​May 31
Going to work again-- I normally wouldn't today, but my boss's daughter is graduating from high school this morning.  Breakfast: lemon water, black coffee, smoothie made from carrot juice, hemp protein powder, peanut butter, canned pumpkin (left over from kid's vegan cookie baking), strawberries and kale.  The smoothie is delicious, but distinctly autumnal, between the carrot and pumpkin influences and the intensely-flavored kale.  Just like the farm lettuce, the farmer's market kale has a lot more flavor than its supermarket counterparts, even the organic ones.  Hopefully the same goes for its nutritional value.

This time I remember to dole out the chocolate tart to my coworkers.  At work, I manage a cup of decaf with half and half, and also drink a juice that was made in error by a new employee: cucumber, celery, and apple.  It tastes incredibly sweet.

At home again briefly in the afternoon about 2:45, I eat a reprise of my Saturday night diner dinner: big glob of tuna salad with cheese melted on top, some coleslaw, four big onion rings.  Also drink a cup of coffee with half and half.  Then I have to quickly rush over to the middle school with kid's cookies.  I have agreed to meet kid in front of the school at 3:20 (they will get there via the high school school bus).  At 3:16, kid texts me: Are you almost here?  This happens almost every time kid arrives someplace before I do, even if I am not late.  Do cell phones mean that kids cannot be patient for 4 minutes anymore?  Do they imagine that their texts will cause our cars to go faster?

A few errands, home again to finish that cup of coffee I started, make another cup, decaf this time.  Do some household bookkeeping.  Back out to the store.

Shopping (Co-op): 2 bunches bananas, organic lactose-free 2% milk, organic whole milk, Equal Exchange coffee, unbleached flour, cage-free brown eggs, 3 kiwis, 3 plums, whole cantaloupe, 2 lemons.  $43.

At 5:00-- or maybe closer to 5:30-- I start baking the "Birthday Cake" from Jennifer Reese's book.  This did not go incredibly well.  First of all, I forgot to put any salt in the cake.  So, while it was OK otherwise (texture, etc.), there was a noticeable lack of flavor.  Second, I don't get Reese's "White Mountain Frosting."  Why would you make frosting with egg whites?  And why didn't my frosting work?  It was way too runny.  Perhaps the problem comes with the instruction to "beat egg whites until foamy."  I feel like I have misjudged "foamy" before.  I know what "stiff" is, or "soft peaks," but in a literal sense egg whites become foamy almost immediately.  So, I stop beating them, start beating in the sugar syrup.  Maybe this is wrong.  Anyway, you can see from the photo how I ended up simply pouring the frosting over the top of the cake.  It never did do anything except become sticky, like a thin, slick layer of marshmallow fluff; certainly none of the crunchiness Reese mentioned ever came to pass.  At least I remembered to put salt in it.

​While the cake sat there in its puddle of sticky white glory, we ate some dinner: open-face egg salad and tomato on whole wheat bakery toast, garnished with parsley; sauteed farmer's market kohlrabi and shiitake mushrooms; sliced Gold Rush apples, also from the market.  Then I removed the cake from its puddle and onto a clean tray.  It looked somewhat less ridiculous there.

​For dessert, while watching a couple of old episodes of The Office, we ate slices of the cake with vanilla ice cream.  It was okay.  Not great.  Because of the salt.
 
June 1
Going to waitress again!  Third day in a row.  Technically I am only supposed to be working 2 days/week, but I have been home from my trip 8 days and have worked 5 of them.  Breakfast: lemon water, coffee with half and half, smoothie made from carrot juice, coconut milk from a carton, plain yogurt, canned pumpkin, hemp protein powder, avocado, strawberries, banana, and kale.  I discover that too much canned pumpkin in a smoothie tastes kind of weird.

I bring half of the imperfect, unsalted, sticky cake to work with me on a tray.  I don't actually witness anyone eating it, although some people claim that they did and it was good.

At work, I have decaf coffee with half and half, and about half a cup of regular at the end of the shift, while I am rolling silverware.  I also buy a side order of bulgogi to take home and use in dinner tonight.

Lunch at home, about 2:45: another cup of coffee with half and half.  The rest of the coleslaw (there was a lot of coleslaw!) from Saturday night. The rest of the asparagus pesto from Sunday night, with pickled shallots, eaten with Whole Foods tequila-lime tortilla chips.  Small dish of the Japanese snack mix I bought at HMart a while back.  After this I have, I think, another cup of decaf with half and half.  But it is difficult to say.  For some reason this afternoon is a blur.

