This last week has been full of contemplation. I had some really good talks with friends and tried to figure out where I’m going.

Where do I want to be in a year? Two years? Three? I have no idea. But I’m okay with that.

I had my first acupuncture treatment this morning. So far I am very impressed with Nicholas Steadman, but I’ll probably write a more thorough review after I’ve gotten it again (I signed up for another session on Thursday night). I think I am very lucky to have found this.

I think this blog has been heavy enough recently, so here is so food! Bobby and I have been to this Japanese place called East 3 times now. We have definitely learned what to get. The menus have pictures for every dish:

I like to get tea (complimentary) with my meals.

The first time we went I got this grilled broccoli. Kind of a ripoff ($2.50 I think), but very good.

Bobby got this burdock noodle soup with tempura and fish cake things. He said it was delicious and finished it… I got to taste the broth though. Pretty yummy.

The first night he also got this salmon roll ($10?). I’m not that much of a sushi person, but I tried it and I thought it was alright.

I had to get a salad, and this one rocked. It was only $6 and it was huge.

And I got this grilled salmon (miso glazed, $9) and horseradish with some sort of roe. I actually chopped most of this up and put it in the salad – so awesome. If this were cheaper I would get it again (it was a fairly small portion).

The next time we went with my mom (she had been up to help me paint). I got the salad again ($6). It is gigantic and probably the best deal I’ve seen in New York.

My mom got a bento box which came with a small salad and miso soup.

That night I got the chicken teriyaki ($5 something?). Ahh, this was delicious. It came with a piece of broccoli and a piece of carrot.

This was the rest of my mom’s bento box – seaweed salads, rice, salmon teriyaki, tempura, and a roll. I helped her

Bobby got a soup again that night. I don’t remember which one. Or maybe this was the burdock one and the other one was something else. Anyway, this was delicious as well.

And that same salmon roll (I want to say it’s called salmon lover’s).

Then last night we went with Kate and Simon (who just got engaged, congratulations!). It was Salmon Thursday! Lots of salmon dishes were super-reduced, so Bobby and I went all out for salmon. Here are the happy couples:

I got the salad yet again. Bobby got that salmon roll yet again.

Then… I got something called “salmon neck” for just $4. This plate is twice the size of a normal dinner plate. So huge!! It wasn’t all meat though (bones, eyes – you know – the usual).

It came with some horseradish stuff. Bobby also got a natto roll (fermented soybeans – I do NOT like this).

And another ridiculously cheap salmon roll (normally $14 or something, but on Salmon Thursday I think it’s $8).

Wow, what a lot of delicious Japanese food. I would highly recommend East. They have a few other locations as well. Bobby was the mayor briefly at this one, but he was ousted just last night.

I have to go tend to my sweetie before he gets pissed at me for blogging when he came home specifically to hang out with me. Later, pies!

What are your weekend plans? I am going to IKEA!

I am not sure how the week flies by so quickly. It seems like yesterday that I was posting about the perfect cornbread casserole, but it turns out that that was on Sunday night (!), already three days ago.

Sunday night before I posted Bobby and I went out to a Vietnamese place with our friend down in Chinatown thanks to a blogger rec and it was delicious. That post will have to wait until I upload the pictures though.

Wednesday Thoughts.

In the meantime, I wanted to share some insights from a really interesting conversation I had last night. I was talking about some of my struggles (let’s just call them that, yes) and my friend gave me some really important advice. There is so much more that I want to say, but I will not go into it all at once. For now, here is what I have to say (and if none of this makes sense, I apologize – skip down to pictures of yummy food!).

• If you have a cup of tea, just enjoy your cup of tea. Savor it. Smell it. Feel its warmth. Focus on your breathing. How do you feel? What are you thinking? Are you enjoying the tea, or is it simply background noise to something else you are doing? Was that what you had intended?
• We base our anxieties and worries on our own histories. Just because something happened yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and … – does not mean that it has to happen today.
• When we are building new habits and destroying old (bad) ones, it can be problematic to create deadlines/timelines. Habits do not abide by time limits. Instead, try to focus on doing your new habit XX times in a week (day? month?). Then slowly increase the number of times you practice your new habit and decrease the number of times you practice the old one.
• Behavior is physical and chemical and it CAN BE CHANGED.

Next time I want to talk about starters/initiators vs. maintainers. More to come!

Onto food.

Heather posted today about her standard dinners. Mine are actually quite similar! Here is one:

I usually have a nice base of veggies and I top it with fatty things that are healthy. This was (as far as I can recall)…

• stirfry of leeks and broccoli (in butter)
• then I tossed in 2 chopped tomatoes
• the toppings were probably nutritional yeast, parmesan, and maple syrup

My favorite veggies that are almost in these big bowls are Brussels sprouts and broccoli.

Yum! Also yum:

This is roasted kabocha (possibly from the same night). It was an unripe kabocha, but I have discovered that the best way to salvage these (they just aren’t as sweet) is to roast them in the oven at about 375F for 30-40 minutes. There is something wonderful about my current oven (maybe because it’s gas?) and the kabocha comes out deliciously starchy and good.

I am off to eat some oatmeal for dessert. I am catching up on last night’s Biggest Loser as well (I was on the phone and missed most of it).

