365 Dollar Year

Happy (late) Thanksgiving!

2011-11-29T14:40:00.000-05:00

This year Thanksgiving was kind of a non-event. I wrote a story, hit a bakery, and had a bottle of wine.

Of course, back home, Thanksgiving is a great chance to stock up on all kinds of food for cheap. Healthy food, even. In South Carolina sweet potatoes go on sale for tiny amounts--like 15 cent per pound. And baking goods are all on sale--everything from flour and butter to baking powder, spices, and "pie filling".

Which means it's a great time to be on a budget.

Sounds crazy, right? Not really. If you eat meat, you can pick up a turkey, otherwise, you can load up on all the other "holiday" food items, and eat like a healthy-eating rich person for a couple weeks. With sweet potatoes alone you can make:

baked sweet potatoes
sweet potato fries
mashed sweet potatoes
sweet potato pie
sweet potato gnocchi
sweet potato ravioli
sweet potato pancakes
sweet potato pirogi
roasted sweet potatoes

Easy and cheap, right? They might each take a couple other ingredients, but most of them are simple and cheap to put together. Some are even fast. The others pretty much all freeze well.

That leaves out all the other Autumn veggies, like squash, carrots, Brussels sprouts, beets (yum), fresh garlic, and on and on. And all on sale--either last week, or for the next couple weeks.

And all I got was a cheap bottle of very young wine. Oh well, it was fun and that's what matters, right? Or something.

Good News Bad News

2011-11-23T12:16:00.000-05:00

Good News--

It doesn't seem like the huge bloaty stomach/ gassy ook problem is cause by gluten

Bad News--

It does in fact seem to be caused by onions and garlic instead.

I tested it, you see. I made pancakes--which are full of gluten but totally lacking in onions and garlic. Then I waited. And waited. And waited.

At no point did I look like one of those people having keyhole abdominal surgery. No expando-guts.

Then, later in the day, I made pasta with onions, tomatoes, and cheese. Right after that, my abdomen started expanding. And again last night, after making rice, beans, onions, garlic, and tomato mixture stuff.

The thing is, the onions and garlic don't *always* cause the huge tummy. If they're totally cooked all the way through, I have no problems with them at all. So there's something in raw garlic and onions that is making something in my guts unhappy.

Which really sucks, because I love onions and garlic. They go in almost everything I cook. In huge quantities. I don't want to cut back, and I don't want to cut them out, either. Sometimes a girl just wants a slice of raw onion on her sammich, ya know?

But for happy thoughts, I don't have to cut out pasta or bread or seitan. Or beer. Or whisky made with not-corn. Yum.

For a while there I was worried I'd have to turn into one of those girls that drinks only vodka and pastel-colored drinks. Pleh. Instead I'm going to have to turn into one of those people who thoroughly cooks their garlic, onions, and shallots.

Oh well, any excuse to eat more roasted garlic works for me.

In A Food Rut

2011-11-20T20:36:00.000-05:00

It's pretty easy, when you're cooking for yourself and on a budget, to get stuck in a rut. And am I ever stuck. Other than my ever-more-frequent trips to the supermarket for chips and chocolate, I've been eating the same two or three things for a couple months now.

Last year I got stuck on fried rice. It's fast(-ish), healthy(-ish), and easy once you get used to cooking it. Now I seem to have taken a giant step down even from that.

It's all cinnamon pancakes (though not for the last couple weeks), pasta with tomatoes, onion, and American cheese, or rice with beans, tomatoes, onion and American cheese. That's it. The only real variety comes from the every once-in-a-while splurge of food out, or the two days last week when I managed to scarf down half a dozen bagels. With, of course, American cheese melted on top.

Hopefully, moving on will change my diet again. Getting out of Guatemala should do that as well. If I were a fruit-eating kinda girl this would be a great place.

Because of the elevation and lower temps, strawberries are in season pretty much all year here. And there are these red things that look kinda like lychees, but I don't think are. And papaya, and starfruit (2 for 1Q, or about 8 US cents *each*). And pineapple.

You know, back home I could never figure out why anyone would want to eat a pineapple. I mean, they're cardboardy and crunchy in a bad way, and stringy, and rarely sweet back home. Or they come from a can and are oddly floppy.

But the ones I've had here have been sweet, and so ripe they dripped juice when cut into, or even when pressed on too hard. Actually pretty tasty. I still won't be buying many of them.

