The Girl Who Ate Everything

I went to the Moon House Restaurant with my brother and Diana on New Year's Eve, which was the second time for Diana and me. Good food in portions much bigger than we'd think as what happened before.

Pork buns, aka soup dumplings!

We (or rather I) ordered the pork buns and scallion pancakes. YUMMY! The scallion pancakes were especially good compared to some others I've had in Chinese restaurants (which sometimes come out burned). I used to eat scallion pancakes (or something like them) from a street vendor in Taiwan. They were totally greasy but so delicious. Sooo. Delicious.

My "mixed vegetables over rice" was something like $3.50. It was good but I couldn't finish it! Too many appetizers, I guess.

We got a lot of food. The sauce was a bit too overpowering but it was still good. And it was cheap, so I can't complain eh? I wasn't very into Diana's noodles but she seemed to like them. It was just such a HUGE DISH! IT CAME IN A GLASS PIE CONTAINER! That's nuts. I mean, that's what we use in my house to serve...the whole family. Hm.

I've never had any of these cakes at Fayda Bakery but they look SO GOOD! I had a mango smoothie with black tapioca, which was yum.

Cake. Boy, I love cake. But Bert and Diana wanted drinks so I got that instead. I'm not a drink person for some reason. I don't have that thing in my brain that triggers thirst, unless I've eaten a large amount of MSG. Which is a bit scary.

We all walked up to the Village Theater in...um, the Village, to see Dave Gorman's Googlewhack! Adventure and we got vouchers for a free glass of champagne. I swear that it smelled like cheese. I mean, it smelled like alcohol but had a bit of a cheese smell too, and not a good one. I refused to drink it but took a tiny sip (like maybe one lap, if I were a dog) and...no. Just no. Blech. I don't like alcohol. Anything that ruins the taste of chocolate to the point where I can't eat the chocolate is on my "do not consume" list. The show was hilarious by the way and you should all see it if you can (it ends in NYC on January 9th). YOU MUST SEE IT! Yes.

My brother and I went to a supermarket after the show for some junk food to ring in the new year. That means ICE CREAM! MMM! I got pistachio and chocolate ice cream (not mashed together, half and half) and it was delicious. Mm, I love ice cream. Ice cream and cake = mm.

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I went to bed sometime after 5 AM last night/this morning and woke up after 1 PM. Damn. I didn't eat until 2-something, at which time I ate a persimmon and the last lotus seed paste bun. I was out of food that wasn't fruit by that point and later I strolled around Chinatown, planning to get vegetables buns at the dumpling place on Grand Street but was horrified to find out that THEY HAD NONE. [sob] No veggie buns for me.

Mm...mountains of dumplings...

I went to the Fancy Food Market on Elizabeth St (and Mott, if you walk through it) and got a huge bag of 50 vegetable dumplings. You don't notice how heavy 50 dumplings are until you carry it around for another good half an hour. Oops. I also bought a pack of 4 pork and chives buns because I wanted some kind of bun and there weren't any veggie ones. [another sob moment] Noticing the lack of fresh vegetables, I looked around for something green and leafy but instead got a pound of snap peas for $1. $1 of peas for a dollar...not bad. That's a huge meal, if all you wanted to eat were snap peas.

Dumplings, veggies, and soy sauce

What goes with dumplings? Soy sauce! Mm, liquid brown sodium, that's my thing. Chinatown isn't exactly brimming with nice sauces (aka ones without funky ingredients) so I went to the Jubilee near my dorm and got a bottle of organic tamari soy sauce. God forbid I go to a supermarket to just buy a bottle of sauce though; I also bought a pint of Ben & Jerry's pistachio ice cream. [hangs head in shame] In Chinatown I had walked into two bakeries and did not feel the urge to buy anything. TWO BAKERIES! I SAID TWO! What happened? I think I had been pastried out by the massive number of lotus seed buns I ate in the past few days (6 of them). It's not like I couldn't go for some cake or cookies but there wasn't anything in particular that I wanted.

