Mr. Franck goes grocery shopping...

Experimental cooking night once again!  This one was a surprise though... I was all set to make do with a can of black beans, a grapefruit, and some gluten-free pasta, when all of a sudden Mr. Franck shows up with a backpack fulla veggies and all sorts of random crap.  It felt like Christmas.

Like the assholes we are, we took up the entire kitchen table.  Mwaha.  Everyone knows that you can't experiment without making a mess.  Here's our mess. 

Want a list of ingredients?  Yes, you do.  In no particular order:

- carrots

- mustard seed (still don't know what the heck that is)

- celery

- 4-day-old sliced cucumbers I stole from the dining hall

- black beans

- red pepper

- frozen corn found in the back of my freezer from who-knows-when

- quinoa

- "all-purpose" spice, whatever that means

- pumpkin seeds

- frozen peas

- baby arugala 

Oh, and the best surprise of them all: "cool blue" gatorade.  Because that's the only flavor of gatorade worth drinking, in my opinion.   

The end result was pretty gosh darn good.  We're getting better and better at this experimental thang.  We shared it with everyone who walked by and a good time was had by all.  Stay tuned for the next experimental cooking adventure-- we're already scheming.

GWAPEES.

Howdy, y'all.  Comin' atcha from another Thursday night 3-hour lecture class in which I never ever pay attention.  I do try my darndest to take notes and participate in the discussion, but I can only stay awake so long when we're talking about germline alteration.  The internet is so much more interesting.

Since this is a food blog, I'll talk about what I'm a-snackin' on.  GWAPEES.  Now, lemme tell ya about UVM grapes.  They're great, but they cost an arm and a leg.....and another leg, and your left ear, and your firstborn son.  The little plastic cup pictured below costs a whopping $4.07 points.  What the heck, right?!  An entire BAG of grapes at the grocery store costs like $6 or $7....so why does a little cup cost so much?  I'm outraged!  Ridiculously unhappy!  On the verge of rioting!  Ready to whoop some Marche butt!

I bet you're wondering how I keep surviving this class every week.  Here's a list of fun crap I  stare at on the internet within the duration of this class.

1) Weird shit on Etsy.  Here're some examples:

- Barette made out of a toothbrush.

- Bunk bed made out of a zamboni.

- Peach pit covered in gemstones.

2) "Penguin Cam" from the San Diego Seaworld.  I just watched these boring penguins do absolutely nothing for 20 minutes and I consider that time well-spent.  Go watch those adorable penguins HERE.  (Shout out to Mr. Franck for this wonderful discovery).

3) The new Justin Bieber song, "Boyfriend."  It's awful.  But for some reason, I keep listening to it.  With lyrics like "swag swag swag...on you" and "Imma make you shine bright like you're laying in the snow, brr," how can you not play it on repeat?  He's obviously a musical genius.

4) This great dane waking up from a nap.  Why?  WHY NOT.  It was ridiculous enough to make me laugh in the middle of a serious lecture, so I figure it's blog-worthy.

5) These hilarious e-cards that I spend too much time guffawing about.  (This one is particularly relevant, as I'm heading to go see the Hunger Games for the second time right after this god-awful lecture).

6) Let's all go get naked and visit the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.  Who's with me?!

7) EWWWWWW, BUGS.  Ehh, okay, some of 'em are kinda cute.  But seriously-- these things exist.  Blowin' my mind, guys.

8) And the old stand-by, the Wikipedia list of unusual deaths.  Some people are just so gosh darn unlucky... drowning in human feces, suffocating for 8 days in a box of rice, crushed by a box of quarters, etc... and then there's Rasputin in 1916 who JUST WOULDN'T DIE.  

Anyway, hope you're having a HAPPY THURSDAY!

Bananas! And pizza! And shitty popcorn!

I'm afraid I've eaten myself into a bit of a stupor tonight.  Opportunities just kept arising!  First, started off with a normal dinner-- a SimpySomp market salad.  Meh, whatever.  Then, the theme of Bite Club tonight was banana ice cream.  And not just any banana ice cream-- ONE INGREDIENT BANANA ICE CREAM.  I'll let you take a wild guess as to what that one ingredient is.  (In case you're drooling, here's the recipe).  It was amahhhhhhzang.  Tasted like a banana creemee, but with a fraction of the ingredients and much much much healthier.  We also experimented with cocoa powder for a chocolate-banana ice cream, which was just as fantastic (except for that little part about me giving up chocolate for lent.  Oops).

