Frustrations and Questions

So this week, we are to reflect on our blogging frustrations, questions, revelations, etc. Here goes.

Frustrations

Not too many, honestly.

I mean, I love food. I don't get sick of writing about it, and I rarely get sick of reading about it. And I most certainly have never neared getting sick of eating it.

Time and energy, on the other hand, are tossing some hurdles in my path. At the end of a long day, all I want to do is veg on the couch with some friends. Even the relatively simple task of perusing the 20 new updates in my Google Reader food section poses a daunting task. And that doesn't even compare to how tiring it sounds to actually read and respond to any of those articles.

And for as long as I blankly stare at the Google Reader screen, trying to mentally drag my eyes along the black lines of type, I stare twice as long as the contents of my fridge. Even steaming some veggies sounds like too much work. "Cook? Now? I'm tired, I haven't been home in 12 hours..." (This is about when the chips and salsa come out.)

So a lot of the time, I'm too tired to find material/write about it.

But when that isn't an issue, all has been going well.

Revelations

Ever since I was about 7, I tried keeping a regular diary. And failed. Like 10 times over 10 years. I could keep it up for maybe 5 days, and that's it. Daily entries would turn to weekly to monthly to whoa-I-forgot-this-journal-even-existed. Finally, in high school, I realized I didn't owe some debt to the cosmic writing gods that required me to write every day, or even on a regular basis. So I chilled out and wrote in my journal only when I felt like it, and things have been going well (if sporadically) since then.

All this to say, this blog made me realize I can actually keep up with a fairly regular writing schedule. Leave it to food to inspire me to action.

Also, I'm considering starting a music blog. There are two things that can bring me out of a slump in a moment: (1) good food (2) good music. Musicmusicmusic. I realize I never feel my emotions as strongly until I put a soundtrack to them. So, quite literally, music is my life.

Questions

Obviously, I find my own blog at least somewhat interesting. My only concern is whether or not you guys do.

So here are the questions I pose to the blogosphere today:

How are the topics of these posts? Do they interest you? What are your favorite ones (recipes, articles, nutrition)?

How's my writing voice? Does it bore you? Annoy you? Make you laugh?

Any other comments or criticisms? Please, don't hold back. I have a tough skin.

Thanks!

The Veggie Bandit

A man in India steals and eats about 40 pounds of veggies from his neighbors' farms every night.

"Initially, local villagers reported the incident to the police but the cops refused to register a case against Nazim and laughed it off, as they could not recover any stolen vegetable from him."

Remember "Smart Choices?"

About a month ago, I wrote a post questioning the nutritional value of certain processed foods stamped with the green Smart Choices checkmark. Specifically, I wondered how products like Fruit Loops, with their ridiculously high sugar content, or Diet Pepsi, with its dubious ingredient of aspartame, could possibly be considered by anybody to be a healthy choice. I mean, have you ever looked at a Fruit Loop? General rule: if it looks like a crayon-colored foam peanut, it probably isn't all that good for you...

Anyways, apparently the FDA has finally caught on to what anybody with half a sense for healthy eating has understood from the get-go. Booyah! (Yes, I just said "booyah.")

Reclaiming My Life

Life has been super insane ever since G-20. I've barely been sleeping, I haven't cooked anything substantial (with the exception of bread) in weeks, and my homework has been gathering dust. I've been spending all my time with the same people, and not enough time with myself. The past couple days, it started to catch up to me, and I started feeling overwhelmed, and kind of sad (for various reasons), and pretty manic. So last night, I decided it was time to take a mental health break. I'm taking a relative leave of absence from the lifestyle I've been living this past month and re-centering, regrouping, reconnecting. Today was the first day of the week I plan to devote to reclaiming my life. And damn, has it been a good start.

9:30 - Morning class. Overslept.

12:00 - Roll groggily out of bed. 9 hrs of sleep. Dance around my room.

1:00 - Make a fresh batch of my favorite granola for breakfast. Mmmmm.

2:00 - Hang out with Brendan at The Original table.

3:00-5:15 - Classes. I actually went to these. (I mostly slept through them, which is kind of odd considering I got such a full night of rest yesterday. I think my body functions better when deprived of sleep.)

5:15 - Score a decadent and delicious drink at work. Lay on the benches outside the Carnegie, look up at the canopy of trees, smoke a cigarette, listen to Six Organs of Admittance, feel happy and relaxed.

6:30 - Meet my dear friend Amanda at the GE for some grocery shopping. First time seeing Amanda in a couple weeks. Also first time grocery shopping in a couple weeks. I now have eggs again. And vegetables.

8:30 - Feel inspired by all my new food and have a majjorrr cookfest while dancing around my kitchen to the Black Keys. On the menu: mashed garlic Yukon gold potatoes and stuffed baby portabellas. Stuffed with what, you ask? Stuffed with Russian sausage, garlic, sauteed onion, bread crumbs, rosemary, oregano, and bleu cheese.

10:30 - Espresso & smoke break on the porch with my roommate, Colin. We used to have these every couple days, up until about a month ago, when my regular life derailed. Very nice to catch up again. Accompanying coffee was a dessert of my favorite cookies and some dates.

11:00 - Watch a bit of Goodwill Hunting with my roommates.

12:00 - Nice hot shower. Until the hot water prematurely ran out (damn you, neighbors!). Then rinsing the suds off cursing like a sailor under my breath.

Now - About to actually go to sleep at a decent hour (Yes, 2am is a decent hour for me, if that gives you any indication of my past month.) Today was incredibly refreshing. I saw old friends. I did some errands. I COOKED FOOD. Heavenly choirs are singing in my head right now. Time for warm covers and dreams.