At dinnertime, I try to create the omelet my husband has been craving: bulgogi and sweet potato.  First I cut up the sweet potatoes and roast them at a low temperature (350) in the oven so that they are soft but not excessively caramelized.  Then I make omelets with the sweet potatoes and the bulgogi I brought home from the restaurant.  On the side we have roasted asparagus from our CSA box (this week's batch was lovely, with incredibly thin stalks), and fruit consisting of CSA strawberries (amazing flavor), cantaloupe, and kiwi.  My husband is happy.

​During our after-dinner walk, we discuss his arrival time home from work.  This has a tendency to creep later and later.  Originally we agreed that dinnertime was at 7:00.  Over time, he began to arrive more like 7:15-7:30.  I can live with that.  However, lately the new normal has not been until 7:45-8:00.  By the time we eat the dinner-- even if I have it ready to go immediately on the table-- wash the dishes, and take our after-dinner walk, it is 9:00, or even later.  My kid goes to bed at 9:30 (they have to leave for the bus at 6:45 am), and I tend to go to sleep around 10-10:30.  This does not leave much of an evening for family time.  My husband agrees.  He will try to get home earlier.  On a positive note, no matter how late it is, we are committed-- without any need for discussion or negotiation-- to eating a family dinner together.  Even my kid does not complain about this, though they sometimes spoil their appetite with snacking.  So I should be grateful for a dinner tradition that remains strong.
​
At 9:15, after our walk, we all watch an episode of The Office together, and I eat my second allotted piece of low-sodium chocolate cake, giving bites to my loved ones on either side, who have already eaten theirs.

Some links for you.

​Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead Is Purely Coincidental
Jennifer Reese is always recommended reading.  But this personal post is one of her best, exploring marriage, food preferences, individual values, and the distressing phenomenon of the repetitive ephiphany, all with her usual humor and self-awareness.

Whole Foods Nailed for Unsanitary Conditions in Food Prep Plant
Earlier this spring, I tried to research the preparation locations and conditions of Whole Foods prepared foods.  Apparently the information I got was wrong, because 1) indeed, there are regional plants that make ready-to-eat foods for multiple stores, and 2) conditions there are not entirely wholesome.  Read for details of sanitation violations at their Massachusetts plant.

What 2000 Calories Looks Like
​Back to restaurant portion sizes.  The New York Times creates visuals for approximately 2000 calories worth of food (assumed to be one day's allotment) at a number of different restaurant chains, as well as at home.  Take-home message: cook your own.  ...Or (and I hate to even mention this), eat Subway.

The Precarious Reign of the Honeycrisp Apple
Strangely, this article is a sponsored post by Chase Bank.  I am not at all sure what their relationship might be to the topic, and it would interest me to understand it better.  Regardless, this exploration of the past, present and future of the Honeycrisp apple is a fascinating look at how food trends influence agricultural production and retail sales, and can ultimately end up destroying the quality of the very product they aimed to celebrate.

​May 29
Breakfast: lemon water first; then a cup of coffee with half and half.  Finally, about 9:45 (it's Sunday), I make smoothies for my husband and I: carrot juice, hemp protein powder, avocado, plain yogurt, a few strawberries, a peach, and farm red leaf lettuce.  This tastes like a liquid salad.  The farm lettuce has a lot more flavor than the romaine I buy at the store.

About 11:45, we decide to head downtown to get brunch at my restaurant.  I have an omelette with crab and spring onions inside, broccoli on the side, and an English muffin with butter and jam.  2 cups of coffee with half and half, first a decaf and then a regular.  My husband also chooses with careful restraint. 

Then we go to the farmer's market, just across the street, where the holiday weekend has made things quieter than usual.  It is nice to be able to wander the stalls without the claustrophobia sometimes inherent in fighting one's way through the happy crowd.  I buy one big kohlrabi, a paper bag of shiitake mushrooms, a little basket of sweet potatoes, a basket of strawberries, 4 Gold Rush apples (always the first and best in the early summer here), and a bag of kale.  We also taste some local wines, then decide on a bottle of hard cider, as a gift for my stepson's girlfriend next time there is a suitable occasion.  She likes hard cider and dislikes beer. Total purchases about $40.

In the afternoon, before a 4:00 yoga class, I have a cup of green tea and prepare the Vegan Chocolate Tart with Salted Oat Crust from October's Bon Appetit magazine.  It will need to chill for a while, and we'll have it tonight for dessert.  The tart is fairly simple to make; I don't have a tart pan, but it works fine in a springform with the crust pressed a little ways up the sides.

​Dinner, after the yoga class, is the Egg Tartines with Asparagus Pesto, Dijon and Pickled Shallots from Smitten Kitchen, with a small fruit salad on the side made of orange, peach, and strawberry.  I am the only one who has pickled shallots on my tartines.  They are good, but their salty vinegariness does kind of overwhelm the subtle flavor of the asparagus pesto.  I think I might dial down both the salt and the vinegar next time (and/or use a better vinegar).  Still.  I like the tartines a lot.

