Plating (Homage to the 80s)

After bending Chef K's ear about the Explorer's tainted equipment, we rolled into the recipes. Dora, Natasha, 2nd Language Girl and Squarehead were absent today, but because each group is only doing one dish, didn't really effect things. Infact, today's class was unusually quiet and low energy.

Today's menu included a roasted vegetable timbales with goat cheese, micro-greens, Parmesan tuiles and beet vinaigrette (it's that pepto-bismal looking stuff) as an appetizer, sauteed Flat Iron steak with bodelaise, porcimi-salsify puree and caramelized endive as one entree and then our group's entree: roulade of magret with spinach and foie gras, braised chipollini onions and grilled polenta.

No lecture, just rollin'. Dirty Dave took care of the onions, I blanched and shocked five pounds of spinach, and Stalker Kowalksi poached a bag of foie gras. Like yesterday, I made another large batch of polenta, minus the garlic puree. The stuff cooked lightening fast and super thick pretty quick so I added a lot of milk and stock to keep it a little loose, to be different than yesterday. This was a mistake, as after refridgerating and setting, it cut fine but when we tried to pan fry it, it's high moisture content made it very difficult to work with, with the fried skin falling off the re-mushified polenta.

To make roulades, a piece of caul fat (pig stomach lining) was laid under a butterflied magret (breast of foie gras duck), covered in spinach, a baton of foie placed in the middle, then tied up, browned and finished in the oven.

The three of us finished our mise and cooking in plenty of time to spare. Plating the duck and steak was fine, but the beet vinaigrette, the little timbales cup of roasted veg, and the tuiles (shaped little cheesy/eggy/very rich cracker-like shapes) was so foofy-foofy. So I got lots of green chopped veg on the rim with pink dots, mounted the tuile on some goat cheese mush, and blam, a homage to the 80s. The 80s sucked.

ADDENDA:
Something in the class didn't click today, can't quite put my finger on it. Chef gave a demo on how to use the robocoup, which seemed a bit unnecessary and distracting. I don't know if she has the authoritarian weight to keep a school kitchen calm and collected. Time will tell how it shakes out.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, smoothie, 1.5 bowls, hunger 3/5
Blue berries, grapes, banana, ground flax seeds, good yogurt and milk, pinch of salt, ice.

AM TASTING: 11am, flat iron steak, fried onions, duck breast, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5
I really don't like the food we've been making.

PM SNACK: 1:30, mint chip ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2:30, 2 gourmet donuts, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Off to ride the bike, stopped by my neighborhood donut shop, which happens to have the best donuts on the planet.

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, square slice of pizza, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8:30pm, modified Chinese Brick, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Ordered a shrimp n' broccoli combo plate, instead of the usual lomein. It must be the economy, because the price was the same, but the egg roll was smaller, and the brick-like shape of the container was now round, and a good half pound lighter than the old container.

Plating (Burn, Baby, Burn!)

Unlike our other chefs, who either encouraged us to chill before class started or set up the room, Chef K encouraged us to get to work as early as we arrive. Our team all arrived early, and Stalker Kowalski and I began on the mire poix for our braised shortribs, while Squarehead took on the Foi Gras Butter and Dirty Dave trimmed fat from the ribs.

The ribs would eventually be served with soft polenta & roasted garlic puree, sweet and sour turnips. Other teams were assembling the mise for an appetizer of sea scallop carpaccio with grapefruit vinaigrette, baby mizuna salad and tobiko, and and the other entree of grilled poussin (baby chicken) with mousseline potaqtoes and carrots vichy.

The braise took a few hours, so we had to get it into the convection oven first thing. SK browned the mirepoix in one pan, and I browned the seasoned & salted ribs in another. I cranked the heat high to get a good sear going, and went well for the first three minutes -- the blink of an eye it went from deep delicious golden brown to carbony burnt. Whuh? First time I really screwed the pooch in class, and it happened so fast. Fortunately DD was able to salvage the meat by slicing off some of the black.