Dinner was strange; I wasn't very hungry. I'm not sick and I don't feel like I ate a crapload of food, but I'm very un-hungry at the moment. For dinner I had:

• a persimmon
• a pork bun
• 7 veggie dumplings (they're pretty big)
• a bunch of snap peas (maybe a fourth of a pound)

...okay, to most people this is a lot of food, but to me it's not. I know stomachs aren't that big though, so god knows what's up with mine

[note: later that night (like...er, 1 AM) I ate the other three dumplings. Does food taste better the later it is? Maybe because my brain cells were dying out.]

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Oh, food. I looked in the mirror the other day and realized how fat I was getting. Very. I haven't weighed myself in more than a month (I used to weigh myself every day) because I'm too scared. :( I know the obvious thing to do is eat less but I didn't accomplish that today (yesterday, rather). I ate:

• two persimmons
• a pork bun
• 6 dumplings
• 1/2 pint of ice cream
• two cups of hot white chocolate (because the mug fits that much)
• some chocolate
• afew ounces of snap peas

CRAP, I forgot to drink more water! Unless I eat something weird that makes me thirsty, I forget to drink water. Maybe I should eat drier food; that would get the message across.

I'm not unhappy but I'm not really happy either. Somewhere in between. I really need to lose weight. Oh well, at least I didn't eat any pastries.

I don't know about you but my brain seems to work best before fall asleep (or while trying to fall asleep) in bed. I can't actually do anything but god help me if all the thinking doesn't burn some calories or exercise stagnant brain muscles. So what great idea popped into my head last night/this morning at 5 AM?

Chinatown bakery ratings webpage! Or something! I need to think of a name and decide if I'm going to go through with this. It will be like A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down but about common pastries found in Chinatown bakeries. There are loads of them but have you seen this list of biscuits? How many biscuits had to be consumed? How many biscuits gave their delicious, wheat-filled lives to be a part of that website? I'm apprehensive about going through with my idea because it means I'll end up eating CRAPLOADS OF PASTRIES (which is a bad thing, although I did a blood sugar level test and I'm actually fine and non-diabetic...for now) for the purpose of telling the good pastry-lovin' public the parties held in my mouth as I ate CRAPLOADS OF PASTRIES.

I need help. Granted, I need help in more ways than one, but if I want to make this site I'll need people to help me eat the pastries. My opinion is a bit worthless as I like ALL FOODS. ("This bun was good. Oh, and this one. This one too. Oh my god, it's like eating baby angels.") I'll pay for all the pastries of course since most of them are dirt cheap to begin with, but you'd have to eat it with me.

I bet I'm not going to make this website, but it's an idea. I think the first step would be to make some kind of list of all the pastries you normally find in Chinatown bakeries. There are enough of them to keep my sweet bun consumption level at a Guiness Book of World Records high. But it can be done (at which point I'll have turned into a sweet bun myself). And then keep a tally of what has been consumed, where it was bought (we could rate bakeries too), prices, taste, what the thing is actually made of, take photos, blah blah blah. There don't seem to be many nice websites (or any) about stuff in Chinatown and the bakeries are one of the best things in my opinion. I'm sure for many people the cheap crap you can buy in Chinatown is the highlight, which I don't understand. Come on, you totally want cheap food!

This is what happens when I stay up past 5 AM.

Semi-related thing: I was up late because I was reading Toast. I'm really enjoying this book even if I don't know the foods Nigel is talking about. Next time I go to England I'll make it a point to eat more British food (during the summer I accomplish the amazing feat of eating an obscene variety of biscuits and chocs).

Oh, today I drank spiced grapple juice from the Union Square Greenmarket. Grapple = grape + apple, for those unaware of grapple. Grapple. That's a funny word. Oh, it tasted good. That and and half a slice of unsweetened banana bread (the taste was obviously unsweet but still very good) was my lunch. I made it up at dinner with 6 dumplings, snap peas, an apple, and pumpkin spice cookies.

