The Girl Who Ate Everything

I usually try to write well though-out entries, but I think I'll just lay down what I've been eaten lately.

...wait, that's what I usually do. HA HA! HAAA oh, my stomach.

U.S. Food Policy made an interesting post about school lunches. The bit about France describing school lunches as "adult menus served in child-size portions" made me want to cry. If you're American you'll well aware that public instutions for the most part, whether schools or, even worse in my opinion, hospitals, are known for having craptastic food. It's nice to hear about schools getting rid of soda and snack machines and replacing them with water and milk (er, depends what kind of milk), but it's...I dunno. More than that. I guess you can't just do the "adult menu" thing in American considering that a lot of adults probably don't eat well either, but...um.

I wish I lived in France, for more than one reason, the other reasons being bread and chocolate. Those are valid reasons, yes? I suppose I'd end up fat.

Sparkling yogurt! Er. Interesting? I've had yogurt drinks before and they were okay, but why carbonated? Is that the only way we can reach kids? Mango lassi, anyone? :) While the article says that carbonation isn't necessarily bad and that it has negative connotations due to being used mainly in soda (not to sound snooty, but I could down a lot of Pellegrino in one shot...at the expensive of burping for ages afterwards), I heard that it does have bad health effects on it's own (I don't drink Pellegrino...much). But whatever. I'd rather just eat yogurt. And I do.

foooood

On Sunday I woke up to the sound of India music from outside my window. I remembered walking in on an Indian festival last year; was it that time again already?

piles of food

Yeeeeup. I don't know if this has an official name, but I call it "the Indian festival with lots of food". Damn, Indian food is good. I didn't know what was the best thing to get, so I just went for what was cheap; a $5 set of chicken and rice with two vegetable sides of vegetable dumpling and lentils, with a piece of naan.

supper

Alright, not great or bad. It's better than most festival food, eh? At least it's not sausages and various deep fried substances because then I'd have to have found another food source farther away, because this festival was literally right outside my door. Water Street was blocked off from Fulton Street and down.

I didn't eat anything for the rest of the day besides a peach because I got to stand for 6 hours and see a concert. It was good. I did some sweating which hopefully translated tothe burning of some calories after eating that chocolate bar the other day. I think I gained some weight, but my pants still fit. HOORAH. NOW I CAN CELEBRATE BECAUSE MY PANTS FIT.

Today was a more indulgent day, although I did do some sweating. However, the first red flag was when at work, I sat in what felt like a perpetual state of wheezy lung syndrome, aka asthma. Thankfully there wasn't anyone sitting near me or they would've thought I was Darth Vader's small, Asian relative. While I contemplated a quick snack for lunch from a nearby bakery, I realized the wheat products had to go.

[insert sad black and qhite montage of bread]

So for today at least, I cut out wheat. However, I kept in the rice, figuring that without rice I'd resort to nuts, which could be worse than rice, or at the very least more expensive. I skipped lunch and after going to the Greenmarket after my Essentials of Cuisine class (in which we discussed Chinese food, hence...something coming up) where I bought apples, onions, and potatoes, I headed towards Chinatown with a backpack full of produce. And a book. The craving for Chinese food came from my class, which makes me feel less and less Chinese the more I learn about Chinese food. I didn't even know what province my family came from since my parents are from Taiwan and while I call myself Chinese, I'd say my parents are from Taiwan cos...well, they are. I've never been to China (although I wouldn't mind) and I'm sure Taiwan is pretty different from China, aside from the cities maybe. But I don't know.

Since I couldn't eat wheat, I looked out for rice things. Rice. Rice rice rice, the most central, important, symbolic Chinese food, which I can eat copious amounts of. I first went to a bakery on Grand Street to get a sweet mango rice ball and then planned on checking out May May, the dim sum store, since I've never tried any of their food before, but instead I saw some zhong zi sitting on Sun Dou Dumpling Shop's open counter.

Zhong zi: the perfect meal (or a really good one; something more like cake would be my perfect meal), in the shape of a triangle-esque shape, sticky rice surrounding peanuts, pork, and/or egg yolk and wrapped in bamboo leaves. It's one of my favorite foods yet I rarely eat it. I'm sure I've eaten it less than five times this year and it's not something you should eat a lot since each one probably encapsulates a certain fatty, glutinous rice doom.

...however, I've never tried the vietnamese ones, or rather, any of the rice based desserts from the Vietnamese deli. I might just have to do that tomorrow.

Oh, what did I eat? When I got back to my dorm between 4-5PM, I scarfed down a delicious white peach, sauteed green beans and chopped red onion for what ended up being really good sweet onions (screw the green beans, just gimme onions!), the entire zhong zi (despite taht I thought I'd just eat half), an apple, and the rice ball.

It's a lot. Dude. (sigh)

I suppose I can skip lunch tomorrow too, or bring an apple.