But wait!  There's more!  Then came a dorm floor meeting to meet our new RA.  To bribe us into liking her (just kidding, she's great), she bought pizza.  And one of them was gluten-free and vegan.  I honestly heard a hallelujah chorus at the sight of that thing.  I've been craving pizza pretty much ever since I went gluten-free...and whaddaya know!

So that's the end of this food night, but while I'm here I might as well talk about last night's...interesting...snack.  I found a bag of unpopped popcorn still in it's plastic wrapper in the trash a few weeks ago and decided to break it out.  After about a minute in the microwave, something started smelling really weird.  Like, really weird....like someone had set fire to a rubber tire and then dumped a margarita on it.  I had to hold my nose as I opened the bag and tried to figure out what had gone awry. You'll never guess what flavor it was.

LIME AND SALT, THAT'S WHAT.

And it smelled a whole lot worse than it tasted.  Actually, it was pretty good.  I don't blame whoever trashed it though-- I can see how it wouldn't be all that popular.  So I enjoyed it while it lasted, and then 15 minutes later, I had just sat down to write a paper when this weird aftertaste hit.  It tasted like a combination of metallic-y/copper and rubber.  It was absolutely disgusting and I had to brush my teeth twice before I could even think about functioning as a normal human being.  For this reason, I do NOT recommend this flavor.  In fact, it's barf-worthy.  HOWEVER, lime tortilla chips?  Friggin' magical.

Bucket-O-Spuds

This morning, my roommate Mady and I decided to do something completely new and unheard of in our precisely routined lives: spontaneously head out for an ungodly early breakfast.  We walked downtown to Penny Cluse, the cutest little breakfast/lunch diner you ever did see.  It's so popular with locals and tourists that the wait is usually ridiculous-- anywhere from half an hour to over two hours.  Mady and I got there around 7am right after it opened, so it was filling up quickly, but we managed to snag window seats behind 3 shouting guys in fancy suits and in front of a woman with one heck of a death glare.  Eh, we'll take what we can get.

After the first once-over of the menu, I felt like crying.  Literally everything that caught my eye was something super duper gluten-y.  After a quick moment of self-pity, I got back to it and started figuring out other options.  And lo and behold!  If you stare long enough, delicious things start appearing out of the woodwork...err, the laminated cardstock.

I ended up getting the blueberry-banana smoothie (made with soymilk and honey instead of yogurt) and some simple over-hard eggs-- relatively inexpensive and gosh dern mutha truckin' straw slurpin' baby kickin' delicious. 

Mady got adventurous and ordered the cinnamon raisin french toast with strawberries.  YUMMMMM.  It looked AMAZING and I don't even like french toast.  This place is just a big ol' win.

I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

(It woulda been 8 because of the humongo wait times, but the "bucket-o-spuds" item on the menu boosted it up a point.  Anything that has the word "bucket" in the title makes me laugh.  I also love the use of a plain ol' vowel to shorten down a word.  And I love that they used the word "spuds" instead of "potatoes."  I wonder if it comes in an actual bucket.  If it didn't, I would probably be a tad disappointed....  From the way I'm going on about it so much, you're probably wondering why i didn't just order the damn thing.  I'm wondering that too...)

That gosh darn squash soup.

Picture this: I dash into the Davis Center marketplace after two consecutive classes, too hungry to function.  I maneuver carelessly through the hoards of sluggish Tuesday morning biddies in line for salads.  I'm heading for the sandwich station, when some small hunch made me switch directions completely and head over to the soups (knocking over someone in the Capers line in the process).  Obviously, I'm a reckless force when something comes between me and lunch.  At the soup counter, I was immediately drawn to the butternut squash and barley soup.  I may have even whooped aloud in excitement.  There are little signs posted next to each soup with allergen information the sign for the butternut squash barley soup said: vegan, vegetarian, nut-free, gluten-free, dairy-free.  PERF.

