We'll be trying three new recipes this week. Two from Cooking Light's the essential dinner tonight cookbook, and one from the Alice's Tea Cup cookbook. The single recipe from the Alice's cookbook is simple: cucumber watercress sandwich with lemon chive butter. The Cooking Light selections are a bit tougher, but still fairly easy: polenta lasagna (vegetarian), and grilled tilapia with smoked paprika and Parmesan cheese. I'll post pictures and the full recipes as I do them. First, however, to the grocery!

EDIT: The grilled tilapia is off the menu. Whole Foods didn't have any tilapia left after the big sale. I'll probably still make the polenta with the Parmesan cheese, and I'll certainly make the polenta lasagna. Whole Foods also didn't have the watercress, so we're moving the cucumber sandwiches to next week. I'll let you know how the lasagna goes when I put it together tomorrow.

EDIT: Polenta lasagna is a success! Even Thorn had a taste. Zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and red bell peppers married well with the eggplant marinara, and all of it played beautifully with the polenta. A little cheese for Fox and me (Thorn's allergic), and we had a lovely, simple, nutritious dinner. I forgot to take pictures, so that'll have to wait until the next dish.

Foodie Love: October dishes

Reviewing October's Cooking Light.

I have a subscription to Cooking Light magazine, and October's issue came with a must have recipe: Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto with Sugared Walnuts. Risotto is, without exaggeration, my favorite comfort food. Butternut squash is a close second. The combination of the two compelled me to attempt this recipe, despite the fact that risotto-making is often a time-consuming activity, and time is the commodity that I have least. Still, on a lovely October Wednesday, I settled down to craft this meal for our little family. Thorn cannot have wheat or dairy, and so this recipe (if you disregard the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese) is free of both. I had hoped he'd enjoy it, too. He didn't, but Fox and I did. It was very easy to prepare, and if you've got the time, I highly recommend it. There is nothing like biting into the smooth and creamy risotto, except doing so and finding a crunchy, warm and sugary walnut!

Making Decisions

Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide opens a window onto the inner workings of the human mind. I have always had an interest in the intersections between brain chemistry and cognition, and Lehrer's work answers so many of my questions. In the very briefest of nutshells -- dopamine and the prefrontal cortex work together (or in opposition) and thus our decisions are made. Lehrer takes gambling, credit cards, and the stock market to task, since all three play upon logical failings within the mind. His work has forced me to take a sterner look at why I make the choices that I do.

Example:

I have for several weeks been attempting to eat better, to choose foods that are of better quality, more likely to end my hunger, and best for me and my personal longevity. But, if I fail to eat a proper breakfast, one that has enough staying power to last me until lunch, and I find myself near the coffee counter in the library, all of those muffins, which I know to be both bad for me and bad tasting, call my name. This is my prefrontal cortex demanding a sugar spike. It has lost the energy it had from breakfast, and you know what, when your mind is focused on writing, or reading a complicated text, and it is faced with the possibility of an easy sugar fix -- it will take the easy fix. Before I know it I'm munching unhappily on an icky-muffin, ruining my meal plan, and leaving my wholly unsatisfied with my choices. Boom.

The lesson I take from this? Willpower needs help. In any specific moment our minds can fail us. We can be misled by quick numbers, or by the need for a shot of sugar. Getting ourselves to make better choices takes care and careful planning. Breakfast needs to be more substantial, and better mid-morning snacks need to be made readily available so that the icky-muffin doesn't present so tempting an option.

Thank you, Jonah Lehrer, for making me understand my own mind a little better.

The Food Meme -- and I want answers!

Here is a blank meme, from which I want to see answers from YOU. Gimme a comment with your favorite foods. I'll wield it with efficiency whenever you visit. Mwahahaha!

The Food Meme

In everyone's life, there is the potential for the ultimate day of food: a day wherein all foods are favorites, and all sounds are sounds of delight. So go on: wake up! Today is your lucky day.

It's morning. You're still partially asleep when your significant other holds a cup of _________________ under your nose. Best morning drink EVER.

This is followed shortly thereafter by your favorite breakfast, which is _______________________.