The thing is, I know I can make that rice-or-pasta and veggies and cheese thing. I can do it in my sleep, I'm so used to it. And you can get the stuff to make it pretty much anywhere, they aren't harmed by the odd blackout, and all but the cheese can be locked safely in my locker.

Other stuff... I might not be able to find it, so I don't even try anymore.

So, have you been in a food rut, and how did you get out of it. Or... Are you still stuck there?

Angry Intestines And Gluten?

2011-11-07T17:46:00.000-05:00

So, my intestines have been unhappy lately. Not projectile-vomit/explosive diarrhea unhappy.

No, they've been "swell the abdomen up like a balloon" unhappy. So I started paying attention to what I eat before it happens.

It isn't onions (tho they do cause the odd problem). It isn't garlic, which is good--I think I'd die if I couldn't eat garlic anymore. It isn't processed cheese, or even cream cheese (one causes sticky teeth, the other a different set of problems...)

Nope, the thing that always seems to show up in the meal right before the hugely distended abdomen is wheat.

Which really sucks. I love wheat. Maybe I need to cut back for a while. Maybe I need to cut it out forever. I dunno. Right now it's mostly the sticky-out tummy that I'm noticing. Well, and the gas... But that doesn't mean there isn't more going on inside, too.

But... Without wheat (and other tasty gluten containing foods like seitan) what do I eat? My favorite cookies are made with wheat. And brownies and cake and bread. Totally bread.

Sure, maybe it's not gluten causing the problem (never get bloaty when I eat seitan, so...), but something about the wheat itself. Or maybe it's the combination with something else I'm cooking. I dunno.

I've been hoping it's something else for a while now. I don't want to give up the wonders of tasty baked goods. Sure, there are alternatives, but they almost all taste like crap. Oh, and they cost too much, too.

So what does it mean? It means I should be doing some kind of elimination diet. I should be cutting out everything with gluten in it, and seeing if the magic expando-stomach goes away. Then I should add foods back in until it comes back. More or less.

What will I really do? Probably keep nomming the bread, cake, cookies, and all that other fun stuff until something happens to make me. With my only noticeable problems being abdominal bloating and gas, it's just not worth it to cut back on things I love. 'Specially when it could just be an ongoing stomach bug. You know, like a parasite.

Now, if I end up seeing a doctor at some point and getting blood work that shows that I'm short on all the nutrients I know I'm eating, I'll change something. Until then, I'll just avoid tight shirts after stuffing my face with a pound of pasta. Which is probably a good idea anyway, huh?

Think I Figured Out The Pupusas

2011-10-17T20:22:00.000-04:00

Pupusas, in case you don't know (I know I didn't) are the local, corn-based hand-pie. They're almost all savory, and really most of them are just stuffed with meat. They're also cheap--cause they use left over "meat"--and fast, 'cause most people keep some spare dough mixed up if they've got a fridge.

Or, you know, even if they don't.

Basically, you pick up some ground corn--the type for making tortillas. The ground maize here is a little finer than they use in Mexico, but it's close enough. Follow the directions for making tortillas, up through the mixing. They'll usually say to use lard, but I don't see why plain crisco wouldn't work just as well (I'm still eating without asking--I'd like to eat more than once a day and it's the only way to manage it).

Take a ball of mix, probably about what they say to use for a tortilla, a quarter cup or so, and flatten it out until you've got a disk about 5 inches across. Then do another just like it. scatter a couple tablespoons of filling over one disk, keeping it less than half an inch thick (closer to 1/4 is better) and staying about a quarter to half inch away from the edge. Place the second disk on top of the first and squoosh the edges together to seal them shut.

Then, you toss them on a hot griddle or frying pan that's been barely sprayed with oil. Cook over medium to high heat (lower if things start to burn) until the bottom starts to lightly brown and cook. Then flip and cook until both sides are cooked and the insides are warm. If you use cheese, don't be surprised if they leak a bit.

At the shops or street vendors it takes them about 10 minutes to cook them, starting from dough. Figure with a big enough pan or griddle, and someone to make the disks, you could get production going on about 100 an hour...

Of course, two is more than enough to fill even me. For a while.

Food You Can Buy For 20Q

2011-10-03T21:11:00.000-04:00

20Q could buy a budget-minded person a week's worth of food. Or it could buy a snack. Or a drink in a bar.