With purchase in hand, I wandered around aimlessly looking for an empty table.  In the duration of this aimless wandering, a sudden thought occurred to me, zonking me right between the eyes with a big ol' DUH.  Barley is most definitely NOT gluten free.  And with that realization, I felt dumb and disappointed and still ravenously hungry.  Marketplace marked the soup wrong and I was too distracted to notice.  So I was in a bit of a pickle.  I couldn't eat it (okay, I might've tried a few bites, but THAT'S IT), but the whole point of this blog is based around people throwing food away.  So, I offered it to people, but no one seemed too keen on taking soup from a stranger.  Which is understandable.  I look questionable and maybe even threatening, I know.  So I ended up throwing it away.  Gosh darn it, I'm a hypocrite.  Oops.

So then I walked back into the marketplace, bent on revenge, or at least a free cup of soup.  I got neither.  My angry drive for justice kind of just slackened and I ended up just getting a different kind of soup and paying for it normally.  White bean and vegetable.  Meh.  Still good, but definitely no comparison to the awe-inducing wonderfulness that is butternut squash.  I'll save my murderous vengeance for a more significant opportunity, I guess.

So, moral of the story: don't buy soup you can't eat, and don't waste an hour of your day being annoyed and disappointed over something as trivial as soup.  It's not worth it.  Basically, don't be like me.

Now, on a serious note...

Alright.  This one's gonna be a bit different and a bit personal.  Okay, a lot personal.  I wanna talk about eating disorders.

From the beginning of spring semester freshman year through the summer and right up to the beginning of fall semester sophomore year, I had some major food problems.  At the peak of the problem, I was eating a net total of 400 calories and was constantly thinking about food, how to avoid it, how to manage it.  I was crabby all the time, not very social, I couldn't stay focused on anything for long, and I always felt sluggish.
At the end of the summer, I realized that yeah, I had lost weight and I looked pretty good, but I was not happy.  I knew what I was doing was not healthy and so decided to change it.  I deleted the phone app I had been using to keep track of calories, began to (gradually) eat what I wanted, and got my life back.  I took advantage of the UVM health center and counseling services, I stopped buying "safe" foods, I stopped exercising to burn calories and started exercising because it makes me feel good.

Now, I have no idea how many calories I'm intaking per day and I don't much care.  I went up a couple pant sizes, but who cares.  I'm so much happier.  I was lucky-- eating disorders can get out of hand fast and are often lifelong problems.  I still struggle now and then, but I'm proud of how far I've come.  The past year has given me a great appreciation for food, and now I love experimental cooking, trying new foods as often as possible, going out to dinner, and making food a more social aspect of life.

Okay, now for the true purpose of this blogpost.  That was all just background information.  Here's the real problem: I suspect/KNOW a close friend of mine is experiencing the same thing.  I know all the signs, I know all the strategies to hide it.  I've tried to bring it up face to face, but couldn't get through.  I know she doesn't think she has a problem...which is the problem.

So, friend, just letting you know that I'm here if you want to talk about it-- absolutely any time.  I won't judge, I won't force you to eat something, I won't freak out.  Just want you to know that there are a ton of people who care for you and that you're surrounded by one of the most supporting environments you could possibly be in.

This goes for everyone-- I encourage anyone who even suspects they have a problem to pick up the phone.

• UVM Counseling Center: 1-802-656-3340
• NEDA Helpline: 1-800-931-2237
• Heck, call ME up.  Any time.

The Dairy-Free Yogurt Competition.

The only thing I really miss most about dairy is greek yogurt.  I ate that stuff like there was no tomorrow.  Chobani brand vanilla yogurt has a whopping 16g of protein and 0g fat for only 120 calories.  WOWZA. So, when my main source of protein was kicked outta my diet, I went and rounded up a few brands of soy and lactose-free yogurts to try and adjust to the change.

1) Stonyfield's O'Soy yogurt

Taste: Alriiiiiiight.  I guess.  It tasted like yogurtish, so that's good.

Nutrition: 170 calories (WHAT), only 7g of protein, and SO MUCH SUGAR.  26g.  Holy fuck.

Allergen Ingredients: SOY AND MILK.  I got halfway through it before noticing on the list of ingredients that it contains soy (duh) and MILK.  It's supposed to be a soy yogurt, why the heck is there any trace of dairy in there?!  GAHHHHHD, STONYFIELD.  I'm angry atchoo.

Overall: 2.  So much sugar, too many calories, and there's dairy in it.  Fail.  But hey, at least it tasted okay.

2) Yoplait lactose free yogurt

Taste: Yumdiddly.