What behavior do you wish you could change?

I had another non-planned-exercising day today. Here is what I did:

• Take the N train from 60th to 14th (Union Square)
• Stop at the farmers’ market and pick up 5 pounds of apples for $2 (they weren’t very good; no wonder they were only 40 cents/pound)
• Walk from 16th Street to work (10 blocks)
• After work, walk 17 small blocks and 3 big ones to check out a new grocery store
• Walk home (17 small blocks and 3 big ones)

I count all that walking as my exercise. It’s probably about 3 miles total, which is really not bad at all. Plus, I got to check out a cool new store that was recommended to me by a reader (thanks, Kendall!). It’s called A Matter Of Health and it’s on 77th Street and 1st Avenue.

I have been trying to keep this blog very upbeat as of late, but I think it’s time to get real. I’m struggling with some things that I’ve struggled with in the past, and I’m actually not having the amazing time that I’m always pretending to have.

Sorry for the downer… But damn, it feels good to get that off my chest. I’m going to try a few things in the coming weeks/months, and I need to hold myself accountable.

To cheer myself up, I got my absolute favorite food ever at A Matter of Health: KABOCHA!

This was a comfort meal. Times 2. Or maybe 3. And I had a few (small) snacky things like nut butter to make it a real meal. I had it with some new Yogi tea that I got, and I put lots of almond milk in it.

So so good. I am very content now. I’m watching last week’s Biggest Loser on Hulu.

Catch ya later! Have a good night.

Yesterday I gave you a teaser about my gingerbread house adventure – you get the full story today!

A week ago (last Sunday – when I blogged about exercise) I took the subway out to Flushing to visit my (Bobby’s) aunt and uncle. Auntie Jo had offered a while ago to teach me how to make real gingerbread houses – the recipe was from her German housekeeper (I think she said it’s from 45 years ago). I jumped at the opportunity – Auntie Jo is so sweet and I love learning new things about baking.

When I got there we got breakfast (see this post for my New York bagel). Auntie Jo had made the dough the night before (you have to chill it) so when we got back, we started with the baking process. Here is the recipe (hand-typed from Auntie Jo’s recipe book):

It says…

GINGERBREAD HOUSES (from Cookie Cookery)

Mix together until smooth:

• 1 cup shortening (2 bars)
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup molasses

Stir into above and mix well:

• 1/2 cup hot water

Beat 2 eggs and stir into the sugar mix.

Sift together, adding slowly:

• 5.5 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon

Place dough in containers and freeze or chill. Roll to 1/8 – 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out with a pointed knife following a cardboard patter: 2 each of front, side, and roof. Chimney is optional.

Warm oven to 350. Bake 10-15 minutes. Let cool. Put together with Royal Icing. Decorate.

ROYAL ICING

Add 2.5 cups of sifted confectioner’s sugar and 1/4 teaspoons cream of tartar to 2 egg whites.

Heat, stirring, in the top of a double boiler until warm and smooth. Remove from heat, beat in electric mixer at highest speed for 5-6 minutes, until icing stands in peaks. Cover bowl with damp towel and put into refrigerator. Can tint with food color, or may squeeze through a pastry tube with decorating tip.

Use to cement house together. When sides are secure, use to place ornament candies on house.

<—End Recipes—>

This was the baking station: a beautiful recipe book (handmade), a cutting board, cardboard cutouts (for making the house shapes), flour, a rolling pin. The dough is in that metal bowl.

First, you flour the cutting board. Then you roll out the dough (with a rolling pin) until it’s about 1/4 – 1/8 inches thick. Use the cardboard shapes to cut out the pieces for the house.

Auntie Jo showed me how to scoop under the dough before cutting it out so that it comes off the cutting board more easily.

I had fun cutting out the pieces! Mine were not as nicely shaped as Auntie Jo’s, but she has more practice than I do (I’ll keep trying).

Duke (Ellington) kept us company:

(He didn’t get any gingerbread.)

After we did the houses, we still had dough left, so we did some cutouts – that’s a carrot cookie cutter. It is so cute. The house pieces came out and we put them in the garage to cool:

While they cooled, we took a break…

…To eat cinnamon toast with butter and hot tea with milk and sugar.

Uncle Morris DJ’d and played us some lovely jazz music while we baked that afternoon.

Then it was time to make the icing. We didn’t use a double boiler; we just boiled water in a pan and put the metal bowl with the icing batter inside.

And we beat the icing in the mixer – beautiful. We used a pastry tube thing to squeeze the icing (like glue) and put the houses together.

The roofs go on last. We actually ended up with an extra base, so I put a heart on it and gave it to Bobby.

After I put on the roofs, I packed up the houses and took them home to finish decorating (it was late). I just decorated them yesterday (Saturday), and this is how they came out:

I used gummy bears and chocolate chips.

I’m giving them to my coworkers and my cousin (in-law-to-be). I think they make great gifts – I’ll definitely be making them next year too.

Thank you Auntie Jo for teaching me! And to Uncle Morris for great company

I’m actually on my own now… Bobby is en route to Miami (should touch down in about 25 minutes) and I miss him. But I’ll see him on Wednesday. I’m still missing the cats, too.

Have you ever made gingerbread houses? Do you give baked goods as presents? What are your favorite things to make?