​For dessert, while we start watching The Force Awakens (my kid has seen this on their own and is really excited to share it with us), we eat small pieces of the chocolate tart.  It is incredibly rich and intense, so small pieces are exactly what we want.  The chocolate is so, so dark, and the coconut oil with which it is blended is so smooth.  Totally decadent.  I will save another piece each for tomorrow, then take the remainder to work.
 
May 30
Memorial Day and another work day for me.  An ordinary breakfast: lemon water, coffee with half and half, a smoothie made from carrot juice, hemp protein powder, canned coconut milk, plain yogurt, farmer's market strawberries, and CSA farm red leaf lettuce.

Then I go to work, and work I do, very hard.  It is busy from the get-go.  I do manage to drink a cup of decaf coffee with half and half, over the course of the day, but it is so busy that I forget to offer my coworkers any of the chocolate tart that I have brought and left in the refrigerator.  Tomorrow.  I leave a little late, about 2:45.
​
At home, I make coffee, eat a lunch of leftover pasta with oregano pesto and the other half of my tuna melt from Saturday night.  After that, I have a cup of peppermint tea.  I am exhausted, more than I realized while I was actually working.  And sore, and I have cramps and my whole body hurts.  Especially and also feet.  Eventually I recover and start working on dinner, which has to be begun early, because the beans need long cooking.

Oh, and when I got home from work, my kid was baking.  They were making vegan cookies (their girlfriend is vegan) frosted in the colors of various Pride flags.  4 rainbow, 3 non-binary, 3 trans, 3 pansexual, and maybe one or two other things, I forget.  Tomorrow is the end-of-year party for the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at their old middle school, an organization my kid and her girlfriend personally started last year.  The club is still going strong, and my kid will be paying a guest visit, with cookies.

​Dinner is Madhur Jaffrey's Spinach with Tomato (Saag) recipe, some black beans with Indian-ish flavorings, whole wheat pitas, and plain yogurt.  The black beans are still a little undercooked by the time we eat; also, I added too much seasoning, I feel.  My kid, however, says they especially like them.  I'm glad to know they (the beans, not the kid) are not inherently unpleasant.  The saag has a good flavor.  I've used a couple of the fresh onions from the farm, complete with scapes, instead of yellow onions.  I'm always stunned, though, at how much spinach has to be purchased in order to make a substantial spinach dish like this.  For the saag, which made about 5 decent side-dish servings, I used some spinach from the CSA farm in addition to 2 full 1 lb. containers from Whole Foods.  Those are the big containers.  The smaller boxes and bags are typically 5 oz.  Over $10 worth of spinach.  I guess that is still only $2/serving, less than you would pay in a restaurant... but somehow painful when you are laying down $20 on spinach on a single shopping trip (there is another spinach recipe to come, later in the week).

​In the evening after dinner, while watching the rest of The Force Awakens, I eat my second allotted piece of chocolate tart.

I hadn't thought this through.  I wanted to illustrate a post with side-by-side comparisons of portion sizes in U.S. restaurants (and other food establishments) vs. portion sizes in other countries.  But, of course, I don't have a source of those side-by-side illustrations, and I don't find them readily available elsewhere.  Clearly somebody needs to pay me to do some international travel and take pictures of my food.

So, we do what we can.  Let's just talk portion size a little bit.  I've recently complained about the insanely huge portion sizes I received the other day at a traditional American diner, on an occasion when I was deliberately trying to order something small.  Imagine if I had tried to maximize my value!  What a platter I could have had!

It seemed to me that the best way to gain perspective on our American restaurant portions was to consult the impressions of international travelers and freshly minted residents who may be new to our overstuffed way of life.  My reading immediately became anecdotal and complicated.  However, one theme immediately leapt out: behind our backs, foreigners joke among themselves about how "everything is bigger in America." (That's a link to a 5-minute video of young people browsing the produce section for the first time at an American mega-supermarket. Oh dear, oh dear.)  Not only platters are bigger, but onions, cars, houses, and waistlines.  As well as the country itself, whose sheer land area defeats the imagination of travelers from many smaller nations.

But, definitely, platters.  And drinks.  Because McDonald's gives us a standardized product against which to measure relative portions, much has been made of the difference in soda cup size among nations.  In a short and unnecessarily manic video, the Daily Mail shows us that U.S. "large"-sized cups are 1.5 times the size of those sold in Japan.  "'For soda, the glasses [in the U.S.] are huge," says [Anne-Pierre] Pickaert, a native of France. 'It's like a vase. I can't see how somebody can be so thirsty. [...] A milk container here looks like a petrol container in France,' says Pickaert, 'even the way it has that handle.'  In France, the biggest [milk container] you can get is a liter and a half."