Speaking of Apples: The Big Apple

I just got back from NYC late last night. This was an insane weekend filled with a bunch of very different NewYork-erly experiences (including a free trip to the Guggenheim, sleeping in a surprisingly large Harlem apartment, smoking in Central Park, hanging out in the tiny Chinatown apartment of a crazy twig of a girl with big bleached blonde hair and a Betsey Johnson design internship, and crashing 4 people to one couch in an anarchist warehouse squat in Brooklyn). Here are some noteworthy New York meals that we managed to fit in between all of our ragtag adventures:

Friday night upon arriving in NYC:

-The most delicious slice of pizza ever

Seriously, it was 5:30 in the morning and we get this enormous slice for $4 that has tomatoes and basil and the most delicious cheese and big rounds of melted fresh mozzarella. The crust was thin and crispy and the pizza wasn't greasy at all. Whhhattttt! Pittsburgh, you need to step up your game.

-(Also worth mentioning, we passed a 24-hr seafood joint while wandering around Harlem looking for Hector's apartment. 24-hr seafood? Really? Maybe I need to relocate...)

Saturday for lunch:

-Incredible roasted potatoes from an awesome lunch place near Columbia University

Crispy on the outside, soft and steamy on the inside, & flavorful. Only downside was a little too much oil.

-Black Russian bread stuffed with onions, also from said place

A bit dry for my taste, but otherwise, mmmmm--hearty.

-Part of 1/2 a BBQ roasted chicken, same place

Even though the sign said half a chicken for $4, I didn't really believe it. Then he actually handed me half a chicken. I kind of ogled it for about 3 minutes, trying to decide how the hell I was going to go about eating half a chicken while standing on a NYC sidewalk, armed with nothing more than one free hand and some plastic utensils. When I finally managed to juggle all of the elements correctly so as to get a piece of said chicken into my mouth, it was pretty yummy. Relatively moist, and the sauce was really good. 

-All of this came to $8 and lasted me for nearly two meals. Who said everything in New York costs too much?

Sunday for breakfast:

-Eggs Zanny breakfast wrap (with the included large coffee) at Zanny's Cafe

This was pretty delish. Eggs with pesto, onions, tomatoes and cheddar cheese, all conveniently wrapped and grilled for consumption on the go. Where did we go? Central park. Life is good. Also, I only ate one half of the wrap for breakfast. The rest was saved until much later, closer to dinnertime. What's noteworthy about this is that the wrap itself was still dry--even the bottom. Usually, you leave a wrap sitting in the car for 8 hours and it becomes a bit of a soggy mess. This one stayed good, didn't drip all over the place, and tasted just as good cold as it had hot. All around, a success.

Healthy Hedonism: Smoke Your Weed Through an Apple Bong

Almost entirely off-point: Our hearts pump 1,776 gallons of blood a day. Dear Jesus, imagine that for a second. That's insane! Bodies are so cool.

Anyways...

Tis the season for apples. Now, I never notice this season too much, because I think apples are pretty delicious year-round. But, it's something I keep in the back of my mind, mostly because I'm still holding out on my dream autumn day of apple-picking followed up by fresh homebaked apple pie and watching a movie cuddled under a blanket drinking apple cider.

Unfortunately, this has yet to happen. You know how it is with us kids and our grand plans that half the time don't come to fruition (pun intended); you're all pumped and driving to the orchard and then you see a billboard for the world's biggest burger off exit 67, just 12 miles ahead, and there is NO WAY you can pass that up. So, the apples wait another year.

Well, I still haven't gone apple-picking, unless you count plucking tart half-ripe apples from the orchards in NC and munching down while reading under the tree. Mmmm.

But I eat apples almost every day and had a fun time making experimental baked apples with JJ a couple nights ago (note: goat cheese and cayenne are really good in baked apples, especially together), so I decided to devote a post to them (specifically, to their health benefits).

Now, I don't know about you, but I never really think about the health benefits of apples. I mean, I don't think too much about the health benefits of any of the food I eat, beyond trying to make sure that there are some. But I still know that nuts are high in fiber and cranberries are supposed to contain antioxidants, etc etc. As for apples, I just love them because they're fast, filling, healthy and delicious. But I never knew how specifically they were healthy. Until now. And now you will, too.

• A medium-sized apple contains 15% of your daily fiber. Good to know. 
• They contain antioxidants (doesn't everything, though?)
• Eating half a medium-sized apple a day can help lower cholesterol (make a mental note, all those multitudes of overweight middle-aged men reading this right now)
• There is good evidence suggesting that apples help reduce the risk of colon and breast cancer
• Here's where it gets interesting: apples have a strong link to lung health. They significantly lower asthma risk and, here's what caught my attention: eating apples every day has been shown to reduce the risk for lung cancer in women. Furthermore, apples are the only fruit that have this beneficial relation to lung cancer. 

Well, if I didn't already eat apples every day, that would have convinced me. Now that you know why to eat apples, let me offer a suggestion for what apple to eat: the Pink Lady. They're yellow and pink and have this really interesting waxy texture that makes me feel like individual water droplets should stick to them. Also, they're freaking enormous. I'm talking the size of a softball. Pretty sweet and tangy. Basically, they're the crispiest and most delicious apples ever. If you're looking for a cheaper alternative, Jazz apples are pretty similar and I think $1 less per pound?

Okay, so here's what you've learned today: next time you're getting high and watching Fight Club or whatever, smoke out of an apple. It'll help cancel out some of the effects of all that smoke in yo lungs, AND as a bonus you can eat the apple when you're done and the munchies hit. 
 

No More Donuts (or Churros) for Mexico City Cops

Why? The city government put them on a diet.