For a week you could buy (grocery store prices):

2lbs of white rice at 3.25Q ea (6.50Q)
1lb of black beans for 4.95Q
170ml bottle oil for 3.40Q
3 tomatoes for about 2.50Q
1 large onion for about 2Q
(0.65Q left over for w/e)

Or you could buy 1/2 a pound of cheese (all the same price).

Or you could buy a bag of ruffles Queso chips (actually 24Q).

Or you could buy a bag of Doritos and an American chocolate bar.

Or a Cuba Libre (about 6oz worth of booze, soda, and ice) in a bar.

Or, if you're feeling homesick, you can pick up a toasted bagel with about an oz of butter or flavored cream cheese for 20Q including tip.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this whole "access to a kitchen" thing?

Weight Gain Fail

2011-09-26T16:42:00.000-04:00

After stuffing myself for a week straight, I figured I would have gained something.

And if I were willing to ignore the bit where last time I was in flip flops (total weight maybe 8oz) and this time in "real" shoes at over a pound each, I totally gained.

Except... 125.7 really isn't a gain over 124.3 when I take off the extra 1.5lbs.

I think I need to add more avocados to my diet. It might just be time to hit the market. I've got q8 for stuff, I can totally stuff my face.

Cheese is sliding slowly off the list of things I want to eat. I'm getting sick of it. I might have to start buying nuts. they're pretty calorie dense and they taste good, too. I foresee a sudden doubling of my food budget. And only part of that will end up going to soda.

Pleh.

And Today I choked down...

2011-09-22T21:12:00.000-04:00

2 choco-almond muffins (~250 cal)
2 regular muffins(~150 cal)
250g pasta (dry weight, about 9oz) with
Oil, tomato, onion, garlic, salt, and 4 slices/about 2oz of cheese (~1400 cal total)
3 cans diet pepsi.
Medium bag of chips (~480)

I am now so stuffed I don't think I could eat another thing. For those wondering, the pasta fills two good sized bowls.

For an approximate daily total of 2280 calories. Which is about 700 less than I was trying for, but I think if I stuff one more thing in my mouth I'll explode.

This is much easier with coconut milk based ice cream at 2000 calories a pint. I want my chips and dip.

Ok, to be totally honest, I want to be able to fuel my body like you fuel a car. Just fill it up and go. The whole cooking, eating, digesting, cleaning up, rolling around stuffed thing is no fun at all. Plus, the stuff I'm eating is boring. Pleh.

The All-Singing All-Dancing Food Extravaganza Day... Wednesday

2011-09-22T13:19:00.000-04:00

This "eat until you can't stuff anything else in your face" thing is getting old fast. Because of the huge amounts I'm scarfing down (remember, most of my food is high bulk for high calories) I have a distended abdomen. Not as bad as those "feed the spawnlings" pictures. No, more "after a hard night chugging beer/scarfing pizza", which also looks (to me, anyway) like a pregnant lady gut.

Not on my personal list of preferred looks, but whatever. The whole force-feeding thing is going to last maybe two more days before I just go back to eating when I'm hungry. Eating when you aren't hungry, and to the point where you feel so stuffed you physically ache isn't good for you, ya know.

Yesterday I cooked up 2/3C of dry rice, added 1 onion (fried in oil, lots of oil), some garlic, a couple tomatoes, and something like 2 slices of cheese. Oh, and a cup +/- of black beans. Wanted to add Avocado, but it was frozen solid. Don't ask.

Then I made up a vat of fried potatoes with more onion, oil, garlic and a packet of curry powder. And the previously frozen half an avocado for extra yum/ calories.

Then, at about midnight, I made a sammich with the other half of the bread. Melted the last couple tablespoons of butter into it (tastes kinda like Texas Toast, you know, all sweet and odd and stuff), spread it with mustard, covered it in the other avocado, sliced a lot, about 1/3 of an onion, the last piece of sliced cheese, salt, pepper, and juice from part of a lime. "snacked" my way through it for dinner.

Oh, and three cans of Diet Pepsi, about half a liter of water, and that's it.

Good news is, I'm pretty sure I've already gained some weight.

Bad news is, I'm pretty sure it's all in my intestines, and once I stop doing the forced locust impersonation it'll all go away again. Oh well.

Re-feeding Experiment Continues

2011-09-21T05:07:00.000-04:00

I figure I told you what I ate in San Pedro La Laguna, I might as well tell you the rest of my super-stuff-my-face Antigua Food Extravaganza.