Wrapped 6 heads of garlic in foil after slicing the tops off, dressed in olive oil and salt, into the oven for an hour, came out perfect. Passed the cloves through a tami, kind of like a drum with a fine mesh attached, to make it a smooth puree without making it gummy, like what a food processor would do. Polenta cooked up quick with chicken stock and milk, finished with cream, butter and the garlic.

Bored, nothing to do after cleaning up our small mess, I quizzed Chef K on how to make shapes with polenta -- simple, just set in the fridge. We took a pan, filled it with a half inch, stuck in the freezer, then cut rounds that we then sauteed to make a nice contrast with the similarly shaped turnips. While sauteing a test in butter, the butter burned. Chef K comes up and makes the observation that I tend to overcook things. I said, no, just today, and DD came to my defense that today was out of character for me. I want to respect our Chef, but I just felt slightly annoyed by her lazy observation. Still, our braised ribs came out superbly, and our polenta was given high complements by Chef K.

Plating the scallops were a bit difficult, due to the sloppy slicing, reportedly done by Dora the Explorer according to her team. The first time I plated it looked a bit circusy, and I tried to wipe up the excesses of oils and roe and start over, and made a big mess -- designing on a computer, I can wipe the slate clean early on a couple of times, exploring all the wrong ways before getting it right. With a plate of food, wiping it clean is a big pain in the ass. So I did it twice, much happier than the first plate.

I browned a piece of pouisson, but the skin was already torn and the leg misshapen. Still, the pan sauce came out nice and thick and the plating not so tricky. With the ribs, the meat had to be put down first to help blockade the soft polenta, or the polenta would just stretch out over everywhere.

On a side note, DtE decided to label her equipment with nail polish, as she has had a hard time keeping track of her stuff. It's a substance that will chip and toxify food. Being that her poorly-made (and now potentially toxic) food is being shared with the entire class, I will be speaking to Chef K first thing tomorrow. If there is no action taken, I will move up the chain of command until things are made well. Oh, the drama!

ADDENDA:
Got a full 8 hours of sleep last night, but feeling run down and unfocused -- hence the burned meat. Cancelled biking plans and just took it easy and went to bed early. Watched a DVD of the German film, "Mostly Martha", on which the American Catherine Zeta-Jones vehicle, "No Reservations" was based. In the German version, when the whimisical sous chef comes over to the chef's house to charm her and her neice, he makes a very lush Mediteranean-influenced Italian meal, centered on pasta, with grilled eggplant, marinated vegetables and other colorful little dishes. In the American version, the whimsical sous chef comes over and makes....pizza. Damn bet your bibby!

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, organic cheerios with good milk, banana, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM TASTINGS: 10-11am, mashed potatoes with braising liquid, garlic polenta, a bite of braised short ribs, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM WATERING: 12:30am, quart of seltzer

LUNCH: 3:30pm, large green salad, 2 pretzels, ramakin of homemade mint chip ice cream, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, homemade pizza, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Old dough and sauce in the freezer. Mozz looking a bit moldy, cut off the blue and added some grated parm, through on some slices of red onions from the farmer's market. As I stretched the dough with my fists, the whole spinning-the-pizza-to-stretch-the-dough thing kinda clicked, what an efficient and fast way to evenly stretch the dough while making it perfectly round. I gotta get that technique down.

Plating (Sauce like yo first boyfriend: Broke, Ugly and Bad Taste)

Today we met Chef K, a short woman with nice glasses and a slight Lawn Guyland accent. It's too early to make any judgements, but first impression is that she's going to take it way too easy on us. In her introduction, she stressed the usual stuff -- timeliness, orderliness, prep your mise in proper order, clean up, wash your hands, etc. Her lecture had a lot more rigor than Chef C's, though not at the level of Chef M.

Chef K reviewed the basics of plating balance -- you eat with your eyes before you eat with your mouth. Balance in color, texture and flavors; create unity in theme with one focal-point on the plate; and flow, which she described as use of negative space, movement and some concept of design I didn't quite follow (despite working as a designer for the past 10 years or so). Chef K topped it with less is more, a concept I can definitely get behind.