Nutrition: 170 friggin' calories.  26g of sugar.  5g protein.  Holy cow.  This is shit.

Allergen Ingredients: MILK.  WHAT.  AGAIN?  I'm confused...

Overall: 0. So much sugar, boatload of calories, and there's dairy.  No.  Just no.

3) So Delicious coconut milk yogurt

Taste: I could eat this stuff forever.  Seriously.  It was creamy and coconutty and yogurty and mmmm.

Nutrition: 140 calories, 6g of fat, a buncha sugar, and 1 lonely gram of protein.  Crappo.

Allergen Ingredients: I CAN EAT IT!  Yay!

Overall: 3.  Tasted fantastic, but it's pretty much just empty calories.  GIMME PWOTEEEN.

4) Silk soy yogurt

Taste: Bleck.  So awful.  First of all, the only flavor in stock was strawberry banana, which is disgusting to begin with.  But then it wasn't viscous enough for me to even consider it yogurt.  Also, it was a pukey purple color.  The negatives outweigh the positives... because there were no positives.  I had to mix it with oats and raisins just to make it edible.  

Nutrition: Who cares, I'm never trying it again.

Allergen Ingredients: Whatever.  Soy.

Overall: 0.

AAAAAAND THE WINNER IS:

NONE OF 'EM.

They all suck in different ways.  I guess I'll just go without yogurt.  Ah, well.  Hip hip hooray for experimentations, I guess.  Unimpressed.

You know your class is boring when beans become fun.

Well, here we are again-- stuck in a 3 hour class with no windows, no motivation to pay attention, and no desire to be here.  What's an uncomfortable, grouchy girl to do?  If your answer was anything other than "eat bean salad," you're wrong.  I'm eating bean salad.  With chopsticks.  And since we're only 30 minutes into this 3 hour marathon, I'm eating it bean by bean.  Oh gawwwd, I can't even imagine what I'm going to do when the bean salad runs out.  Listen to the lecture?!  The horror!

Boloco Love

What's better than sitting inside studying for a phonetics exam?  Sitting OUTSIDE and NOT studying for a phonetics exam!  That was the theme of the day-- put off what needs to be done and find something lazier to do.

To procrastinate studying a while longer, my friend Lauren and I headed downtown to grab some post-lunch, pre-dinner, but bigger-than-a-snack food.  What better place than Boloco?!  I LOVE BOLOCO.  For realzies though.  I love it.  I love it so much.  Now that I can't eat the burrito tortillas, I was planning on getting some sort of rice bowl, but the smoothies caught my eye.  Most of them were made with milk and yogurt, but the soy berry shake was completely dairy-free.  SCORE.  Made with strawberries, blueberries, bananas, soymilk, and honey, it was the absolute best possible decision.

Lauren got "the summer" rice bowl - with mango salsa, tofu, black beans, melted cheese, and boloco rice.  She ate like 3 bites and was done with it.  Weird.  But whatever, I ate it instead.  DOUBLE SCORE.  It did have cheese in it though, so my stomach's been feeling a tad weird after not having dairy for a few weeks.  Or that could be the relentless hangover talking, but whatever.  The point is, free rice bowl and a damn good muthatruckin' smoothie.

That one time when I ate weird candy for dinner and didn't even know it and wouldn't let myself regret it because it was so fucking good.

Hello, friends and acquaintances!  This post is going to talk about how my love for dining hall food was inevitably smooshed upon the realization that all my old Simpson hall stand-bys contain that sneaky gluten.  No more vegan chili, cereal mash-ups, banana bread, crunchy little Chinese salad-topper thingies... It was a sad state of affairs.  I felt lost in a sea of delicious food I'm not supposed to eat.

But guess what!  There's something I had forgotten about!  That I always overlooked!  That something happens to be a gluten-free section!  And it was great!  Sorta!

Okay, enough exclamations.  But seriously, at first glance, the gluten-free section was pretty good.  It felt like a secret club that I had somehow been initiated into and therefore given access to all the great stuff.  It was located almost directly inside the kitchen, not visible from where everyone else was getting food.  So secretive.
The first thing I tried was a sesame-honey bar and it felt like the angelic voices of the Vienna Boys' Choir breaking into Ave Maria inside my mouth.  I might've eaten 3 of those before even thinking about trying something else.

