On being fat, part II.

Part II.: The background.

Gentle reader, let me reassure you that I didn't wake up one day, thinking that it would rock to gain some 10 kilos, or even better, 30. I was living my happy, borderline anorexic and severely depressed live (sarcasm), matters were slowly improving until my GP decided that my sick stomach is "just nerves", sent a note to my shrink who started me on some stuff that should work on the psychosomatic symptoms. Well, the antipsychotics didn't do anything about sick stomach as it was some intolerance thingy which resolved after I stopped eating processed meat and dairy. What the meds did was a nice case of false pregnancy. I gained maybe 15 kilos in some three months while having a busy life, walking across Florence and back, taking 8 hours of ballet classes per week and eating mostly fruits and vegetables in less than reasonable amounts.
After some poking and prodding and hearing Well, it may be some hormonal imbalance or brain cancer, young lady, rest assured that we'll find out, it was discovered that it was the meds I didn't need. I tossed them along with the shrink, the weight gain happily remained. I was still in the sorta okay territory, though. However, depression is a bitch and with every epizode that included lying flat and doing nothing, I gained some more. Two and half years ago, I landed in a job which was okay at the beginning, very stressful very soon but at least it was sort of exciting and new and now I'm mostly burnt out, left with severe depression, pretty crushing anxiety, a hefty dose of social phobia and a shitload of guilt for all this, my very mediocre work performance and a few more. I spent the last summer, me, once a passionate hiker and amateur botanist, either working or lying flat and doing nothing much - knitting, sleeping or watching crime shows is not enough to keep one in any sort of shape.

In theory, and as my mother would say, it's all about a lack of good will. If I exercised more and ate less, things would rock in no time. But. I'm a stranger in a small village, I'm a manager of that big building over there, everyone seems to know who I am. I can only run away to the woods, and alas, I don't have time for that. Or maybe I did if I could do my work more efficiently but I just have my limits because I'm pretty much burnt out.
In other words, before one starts randomly accusing all fat people of being gluttons with self-control, well, there may be another thing to it.

The previous bit was written at the beginning of June and remained laid aside to be finished tomorrow or day after tomorrow as on the 6th, two receptionists decided to give their notice and I needed to do the bills and stuff. Did I mention a lot of stress in my job? No? Well, there's a lot of stress that happens without warning so I forgot about half of a blogpost and life limped on.
I had a discussion about my horrendous eating habits with the shrink and he gave me a homework - he likes giving me homeworks, apparently - to stop eating things past their best before just because they're not bad yet but they need to be eaten up or week-old leftovers but, instead, something I actually like. And to try keeping it within the realm of reasonable because, let's be frank, everyone who lived through an eating disorder is a pretty decent nutritionist. I found some food intake tracking thingy that has a bajillion of useless functions and a few annoying bugs but within a few days, I found out that most likely, I don't get enough protein while having too much fat and sugar. And for sedentary people, it's better to gorge on protein instead of the two others. I bought a bucket of quark and well, I eat a lot of quark. Low energy density so I can eat a lot which is important. Give me a head of iceberg lettuce and I'm all happy and full. Give me a dessert of the same energy value and I'll be hungry and frustrated. So, a lot of quark.
At which point I could probably start touting it as a cure-all because without moving much, I lost some three kilos and my GERD almost stopped acting up.

And all fat acceptance aside, if I could choose, I'd prefer to be stick thin, thankyouvery much, and I need to lose some ten kilos so that I'd be able to get a dress made from one length of fabric, not a dress and a lot of leftovers from two lengths. At the end, it may be all about money after all. And now I'm getting ranty so I'll grab those 12 bottles of wine, take them to my den for tasting and to write the goddamn wine list. By the way, do you know how much sugar does wine contain? A lot. And on the top of that, I have some grapes that need to be eaten up...

Winter!

I have certain reservations about autumn. The best one happened in 2010, it was sunny and warm and nice until around the half of November and then it started freezing and snowing and it was generally sunny, cold and snowy until around New year. The fogs and rotting leaves were entirely skipped. 2012 is doing its best, hopefully, as it was nice and sunny until around a week, then it was nasty and foggy but today, we had snow. Yes, some people elicited screams of Holy shit, it's October, no snow should be allowed. The coolest thing? I'm still on my summer dose of anti-depressants and I'm doing excellently well. Anyhow. The other day I went to the botanical garden and noticed a medlar tree. it took quite a bit of search for what to do with them and apparently, medlars have a bad rap. It's said that they're edible only when they're rotten but it's not true, they need to freeze first and then the meat turns brown and can be made into jelly of sorts. Well, the afternoon plan is to go and steal a few kilos of medlars (I hear that the quinces in the university botanical garden are plentiful but I have an insider friend so I'll ask him to bring some.) to see what comes from them. I've recently become more obsessed with food than ever. Since October 1, I'm a restaurant manager. It's cool and scary at the same time and fun stories will follow.

Kitchenless living

Rice can be cooked in the office microwave. A slight problem arose when I wasn't able to locate any salt but miso worked fairly well to make it edible.

