Mar 11
Breakfast: leftover spinach, followed by vanilla ice cream with homemade chocolate sauce and a slice of nut-and-seed tart.

Went to Silver Spring in the morning to hang about and write, then go to a noontime showing of Destry Rides Again at my favorite movie theater.  While hanging about and writing, I had a double americano at the Fenton Cafe, a little Ethiopian-owned restaurant and coffee shop that specializes in crepes.  I had never been in there before, although my husband and I had  always thought it looked interesting.  The place was close to empty and both employees (or owners?) were talking on headset phones while they worked, briefly interrupting their calls to respond to customers.  One woman was making a takeout order, spreading crepes over a neat circular grill, waiting a few seconds for them to cook, flipping them, setting them aside, and then using the same circular grill to cook the fillings (in this case, fried eggs).  It was fun to watch and looked as though it would be fun to do: compact, efficient, with delicious results.  I wasn't hungry, however, and just sat in the near-empty cafe with my coffee and computer.  They had wifi.  I will come back and have a crepe sometime.

After a stint in the public library, I proceeded over to my movie, during which I ate a small bag of sweet potato chips and drank coffee from the concession.  I enjoyed the movie but thematically it was a mess: comedy or tragedy?  Villain or heroine?  Which won out, violence or the rule of law?  Everybody-dies followed by a bizarre happy ending. 

Then a quick lunch at the Panera next to the theater: a steak-and-white-cheddar panini and an apple.  This sandwich, which I like a lot, has, according to their menu, over 1000 calories.  I would never have guessed it, which is why required calorie counts on chain restaurant menus are a wonderful thing.  Even if it does make a visit to the IHOP (more) depressing.

Dinner: I was so not hungry when it came time for dinner.  Nevertheless, it is my role in the household to make sure there are regular meals.  I made what was essentially a seat-of-the-pants pasta primavera, with spaghetti noodles, onion, garlic, baby bok choy, red bell pepper, and spinach in a parmesan-cream sauce.  We had modestly-sized bowls and no side dishes.
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Snacks: Besides what was described above, an additional 2 cups of coffee, 1 regular, 1 decaf, with half and half.

​Mar 12
My husband and I are going on an overnight trip to Rehoboth Beach, DE, about 3 hours' drive away.   I have never been there; he used to go there as a boy, but that was long ago and the beach towns have changed immensely.  If only I had watched this 30-second video ahead of time, I would have known it was not really my kind of town.

Breakfast (before leaving): leftover spinach with sorrel, leftover pasta primavera, leftover nut-and-seed tart (just a little of each).

Lunch (in Rehoboth Beach, slightly stunned and overwhelmed by the sheer number of restaurants and storefronts and gangs of tourists strolling about): I am seduced by a sign outside Zogg's Raw Bar and Grill advertising the best fish tacos in town.  I love fish tacos.  I convince my husband that we can go in and he can get a burger.  His burger is good, but the fried grouper "tacos" I order are barely adequate.  And also not plural: there is a single soft tortilla with a bunch of stuff piled on top of it, much of it cabbage that is shredded so coarsely you have to cut it with a knife and fork in order to eat it.  So there is no picking up this taco, alas.  The fish is kinda mushy too.  I got seasoned waffle fries on the side, which were fine.  Not sure why they advertise the fish tacos especially.  One thing that was cool-- but which I didn't explore because it was only lunchtime-- was that they carried probably over 100 different kinds of rum from all over the world.  I would be curious about this, but not curious enough to go back and eat there a second time.

Dinner: at Confucius, an upscale Chinese restaurant recommended to me by a customer at my own restaurant (thanks, Steve!).  Confucius was a lovely place aesthetically: not large, but a beautiful use of color and space, and actually quite nice art on the walls.  I would have enjoyed it for that reason alone.  My husband and I ordered a pot of green tea, which was also excellent, and the pork & cilantro "thin-skinned dumplings," which we both agreed were some of the best dumplings we had ever had in our lives.  They were stuffed full of cilantro, but the cilantro was cooked, which mellowed its flavor to the point that even my husband could handle a large mouthful.  Delicious and novel.