Later, at the gym, you need a quick energy snack. Your favorite is ___________________.

What a productive morning! To celebrate, you buy each of your co-workers your favorite sandwich, _________________, and your favorite cold drink, ________________________.

Hungry again? Well, it IS time for lunch. What do you have? ______________________.

Well-fortified, you easily make it through the rest of the day, to supper. Or is it dinner? A sage over your shoulder quips that "dinner" is whatever the largest meal of the day is, unless it's breakfast. So what do you tell the sage? When is "dinner" for you? ________________________.

Time for supper! And I'm sure you have an ultimate feast in your mind. What is the best supper (or dinner) you could possibly have waiting for you when you get home? ____________________.

And no day is complete without your favorite desert, right? _______________________.

Ahhhh, bliss. As you slide between the covers, your stomach says that no, it isn't quite bliss without that other favorite food -- the one you couldn't fit in before now. You sigh and walk to the kitchen to have some ________________.

Sweet dreams!

Cooking with Ellie Krieger

Inspired by the film, Julie/Julia, and, more particularly, by the tale of Julia Child's own trials and triumphs, I have decided to share my love of food and cooking with all of you. The first step was to find the appropriate cookbook. I avoided Julia Child's guide to baking, since, forgive me Julia, I just cannot live with the amounts of butter she was fond of. Since I want this to be a weekly practice, I needed a cookbook that would give me tasty food, but also healthy food.

Ellie Krieger's The Food You Crave fit the bill, and so that is the cookbook I've chosen. This project is not thematic, nor very organized. Each week for as long as it takes, I will cook one recipe out of Ellie Krieger's cookbook. This week it was Roasted Cauliflower with Nutmeg. Astoundingly simple, this recipe only required four ingredients: cauliflower, olive oil, nutmeg, and salt. You sort of just mix it all together and roast it in an oven-safe dish for about an hour at 350°. Ms. Krieger swears that this recipe will turn cauliflower haters into lovers of the white, bush-like vegetable.

I admit that I am a cauliflower hater, and while this was the best tasting cauliflower I've ever had, I'm no convert. Still, Fox loved it, and even Thorn had a small helping. It will return to our table again.

Slowly Shrinking

Thursday is weight checking day here, and as has become my new habit, I climbed onto the scale this morning to see if there has been some progress. And, to my surprise, there was! I have broken the 180 lb barrier, which is one of the hardest things for me to do. I've been here before. Actually, I've been here a couple of times. I hope I can maintain my new under 180 weight, but history indicates that it will be an uphill battle. Eating this week hasn't been great. I've cooked nothing of interest, and I've been subsisting on hummus, yogurt, and sesame seed-buttered bagels. I need to get the vegetables up. Thank goodness for V8 Fusions. I'll be trying a cauliflower recipe this weekend. I don't normally go for that particular vegetable, but this new recipe has me interested.

Starting Weight: 186 lbs.
Current Weight: 178.3 lbs.
Goal Weight: 159 lbs.

Good Eating/Good Body Update

It has been one week since I decided to be accountable for what I did to my body. So far, so good. I will still need to watch the portion sizes. I've a tendency to eat meals in an American fashion: large, very large. This, I imagine, accounts for most of my weight trouble since what I'm eating is generally deemed good for you. Fox and I rarely go out to eat anymore, and I think this will help, too. Restaurants are all about portions and hidden fat (which makes everything taste so good!). Next week I'll know more, since I intend to keep a better daily diet guide than I did this week.

Starting Weight: 186 lbs.
Current Weight: 183.6 lbs.
Goal Weight: 159 lbs.

Food News

Today we have seen a converging of events, so it seemed the best time to write a blog entry. This way, if some of the information is tedious, I'll be too busy going onto the next item for you to get bored. How considerate of me. Really.