There haven't been many updates lately (as in not one every waking moment of the day) because I've refrained from eating out or anything of much interest. I'm still working my way through the bag of dumplings I bought last week and I've been eating the dumplings for the past few days. They're yummy, it's nothing to complain about. I also haven't been doing much physical activity lately. As in...kind of no physical activity. Hm.

BUT THAT CHANGED TODAY! OH YES! Good NJ friend Cristen (although soon to be a permanent resident of Boston) visited me so we could go fooding. Diana and Ava came by too. Hung out in the dorm for a bit then went to Chinatown (where else?). See all the signs in Chinese and the absence of non-Chinese people? Yes, that's Chinatown. It just appears out of nowhere.

Rows of delicious pastries call out your name...no wait, they're calling my name. And it's creepy. Pastries sound like possessed children.

We went to Fay Da Bakery where I had a bit of trouble deciding what wheat based product should go through the digestive process for the sole purpose of satisfying my gluttony. And the winner is...the lemon bun! I've never had a lemon bun before but was intrigued because instead of being 60-75 cents like most pastries, it was 95 cents! HOT DAMN! It must be good! And good it was, almost a cross between a bun and a croissant although more bun-like than croissant-like. It was slightly flaky on the outside but soft and doughy in the middle. The lemon filling had just a hint of lemon and wasn't very sweet, which was nice. I've had lemon bars that were so tart and sweet they made my throat close up.

How do they get the cupcakes to look so darm perfect and cute and THEY'RE LIKE BABY ANGELS MADE OF SUGAR!!!

We made our way up to Magnolia Bakery (if you know anything about Manhattan's geography you'll know that Greenwich Village isn't exactly next to Chinatown, but it's not that far. Or maybe the prospect of eating cupcakes made the distance seem like two feet) for cupcak-ing goodness. Are the cupcakes really as good as everyone says? I don't think so, and as much as Cristen loves them she acknowledged that she wouldn't wait in line to get them. I keep reading how it has long lines but JUST GO DURING A NON-BUSY TIME and there will be no line. Both times I've gone there has been no line. One time was fairly early (before noon), today we were there sometime after 5PM. Here are my steps to Magnola Bakery-ing:

• Go in, oogle artificially colored pastel cupcakes
• Decide whether you should stuff four cupcakes in a box since its capable of holding that many
• Come to your senses and realize if you buy four cupcakes you will eat four cupcakes and ingest more sugar than the average Halloweener
• Buy artificially colored pastel cupcakes
• Leave giggling and guarding the cupcake box with your life

I found out that what I really like about the cupcakes is the icing. The cake goes well with the icing, not so much the other way around. I wouldn't be able to eat each part by itself but together they marry and have a lovingly close relationship, that is until I pulverize them with my teeth and mix them with my saliva (you could argue that by that point they're closer than ever...hell, they've become ONE). The icing is sickly sweet and the cake is just..cake. Not very sweet, but not unsweet either. Last time I got cupcakes from there I ate two without a problem but today I started feeling a bit woozy after one! I somehow made myself each the second in a slow painful manner (painful because I couldn't believe the cupcake lasted longer than a few seconds) so the lesson is for me to not buy more than one. Even thought the box holds four.

Not having been to an Italian restaurant in ages, I forgot about the BREAD! You'd be crazy to not like good bread paired with seasoned olive oil

While aalking around Little Italy Cristen and I looked at various menus to decide where to eat. We were also accosted by various waiters trying to persuade us to eat their pasta. If you ask me, sending out employees to attract customers drives customers away, but we actually did eat at a place that had a waiter outside chatting up potential customers. I don't remember the name (we were possibly on Mott St) but the food was very good. I had gnocchi for the first time, which I would describe as little soft chewy lumps of joy. That's how I describe food. Joy in lump formed. Oh, with pesto sauce. Lumpy joy in pesto sauce. [rubs belly]

I could eat a tub of gelato. Does it come in tubs?

After the dinner, which stuffed me to the point of waddling, we went to Ferrara. I had to try gelato, OKAY? Yeah, that's my excuse. I got pistachio flavor (my new favorite flavor) and Cristen got chocolate. It was good although I have to admit I couldn't tell the huge difference between gelato and ice cream. There is a difference, but it's not like the difference between sorbet and ice cream. I had heard many good things about gelato before, which led me to believe my mouth would experience some sort of orgasm, but it didn't. [sigh] Maybe I expected too much. It was good but I don't think I'd eat it again as it was something like $4 with the tip. Or maybe when I go to Italy some day I'll eat all their gelato. Bwahaaaaahahahaa.

I've been wondering what to do with this blog. Food can be a huge source of stress for me. Of course, many times (most of the time, probably) it fills me with happiness and glee. The happiness is worth the stress but I'm starting to think that I shouldn't spend so much time writing about what I eat in particular. I'll still post photos every now and then (I've got some from yesterday, during which I mainly ate fruit, veggies, and cake) but I think I'll use this blog more for posting links to other pages about food. Not just food blogs, which tend to focus on recipes and eating out (makes sense), but food news or strange food related pages. There are lots of blogs dedicated to reporting news about music, design, technology and so on, but how about food? No, we don't need more of that but eh...I'm still alive, thus I will blog.

So the links for today:

Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005: The last food guide was kind of...not so good. I find it funny that the new guide just came out because last semester I had taken a nutrition course in which we had to learn all about the old food pyramid, as in how many servings adults needed, kids needed, and so on. Damn, gotta throw all that out of my head! I'm annoyed that this guide is in the "oh god I hate it" pdf format so I've only downloaded the chart. I like this chart more than the previous pyramid and it makes me happy to see that fruit is first. Fruit is my favorite food in the world (persimmons in particular). Eating dark veggies certainly has nurtitional benefits but I don't like leafy greens so I haven't eaten them in a while. Oops. I think it's good to vary protein choices, except I could easily eat half a pound of nuts. I'm like nuts more than meat.

I know I just said I wouldn't post as much about eating food, but I have to do it this time.

Cheesecake. This cheesecake here. [points at plate] This is the strangest cheesecake I have ever eaten. I bought it from a bakery on Bowery (possible called Swan Bakery) in search of something in cake form (I had gone into three other bakeries before then). I saw something called "French cheesecake" for $1.50. What made it French? The decorative red, white and blue plastic wrap around it?

The cheesecake is somewhat cakey for a cheesecake. The bottom is a layer of yellow cake, then cream, then cake, then more cream, topped off with a "skin" of something. The color of the top skin resembles creme brulee (oo, something French) although after eating it I don't know what it was made of. The cream has the slightest hint of cheesecake flavor that qualified the overall cake as cheesecake and not plain cake with a skin on top.

The real kicker is the bottom layer of cream; it has raisins in it. When I first saw little dark blobs I thought "Uh...those aren't chocolate chips." A poke uncovered their softness. Ah, raisins. In a cheesecake. Which is really cream with some cheese-esque taste. Huh? Raisins invaded the bottom layer of cream in my cake? Maybe this is French and I'm just ignorant but I think it's one of those unique Asian takes on a European dessert.

Overall, not a bad cake. I wouldn't buy it again but it wasn't bad. Light and not overly sweet, like most things from Chinese bakeries. I would correct the name though, it's as bit misleading. "Raisin cheesey cream cake" would be more correct, although it sounds a bit weird. Maybe they should name it Fred.

I've never been a big fan of doughnuts (which I'll call donuts from not on because it's easier to spell and you're all used to it) or any breakfast-type food for that matter. Donuts were not found in my house very much when I was growing up but when there were donuts they were alway from Market Basket. For whatever reason their donuts weren't light and fluffy but dense and ...dense. Like a dense cake. I figured all donuts were like that and didn't see the appeal in eating a dense crumbly cake for breakfast.

When I joined the marching band in 9th grade (something I both regret and don't regret at the same time) we always got Dunkin' Donuts at halftime. It was the minute silver lining that came with marching around in a silly costume with funny hats with plumes in them. Even without the uniform it would've sucked. I always got the Boston Cream donuts which were definitely better than the Market Basket ones (okay, I liked them more, doesn't mean they were better) but I was still disgusted that I was eating fried cake with gooey sugary cream in the center, which was probably more fatal than the cake part.

Donut Pub is sweet-fried-dough-a-licious

Since 9th grade I can't recall eating a whole donut. So about five years later I went to the Donut Pub with Vassar friend Jason who stopped in NYC on the way back to school. So ...donuts? Still good. Not my favorite thing (the being fried thing kills the desirability level a tad) but I'll try a donut from a place called THE DONUT PUB. I guess if it weren't fried I'd absolutely love it but unless I fry something myself I'm iffy about fried foods. I got a coconut cream donut and it was yummy in all its creamalicious creamy liciousness. All the donuts are 90 cents so I felt like it'd make more sense to get something that was less plain that a naked donut. Those are yummy too, of course.

We went to Magnolia Bakery after that, making it my third time there this vacation. I didn't want more cupcakes (or any cake after that donut) and after trying their banana pudding I really don't know why the cupcakes are so hot. Yes, that's just my personal opinion seeing as I'm more of a fan of the insanely sweet icing than the cake (ironic since I hate most sweet icing) but the banana pudding is absolutely ...so..it's...the pudding...good lord. Those are the words that come to mind when I think of their banana pudding. I didn't think that right away. First off I thought, "Hey, this is really good!" And then I ate more and realized it wasn't like pudding, but more like a banana mousse with nilla wafers and banana chunks in it. So if you don't like the texture of mousse and prefer an absolute smooth non-airy pudding, this is not the pudding for you. I loved how it was light and fluffy, but very filling at the same time. The regular size is $3.75 and the large is $5. Regular is more than enough for one so I guess the large would be the right amount for two people. Jason got a pumpkin bar, which was yummy but the icing was too sweet. Sweet icing works with the cupcakes because the cake doesn't have a distinct taste, but pumpkin bar? PUMPKIN! Not sugar!

It's full of meeeat

More walking took us to Other Music for a bit of CD splurging on my part, and then back to Bleeker to go to Indian Bread Co. It's a small place that's kind of like a take out restaurant but there's a decent amount of space to sit in. I got a thing with lamb in it (and a mango lassi, which I've never had before; it's good if you like mango and a hint of yogurt) because I hadn't had meat all week and figured I may as well get some meat in my system. At first glance I thought it was kind of small but it was really filling, so my perception is a bit whacked. There seemed to be a perfect amount of spices. I couldn't tell what any of them were but I liked em. Mm, ignorance is yummy. As for the reviews on that page, maybe the food preparationg time depends when you go because Jason and I received our food fairly quickly (we were there at around 2PM).

I don't predict myself going to the Donut Pub or Indian Bread Co very much in the future but as for the pudding...oh yes. Good stuff.

I decided to start a "no wheat or rice or other things resembling wheat or rice" diet today because wheat and rice = Robyn death. So what did I eat?

• an apple
• a clementine
• two persimmons
• a bunch of snow peas cooked in some butter
• an egg
• some herbal throat candy
• half of a chocolate truffle my roommate fed me (really, she was like "eat this! now!" okay, not like that)

More than enough food for one day. I hope to eat like this for at least another two weeks. How easy will it be? With school starting I probably won't eat with people very much and as long as I stay away from Magnolia Bakery I won't be eating pudding (which I guess doesn't have rice or wheat besides the nilla wafers, but I shouldn't eat that). I can technically eat ice cream but I shouldn't eat that either.

SO GET READY FOR A HEALTHIER ME! If I don't go insane first, that is. I did a "no wheat or rice" diet a few months ago for two weeks, two weeks because I was going nuts. I think I have a better grasp of food now and at that time persimmons weren't in season. I bought a box of 20 persimmons today (sharon fruit) so I'm happy. They're so damn good.

School starts tomorrow (er, today) and the only class I have is an evening class, Food Microbiology and Sanitation. Fun! I have a morning class on Tuesdays but it starts next week so I can sleep in. Woo.

Oh, time for some links so you don't have to hear me talk about my eating habits anymore...

The Amateur Gourmet - Cinema Veritaste: "We Eat Chinatown": Holy crap, awesome! This little movie covers a bunch of places in Chinatown and food, of course. I'm a big fan of scallion pancakes (I don't eat them much because they're fried though) and if you haven't had em...well, you should. The first time I had them was during my first trip to Taiwan. I LOVE turnip cakes! They're mainly cake but there's some turnip in them...maybe. That and little bits of meat things. Meat bits! I haven't had a turnip cake in a long time but they're yum yum yum aagrhgar yum damn.

Gallery of Regrettable Food - Not a new site but one of the funniest food related sites I've been to. Any food that makes me lose my appetite has to be amazingly bad.

The Food Timeline - Interesting. I wouldn't want to eat that prehistoric diet of water, rice, salt, eggs and fish. ...Actually, that could be a perfectly good meal. Or bad if you stuck it all in a blender.

New York Times has an article about the new US health guidelines: Complying With Marching Orders (registration required, but if you don't have a NYT account by now you may as well get one). It's an interesting read if you find any of this stuff...well, interesting. The author mentions stir frying, which I realized is pretty much how I've been eating lately with my snow peas. I use about a third of a tablespoon of butter to cook with and after shoving in some snow peas and an egg, my meal is done in a few minutes. A monkey could stir fry; it's incredibly easy. Then again, my stiry fry only has two ingredients. As for giving up meat, I don't see how this is difficult but it's all a matter of personal taste.

Today has been day two of no wheat or rice. It's been okay except that I did get back from school for dinner until after 10 PM, at which point I made the yummy snow peas and eggs. I have one egg left so I'm going to go about getting more tomorrow (today) at the farmer's market. I'll have to avoid the cookies though.

More related links from U.S. Food Policy:

Washington Post food guide illustration
Funny "Food Pentagram"
Interesting article about the suckness of the new guidelines (diets in general)

If I benefit from my no wheat or rice thing (it's not no-carb, just to clarify things) I'll let you know.

NYC restaurant week starts next week, taking place from January 24 - 28 and January 31 - February 4. See the list of participating restaurants. I doubt I'll go to any of these since all I really want is cake anyway, but it sounds like a good deal.

It's day three of "no wheat or rice" diet and the regular foods I usually don't eat are excluded, so I'm eating what's a 50%+ raw diet. Or 75%. I ate three apples for lunch (after having two persimmons for breakfast) and something about those apples was unfriendly. I don't know what exactly, but for the entire day after eating those apples it felt like little bombs were going off in my intestines. It was like seriously backed up gas. FROM APPLES. Golden delicious, to be exact. I think I react differently to different kinds of apples but I didn't think it would hurt to try something besides fuji. Apparently it does hurt. In the form of strange air blasts in my organs. I didn't get a stomach ache but I'm not kidding when I'm saying that it felt like TINY BOMBS IN MY INTESTINES. No pain, just weird things moving around.

Or maybe I have a huge parasite. Hm.

Anyhoo, a message I heard a lot in my nutrition course was that calories are a key to weight loss. I'm not saying that calories don't matter but I can't imagine I've been getting much more than 1000 calories each day. If I haven't been burning at least 1000 calories eat day for the past few days going to school and walking in stupid snow (okay, I like snow but...not when I get out of class at 8:30 PM) and doing normal human things like metabolizing (maybe I don't) then I'm screwed and will probably never lose weight. Then again I don't know how many calories are in an apple. 500? YES. THAT'S IT. That's why I can't lose weight! Okay, I know apples don't have 500 calories. I'm probably getting as many calories as i need, which is scary since I'm mainly eating fruit and that 1/3 tablespoon of butter with my snowpeas. I was very tempted to get yogurt today but decided I didn't really want it. I wanted pudding but decided it had no health benefits. Then again, the apples bombed my intestines, which isn't very beneficial.