Unfortunately, my luck ran out when it came to the main dish; I think I simply ordered the wrong thing.  The problem was, I was eating meals because I was on vacation and it was mealtime, but I was not really hungry.  My recent state of being chronically overfed was catching up to me, I expect.  So, when it came time to choose an entree, I chose-- uncharacteristically-- Buddhist Delight, a tofu-and-vegetable stirfry.  And I knew it was a mistake when I asked the server what kind of sauce it came with, and she said "a brown sauce," and I asked for some added spice and ordered the dish anyway.  It was bland, and in particular the tofu (deep-fried) was actively unpleasant: bitter and oily.  I ate the vegetables and brown rice (the brown rice was really nice) and left almost all the tofu on my plate: another uncharacteristic move.  I also ate a bit of my husband's Kung Pao chicken (fine, not amazing) off his dish.  Unlike with Zogg's, though, I would be willing to try this restaurant again and not order like such a doofus.  Maybe just get half a dozen orders of dumplings??

Snacks: A cup of regular and a cup of decaf coffee at home, with half and half, before leaving.  A handful of almonds while driving in the car; my husband was eating them because he hadn't had breakfast.  A cup of regular coffee with half and half bought from a coffee shop in Rehoboth after lunch, and carried with me as we drove to this nearby state park to take a walk.   A cup of decaf, with half and half, at a Starbucks that was en route between our hotel and dinner.  ...I whole-heartedly recommend the hotel, by the way, which cost us $68/night during the off-season, was light and colorful and clean, and was also a little ways off the main drag in a residential neighborhood (and therefore quiet).  (If you should happen to click the link, know that the hotel was much nicer than its garish website!  And turn your volume down.)
 
Mar 13
Breakfast: our hotel had a very standard, chain-hotel-style continental breakfast, despite being an independent hotel.  How did they manage that?  Anyway, I had a packet of instant oatmeal (outrageously, painfully sweet), a sealed plastic cup of grapefruit slices, and a  second-rate cinnamon-raisin bagel with cream cheese.  And coffee, of course.  It was free.  I was satisfied.

Breakfast: 8 water crackers, with raspberry Bellavitano cheese; hard-boiled egg; slice of rosemary toast (open-face) with curried chickpea sandwich spread and raw spinach.

I make an appointment for kid at the orthopedist and we go there mid-morning.  They confirm that the bone looks fractured, but not too badly.  Talk about a cast, but decide on just a splint at the last minute.  It's the left arm, thank goodness, and it should only take a few weeks for this minor crack to heal.

A note about pronouns.  I am trying to use the "they" construction here on the blog, because it is kid's preferred form at the moment, and this is a public space, and it's good practice.  I will say that I totally suck at it in real life, when speaking-- it's all "she" this and "her" that-- so nobody give me any Parent-of-the-Year awards just yet.  I want to do and say the right thing, but somewhere on the way from my brain to my mouth, "she" jumps out anyway.  Especially when there are other matters to think about at the same time, such as broken arms.  I hope to improve.

After we get home from lunch, I go over to the Co-op for some supplies: organic 1% lactose-free milk, black currant jam, half and half, applesauce, quart of Brown Cow maple yogurt, Food Should Taste Good kimchi tortilla chips, 2 individual Liberte yogurts, Field Day organic wheat squares cereal, Field Day organic raisin bran, dried pineapple, cage-free white eggs, 3 lb. bag of mandarin oranges, organic strawberries, 3 avocados, 5 champagne mangos.  $63.

Then, despite having just eaten lunch, I eat the whole bag of kimchi tortilla chips.  I don't even like them that much.  I also play Civilization while eating the chips, instead of writing, which is what I should be doing.  I am at the end of my rope.  The thought of doing anything else this afternoon is overwhelming.  I even fall asleep, though only for ten minutes.

Dinner: somehow I manage to get back up and cook.  First I make the Caramelized-Honey Nut and Seed Tart from October's Bon Appetit.  The tart dough calls for a food processor, but I use my fingers and this works fine.  For the mixed nuts and seeds, I use almonds, cashews, peanuts, and pumpkin seeds.  This color mix is so, so beautiful, with the reddish color of the almonds and the green of the pepitas.  Really I think I made this tart in the first place because the magazine photo is so gorgeous.  I take pictures of the nuts in every stage until the battery runs out on my camera.

Mar 8
Breakfast: leftover gnocchi with pesto, one hard-boiled egg, a few Seasnax sesame seaweed sticks.  The latter are weird: very sweet.  Seaweed does not need to be sweet.  Will ask the kid what they think of it.  (Update: Mikey likes it!  You never know.)

