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.