I don't eat out because (1) I'm cheap (2) I'm on gluten-free diet. The same reasons exclude various prefabricated food-like things, which are also either awful or made of who knows what. While random rice with random miso is not exactly haute cuisine, I at least know what is it made of.

Kitchen news:
Last week, they delivered our tiles. Upon unpacking, it was discovered that some of them were wall tiles, not floor tiles. Different durability, different dimensions. Dad almost bursted and made the lady in the tile shop cry. (*) Several phone calls later, we were informed that the white tiles are sold out and a new batch will be fired in the second half of 2012 so what now, we need to decide in 20 minutes if we want it delivered within a week or ten days. At the end, the main floor colour will be blue or black, depending on the architect (gotta call her yet for the new design). The tiles should be laid during the weekend and the whole thing should be finished in another week. Or two. Or possibly three.

2x6 minutes in the microwave renders the rice edible but somewhat too hard - I have some generic round grain rice. I have two more weeks to find out how to cook it nicely. Or I'll lose patience and start lunching in the little yet authentic Italian bar downtown.

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(*) I don't really agree with my dad's bouts of loud shouting in general but the same shop took our order, they wanted a deposit, and informed us that our tiles will be there in three weeks. After three and half weeks, when someone started inquiring where the tiles are, they told us that oooops, they are not made anymore and there're none in stock in the Spanish central, and oops, we forgot to check beforehand, and oops, we forgot to tell you. The place needs some common sense. Or some actual management.____

Baking

On Saturday, I got a few pieces of apricot cake from Grandma. Being the pig I am, I ate all four of them although I knew I'll regret later. And I did. I'm not venturing into the fields of TMI (or Too Much Information), let's say that the inner disturbances were somewhat more disturbing and I decided to go really gluten-free.

I haven't mentioned it probably, I'm not coeliac, I just can't stand the gluten thing in larger amounts. Or, well, I won't die but having a nice sandwich or serving of pasta guarantees quality reading time in the bathroom and increased consumption of supersoft toilet paper. No, thanks.

The other day, I got a muffin form, a thing that can serve a dual purpose of baking muffins and feeding ten kittens at a time (not at the same time, obviously), so I took the generic cake dough recipe, substituted wheat flour with lupin flour, threw in a bit of psyllium fibre which gets gooey when wet and glues the thing together. I was also advised to be generous with liquids as the gluten-free flours absorb more of them. The raw dough tasted horrid - try raw legume of your choice and see. I wasn't sure about the whole undertaking so I added two teaspoons of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg each, lots of spices cover up many a botched cooking experiment, formed twelve cups in the muffin form and baked until scorched around the edges (I yet have to refine working with the muffin form). Then I wiped off the scorched bits and poured the baker's cheese-and-sour cream cream into the cups and baked yet for a while until I got bored of waiting. Rest of the dough was mixed with what remained of the cream after my nomming, which made five more yummy thingies.

Yes, yummy thingies. I didn't trust gluten-free baking too much because half of the storebought stuff tasted plastic and the other half was weird and expensive but this was... well, good. The lupin flour dough has nice texture if nothing else.

Problem: I should lose weight. Lots of it. I stopped eating cakes and pastries and stuff because it would make me sick but now I have non-sickening option.

The recipe:
two cups of flour
one cup of sugar
two tablespoons of butter, or more
one egg
one pack of baking powder
some water
fruit or things of one's choice
Mix, if not fluid, add water, pour into a greased baking tray, spread fruits and stuff, bake until done.

The gluten-free version
Two cups of lupin flour
two tablespoons or some such of psyllium fibre
one cup of sugar
two eggs
some butter
one pack of baking powder
some water
whatever topping

Mix until the dough sticks to anything but itself. Force into baking tray, top with topping, bake until done. Could be half an hour at 200°C but it doesn't matter, this is as idiot-proof as it goes in baking.

Pics maybe later, if I catch something not eaten yet.

Om nom nom nom

Prompted by the success of celery pie I baked on Pi day, and that bag of vegetables mysteriously appearing on the countertop yesterday morning, I decided that it's time to start cooking. That my mother's endless line of stews is sorta boring.

The mystery bag (as it was explained later, it contained stuff dad found in the company fridge and nobody claimed it) contained some two kilos of carrots and I thought about making carrot meringues. These require parmesan so I dropped to the cheese shop...

...and my subconscious proved to be ahead of matters again. Yesterday's dream was about a mushrooming trip and yours truly digging for truffles and finding none.

So, I was standing in the queue at the cheese deli with sleeve over my nose because by Gods, it stank there. I'm known for not being able to withstand some smells, I need my blue cheese enclosed within a sandwich to be able to eat it and the smell of garlic is a good method how to get rid of me for half a day - or how to make me throw up. And there it was, on the counter, making a face at me (as far as jars can make faces). Truffle honey. With real truffle floating in it.

I got my chunk of parmesan, some ooh, shiny goat cheese and said truffle honey. The rest of my shift, I'll be busy finding out what's that good for. Or maybe I should do some real work and use a spoon.