Lunch: raspberry Bellavitano cheese, sandwich on rosemary bread with curried chickpea sandwich spread and raw spinach.

I spent some time this afternoon trying to work out exactly what our gut repair diet/cleanse will consist of, and making a list of supplements I needed to buy.  The list looked financially intimidating, at least at the kinds of prices I see at my local co-op, so I decided to look online for cheap natural-foods supplements.  I decided on a site called Vitacost, and still managed to spend $167.  That sounds like a ton, but for two people on a three-week cleanse it comes out to $28/person/week.  Plus there will be some supplies left over.  Why did I buy supplements for myself, when I don't really have any significant digestive problems?  This is a good question.  I could say "solidarity," but it would be more accurate to say, "wasn't really thinking."  I'll probably go ahead and take them anyway, not so much in the spirit of solidarity as of science: then my husband and I can compare notes.  Larger sample size.

Dinner: Kid was at their first-ever rock concert!  (This guy.)  So husband and I had chicken, braised with some scallions, sage, rosemary and thyme; white rice; and Madhur Jaffrey's Sri Lankan Greens, which I chose to make with mustard greens.  I didn't have any curry leaves, nor time to go to an international grocery, so I left those out.  The greens came out pretty spicy, so next time I would probably go with just one green chili pepper instead of two.  (Since I've been keeping a big package of green serranos in my freezer, however-- there must have been about fifty of them, and I think I paid something like $1.47-- I have become generous with them.)  However, between the mustard greens themselves, the spice of the chili peppers, and the unusual addition of dried coconut, this was a flavorful dish, and its pot liquor jazzed up the chicken and the rice as well.

​Mar 6
Breakfast: my husband and I go out to the Tastee Diner prior to going to see the new Michael Moore movie.  I don't feel like eggs for once, so I get a ham, cheddar, and tomato sandwich on an English muffin (greasy) with a side of (very greasy) home fries.  And some decaf coffee, which gets refilled with regular coffee.  

At the movies (11:30 am!), we get candy.  I have a box of Sour Patch Kids, plus two of my husband's mini Reese's peanut butter cups, which I somehow managed to convince him to buy when initially he said he didn't want anything.  I am a bad influence, I think, at times.

Dinner: I asked kid to look at the blog and make sure what I'd said about them recently was okay and not invasive of their privacy.  This led to kid reading through lots and lots of blog posts and chortling, as well as reminiscing about various things we have eaten.  They were very excited to run across this mention of "oaty eggs" and said accusingly, "You said you'd make them again sometime!  But you never did!"  So, for dinner, I did.  To have enough oaty eggs to feed the three of us comfortably, I actually used an entire dozen eggs, plus 1 1/2 c. of oats and about 3/4 c. of milk.  I added a little salt, and I also added some chopped almonds and mango to some of the pancakes.  (I found, though, that I preferred them plain.)  We ate these with a number of toppings: butter, honey, jam, yogurt, mascarpone cheese in various combinations.  Also, we each had an orange on the side.
 
I'm really glad kid liked the blog and also wasn't upset about anything I said about them.  Best kid ever.
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Snacks (besides those already mentioned): 3 cups of additional coffee, 2 regular, 1 decaf.  Some of a Two-Hearted Ale in the evening.
 
Mar 7
Breakfast (before work, 7:30 am): last of the leftover grapefruit sorbet; 1 orange; challah pull-apart roll with butter; slivered almonds.

Lunch (when I get off work at 2:30): I am walking home to scarf down a quick lunch before I meet my kid for their dentist appointment, and suffer a moment of weakness as I walk by Capital City Cheesecake.  Wouldn't a really good sandwich and chips taste good right about now?  Wouldn't it be easier to drink a purchased cappuccino rather than having to go home and make coffee to put in a travel mug?  So I go inside and order a toasted ham, cheddar and apple sandwich on sourdough, which comes with a bag of potato chips, and a double cappuccino.  This wastes about 15 minutes and has a lot more calories than what I would have eaten if I'd just gone home.  Then I have to take it home and stuff it in my face as quickly as possible so I can change my clothes and jump in the car and not be late to the dentist's.  It's true that I can carry the cappuccino with me, though.  The rest, I didn't give the attention and enjoyment it deserved.