Hit the grocery store (hungry) and got veggies (kinda), garlic, 6 cans of soda, a bag of pasta and a couple random other things (I think...) for 60Q--1/3rd of that was soda. And 12Q for a pair of imported Avocados. I'm going to the *real* market next time... Sooo much cheaper.

Then over to the bakery where I picked up about a yard of bread (strangely sweet but still good) and two choco muffins (total Q9.50)

Then soaked tomatoes and potatoes, and scarfed down a huge sammich.

I used half the bread, quarter of the stick of butter, some oil, and onion, a small tomato, half an avocado, mustard (the icky yellow stuff, wasn't paying 40Q for Dijon), a couple cloves of garlic, and three slices of cheese.

Oh, plus juice from half a lime, salt, pepper. I think that was it.

Then I nommed it. Followed by one of the choco muffins. And then the other, and a nap.

Then got dragged out, where I had a rum and coke and bowl of popcorn.

And for dinner, oodles (250g bag) of pasta w. onions, tomatoes, garlic, cheese, oil, etc. And another can of soda. Now I'm stuffed and it's bedtime. All this eating is tough work.

A Re-Feeding Effort

2011-09-20T05:16:00.000-04:00

Finally managed to get a coin and a coin-operated scale in the same place at the same time on Sunday.

The results are.. not pretty. Since February I've gone from about 136, give or take to a bit under 120. If I were 5'4 that wouldn't be so bad. If I'd lost fat instead of muscle, still not so bad.

Instead, the only fat I seem to have lost is the fat where my boobs should be, which is how the world works, I guess. And so I'm about the same, mostly-boy shape I was in high school. And most of college. Which means I need to do two things.

Regain a butt-ton of weight
Do some forking exercise so it isn't all fat.

I started Sunday with the eating thing.

See, there's a reason I make potato chips a major part of my diet when I'm at home. They're easy, they're kinda cheap, they're a great chip-dip delivery system, and they're super calorie dense.

If they weren't also super expensive, they'd be part of my diet here, too. Instead, I need to find a different selection of calorie dense foods.

Which brings me to my problem. Nuts are calorie dense. So are avocados. And Cheese, butter, oil. For omnis, meat is packed with calories.

They're also all foods that cost more per pound. Potatoes are 20-80 cents per pound. Flour (even here where it's a "luxury") runs less than a dollar a pound. Same with onions, carrots, squash, pasta, rice, and (dry) beans.

To add calorie-dense foods to my diet means increasing my budget. But it also means my stomach can physically hold more calories. So I stocked up with some stuff that's sure to make me sick (mozzarella, american cheese, real butter) and started a heavy-duty re-feeding effort Sunday.

And can I just say... I'd forgotten how gross butter smells when it cooks. I hope it's gone off, but I don't think it did. It smells like... well, like gross. I think when I finish this stick (that cost more than a dollar, yes, really.) I'll switch to the fake stuff they use here. It can't possibly smell as bad. Right?

Anyway, I started Sunday with a bagel and cream cheese. You might have seen that. It was yummy. They put actual chunks of garlic in the garlic bagel. I should have picked up half a dozen. I still might.

Then I followed that with a trip to the bakery where I grabbed a choco muffin, a choco-almond muffin, and three torpedo rolls. Oh, and the first diet pepsi of the day.

Then I re-heated about a cup of black beans, fried up some onions in oil, and had yummy beans (with two slices of left over american cheese) scooped up with one of the rolls. Then off to the store for some more food.

Half a bag of Doritos and two rolls worth of open-faced grilled cheese/ veggie sammiches followed. With both fried and raw onion, mozz. cheese, american cheese, salt, pepper, fresh lime juice, butter, sliced tomato and mustard. I nommed them all with another soda.

And that was Sunday. Woke up Monday still full. Melted about 6 slices of cheese over the other half of the bag of Doritos. Tasty breakfast with a can of soda. Then another soda a couple hours later when I nommed my way through a 250g bag of pasta, 5 slices of cheese (both types), a tablespoon +/- of butter, some oil, salt, tomato... then a final soda to fill out the evening.

I'm a bit peckish right now, but it's forking late. Additional food will just have to wait.

Unfortunately, I doubt it's going to make much difference. There's only so much that I can fit into my stomach, and only so much time in a day I'm willing to spend cooking/eating/cleaning up/loafing about like a fat tick(dog, etc).

But for now, I'm making an attempt. I just don't know how long I can choke down that much cheese/grease. Srsly, it's kinda really gross. Guess I'll have to watch out for ripe avocados and fresh nuts.