And then there was some Udi's granola, Udi's gluten-free cookies and yogurt-covered raisins, as well as a couple different kinds of cereal that all pretty much tasted the same: airy and puffy and rice-base-y.  The granola tasted exactly like graham crackers (weird, but acceptable) and Shannon tried the yogurt-covered raisins, but had to spit them out because they tasted like barf.  I didn't see any bread or pasta, but...whatever.  I'm good to go as long as they have those honey sesame bars.

Okay, side-note: I just googled how to make honey sesame bars and it's mind bogglingly easy.  There are only two ingredients... I'm gonna give you one guess as to what they are.  Basically, you toast the sesame seeds a little, mix it with the honey, bring the mixture to a boil, pour it in a pan, cut it up, and freeze it.  I CAN DO THAT.  I'M DOING THAT.  LIKE, TOMORROW.  Oh, and it's considered candy, which is probably why it tasted so good.  Great, I just ate candy for dinner.

Feelin' Kelpy.

Things getting me through my torturous 3 hour night class at the moment:

1) Looking at hot guys holding cute animals.

2) Taking notes.

3) Wait, did I say taking notes?  I meant taking photobooth pictures.  They're basically the same thing, right?  Yeah...

4) Stalking Shannon's blog, which she's writing right next to me.  Go check itttt: http://semifilteredthoughts.blogspot.com/

5) Drooling over gluten-free recipes on "why can't wheat be friends?"  (Get it?  Wheat? We?  HA.)  Hellooo, gluten-free nutella swirl cupcakes!

6) Seaweed salad.  Yum.  Nothin' like a good chunk of aquatic plant to keep you occupied.

Because I have a knack for finding free food and stock up on groceries every once in a while, I have a shit ton of meal plan points left.  At the end of the semester, those points don't roll over to next year, so I've been getting more adventurous (and generous) with my food-buying.  A few days ago, I stumbled upon this mysterious container of green stringy stuff in the sushi section of the Marche.  I was like, "sure, what the heck, I'll eat some Old Greg hair."  And thus, my new obsession with wakame seaweed salad was born.  And I don't think it's gonna be going away.  

It comes packaged fresh from Sunja's Oriental food store in Waterbury, so it's a bit on the expensive side. Anything that the Marche employees don't schlep together themselves costs a ridiculous amount.  A can of beans?  $3.50.  A jar of pasta sauce?  $5.19.  And so on.  Ridiculous.

Marinara fixes everything.

Mike and I were feeling lucky tonight, so it was decided that experimental cooking was the way to go.  We scoured my mini fridge and make-shift pantry for random crap to throw together.  Here's what we came up with:

- Bean thread (a gluten-free angel hair pasta-like substance that turned out to be SO GOOD)
- Random veggies: spinach, tomatoes, green peppers, carrots
- Bumblebee tuna
- marinara sauce

Slapped it all together, and we had ourselves a pretty darn good, albeit funky lookin', dinner.  You could hardly even notice the tuna-- it was like hidden protein.  And cover anything in marinara sauce and there's no way it'll suck.  Fact: marinara fixes everything.

And then there's my trash find of the day: Moroccan lentil couscous salad.  It's from the kosher section of the Marche, meaning it's fancy and delicious and ridiculously expensive.  I found it mostly-full in the garbage and ran to get a fork before I remembered I can't eat couscous.  Blergh.  But hey, someone can!  So Mike claimed it and enjoyed the heck outta that kosher stuff.  You can tell he likes it by the number of smile lines on his face.  The more lines, the better the food.  Check out that forehead in the pasta picture.  Yep, it was that good.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, here's the Bumblebee tuna theme song.  I don't know why you'd be wondering about this song, but here it is anyway.  Enjoy having it stuck in your head for the next 6 million hours.

Gluten-Free Trash! WAHOO!

GUESS WHAT.  Back at school, and my first trash find is SOMETHING I CAN EAT (insert happy jig/incredulous screaming)-- a half-full bag of dried apples.  Perfect.  Gluten, dairy, and chocolate free.  So so perfect.  It seems the trash gods aim to make me happy no matter what obstacle I throw in the mix.  So yeah.  I've got fruit and happiness.