Today's menu had a thousand ingredients with a lot of fussy moving parts. After introductions and lecture, we were down an hour. First up is an appetizer of sauteed arctic char with citrus vinaigrette, Mediterranean salad and Fines Herbes Oil. Second up was an entrée of sautéed quail breasts with sweetbread marmalade, macedoine of vegetables and foie gras bread pudding. Finally, the last dish was farm-raised venison medallions with chestnut-redwine reduction sauce, butternut squash and pine nut relish and sauteed wild mushrooms.

Chef K broke us up into three groups, and my team consisted of Dirty Dave, Stalker Koslowski, and Squarehead. Three mid-to-late 30 yr-olds and an 18-yr-old kid, all male. We (well, I) named us the He-Man Woman-Hater's Club. Chef K also broke up the menu -- our group did only the Venison Medalions for the entire class, each group would cook their own proteins and plate with other people's mise.

DD rocked out on the huge deer tenderloin, SH did the butternut relish, SK chopped a whole mess of mushrooms, and I cooked up chestnut-red wine compound butter for another group to make sauce for everyone. Took a pound of peeled chestnuts, carmelized them with sugar, wine, and vinegar to dry, then added a lot of wine and vinegar and reduced again to dry. Blended that mess in a robocoup with butter, porcini powder and salt, rolled into tubes and stuck in icewater to make solid.

We had about 30 minutes to clean up and chill before we could fire up the proteins, which cooked pretty quickly. Everyone distributed mise to the other groups, fired up the meats, and plated, as the Chef went around and commented. I got compliments for swirling my fine-herbs oil with my vinaigrette on my arctic char. My quail and venison were ruined by an ugly, bad tasting sauce which used my compound butter....

During the class, Chef K spent a lot of time with Dora the Explorer, keeping her on track to make the sauce which would be plated with everyone's quail and venison. Unfortunately, despite Chef K's extra attention, the sauce was watery, broken (oil separating) and tasted bad. Two thirds of the day's work was made ugly by one person's incompetence. Then again, to be honest, my two plates were pretty ugly without the sauce, but I feel like I'm still playing with the software, doing simple mistakes before I go make some....big mistakes!

Tomorrow, more fussiness.

ADDENDA:
Took E to Mercer Kitchen to celebrate her new job and pay bump. When our dishes came out, I couldn't help but critique the plating of each entrée. B's chicken with mashed potatoes and string beans was almost perfect, except for a bit of potatoes a little too far up the rim. E's duck was a bit crowded with a poofy salad, wild rice and a veg, needed a bigger plate or smaller portions. My pork cutlet was totally covered by some foofy microgreen, so if I didn't know any better, it was a salad. The pork was drenched in vinaigrette, which was a bummer. And the garnish, a wedge of lemon (which was totally unnecessary) was at the bottom of the plate closest to me....it just seemed off.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, large piece of watermelon, 1.5 bowls, hunger 3/5

AM TASTINGS: 11am, arctic char, small piece of quail, foie gras bread pudding, sauteed venison with sauteed mushrooms, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2:30pm, apple-cream cheese crumble cake thing, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
On break at God's Love.

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, small ramekin of mint icecream, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Craving it.

DINNER: 7pm, bread rolls & olive oil, half a tiny pizza, shrimp & avocado salad, pork milanese with wild rice, molten chocolate cake, 1 glass sake, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

Plating (Mm-kay?)

Today's class was held by Chef A, who was filling in for just one day before our Mod 3 chef is introduced. Chef A had a very brusque voice for a woman, and ended almost every sentence with a hearty, "mmm-kay?". Those without got an, "awwwl-right!" She spent ten minutes reviewing the basics of plating and presentation.

There are five general factors of plate design:

• Balance: a variety with contrasts that please; the factor that applies to the 4 other factors.
• Color: Two or three colors on a plate are more interesting than one. A plate of three all-white foods are not necessarily appetizing.
• Shape: A variety of shapes give interest. Meatballs, brussels sprouts and new potatoes on a plate are great colors, but shape-wise are a bit like a bin of golf-balls.
• Texture: Crispy matched to a puree, a firm meat to a soft veg.
• Flavor: Avoid conflicting or jarring flavors. A full understanding of flavor design comes from experience.