And make more trips to that bakery, too. at 12 cents each +/- the rolls are a pretty good buy.

Just... Don't ask how much I spent on food Sunday. Cheese and butter drove the price up to a crazy point and I'm trying not to think about it.

Food Exhaustion In Guatemala

2011-09-16T20:51:00.000-04:00

When I think of food, I think of many things. Not usually eating the same thing every single day.

When I think of Mexico, the US, or even the rather odd grocery stores of NZ, I see, in my little -j. head, an insane variety of foods.

When I step into the supermarket or open-air market here in Guatemala, though, I don't see any such thing.

If I'm lucky, I see a bunch of packaged food (made with beef fat, yum). Then I cruise past some staples (flour, corn, cornmeal, corn tortillas, corn tortilla mix, oil). And the deli counter. And on (in the supermarket, anyway--in the open-air market I have to cruise past a variety of strange animals in various stages of life/death first) to the veggies.

Right now, in Guatemala, the veggies, the ones that aren't refrigerated, anyway, are tomatoes, potatoes (imported and "nacional"), avocados from Mexico, white onions, garlic imported from China, the odd squash, a couple large but sad looking cabbages, and papaya or banana for fruit.

Oh, and an odd purple/green leafy herb thing. Epazote, maybe? Dunno. Plus a couple sad looking jalapenos.

In the cooler there are some summer squish, unripe tomatoes, greenbeans, corn (cheaper by the basket-load in the *real* market), and a couple other things.

And that's it for veggies. There's some bread, a bunch of (really bad) wine, pasta, mac and cheese, and cleaning products. I think that pretty much finishes off the store.

Oh, sorry, and a couple random spice racks with different brands of spices, a bunch of small fridges with dairy products in them, and those wire rolling basket thingies (big ones like they sell pillows out of back home) full of sugar and rice and beans in bags.

And that's the grocery store. The market is about a dozen times more crazy, more likely to get pick-pocketed, and half the cost. But the same selection.

So since leaving Lake Atitlan for Antigua, I've eaten potatoes. And pasta. And pizza made with refried beans instead of pasta sauce. And the odd bit of processed cheese. And pancakes.

For flavor and nutrition I've had beans, garlic, onion, tomato and oil.

You want to know 12 shiny new ways to use flour, onion, tomato, oil, salt, sugar, and beans? Give me a day, I'll write them down. But I'm running out of ideas. I actually bought *dried* black beans today, I'm so sick of what I've been eating.

I dream in magical piles of food. Food my stomach misses. Food like pickles and saurkraut. Food like cheesey mashed potatoes. Food like basil and olives and vinegar.

And Brussles sprouts. And vegan mayo. And taco seasoning. And vegetables that aren't tomato, onion, or potato.

And, while in the peak of mango season I thought I could never eat another, now that mango season seems to be over, I'd kill for one of those tasty little monsters. Not the big round-ish green ones, no, the "sunrise" or "strawberry" types. Smaller, with softer sweeter flesh. Less grainy, not as stringy. Made of forking magic.

Looks like I'll be making a run to Mexico anyway, huh?

Still Lovin' The Antigua Hostel Kitchen

2011-09-06T16:04:00.000-04:00

I've been challenging myself for the last week or so, to see if I can eat (moderately) well for a bit more than a dollar a day here. Shopping at the (expensive) grocery store, that hasn't been too challenging. Sure, I've needed a bit of imagination to come up with some stuff.

But for the most part, I've been well, if repetitively, fed for the last week.

I've nommed pancakes (just about every day) with failed simple syrup (it keeps crystallizing), "Mexican" stove-top pizza, and fast pasta with fresh-whatever.

Today, I wandered down to the supermarket, knowing I had an almost-empty pantry and no caffeine waiting for me back at the hostel. I was hoping for the magic 4lb bag of potatoes for 6Q. Unfortunately, there were no magic bags this morning, so I picked up loose potatoes, instead.

It is potato harvesting season down here, by the way. So the potatoes are fresh. Like, with very soft, almost see-through skin fresh. I picked up about a pound and a third, and I'll spread it over three meals. That, plus two good-sized onions, 4 medium Roma's, 2 small cans of black beans in tasty sauce, and 3 cans of soda cost me Q28.85, or a bit less than $3. Not a dollar a day, I'll be back tomorrow for some pasta to make eating more interesting.

