laniloa

Ratatouille with my haul from the farmers market. The markets I've found around here are really small --- 5-7 vendor small. Gotta keep checking out different markets until I find a decent one. The local peaches are just starting and they are mighty juicy and sweet.

It is a great feeling. I'm going to be stuck wearing too-big-for-me clothes for longer then I'd like since I've got a tight budget right now, but I figure that will just make the eventual shopping more fun. This thread has been a great, easy way to keep motivated. The kind words and support from everyone have been wonderful.I need to clear some time to get to bigger farmers markets. The tiny one on campus doesn't have the greatest selection and is a little pricy. Raspberries and blueberries will be around for a few more weeks and the peaches and tomatos are just starting to look good. Next summer I want to do a long road trip that follows the summer bounty and get a few extra weeks of all the good stuff!

Blueberries picked this morning and brought to campus by the very considerate farmers who show up at the market just to make us happy!

The scale this morning showed no loss over the week and I was a little bummed until I put on a pair of pants I hadn't worn in a while and saw that they were swimming on me. They are the start of my donation pile.

Congratulations! I admire your determination to see it through the longer time period. Here's to keeping it off!

I'm not sure myself. It was better then ants, but that isn't saying much.

Seahorses aren't shellfish, they are finsfish, so I wouldn't expect this to be a problem. Unless for some reason people with shellfish allergies are more prone to seahorse allergies. I've eaten one. I remember it was crunchy and that was about it.

I come from a long line of ice cream eaters. I will eat it until I feel sick but am also perfectly satisfied with a single scoop if that is the serving. If I have dish it out from a pint, consider that pint history. This has been fairly simple to handle by sticking to getting my fix at an ice cream store. More expensive this way, but that also helps moderate. My new problem food are pita chips. I haven't found an effective control for them and it is a horrible feedback loop. Get pita chips to go with hummus or chicken salad for lunch. Eat normal size portion of hummus or chicken salad but most of the bag of chips. Run out of pita chips before chicken salad. Buy more chips.

I think I may finally be on the right track with my new orthotics. I worked with a great guy at a local store to pick new sneakers. I cut the insoles to fit the orthotics and I no longer feel like I'm walking on the side of my feet. I'm adding some time and distance each day. Walking has always been my favorite type of aerobic exercise and with so much around town walking each day, I may need to find another exercise and give my feet a break. Anyway, school has started and I've gotten into more of a cooking and packing lunch routine. Combine that with my daily commute and I dropped 3.8 pounds in the last two weeks!!!

I've hit Berryline (1 Arrow St, Cambridge) twice so far. It is a Pinkberry-type-yogurt place. I didn't love the blackberry I had the other day, but the original with strawberries I had tonight was excellent. The light tang of the yogurt was set off by the sweet fruit without the fruit being too sweet. My dining companion got a candy topping and thought it was too much.

Many have mentioned using King Arthur flour in other threads but I had a chance today to visit the King Arthur store in Norwich, Vermont. As expected, it was the catalog come to life. They are re-doing the floor tomorrow so had a sale with 10-60% off everything. Having just moved, I had a pantry to fill and am now ready to bake. They had a lot of very knowledgeable staff on the floor and one woman spent about 20 minutes going through the various bread enhancers they sell, giving me recipes and helping me find things that would be truly useful for what I'm likely to bake vs what just sounded cool to play with. It was also good to be able to check out the gadgets in person. They have sales quarterly - the next one at the end of August - so if you can time your visit to a sale or a class in their education center you get an extra bonus.

Sunday night after the movers left at 7:30, I needed to fortify myself before attacking the unpacking and, unfortunately, documenting the damage to my stuff. I went a few doors down to the Garden at the Cellar (Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge). This is a self-proclaimed gastropub and the young chef's father runs an herb farm in Groton that also has weekend tasting menu dinners. I met one of the herb farm staff at the campus farmers market and was looking forward to trying this place I'd walked passed daily without really noticing it. I sat at the bar and got the soup and salad -- a pea shoot salad lightly dressed with a hit of mustard and pea soup with pork rillettes. Maybe because it is summer, I expected a chilled soup and was surprised when it was hot. It was very rich and the salad was a good complement but I found it a bit too much. With a Magner's cider and tax and tip I had a refreshing dinner for $14. They have an extensive bar menu with many options for a good, reasonably priced meal. Last night, I met up with some classmates for drinks and went with a few to the regional Indian restaurant Tanjore (18 Eliot St, Cambridge, right in Harvard Square) afterwards for dinner. The four of us split samosas and chaat papri appetizers, 2 orders of naan, and mains of lamb masala, baigan bhurta, and chicken chettinad. The standout for me was the chicken as coconut curries are my favorite. The eggplant was a little bland and the one disappointment. With one beer and one mango lassi it came to $20 per person including tax and tip. I'm enjoying being back in a college area where there are multiple decent dining choices that won't break a student's budget.

Got some excellent positive reinforcement today. Saw someone I hadn't seen since before I moved. I told her that I was exploring the new town, walking all over. She commented that the walking really shows.