I used the apple slices pretty much right away... Allie, my gluten-free neighbor, offered a couple pieces of Udi's gluten-free bread, so I made almond butter toast and put the dried apple on top.  This was the third gluten-free bread I've tried and so far, the best.  Two thumbs up and a high five and a rockette kick and a sonorous hooray for Udi's!  Thank you, Allie!

On a completely different and un-apple-related note, remember how I said people have been acting differently since I started this blog?  Being more conscious of what they throw away, apologizing for wasting, etc?  Well, lemme tell ya about my friend Taylor.  Here she is:

(SHE'S PREEEEEETTY)

Over break, Taylor and her mom parked the car and when she went to open the door, it knocked over a box of pancake mix.  Just chillin' there by the curb, unopened: pancakes in their most natural, purest form.  So Taylor picked it up, took it home, brought it to school, just to show it to me.  And make pancakes, of course.  I made her take a picture of it for this post because, as a rule, you should take a picture of everything you find so you can wave your free food in the face of everyone on the internet.  Teehee..

Diners & Dessert

Yesterday was the last day of spring break, so my mom and I headed out to breakfast at my favorite diner, the Village Restaurant in Hardwick, VT.  It's the gosh darn cutest little diner in the world.  It's not especially well-decorated, it's small, and you can tell it's seen better days, but I love it for some reason.  And it's always the same two people working-- one cook, one waitress.  Always.  I ordered a veggie omelette (no cheese) and homefries, but I had to refuse the toast.  Sad, sad day-- their toast is to DIE for.  Homemade bread.  Drool.  My mom got eggs, homefries, bacon, and also refused the toast.  

The cook is a goofball and not afraid to comment on what you're eating, what he overheard you saying, etc.  When I was taking the picture, he called out something along the lines of, "No cheese, no bread, why take a picture of it?!"  I told him I was dairy and gluten free and he was semi-satisfied.  I agree though-- no good diner breakfast is complete without a slab of toast.  Sigh.

I went outside for a run and came back to find MUFFINS cooling on the counter.  I leave the house for half an hour and look what happens!  That place is magic, I tell ya!  Also within that time span, Elsa the demon cat pooped on my bed.  Sooo...I guess things balance out.

We had dessert for dinner: gluten-free strawberry shortcake.  Ope, here comes that drool again.

Bread Experimentation!

A loaf of Rudi's cinnamon raisin gluten-free bread has been sitting in the freezer for a few days waiting for me to work up the chutzpah to crack it open.  My mom beat me to it and happily munched it with some peanut butter.  Nothing seemed amiss-- in fact, it looked downright promising.

It was less than pleasant.  Pretty disgusting, actually.  I managed to choke down the whole slice, but... *shudder.*  

(To emphasize the truly horrible taste of gluten-free bread, I'm borrowing a barf cartoon from this great throw-up blog.  Who doesn't love some good cartoon vomming?!)

...Okay, I'm exaggerating.  It wasn't that bad.  But bad enough that I wouldn't want to try it again for a while.  I know there are other brands and flavors and yadda yadda, but Imma give it a break for a week or two.  According to the "gluten-free goddess" in her how to go gluten-free blog post, your taste buds need time to adjust to the taste of gluten-free ingredients that replace flour.  She suggests waiting a few weeks before you really break into the world of gluten replacements.  So I guess I'll do just that.

I've heard good things about Udi's and Ezekiel bread.  Just because my first experience with gluten-free replacement bread wasn't the greatest doesn't mean my next one will be bad too!  I remain hopeful, though cautious.  We'll see how long it takes me to get back in the canoe...err, however that saying goes.

How to entertain yourself with a loaf of old bread.

I've been at home for the majority of this break, so most of my self-occupying options have just about been worn out.  I've knocked off a few books on my to-read list, rearranged the furniture in my room, drove around Mo-Vegas aimlessly, figured out that whole gluten thang, did some arts and crafts, learned to tap dance (if you call flailing around the kitchen in tap shoes "dancing"), etc etc.  I'm not one to get bored, but sometimes in order to entertain oneself, you hafta get... creative.  Thus, I give you my day full of bread-related activities.

Remember that gimungo loaf of bread I found right before break?  Yeah, well, it only got half-eaten before I went guten-free and now has a tiny, singular spot of mold.  SOOOO.....

Any normal American would've tossed that chunk of wheat days ago, but I say you might as well play with it.  I say go ahead and squeeze all the fun you can out of that head-sized brick of forbidden deliciousness.