But it let me have something I've been dreaming of for a couple weeks, at least.

Crispy, yummy, salty, greasy, fried potatoes. With a quarter of an onion for flavor, a can of beans for nutrition, and a diced tomato for nutrition and yumminess, it was just what I wanted.

Sorry, no photo. I ate it too fast. Only three things could have made it better--

Someone else to cook it for me
Garlic
Some melty, tasty, cheesy thing.

Otherwise, it was perfect. Gonna have it again, just like this time, tomorrow for breakfast. Om-nom nom.

Working With Strange Equipment

2011-08-29T17:22:00.000-04:00

Or: How to MacGyver a Pizza

So, I'm here in Antigua (the city in Guatemala, not the island chicks disappear from). And I'm in a hostel with a kitchen--you have no idea how happy I am about that.

Heck, I've been to the grocery store every day since I got here.

But, because it's not my kitchen, and because hostels don't always have everything you need, and because even supermarkets in Guatemala are a bit lacking in options... I've had to get inventive.

I wanted a pizza, you see. Which means measuring out ingredients, mixing up dough, magicking up toppings, and eventually cooking the whole thing.

Problems--

No yeast--couldn't find it at the store, and even if I could it'd probably be both too big and too expensive.
No measuring cups, spoons, w/e
No oven rack
No fake cheese
No baking sheet.

So what did I do? Well, I've been magicking up pancakes for days, and they've turned out (mostly) fine.

It starts easy--pizza dough without yeast is a quickbread. That means using baking powder. The basic recipe is:

1 liquid ("milk" or water) for every
3 flour plus
1/2tsp baking powder
dash of salt
T +/- oil

In my attempt I used 1C flour and 1/3C water.

But without measuring cups, how did I get that? Well, it's kinda old fashioned, but if you use a "cup" (in this case a small juice cup) or jelly jar, you'll be close to a cup. And if you use the same one for everything, keeping the ratios, you'll get something that works.

Anyway, dry stuff in a bowl, mix until the b. powder is everywhere, no clumps. Add wet, mix until you can't anymore, then kneed a couple minutes until it's smooth. Don't over kneed, though, or it'll get tough and stuff.

Set that aside for a couple minutes to relax, and use that time to chop up your toppings. I used (bagged) refried black beans, 1/4 an onion, fried, and a sliced roma tomato.

Once that's all ready, stretch out the dough--if you have something you can use to roll it, go for it, I just pushed mine flat-ish. You want it about the same size as the bottom of your frying pan. The pan goes on the stove, lowest heat you can manage (works really well over flame, might need a diffuser plate under the pan on an electric stove). Maybe a light spritz of oil or butter if you insist. Then the disk of dough goes in the hot-ish pan.

Cook it about 5 minutes, or until the "bottom" is lightly browned and cooked, then flip, pull off the heat, and add the toppings to what was the bottom. Once it's topped, cover the pan and put it back over the flame. You want to heat the toppings and cook the dough all the way through without burning it.

Southern-type cooks, and those who still make biscuits from scratch might recognize the recipe/method. With soured or buttermilk instead of water and some "butter" in the pan, you can make stove-top biscuits the same way.

Then you can nom away. Oh, and if you make the dough solid enough, or have something to balance it on for a while until it firms up, you can use the same dough/ method to make pizza on the BBQ, if you don't feel like waiting for a real rise.

My Love Affair With Lactose Ends Now

2011-08-23T05:56:00.000-04:00

Ever since I landed in Mexico, waaaay back in February, I've been scarfing down cheese and other milky things like there's no tomorrow. Sometimes I get a pass on the cheese. Sometimes I get a pass on the ice cream. Sometimes I'm a total idiot and have hot chocolate and a cream-based soup.

Those are not good times. Take yesterday, for example. It's been cold and rainy here (something about a tropical storm?), so I thought, "gee, I'd like something warm to drink while I wait for my food."

My choices were coffee, fancy coffee, tea, or hot chocolate.

Smart little monkey that I am, I picked the hot chocolate. Which they make with milk. Which my stomach, intestines, and all the random flora and fauna living therein are not super fond of.

I then followed the hot chocolate of intestinal distress with cream of potato soup. Which was much, much more than my stomach was willing to put up with.

This is the second time in two weeks that I've done this to myself. And I'm definitely doing it to myself--no one walks up and shoves the dairy down my throat.