Chef A spoke of a variety of presentations, from classic (main item in front at bottom of plate with bone, if any, facing away from customer, vegetables and starches to the rear) to options involving piling things in the center, with concentric rings of sauces and garnishes. Looking through the class notes, they list 9 ways of plating, including "asymmetrical or random-looking", which notes, "These often create the impression that no thought was given to design. Of course, to be effective these arrangements must be carefully thought out in advance." The gastronomical equivalent of the "Bed Head" hairstyle, huh?

Certain rules, some of which we've picked up from Chefs M and C, apply: keep food off the rim of the plate -- garnishing the rim with chopped parsley is very '80s and now quite cheesy, proclaimed Chef A. Arrangements should suit the convenience of the customer. Leave space between items. Garnish should have meaning, doing a little more than just decorating; it should also help with the contrasts, the flavors, the balance, etc. Hot plates for hot food, cold plates for cold food. And finally, keep it simple -- if it's so cute, contrived and/or complicated that the customer is afraid to eat it, you're either a failing student or Wylie Dufresnie.

Simple our recipes today were not. Today's menu was an appetizer of tuna carpaccio with horseradish mayonnaise, micro-greens and fried capers, an entree of sauteed sea scallops with parsnip sauce, braised cabbage chiffonade and pommes maxime, and another entrée of sautéed halibut with warm vinaigrette. Each plate consisted of multiple recipes, some with more ingredients than we've seen yet. Chef A let us gravitate into three groups, and the Wonder Team came forth: Dirties Kim and Dave, the Long Island Lolita and a fourth with whom I've not had a chance to work yet, Stalker Kowalski (named because his management teacher made a crack about him looking like a stalker on the first day of class -- he's actually a very nice fellow).

DK and SK took the tuna carpaccio and presented it two ways, one way on plate in thin pounded slices with the recipe's mayo, and as a chopped up tartare, marinated with soy, brown sugar, orange zest, and garnished with a stick of deep-fried and breaded anchovy and served in a wine glass. LIL took on the halibut, which was a simple sautée, but whose warm vinaigrette involved a million ingredients, including white and green asparagi and artichoke hearts.

DD and I took on the scallop dish. DD took over the braised cabbage, while I assembled and cooked the parsnip sauce. How-to: Sweat-shop parsnips, onions and garlic in butter, deglaze with vinegar and white wine, simmer in chicken stock for 30 minutes. Purée to smooth, finish with whole butter and bacon fat (left from the cabbage recipe) just lightly pulsed in. I added extra butter and bacon fat to give a nice rounder taste, and salted to taste.

Pommes Maxim: Start with cutting a potato into a tube shape by slicing it thin on a mandolin, coating in melted clarified butter and salt, arranging in a tight overlapping round on a silicone mat, then roasting until crisp (flipping once). To change it up, I added minced garlic and garnished with chopped dill -- a plate with white/browned scallops, white/browned potatoes, and white/brown (from the bacon lardons) cabbage? Not the most interesting color combos; the dill was desperately needed.

DD and I sautéeed the scallops together, and they came out beautifully. Chef A was explicit in that everyone were to present all the dishes at once at 11am. We had our plates on the table at 10:58. The other teams got to table at 11:05, one not till 10 after. Unlike our previous instructors, Chef A called out which ones were the best -- DK's tuna tartare was top-rated, as was my parsnip sauce.

Tomorrow, we meet our new Chef, and venture further into plate design with even fussier recipes.

ADDENDA:
We were in a different kitchen today due to another class taking over ours for an all-day cookathon that leads up to their graduation grand-buffet. Outside of our classroom was a soda-machine. I could not resist the grape soda, except for when I was drinking it -- Welch's, all acidy and fake. I need to make good grape soda at home.

Made fresh mint-dark chocolate chip ice cream at home today. Oh my. I remember buying mint chip Hagen Daazs for B when we were dating. If I brought this to her when we were dating, she probably would of married me a year earlier! So good makes ya wanna smack yo momma.