Fun activity #1: Cat breading.  Why not bread Elsa again?  She loves it.  (No but, for real-- she didn't seem to mind all that much).  Doesn't she look like a gluten angel with that bread halo?  D'awww.

Fun activity #2: Unleash your inner architect.  Grab yo' glue gun and build some houses.  Throw in some cute little bread people while you're at it.  How adorable.

Fun activity #3: Feed the birds.  Or....the stuffed penguin.  Whatever.

Fun activity #4: Bread goggles.  Self explanatory.  

Fun activity #5: Frisbee that shit.  All over the place.  In the house, out in the yard-- this activity is not limited to one space.  You can throw bread wherever you want.

Well, that's the end of the loaf, so I guess the show's over.  

A Day in the Food Life.

Y'all wanna see what's happenin' in my new diet? 

Breakfast

Alright, I'm warning ya, this is going to sound disgustingly healthy, to the point of barfing.  But it's actually pretty darn good.  Once I finished mourning the fact that I'm not ingesting pure sugar in the form of froot loops or waffles, this crap is good.

Oatmeal with walnuts, raisins, and a touch of maple syrup.  Oh, and a few tablespoons of ground flax or pumpkin seed tossed in there for some craaaaaazy fiber and sneaky protein.  Sometimes the oatmeal is accompanied by a weirdo combination of fruits vegetables that my mom turns into juice.  The one pictured is a carrot/apple/spinach juice.

And then 30 oz. water.  BLARGH.

Lunch

Lunch changes pretty much daily.  Because I get bored.  Yesterday, it was this great lemon quinoa tabouleh.  Quinoa is wonderful-- it tastes like it should be chock full o' gluten, but it's not!  Magic!  Other times, it's rice cakes with almond butter or a can of beans or eggs or something.  Whatever floats mah boat, you knowwww.

Aaaaand another 30 oz. of water.  Geez.

Shnacks!

Okay, here's where I really had to switch things up.  My go-to snack was yogurt or something gluten-y I found in the trash, but now it's mostly nuts and veggies with hummus.  Before, I would limit my intake of nuts and peanut butter because of the high caloric and fat content, but now I'm trying to break that habit and eat boatloads of 'em.  

Dinner

Last night, I headed to Moe's with my friend Tarah and we ogled at the menu for a while trying to find something gluten and dairy-free in the wasteland of burritos and cheese.  I ended up with a tofu rice bowl, mixed with veggies and guacamole.  AND IT WAS FREE!  Remember that time I was determined to run all over Burlington gathering the free food restaurants give on your birthday?  Well, Moe's gives you a coupon for a free birthday dinner, so I redeemed it and it was fine even though my birthday was a month ago.  BOOOOOYAH!  Happy happy gal.  And the rice bowl was so good I can't even describe it.  Let's just say it would be on the top of my list even if I wasn't gluten free.

Ope, and more water of course.

Dessert

Gluten-free cupcakes!  Unexpectedly delicious.  My mom went out and got a few gluten-free mixes-- cake, cookies, scones.  Gonna have to start experimenting...

Now, what's up with all that water, you ask?  Well, lemme tell ya.  I feel like I'm drowning.  I'm supposed to drink half my bodyweight in ounces, so roughly 70-75oz....which is about 65 oz more than I usually drink on any given day.  That's been the hardest change.  I'm so sick of peeing.

The end.

Oh, Gluten, I Shall Miss Thee!

Here comes a downer post.  Ready?  OKAY!  How about in haiku form to make it more fun to read?  YEAH!

Gluten-free is tough.

It's in fucking EVERYTHING.

Sigh. Pass the rice cakes.

You know what this means?

Trash-eating days are over.

Should I keep blogging?

Most of what I find

is gluten deliciousness,

Oh, the temptation!

Veggies, nuts, and fruit.

That's about all I can eat.

How will I survive?

Thoughts?  Encouragement?

Take over my legacy!

Trash-eaters unite!

Alright, haiku time over.  But seriously-- there's such a limited range of food being gluten, dairy, and meat-free.  (If my recent diet change is news to you, go check the previous blog post for a bit more info on WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE).  I don't think I'll be able to break the habit of glancing in the trash every time I walk by, but I won't be able to eat most of what I find, so I suppose I'll just share all of it with everyone else.  You lucky people!  Enjoy your ability to process gluten!  Don't take it for granted!  Cherish every bite of pizza, challah bread, and greasy diner toast!

