Comfort food

Comfort food is needed. (Partly because we will only have a handful of 'Lost' episodes after tonight, but mostly because I'm tired, cold, and was rained-on all day.)

Tasty falafel sounds like the thing to do the trick tonight, but you know, it's dang hard to make falafel without chickpeas....

There is ham crackling in the skillet for the omnivore in the household. Quite honestly, when I've hit a low, all I want to do is forgo my veggie ways and eat bacon until I pass out.

I am fairly easy to please as far as fatty, unhealthy foods go, but my favorites always involve potatoes and ridiculous amounts of salt (hence the french fries hovering above).

So: your favorite comfort foods? (Or drinks. Whatever you like.)

"Saving my appetite 'cause I'm waiting for the dinner bell to do the bell thing"

Day... um... 4 of my soy-free life. I've gone off of all soy products to test whether or not I have an allergy. So far, I've still been having some symptoms, but my skin seems to be recovering. Perhaps I have been having a soy allergy after all, and perhaps it's clearing up....

The worst part (besides no Silk... and no miso... and no Kashi cereal... and no....) is shopping. I was standing in the grocery store's vegetarian/organic section, staring at the shelves in dismay, as imaginary red stickers labeled "NO!" were stamped on everything. Gahh. Grocery shopping nightmare.

I bought some Rice Dream (I will try to love it), but couldn't find any rice "yogurt." (A specialty product, methinks.) I finally found a vegan, soy-free veggie burger, but the fat content has scared me out of using it so far. At least I've gone back to eating fish, so I have another option for protein.

Anyone have any suggestions? I've been reading up on soy-free vegan blogs and such, but I need more help with finding food to take with me to work, out in service, etc.

So, since you've lasted through that rant, here's a music video. You've earned it. (I'm trying to ignore the fact that it takes place in a grocery store. Just the sight of shelves makes me go barmy anymore....)

National Oatmeal Month, and other concerns....

Yes, folks, it's that time of year again: National Oatmeal Month.
Most likely moved by an unseen psychic network which keeps people up to date on silly celebrations, I bought a bag of steel cut-oats, which we've now been eating for three days in a row. Wonderfully crunchy and yummy, plus available in whole-grain. I do recommend them. (And besides, if you don't buy them because I said so, the psychic network will make you do so, anyway.)

You know, the list of things I can eat is slowly being whittled down to nothing. Some new banned foods are: large amounts of soy products, any sort of mildly milky chocolate, peanut butter, anything made with peanut butter, and anything containing white flour. Also sugar.

So I'm a householder tonight in the front school. I've moved past the "vomiting-every-five-minutes-and-passing-out-every-ten" stage, and I'm on to the "fear is useless, I'm just gonna have fun and hope I don't suddenly develop Tourette's during the talk" stage. It'll be fun. I just have to keep in mind the fact that I could probably ruin someone's well-written talk with a simple slip of the tongue.
No pressure.
No pressure at all.
Excuse me, I have to go throw up now....

Also, it has come to my attention that I need this travel mug. (Of course, that also means that I need $15 first....)

New post at The Hooded Chef

Check it out! Includes cake!

News flash, etc.

Hello people! Allons-y!

First off, this is pretty bad news for me. The only time I'm not stressed out is when I'm sleeping. Then again, I'm probably going to be a crazy old lady anyway, and no one will notice.

Also, if they don't come out with this for Mac, I think I'll just lie down and give up. I've been playing the Sims for 8 years now, and this game gives me the feeling of, 'Oh, look at little Timmy, off to school by himself!' (Note: I have no life.)

So they've been calling for nasty weather since the first of January. Then the first weekend they said it would be nice, we get two inches of snow. This is obviously a meteorologist's way of jumping out of nowhere and yelling, "SURPRISE!"
Did I mention that I hate surprises? Especially when they involve a -10 degree windchill and snowy roads.

Fact: the little Chinese-Japanese deli spot at the supermarket has better Chinese food than some of our local restaurants. The world is very strange.

Since you guys liked Florence Foster Jenkins so much, here's some more stuff! Wahoo! Here's the Wikipedia entry about her (the taxi-cab crash bit is awesome), and here's another video.
This is one of my favorites.

An idea! Uh oh....

Mom and I have been considering doing a cleanse diet this winter, either starting in the middle of December or the start of January. I found this article interesting, but I'm a little worried about the possible side effects. I know when I went off of dairy, my system freaked out a bit and for a while, my skin and my stomach got worse. This was also interesting, just because it's a good outline for a simple detox, and seems simple enough. I don't know how effective something like this would be though, or how I'd feel doing it in the wintertime.

My brother and his wife did a cleanse diet for a while. I don't remember the specifics, except that they bought special supplements and had to drink a mix of water and something nasty that they called 'fish food.'

My will is not that strong. After a day of fish food, I'd probably run screaming to Dunkin' Donuts.

I've been kicking around doing a macrobiotic diet for a while. (For some reason, just the word macrobiotic makes me hungry for miso soup with seaweed. Strange.) The idea of eating with the seasons seems like a smart idea.

Any of you guys ever done a cleanse or detox diet? Or macrobiotic? Or fish food? let me know.

Working and blogging

I thought this BBC article was kind of interesting; neat to see the history behind the show.

So, it's my (officially) 2nd day at work today. Nice office, good environment... and an espresso machine. :D
This blog will most likely be written during coffee breaks, slow spells of the day when everyone has passed out from exhaustion, and at home, lamenting the dirty dishes and NaNoWriMo. If you like it, please follow it. It'll be fairly active, and much more efficient than me sending out the same email to a zillion people every day.
What's everybody up to this week? I have: work, a get-together, work, learning to make a layer cake, work, an anniversary party including said cake, work, and field service.
Wow.
Thank Jehovah for weekends. He really knew what he was doing with that idea.