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Good yogurt, good milk, organic banana, grapes, cherries, blueberries, freshly ground flaxseed.

AM TASTINGS: 11am, Sauteed scallops, halibut, tuna tartar, braised cabbage, pommes maxim, grape soda, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

PM WATERING: 12:30pm, quart of seltzer

PM SNACK: 2pm, a few spoonfuls of fresh mint-dark chocolate ice cream, .25 bowls, hunger 4/5
I should be eating salad, I know.

PM SNACK: 7:15pm, popcorn, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 9:30pm, hotdog, fries, beer, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
A rare boy's night out for me. We hadda eat boy-food! We hadda!

Lecture (Keepin' It Real)

Sorry, no amateur food porn today -- class today was all lecture, given by a nice woman I'll call Darla. The subject was the business of food, and the jobs (and salaries) we could expect to encounter when we leave the ever-loving arms of academia. Darla started off by talking about herself, which concerned me for a moment -- is this going to be some sort of weird self-help guru thing?



No, Darla was actually really interesting and well-spoken. Darla was in publishing until she got bored to tears, went to a similar culinary school, and did some hard time on the line in a few kitchens before finding herself burning out. Because she was a bit older than the other line cooks, she had the maturity to, well, show up and be on time and be dependable. When she informed her boss/chef she was at the end of her tether, she found herself managing the kitchen, which lead to managing all sorts of interesting posts. When she gave a tour of a high-visibility burger shack she was managing to a class from our school, some one had the good sense to give her a more regular podium.

Darla went around the room and asked for people's short- and long-term goals. I told her that mine were to work in a pizza-oriented kitchen; long-term, to bring a product to market. She immediately name-checked a pizza joint I was thinking of approaching for an externship soon, which was eerie. Darla spoke of salaries in the food biz, particularly how poorly and potentially unfairly linecooks tend to be compensated. She reviewed the pitfalls of running a restaurant, and offered a basic sketch of the deceptively simple logic of relatively few revenue streams (the food) and the many expenses (food, labor, rent, insurance, licenses, publicity, linens, licenses, disposables, etc etc); not to mention how expenses are especially screwy in today's economy.

Still fuzzy on what I want to do for the rest of my life, but feel like I just got another good link added to my chain mail.

ADDENDA:
I was surprised this morning to find the scale reading 222, after it reading 224 for several months after an easy drop from 235. I know it's going to annoy some people, but I can't help but think it's simply from eating too little and sleeping too much this past weekend, and it'll be back in a flash once I get back into the normal groove of things.

I went to yoga for a 6:45 class. 100 people shoved mat-to-mat in a small room, way too hot. If I was in a cubicle all day, why would I shove myself onto a packed subway to make it to a sardine-can yoga class? Total insanity, all those people must be spending extra money on therapists. After the first 20 minutes, I walked out and got a refund. I guess I'm really lucky to have a non-9 to 5 grind right now, definitely going to stick to afternoon classes and other less trafficked yogathons.

The organic carrots in my salad looked young, and they have a very tingly, vaguely unpleasant flavor to them.

After stopping by Laboratorio de Gelato on Orchard St., I picked up ingredients to make fresh mint ice cream this evening. Just taking my vanilla ice cream recipe, quartering the vanilla, and instead of just heating half & half to a simmer, I plan to place a few cups of mint leaves in the half & half and let them steep for 30 minutes off the heat. Hopefully it'll be good, we'll know tomorrow. My first stab at a flavored ice cream that's not chocolate or involving an extract.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, organic cornflakes with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10am, handful of peanuts, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1pm, veg, shrimp and pork dumplings, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

LUNCH #2: 3pm, large green salad, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 3/5
Fresh from the green market.

PM SNACK: 6pm, 8oz of 3 flavors of gelato, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
On the way to yoga, so hot and having a sugar craving -- guess I didn't eat enough. Makes me want to make my own.

DINNER: 7:30pm, seitan, quinoa, seaweed stuff and tahini dressing, water, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Vegan food at the yoga studio with the HVS.