Thorn will be eight months in two days. He's right on target, leaping over his baby milestones one at a time. He crawls, he babbles ("dad" is still his favorite word), and he's eating solid foods with only an occasional raspberry splatter. Today, I gave him his first bite of meat, which smelled of dog food but didn't taste awful (yes, I taste His Highness's food first). Having secured the viscous pink goo in his mouth, I sat back to see what would happen. After a pause in which he rolled the stuff around his tongue, he closed his eyes and shuddered. Seeing as I've read so many Pearl S. Buck novels lately, the first thing I thought was, "Heavens! He's a Buddhist!" I've since come to my senses and mixed the chicken with vegetables. Now he's fine. He wasn't a Buddhist; he was a gourmet.

Thorn is also about to secure another milestone, too: today, having felt Thorn's gums, Sparrow exclaimed, "I think we'll be seeing a tooth soon!" His words were prophetic, for pulling back Thorn's lower lip revealed a tiny ridge of white. This, of course, touched my alter ego (who, for those uninitiated, is a rather flamboyant fey thing), who instantly began to wonder what color Thorn's toothbrush should be. I think he might be settling on orange.

In other news, I put on my engagement ring today. It fit. Breastfeeding is the best diet ever.

Accountability

I want to lose 27 pounds. I am not in a rush to do this, but I want to get it started. A little more than a year ago I was getting close to my goal weight of 160 lbs, but now I'm up to 186 lbs. Many factors contributed to this weight shift -- not least of which was becoming a dad. While I didn't gain as much weight as poor Fox did when she carried our Thorn, I was eating pregnancy-style right alongside her, and so I watched my deficit become a surplus. I am ready to spend my excess, however, and fit back into my jeans. In honor of this goal, I'm going to call my entire weight-loss scheme: I Wanna Wear My Jeans. I was keeping track of my weight successes and failures on a white-board, but since we are moving, and since the board has been recently delegated to loftier purposes, I've decided to use this blog (weekly) to keep myself accountable.

Starting Weight: 186 lbs
Current Weight: 186 lbs
Goal Weight: 159 lbs

Pills for Food

For breakfast, as a substantial aside to the delicious spanish rice with pineapple-peach topping made by Sparrow:

* four ibuprofen (as the Steve has it, Vitamin I)
* a chewy multivitamin (tasty!)
* omega 3 (I might as well jump on the bandwagon and keep my telomeres long)
* folic acid in a pill the size of a pin
* Claritin (I'm allergic to life)
* calcium taffy

I recalled the days when my morning cocktail was less vitamins and more:

* Klonopin
* Prozac or Effexor
* Zyprexa
* Adderol
* birth control pill
* Allegra

I must say I like the way things have changed. How have your pill-popping habits changed over time?

Gaining Health. Losing Pounds.

I want to lose twenty pounds. I have not set a time limit, because I don't want to lose twenty pounds very quickly. Whenever I lose weight quickly, I find that I gain it back just as quickly. My goals are to lose twenty pounds, to keep those twenty pounds off, and to continue the shift in my diet from food of convenience to food of health. Alas, the overabundance of information pertaining to nutrition makes this process difficult. 15 minutes a day. 10 minutes a day. 30 minutes a day. Three hours a week. These are all times advertised by folks who claim to be able to give you a foolproof method to a better body. I just want something that works. Here, then, is my plan. I am going to adapt Michael Pollan's Food Rules to my vision of the world. Mostly, I'm going to do as he says in rule #1 -- I'm going to eat food. That handles diet. Exercise is more difficult. I've no idea what to do. Weight lifting? Cardio? Both? How much of each? I need to do more research. This, my friends, is what an academic does when confronted by a problem. Research, research, research. I'll let you know how it goes.

Cookies!

I receive, from time to time, missives from King Arthur Flour, a delightful little company in Vermont. They first attracted me with their tasty bread machine mixes, and they have kept me by feeding my foodie needs. Today, however, they have made me happier than ever before. Today, my friends, they published a recipe on how to make real NYC black and white cookies. My favorite cookie. My most favorite cookie. I cannot extol its virtues sufficiently. Think on it: a soft, lemon cookie, half of it coated with just the right amount of sweet, sugary vanilla icing, the other half lovingly draped in a more robust chocolate icing. Is there anything more wonderful in the cookie world? No, I say. Assuredly no. So-- time to start baking.


Here, for the curious, is the recipe.


And here is a picture of how they'll (I hope) turn out: