A Short Update

An incredibly short post since my life has been incredibly busy. (I have 1 final left...and then summer school...why did I go back to school again??!)

Anyway, dear readers (i.e., Hello Dad, Aunt L., The Pedant's Sister, Bluesleepy...anyone else actually read this blog?!?), life has been hectic. My experiment with less caffeine was going really well...until I went all decaf Monday and wanted to die. Tuesday was worse - again all decaf and wanted to die. Wednesday I did a double mug of all caf and that was good. Today - half caf. But it's only 12:40 so we'll see...

As for food, we've eaten some great stuff. We were in Boston for a wedding a 2 weekends ago which was lovely. I had goals of blogging about all our good food, but then finals got in the way. Which is why I haven't blogged much (TP has no excuses...). I WILL try to be better. Which is what I say every time.

For a quick food update, I have made meringue cookies twice. My mom is an expert at making them and I've decided to try. But, I wanted to get all fancy and pipe them. But I don't have a pipping bag. The first time I tried a Ziploc bag - epic fail. Monday night I tried a parchment paper "pipping bag" which worked eh. Probably better if the cookies didn't have chocolate chips. Will continue to experiment. I may buy a pipping bag one day and make them all pretty like.

Caffeine, Races, Ice Cream, Paella

I haven't updated about my caffeine and other food recently. I've kept a good equilibrium for half-caf coffees this week. I did slip up a bit on Saturday. We went to a different farmer's market and I was kind of cranky so decided to have a coffee. But it was a bit larger than I expected. However, it was really good, and I intend to go back to the store (they had a table at the market even though they are across the street).

Saturday, we had a pretty tasty lunch of hot dogs (well, veggie dogs for me) and homemade ketchup we bought at the farmer's market the week before, plus some couscous and a salad. For dinner, we made a beet, asparagus (from farmer's market) and egg (again, from farmer's market and SO GOOD - the yolks were bright yellow like they should be!) salad from the best salad cookbook, plus some quinoa and cabbage (thanks Bittman!).

Sunday morning I got up REALLY early to run a 10 mile race. It was my very first 10 mile race and I was really excited and happy how I did. (I did it in 1 hour, 44 minutes! Go me!) The race ended in Old Town Alexandria and The Pedant met me at the finish line (he also cheered me on in the last leg). They had some food at the finish line - bagels (which were NOT real bagels, just bread products), bananas (yuck) and chips. I'm not usually hungry immediately after I finish a big race, so I had a bottle of water and we started to walk to the Metro. TP was a bit hungry, so we stopped by Le Pain Quotidian, a great chain, for some breakfast. TP had a mochachino and a croissant sandwich. I ordered 2 soft-boiled eggs (TP ate one of them) and it came with lots of tasty bread. It was perfect, although the server got a little annoyed that's all we were ordering. I did make myself a mocha with coffee and light chocolate soy milk when I got home.

We made a carrot and cheddar salad for lunch from the salad cookbook. It was fair - but not something we'll do again (although we amended the recipe a bit). We both ended up eating a bit too much of it and by the time dinner rolled around we didn't feel like making paella, which we planned to eat. We did, however, have a new Ben and Jerry's flavor of ice cream for dinner. Which is the only reason I run.

Last night TP made the paella. It was a Bittman recipe (of course) and had mushrooms. It came out really, really well.

Less Caffeine, Day 2.5

Short update. I broke down and got coffee from the cafeteria. I had full intention of getting half-caf (I swear!) but I was thwarted because the decaf coffee was no where to be found. And, since they're closing up shop for the day I figured it wouldn't be making a reappearance. So I was forced - forced! - to get a cup of regular coffee. I used my reusable mug and I didn't fill it all the way.

Maybe it's a sign this is a silly goal?