So I'm cutting back, big time, on the cheese, and getting rid of the liquid dairy entirely again. It's a waste of food and money to eat stuff that doesn't get digested. After all, there are starving children in Africa we can send it to, just like all those things I refused to eat as a kid.

Now I just have to figure out how to get my calorie intake back up, without the super-calorie dense dairy.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions?

Food For A Week: San Pedro, Day 7--Plus Photos

2011-08-17T14:58:00.000-04:00

I know, a couple days late, right?

Anyway, on day 7 I had some cantaloupe (I think that's it--kinda orangy-peach?) and a cheese sammich the size of my head. Srsly, the bread was sliced about an inch thick (both slices), the cheese and tomato and onion and lettuce were similarly over-abundant.

Oh, and another half a litre of coke.

Tasty Huge Brownie

Make Me Sick Pasta

I thought I had pics of some of the other stuff, but I can't find it... Oh wellz.

Food For A Week: San Pedro, Day 6

2011-08-14T04:27:00.000-04:00

After yesterday's, shall we say... Unpleasant excesses... I went a bit easier on the food today. Or at least on the dairy.

I had my two choco-chip cookies for breakfast,
a big bowl of potato/onion cream soup with brown bread and cheese
a glass bottle of coke
a 900 calorie ( I checked) bag of Doritos
.5L more of coke.

I'll get some photos up later. Right now, the keyboard is fighting with me. It's not a good thing.

Food For A Week: San Pedro, Day 5

2011-08-13T01:07:00.000-04:00

Today I did my best to make up for any shortages last week. Unfortunately, my evil food-plot seems to have developed a serious case of FAIL.

All was well with the world at 1pm, when I finally dragged myself away from the computer and off to the cool restaurant. I scarfed down a plate of hummus and chapati (flat bread), and had a can of coke. Thought about a brownie, but decided against it.

Then, around 7:30, I went off to get dinner. On the weekly phone call home, I was told to eat more. So I did.

I went to the place that sells falafel, but instead of that tasty snack I got pasta.

Pasta with tomato and cream sauce, actually. With extra cheese.

Those of you who were around last year (or have read your way through the archives) know that my stomach is not so sure it agrees with the idea of me eating dairy. In fact, it's often pretty loud in its arguments against dairy.

I've been testing my stomach and intestines. Pushing them with the dairy thing. I've only had a few, shall we say, slightly less than pleasant reactions to it. But I've also not been having what is basically a big plate of lactose with some pasta and tomatoes mixed in.

So though the cream and extra cheese added a couple hundred extra calories... I think I ended up losing more than I gained. There's no way my body absorbed much before my GI tract booted the creamy food. Oh well, now I know better for next time. Taunt abdomen with cheese, don't even think about cream.

You'd think I'd have learned by now. Oh well. At least the waitress picked up the plate before I licked the sauce off.

Food For A Week: San Pedro, Day 4

2011-08-11T23:58:00.000-04:00

Today is a sad food day. I was working pretty much flat-out this afternoon, trying to get some big jobs done. One needed to be finished by 10pm (so I can be paid and have money tomorrow), the other had a deadline of 8:30.

When I woke up this morning (erm, afternoon, actually), I had planned two good meals before everything closed down for the night.

Didn't happen. I managed my healthy breakfast of two big chocolate chip cookies, managed to drink the other half of the bottle of Coke. But I didn't finish the work before the restaurants close. The one that's still open, well, I might still be waiting on my food when they shut down the bar and kick everyone out at 1am.

Tomorrow, though, I gots food plans. They involve pizza, and maybe a brownie. And yeah, probably some more cookies. They make for a healthy breakfast, right? Can't be worse than cereal.

Food For A Week: San Pedro, Day 3

2011-08-10T22:47:00.000-04:00

Before I move on to what I ate today, I need to add some stuff to yesterday. You see, around midnight (um, 2 hours after everything in town closes) I was *starving*. Like, really freaking hungry. So I dug around in my bag and located :

Some hard-ish candy and
2 packets of ketchup.

Not the tastiest snack ever, and not eaten together, but it worked, made my stomach shut up and that was all I really wanted right then.

Now, today I had:

Toast (with jelly and butter (I think it was butter, anyway)
Creamy potato and onion soup with oodles of cheese this time
1/2 an over-priced bottle of soda.

I really need a kitchen. And vegetables.

Food For A Week: San Pedro, Day 2

2011-08-09T19:14:00.000-04:00

Extra lazy and dealing with work delays, but today I ate a super-unhealthy:

2 (big-ish) bags of chips
liter of water.