• Food Art Gallery - making food look like non-food things
• Joonzi Preparation - There are a few spellings for this Chinese dish (I called them zhong-zi) but any way they are, they're SO GOOD, THEY JUST MAKE YOU GO, "HOLY CRAP" and then you eat more until you puke. Or maybe not that much. I've been eating this for most of my life (I guess after the teeth sprouted in) but my mum has never made them from scratch. I don't know if she knows how, but I certainly don't. The website describes it as "sticky rice in bamboo leaves" which is basically what it is. There are usually peanuts and meat inside, sometimes egg yolk as well. I've bought ones that only had peanuts and egg yolk for $1 each, which is fine by me as I don't really like the meat. It's probably not very nutritious but I'd rather eat this than pizza.

On an unrelated note, I'm still incredibly gassy. Incredibly weird gas. The kind that implodes inside you. It's from all the non-wheat and rice. What the hell? I don't get it. I'll call it "detoxification". Today I actually swayed from eating just fruit and veggies and caved into Korean spiced tofu. I almost never eat soy (as in I prefer meat over tofu, among other things) but if I eat it I at least want a spicy, not too soft kind. I used to buy something at the local Chinese grocery I lived near in NJ but I haven't been able to find it in Chinatown.

On another unrelated note, Corinne Trang is my new "communications in food and nutrition something or other" teacher. And now that I know she has written cookbooks, I want them. I DON'T EVEN COOK. I DON'T REALLY ENJOY COOKING (however, I do enjoy baking). I also bought a bunch of food related magazines for the class. It's academic, okay? That's my reason. And now I know I'm a website snob because after looking at her site my first reaction was, "Good lord, that's not standards compliant!" and I took a peek at the source code. Those are just a few signs of a web developer/designer (not that I am a great deal of either) who has gone slightly nutty. I attribute this all to working in the Vassar Media Cloisters. Oh, she's cool, by the way.

I've wanted to visit Happy Happy Happy for a while (especially since I have a coupon) but taking on the no wheat or rice thing (which is at the end of day five) means I can't go. Even though they don't use wheat. Not sure about the rice though. Anyway, I'd rather not eat things resembling the stuff I'm trying to avoid.

BUT HOLY CRAP, ARE YOU TRYING TO TEMPT ME??? CUPCAKES?! I ...ENJOY CUPCAKES! 85 cents rivals Chinatown's prices! That's impressive. Cute sobbing. [sob]

Oh, later I'm going to talk about some yummy food I ate in Chinatown today. Including a delicious dessert. Mm.

For those who love recipes (not me so much unless they have photos):

Wikipes, a community-contributed recipe database.

A restaurant you will probably never go to:

French Laundry photos

Looking at most of the food made me think, "WTF?" except for the desserts. The little cookies and chocolates looked good, but most non-dessert food doesn't do anything for me. Then again, I really shouldn't eat wheat products which rules out many desserts. Not the ice cream or chocolate, at least.

I am on day seven of no wheat or rice. Doing okay. I think this is the only way for me to lose weight, or rather, to maintain a healthy weight. My desserts have become dried fruit and nuts and yogurt. Not too bad, right? I'm kind of screwed no matter what I do but I may as well be healthier and screwed than full of cookies and screwed.

Gothamist visits Per Se, one of Thomas Keller's restaurants (French Laundry is another one). I wouldn't mind trying this place someday...doesn't sound too crazily expensive although all I want are the chocolates. In which case, I should just go to a chocolate shop. There's a page about Jacque Torres's chocolate shop in the West Village in the latest Bon Appetit and I've wanted to go there since i first heard it opened! Which was a while ago! Which means ...I want chocolate! Actually, I don't just want any chocolate, I want to visit that store. I bought some of his chocolate at the Chocolate Show and it was pretty good. I can't judge how amazing chocolate is only based on "bark" (my favorite kind of chocolate confection) but it was nice.

Check out Lea's many photos of Japan (involving lots of food) starting with Osaka Part 1. I love Japan but the choice of Japanese food outside of Japan isn't that stellar. Mitsuwa is a great example of a place outside of Japan with a wide variety of Japanese food. Otherwise, is it just me or do most places have the same stuff? Of course there are different kinds of sushi and stuff but nothing really compares to the craploads of fake food and little noodle shops by the train stations in Japan. I remember getting takoyaki from a small stand before and there is a place in NYC that sells it (Otafuku) but I have yet to try it again since going to Japan. Since it has flour I guess I won't at this rate, unless I go back to Japan. :( I'd also love to try okonomiyaki.