Alright, anywho.  On to the bit of free food that dropped into my lap today.  Our family outing today took us to Montpelier, VT where we rambled aimlessly and ended up at the movies.  Mom and I scored some free Whoppers by saying we did not support articles 10 and 11, which will add an additional 1% tax to city’s sales and meal tax.  At the time, neither of us knew what articles 10 and 11 were, but when there are free Whoppers on the line, we'd say anything.  I'm staying with my choice to give up chocolate for lent (I've fallen off the wagon a few times...SO WHAT), so I didn't eat any, but my dad and brother were more than happy to take over.

Whoppers, oh, Whoppers--

You've such spherical allure.

Mmm, chocolate gluten.

I'm the definition of DIFFICULT.

Well, everyone, looks like the end of the world has come a bit early.  I'm going gluten and dairy-free.  I went to a naturopath doctor's appointment today and she recommended a diet change and some other stuff to help with some health problems I've been having.  I was all gung ho and ready to swear off bread forever, until my mom and I walked into a restaurant and I realized just how hard it was going to be.

Now, I'm kind of a picky eater at restaurants to begin with.  Add in the gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian factors, and I'm a high-maintenance pain in the butt.  After asking an extensive amount of questions and just generally being obnoxious, I ordered the vegetarian burrito without the burrito part, so it was rice and beans with veggies and salsa.  It was so so good.  I give Moog's Place an 8 out of 11.  (It's on Portland St. in Morrisville.  If you've never been, imma drag your ass there and order you some potato skins and then watch your taste buds spaz out).

And then, my mom and I asked for dessert.  Which was even more obnoxious.  I told the waiter about my gluten-freeness and that I had given up chocolate for lent.  He laughed and said that pretty much knocked off every dessert choice they had, unless I wanted a plain scoop of vanilla ice cream.  I didn't have the heart to tell him I'm dairy-free too.  HAHAHAHA, I'M SO DIFFICULT.

We ended up ordering the gluten-free chocolate lava cake.

And it was so worth it.

Lent got put on hold for tonight.

My lovely mother.  

Also, a few nights ago, my good bearded friend Zach came to my dorm floor and handed out chocolates, Santa Claus style.  He had gone dumpster diving at the Lake Champlain Chocolates factory and scored pretty darn hard.  Hundreds of little caramel-filled, flower-shaped, bite-sized chocolates.  I somehow managed to avoid the chocolate persuasion, but don't ask me how.  It was a miracle.  I started drooling, just thinking about it.

 Seductive chocolate-eating.  Who could resist that?

Elsa the Demon Cat-- WITH BREAD ON HER FACE.

Well, folks, it is now officially spring break and I'm going home where the trash pickins will be slim.  BUT, the upshot of leaving for the week is that everyone gets rid of all the food they don't want to leave in their dorm.  I managed to score this HUMONGO loaf of bread.

There's nothing quite like cradling 500 trillion servings of carbs in your arms.  Mmmm.

You're probably thinking, what can one do with so much bread?!  Well, lemme tell ya.  You EAT it.  And when you can't possibly eat any more, you decorate your cat with it.

Several months ago, some moron decided it would be hilarious to put a piece of sliced bread on his cat.  And just like that, a meme was born.  My roommate, Mady, recently discovered the thousands of pictures of breaded cats on the internet and laughs hysterically at pretty much every single one.  Cheap entertainment.  So, Mady-- this is for you.  Please enjoy this series of photos from the attempted cat-breading.

Attempt #1: Successful, but I wanted to be the Elsa-holder, so more attempts were needed.

Attempt #2: Elsa figured out what was going on pretty quick and started being difficult.  Here's proof-- A blurry action shot of Elsa ripping through the bread and squirming furiously to get out of my death grip.

Attempt #3: Elsa's hatred for me grows.  Whatever, it's already infinite, what's another couple notches on the ol' hate-o-meter?

Attempt #4: After escaping, Elsa ran madly around the house, but the bread won out in the end.  She looks so pleased.

So, all in all, it looks like it's going to be an eventful week at the Demars household.  The war is on between Elsa and I.  I predict a duel to the death in the near future.