My stuff has FINALLY arrived. I've done some unpacking and the kitchen in my tiny apartment is going to be a bigger challenge then I first thought. Get this, the cabinets are so narrow that even a salad plate is too wide to fit in them. I go to NY tomorrow to get my orthotics checked and I figure by Friday I will have sorted out enough boxes to be able to cook. I'm walking several miles every day but more roaming then exercising. My back isn't ready for full on exercise so I'm doing what I can. I can walk much further/longer now then I could 3 weeks ago. The newly unpacked scale shows another 2 pounds gone. Not as much as I'd hoped when I started this project but much better then I expected considering the injury and lack of kitchen.

I am definitely enjoying being in Whole Foods territory again. I have one that is a manageable walk from my apartment but it is convenience store size and just too claustrophobic. A short distance away is a regular store and a little further is a large store. They have a fair amount of local produce, proudly displayed. Puzzling is the lack of local options for other readily available produce considering this display. One example is the local blueberries are fantastic right now (went berry picking earlier in the week) but they have FL berries in the stores. At first I thought I wouldn't do a lot of shopping here because of price and the whole unemployed student thing, but then the radio spots highlighting the cost savings caught my attention. After I had a good chuckle, I took note of produce prices compared to the regular market and saw they weren't that different, sometimes higher, sometimes even, and sometimes lower with most things just looking better.

Went to Wagamama last night and was unimpressed. I had the very bland ginger chicken udon. Only the barest hint that someone had waved some ginger near the plate. Friend had miso ramen and it was also way underseasoned. Given the price, I'll be exploring the many other cheaper noodle options in the area before considering going back.

Had a really enjoyable dinner with some cousins at Stella in South Boston tonight. This was a busy place and packed the entire time we were there with plenty of pretty people at the bar and very loud music. They advertise as being affordable chic Italian. They claim to be in SoWA but I just can't bring myself to say it out loud because that sounds like someone slurring so what? and that just doesn't seem like great marketing. But I digress. A nice summery salad of arugula and endive lightly dressed with a lemon vinaigrette to start. I followed this with a plate of the largest gnocchi I have ever seen. More then twice the size of your typical gnocchi. I was afraid they'd be heavy but they were light, creamy, with a hint of a crust where they'd been sauteed with tomatos and basil for a hint of a sauce. My cousin raved about her swordfish and her husband was very happy with his tagliatelle bolognese. Only complaint of the night was a small service issue -- it took three requests for butter for our bread. Very enjoyable, not too pricey for the area and an overall good dinner.

The next bin over had pluots so this was another version of the plum-apricot hybrid I suspect. A very welcome one!

I also had the best apricot I've ever had today. It was a black velvet apricot and had a purple skin and light yellow flesh. Super sweet and great almost creamy texture. Had never seen this variety before but I'll be going back to the store tomorrow to pick up more.

Thanks! I have done stints of yoga a few times in the past. I didn't notice a big difference with my back but it did help a lot with my legs as I have tight hamstrings and achilles (part of the wacky wiring that lead me to orthotics). I'll check and see what is offered at school. With all of the walking I'll be doing, yoga could be a great idea. As excited as I was to get my new orthotics, they just aren't doing it for me. I have to go back and get the fit checked in a couple of weeks and I'll talk to the doctor about my unhappiness with them. I don't know if I just need to give it more time to get used to a new type, if the new type is just not the thing for me, or if they need to be adjusted. I've been doing a lot of walking and have resorted to carrying my old ones with me and switching back to them when I've had it with the new ones. But the good news is that I'm still walking anyway and while my back is stiff, I'm not in pain. Not fast exercise walking, more of an increase in general activity level. A last minute change from watching the fireworks on the roof to walking down to the river added an unexpected 2.5 miles to my day and I just did it without thinking. I just didn't do that in Tallahassee.

Stopped by Pepe's in Manchester for lunch yesterday. Had a small pie with sausage. It was good, perhaps very good, but not worth altering my travel plans in the future so I hit the area around lunch time. There was good char on the bottom but the edges were bordering on burnt. The middle was a little too soupy. The sausage was excellent but they put just a few really large pieces on so that not every slice had some. It could be expansion issues and if I happen to hit New Haven at meal time, I'll try again. Otherwise, I'll just wait until I get to NY and go to any of the handful of places within 2 miles of my parents that have better pizza.

Toscanini's burnt caramel ice cream.

Been pretty quiet because I hit a major snag shortly after I got to NY. An old back injury had a nasty flare-up. I have no idea what triggered it. It has been an issue on and off over the last 12 years, but usually I get sore or stiff for a day or two and that's that. This time it is painful. I've been hobbling around as best I can but any sort of exercise is out of the question. I can't even walk around for more then half an hour at a clip. I've been watching what I eat but come on, its NY and all of my childhood favorites are in easy reach. It is getting a little better each day but I'm ready to run around and have fun again!

My dad and I always look forward to the typos. Some of them are pretty funny. We still talk about the veal palmigian.

Means grunts like a pig. And they do.