So yes, I'm still doing pretty well on the no wheat or rice thing. Except i'm just eating more of other stuff, like yogurt. I had two cups of yogurt today! :\ One for lunch, one for dessert, and I also bought macaroons for another dessert. I ate snow peas and an egg for dinner, and will probably have more fruit later. Lunch was an orange and the cup of yogurt. Dinner drags on and lunch would drag too if I didn't have to go to class. I eat too much, not necessarily that unhealthy (although I'm eating less healthy now that I was before) but I feel screwed no matter what. I know it's not hard to lose weight but I don't have many friends who are as heavy or heavier than me. And of course, in school most people are pretty slim. It's hard for me to think of much else during school besides comparing myself to my classmates. And what I should or should not eat that night/the next day/the day after. I don't know if people have any idea just how much the thought of food plagues me...

Oh well. I'm still writing in this thing.

Interesting documentary: Hamburger America. I wouldn't mind seeing it even though I hardly ever eat hamburgers but I have a class that night. After watching the trailer my desire to eat hamburgers has dropped. Hm.

Oh, back to the Japanese theme, here are beautiful photos of Japanese desserts. God, I wish I could eat those and not...die!

Interesting page: Ethnic restaurants in Virginia. I never thought of just getting appetizers for a meal, but that's a good idea. And yeah, desserts usually suck. Gotta go to a Chinese bakery for good desserts. It's healthier to not really be into desserts of course...maybe that explains something. Yet I'm addicted to desserts. My mum said it has something to do with balancing your yin and yang, not that I have any idea what she was really talking about but OKAY, I'm terribly imbalanced as always.

North America Pizza & Ice Cream Show = NAPICS. I thought the acronym was funny for some reason. And the show. Why pizza and ice cream? I didn't know they were associated. I'm not into pizza (yes, people like that exist) but I LOVE ICE CREAM. I went to Mary's Dairy today and had great coconut ice cream. Also went to Chat n Chew. I'll have a review later since I have to write one for my class.

7Up hopes Plus adds bubble to sales. Ah. Okay people, just STOP DRINKING SODA. "Healthy version of the soft drink"? Who falls for this stuff? If people drink it because it tastes better that's one thing but if you want to drink something healthy just drink water! I didn't know this existed until I heard a commercial on TV. God, I hate TV.

Anyway. I went to Chat 'n Chew last Friday and had a grand ol' time eating non-Chinese food for a change:

mashies and meatloaf

turned into

no more mashies and meatloaf!

Ahhh. Delish.

Yesterday I ate yogurt, fruit, veggies, an egg, and that was pretty much it. But I eat a lot of yogurt now to make up for...something. Sweet tooth. Lack of grain products. Oh, I guess meat loaf has bread in it, which I didn't know. :( No more meatloaf. I don't think I'm losing much weight but I hope I'll be healthier because of all the stuff I'm not eating.

I got a jar of applesauce today. Why? Because I was in the mood for apples but not for buying whole apples, which seem to give me funky digestional aches. So I have this jar of applescause just begging to be opened (because it spoke to me) and...and...

THE DAMN THING WOULDN'T OPEN! I tried a few times. I got some rubber bands for added friction. I whamed the lid as though that would help. Nothing. I'll try again later.

I like plain yogurt. With honey. But without honey it's still good, I just happen to have honey.

I bought vanilla beans for the first time today. Of course, I've had food with real vanilla beans in it before but I never bought them seeing as they're about $11 for two pods. I smelled the beans and hot damn, what a good smell. One of the best smells in the world. Totally worth it. Oh, I didn't just buy them to SMELL, I'm going to make pudding at some point. No one makes apple vanilla pudding methinks so once my jar of applesauce decides to open I'll make that.