I'd have had soda, too, but they were out. Maybe tomorrow...

Food For A Week: San Pedro, Day 1

2011-08-08T21:19:00.000-04:00

Figure I might as well actually write it down. Hopefully I'll be off to the next town Saturday, so the food will change then, but today I ate...

A bunch of water
One plate of hummus and chapati
and
A big, tasty brownie.

I've got photos somewhere, but the cord is hiding, so they'll have to wait.

Missing Food

2011-08-01T00:54:00.000-04:00

When I was in NZ, I had a nearly uncontrollable need for american-style Mac and Cheese. You know, the strangely orange stuff. In NZ all they had was this odd stuff made with "fancy" cheese. Still powdered, but not unhealthily orange.

I wanted nothing to do with it.

My cravings for "mexican" food I could manage--salsa's easy to make, and even in the middle of nowhere they have tortillas, taco shells, seasoning mix and refried beans. I even managed to fake a decent enchilada sauce at one point.

Now here I am in Guatemala, still wanting mac and cheese. I was in the import shop on friday, took a quick peek around. Totally wonderful looking place, with pretty much everything I'm sure I'd crave if I had the common sense to want real food. They even had american beer, which I thought was a bit odd.

So now I want mac and cheese. I didn't see any there. I really didn't look. But even if I found it, I don't have anywhere (yet) to cook it.

Then, tonight, something smells lightly of curry. Now I want Indian food, too. I tried the local idea of samosas. I won't be doing that again. They were... odd. Also, instead of sweet tamarind dipping sauce, they came out with pizza sauce and soy sauce. Samosas (even odd ones) don't go well with either of those flavors.

While I was in Antigua, the whole hour and a half, I walked past two McDonald's, a BK, and a Subway. Actually, I went into the Subway. I might have to go back and actually buy something next time I'm there. It's strange, actually. I don't miss home. I only miss the food.

I suspect I'll be doing eating tour of Charleston when I go back to visit. In a bit more than 3 months. I should probably start saving, huh?

So, what foods do you find you miss, when you can't get them? And can you sub something else, or does it have to be that exact thing? You know, like generic for brand name, or one kind of cheese for another....

Also, would kill for a big bag of chips, some vegan sour cream, and tasty spice mix. Would kill lots.

Brownies

2011-07-26T21:54:00.000-04:00

Here in San Pedro, where you can get fries for any price between 3 and 30Q ($0.40-$4 +/-) many things are expensive or tough to get. I pay 5Q--about 65 cents--once or twice a week for yummy choco chip cookies. The same price will get me a little lunch-box-sized tetra-pac of chocolate soy milk.

Or for 12Q (17 w/ ice cream) I can get a fudgy brownie. I heart this brownie.

I get them at Buddha Bar, which is open most nights, and shows movies a couple times a week upstairs, in a dining room that's somewhere between a lounge and a harem. Along the walls are benches with deep cushions, just right for reclining on. There are big pillows, and some low-slung tables. There are tables high enough to sit at with chairs (of which there are about 3) or on the wall benches, or on the big coffee-table-shaped backless chairs (covered in yet more huge comfy pillows). There are soft drapey shades over the lamps, and paper mache shades around the candles.

And dogs. There are dogs. The windows are smooth curves built into the masonry walls, and the centers swing out to catch the breeze during the day. LED fairy-lights wrap around the outside wall, and everyone is hanging out with their shoes off.

But the only thing that matters is the brownie.

Oh, and the fresh, homemade curry-hummus and chapatis.

Photo tomorrow. Maybe of the hummus, too.

Tourist Food In Guatemala (pics)

2011-07-20T14:37:00.000-04:00

As promised, though a bit late, food from yesterday, with bonus "cheap" quesadilla. I got two of the quesadillas, which ended up costing the same as the sammich (only no tip), and being about as filling. If I ate meat, I could have stuffed myself on 6 tacos for less money. Stupid cheap meat. Probably actually dog, anyway.

Anyway, sammich--

It was pretty yummy, and the view of the lake wasn't bad, either.

'Dillas--

Yay, food! Also, they've been doing some cool cooking here. I'll try to find out what's *actually* in the tamales they were making last week. I know there's rice, mashed potato, and chicken or beef in sauce all wrapped up in a banana leaf. But I don't know what's in the sauce. Or what was in the 4th pot....