Update: Sunday 20 Jan

I'm going to do something that I have become pretty good at: talk about food.

Remember I said I bought some beans and I had no idea what they were because they were labeled "speckled beans" and I couldn't find any information on speckled beans? They are cranberry beans. Apparently it's a bean somewhat popular in Italy. They're called borlotti in Italian. So with that knowledge, I went and searched for recipes with cranberry beans to get some ideas on how to use them (they were very good in the chili I made, but one can only eat chili so many times, especially when one is limited on chili powder). I did find this recipe right here for an Italian soup that looks good but I don't think I can make that, unfortunately. I've looked for kale in the store (maybe I could make it without kale but the kale was the reason I thought it looked so good to begin with) but I have never seen any around here. Also, parmesan cheese. Though admittedly it's not very much parmesan that is required. And even bay leaves?

I just want to tell you that I kind of felt a little bit of personal success this morning. When I stepped on the scale, it said 70kg. Might not mean a lot to you, but I was 90kg when I got here. 20kg is a lot. About 45 pounds. I'm almost to the point where I'm not really "overweight" anymore. Almost. Not quite, though.

This morning also Sara asked me if I am on a diet, because I eat salad for lunch every day. Pfft no, I just like salad. I guess I could lie and say I mostly eat healthy food because I am on a diet but… I just like those foods… And well first of all, I don't mostly eat healthy food. I just avoid processed foods… With the exception of processed grains in bread and pasta, and processed sugar, of which a tiny bit goes in my tea every day… And I avoid soda, because who needs that nasty crap. I wouldn't say the salads I eat every day are really that healthy but who can go wrong with lettuce, homemade balsamic vinaigrette, beets and cashews? ;) It's a strange salad, actually. Well no one said you have to eat it… It's my salad. I'm not sharing. Go away.  But, I do eat unhealthy stuff too! Like sugar and olive oil and butter and… That might be about all there is. Okay I only eat a little bit of unhealthy stuff. I haven't been to McDonald's or Burger King since July or August. And I'm never going back there if I can help it, which I can. Again, not that I'm trying to be healthy. Just that I know that stuff's not any good anyway. I don't think I need to eat preservatives… I can preserve myself just fine, thank you.

I can't say I don't eat any fast food… I think that Subway and Vapiano and Eazie all count as fast food… But they use fresh veggies and there's nothing else to it other than pasta, bread, pizza dough or noodles. Well, and sauce. Sauce is a luxury… I don't eat sauces at home because I don't want to buy things to make them from scratch and I don't want to buy anything that comes in a can or jar. (Except those beets. They came in a jar. That was necessary. Oh, and minced ginger. It comes in a jar too. But… the ingredients for that are…. like…. Ginger. Maybe they add water? I don't even know.)

So, sometimes I like to take pictures of my food.

For example, I said that I would take a picture next time I went to Vapiano and well… I ate my pizza before I remembered. But I did take pictures of this place where you can order pasta and this place where you can order pizza. That guy back there may or may not have been making my pizza… Most likely not. But if he wasn't he should have been.

But I also took this picture of pasta that I made which I'm only going to link to because it looks much more boring than it tastes… It's not like I went out of my way or anything… Bonus blurry background shot of my computer.