Weekend Report (Four Day Nap)

Saw this scale for sale on the Lower East Side -- who wants to stand on an evilly grinning humanimal-chef holding a plate of food while you weight yourself?

Had a very low-key extended weekend, where I ended up squashing a lot of plans so I just could sleep a lot. Thursday, tried to ride the bike in the morning but got 10 miles up the west side and turned back, too tired. Ended up going out to lunch then the movies before assisting in a rec class. Friday stayed indoors all day, road bikes to B's mom until she blew a flat. Had a nice dinner on the UES then fell asleep during the fireworks. Bleh. Saturday was supposed to go out to Ikea but felt flat, fell asleep and slept most of the day till B dragged me out to fancy dinner. Sunday's bike ride was cancelled due to suspicious weather and ended up spending most of the day in a movie theater with B and the HVS.

Looking forward to getting back to school and getting a groove on.

THURSDAY
BREAKFAST: 7am, homemade pancakes, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Holy crap. The pancakes in school were better. Mine came out a little dry, a tad tough and a little bland. Gotta do a rethink. Funny, these were the most rocking things compared to crappy mixes. Now that I made them quasi-professionally, they taste all wrong.

AM SNACK: 11am, carrots, cucumber, and red pepper, school made hazelnut vinegarette, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:45pm, mixed gluten, mashed taro treasure boxes, steamed gelatinous rice wrapped in lotus lead, mini spring rolls, mock-shrimp dumplings, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

Stuffed myself at the Vegetarian Dim Sum House, as dinner will be steak-a-tho

DINNER: 9pm, grilled skirt steak marinated in red wine mojo with orange salsa, crab cakes, tomato and onions with steak sauce, German style hash browns, mushroom gravy, baked alaska, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Rec-class dinner, a whole lotta fun bringing 5 members of the public through a few recipes. Replaced veg oil in the hashbrowns with clarified butter, brought them to a whole new level of deliciousness.

FRIDAY
BREAKFAST: 8:30am, good yogurt with honey, cashews, vanilla, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11am, spoonful of good peanut butter topped with dark chocolate chips, hunger 4/5
I think my body is ready for a tasting.

PM SNACK: 12:45pm, boca burger on wholewheat with kimchi, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Wifey is taking an epic amount of time to get ready to go out to lunch, I'm forced to graze through our woefully understocked kitchen. Chef jokes that coffee should be the 6th mother sauce -- wrong, it should be kimchi. Deeeelicious!

LUNCH: 2pm, homemade pizza, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, onion gratinee soup, sauteed skate with haricot vertes and hazelnuts, small dish of vanilla ice cream, bread & butter, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
French food on the UES with B and her momma.

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, small amount of chocolate frozen yogurt, hunger 3/5
Yuck!!! The consistency is right, but overly sweet and has an aftertaste of spoiled milk. Who the hell eats this crap? The brand proclaims 'all-organic', but there are something like 7 fillers, gums and stabilizers added in to get the right consistency. Yeesh.

SATURDAY
BREAKFAST: 7:30am, organic cheerios with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

LUNCH: 2pm, pasta with butter, garlic and glace de viande, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Oversalted the water, the sauce was kinda gross without some wine to reduce in and balance it.

DINNER: 7pm, beef tataki, lobster with corn in a light butter sauce, various gourmet breads, half a glass of prosecco, half a small choco-peanut butter desserty thing, 2 bowls, hunger 3/5
Excellent dinner at Commerce. Dessert had a small bit of celery sorbet that was a weird but wonderful flavor complement to the chocolate and peanut butter.

SUNDAY
BREAKFAST: 6:30am, good granola with good yogurt, banana, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM-PM SNACKS: 10:30-2:30am, wholewheat sesame pretzels, dark chocolate pieces, agave-cashew vegan ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
B, the HVS and I spent the morning and afternoon at the movies, snacking on vegan treats to get us through.

DINNER: 4:30pm, vegan pizza, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Earthmother pie at 2boots.

EVENING SNACK: 10:30pm, peanutbutter and pretzels, boca burger on whole wheat with kimchi, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5