International visitors also express shock over the American custom of taking food home from restaurants in doggy bags (a custom that is only possible because we routinely serve more food than many people can eat).  A French restaurant-goer: "What surprised me in several states of USA was, over volume of food, very low price, & the special amazing culture to take the reminder of food well packed to home! this is something unimaginable in France even if the food was much more than habit."

Another way that Americans are encouraged to eat more: buy in bulk.  And the thing is, we are so accustomed to this cultural phenomenon that we do not even notice that it might seem irrational to others.  For instance, this Indian immigrant says: ​

Well, of course! we say as Americans.  Of course unit prices decline as the size of the package gets larger, or store specials sometimes offer a lower price if you buy 2 or 3 of the same item.  That's the way sales works!  But why?  Clearly this Indian observer expects unit price to stay consistent, independent of quantity.  There's no reason that is not perfectly logical.  And the economic incentive to buy larger quantities of food almost certainly translates to greater consumption and portion sizes once the food is brought home.  We have often commented on this phenomenon in our family: if we have what we perceive as an overabundance of a certain food in our house, we will consume it like crazy, thereby at least partially negating any cost savings.

Moving away a bit from portion size, international visitors comment on other aspects of the American diet that lead to overconsumption of calories.  Asian travelers, in particular, complain about the calorie-dense nature of American food.  A Chinese nutritionist who had recently relocated to the U.S. said "'I couldn't get full [...] I'm used to the bulk in the Chinese diet'— clear soup with a lot of vegetables, for instance, that lend satiety without adding a lot of calories."  A skinny Chinese international student was astounded by the amount of sugar on offer: "The desserts in America are much sweeter than I expected before I actually came here and tasted it. Some sweets are like choking on sugar and American chefs are really generous on using sugar. [...] Looking back, I was amazed by how sweet my shake from Dairy Queen was compared to the same thing that I got in China; same with the regular cookies, donuts, etc. But by now I have totally gotten used to the sweetness and enjoy it."

​"Choking on sugar."  It is almost painful to hear that, and yet I know she is right.  When I have given up sugar for a few weeks or months on a cleanse diet, the first sweets that I reintroduce seem almost shockingly, unpleasantly sugary.  Everyone knows that we can become desensitized to salty tastes, so that some people like their food very, very salty; we don't talk as much about how we are desensitized to sweetness.  When the Korean immigrants I work with offer me something they define as dessert, sometimes my American palate cannot even discern sweetness in it.  On the flip side, the fancy cakes and cookies I sometimes bring to the restaurant probably overwhelm them.  The heavy-set Salvadorean cook eats that stuff up, as much as I will bring her, but the skinny Koreans take a tiny slice, smile, and say they'll "have it with coffee" (meaning: later, and diluted with some non-sweet taste to make it bearable).

(Incidentally.  There is a large Salvadorean immigrant population here in my area, and, man, do those people have a lot of bakeries and pastry shops.  And pupuserias.  Mainly serving other Salvadorean immigrants.  So I can't claim that the U.S. is the only country with such a calorie-dense food culture.  But even the Salvadorean sweet buns, of which there are many varieties, seem to me only "lightly sweet" compared to your typical American pastry.)

Finally, I will leave you with the words of another, possibly Brazilian?, commenter, who focuses on the overall infantilization of American food culture: "Infantile and convenient food (and I'm not talking about the fast food): no bones, no spines, hardly ever find an entire fish, it's mostly filets, very little diversity (little lamb, or duck, hardly ever rabbit, and for fish it's almost always tuna, salmon, haddock and bass), seedless everything. A lot of things (not desserts) are sweetened, like honey smoked, glazed, etc. Even desserts sometimes look like 5-y.o. were left alone in the kitchen: cookie dough ice cream, oreo cheese cake..."

I will attest that I am, as charged, by-and-large too lazy to eat fish with spines or grapes with seeds.  Even watermelon is a drag.  Does this mark me as quintessentially American: a nation of elementary-aged picky eaters who have grown up to consume adult quantities of fish sticks and "baby" carrots and ice cream sundaes?  I sell plenty of chicken tenders to adults in my restaurant, lots of macaroni and cheese.  There are people who want us to butter their toast for them, or cut their sandwiches into quarters.  Maybe this guy has a point.  Everybody's a baby in America.  A giant baby.  

This childlike food culture idea is making me rethink the whole smoothies-for-breakfast habit we have established lately.  Could there be a more labor-free food delivery system?  Fruits and vegetables you don't have to cut or peel yourself while eating, raw greens that don't need to be cooked or dressed, no utensils required... heck, you don't even have to chew.  I recently bought us some stainless steel straws, in case sipping is too burdensome.  Giant babies.