nam nam nam.

Written Sunday, June 12, 2011

Let's talk about food.

During a typical day (although as an HD, I'm not sure there is such thing as a typical day), I am hungry. I don't purposefully avoid the dining hall for breakfast, I just prefer to sleep in as late as I can, roll out of bed and shuffle to my office half-awake with a cup a tea (and usually a cardigan, shout out to Adam Reigle). I usually don't schedule office hours during lunch, but something ineviably comes up, unless it's a day when Shandee pesters me (in a good way) to eat with her, probably more to my benefit than hers. I'm pretty good at eating dinner after 3pm classes, but even that sometimes doesn't happen. But I always enjoy Tuesday night dinners with Dan and Sha'Donna, a staple in my week.

When I do eat well, like when I'm at home in NJ, I'm like a bird-scavenger. I'll eat a few blueberries and half a banana for breakfast (I can never eat a whole one, I don't know why). An hour later, maybe I'll consume a bowl of cereal without milk. I like to splurge on lunch and eat a sub or a few slices of Peter's Pizza. My father usually cooks delicious, filling dinners and we eat as a family. And a couple hours later, I'm back to scavenging the fridge for a late evening snack. I consider this healthy eating.

Yesterday, all of that changed. At 1pm, Beatriz served the main meal of the day. It started with homemade soup and bread, followed by a plate full of chicken, potatoes, a light vegetble salad and fried yucca and zucchini. On a regular day, the vegetable salad and a potato would have sufficed for my meal; I thought, "There's no way I'm going to be able to eat all of this." And I was right. I only left one potato and a little bit of chicken, and I felt terrible about it. I toyed with the idea of telling her that I can't possibly eat that much at once, but I didn't, for two reasons. When I think about it, it's probably a little more than the amount a of food I should be eating in one day. And if I didn't eat it all, my stomach would probaby be wondering where it's evening snack was. Secondly, next week, once my body has adjusted to the altitude, I'm going to start training for my November Birthday Race (I've decided that how I'm going to refer to the NYC Marathon. It sounds more festive and something to really look forward to), and I'm going to need lots of fuel.

So I came up with a two-fold strategy to eat successfully. First, avoid the bread with the soup. Easy enough. Secondly, eat the heavier or less-delicious food on my plate first. Today, I ate the potato and steak first, and saved the rice, carrot and raisin salad thing, and fried egg. I can stomach some rice and eggs when I'm full, but there's no way I can finish off potatos and steak if I feel like I've already eaten a full meal.

Aside from the food, dinner conversation was a little different today, as Gonzalo asked me where Jimmy Carter was born, and how many eggs and chickens are consumed in the United States every day.

High & Low:

The Low of my day was not being able to understand everything at dinner. I have to concentrate so hard and dissect every word that Beatriz and Gonzalo are saying, put it back together in my head, and hope that what I come up with makes sense and is correct. Just listeing is very arduous. I'm excited for the day when things come more easily.

The best moment of my day was during mass. I went alone, and during the Our Father, found a tiny Bolivian hand in each of my hands, from a nino on either side of me. It was precious, and I'm crying just thinking about it.

Love and little boys juggling in the streets,
Kathleen