At the dentist's, while kid has their teeth cleaned, I start reading Elaine Gottschall's Breaking the Vicious Cycle.  Kid then goes across the street to meet another young genderqueer person, a friend of kid's older stepbrother who has agreed to meet kid and offer them some support and initial pointers.  When I stop to think about it, I can't believe I have agreed to let my kid meet a complete stranger at a Panera, but for some reason I am instinctively completely comfortable, and I trust my stepson's judgment.  Meanwhile, I go over to Whole Foods and get a decaf coffee and continue reading Breaking the Vicious Cycle.  The gist of it seems to be that people with damaged guts lose their ability to digest complex sugars and starches, which then a) do not nourish them, and b) remain in the gut to feed microbes galore, which may overpopulate and/or be pathogenic.  So the diet is quite restrictive, and also quite long-term.  While it promises eventual healing, the time-frame is measured in years instead of in months or weeks.  Most of the individuals referenced in the book have very severe digestive problems such as Crohn's disease or are young children who are failing to thrive.  I decide that this is not the most appropriate dietary modification for us, although some of the information about sugars (especially lactose) and starches is interesting and I will file it away to think about.  Does this mean I am looking for a "quick fix" for my husband's really longstanding health problems, and am being unrealistic?  Yes, probably.  But I'm not at all sure that the "slow fix" would work either, and it would certainly diminish our quality of life in the meantime. 

Shopping (Whole Foods, after the above; kid joins me as I leave the produce aisle): unsalted roasted peanuts, unsalted roasted cashews, store-brand water crackers, quart of store-brand vanilla ice cream, unsalted roasted almonds, half-pint of organic heavy whipping cream, store-brand flour, small jar of mid-grade caviar (!-- kid begged, as we have never tried caviar.  I said, "How about we wait for a special occasion?"  Kid said, "it IS a special occasion: my coming out."  How could I refuse?), whole wheat lavash bread, roasted pumpkin seeds, two packages Whole Foods fresh gnocchi, can of organic fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, rosemary bakery bread, lactose-free sour cream, pesto, salad from the salad bar, feta crumbles, unsalted butter, package of three red bell peppers, 2 bunches organic mustard greens, two packages frozen spinach (they were out of fresh spinach!  Entirely!), Seasnax sesame seaweed sticks, raspberry Bellavitano cheese, brown free-range eggs, Power-C vitamin water (kid's choice), organic yellow bell pepper, boneless chicken breasts, two packages fresh sorrel, 4 rolls Seventh Generation toilet paper, 2 lb. bag yellow onions, organic garlic. $166.

After we get home, kid and I try caviar.  I eat it on water crackers with a dollop of sour cream, and it is pretty good this way.  Kid eats it straight, or on crackers with no sour cream.  Kid says it is salty and they enjoy this.  The little jar was just enough for several crackers apiece.  Was it worth $30?  Not in my opinion.  But we had fun doing it.
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Dinner: the Whole Foods gnocchi, boiled and served with the pesto we bought and a little extra parmesan cheese.  Whole Foods salad bar divided up into three side salads (baby greens and romaine, green and purple cabbage, parsley, green peas, orange bell pepper) and dressed with homemade red wine vinaigrette.  The  fresh gnocchi were good, but these were marked that they came from some centralized distribution (New Jersey?) rather than being made in-store.

Other snacks besides those described above: 2 other cups of coffee, 1 regular, 1 decaf, with half and half. 

Before bed at night, I finished the Elaine Gottschall book and did some more research on the internet.  What other gut repair diets are there?  The other major one that I found was the GAPS diet, which says that it is derived from Elaine Gottschall's SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet).  The GAPS diet itself does not seem that radically different from Gottschall's or indeed Junger's, all of them emphasizing meat, eggs, healthy fats, and vegetables, and eschewing all grains and processed sugars, as well as most dairy.  However, it involves an incredibly demanding "Introduction Diet"  in which virtually all human sustenance is simply eliminated and then very gradually reintroduced (the pace depending on the individual's own digestive capacity).  An initial week (or whatever) of only bone broth infused with sauerkraut juice, interspersed with ginger tea with honey?  Yeah, no thanks.  And I think my poor husband would agree.  Although, I have to say, there is something about such extreme measures that appeals to me.