I’ve always thought a place needed to have big trees, mountains and water (preferably ocean size but Lake Michigan works in a pinch) to be considered beautiful. You’ll note that Colorado only truly has the mountain part going for it. Thus, I wasn’t surprised when I moved out here to discover that I didn’t think Colorado was beautiful (much to the apparent consternation of everyone else that lives out here). However, recently I’ve come to the conclusion that what I really need to consider something beautiful is space. Trees, mountains and water are nice but space is essential.

I drove to one of our rural libraries today for a meeting. Even though Weld County has none of the things I traditionally consider beautiful, I love driving on the country roads. Life just seems better when there’s breathing space instead of row after row of houses. I don’t expect I’ll ever end up living in the country (Jaeger really enjoys civilization) but it’s nice to be able to drive through it and dream

I’ve located a sushi mat! I originally thought Bed, Bath and Beyond would have them but they don’t. Most places I looked suggested I go to an Asian food store but I couldn’t find any in Longmont (I’m sure they exist, I just couldn’t find them). Eventually, I thought to call Whole Foods (sometimes also referred to as “Whole Paycheck”) and they have them!

My next project was to find sushi recipes. I know there are lots of recipes on the Internet but there are also a lot of bad recipes on the Internet and sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the good and the bad. So, I surveyed my surrounding libraries and discovered that Longmont seemed to have the best selection of sushi books. I decided to put three on hold:

• Sushi for Dummies (the reviews specifically say they contain vegetarian recipes)
• The Great Sushi and Sashimi Cookbook
• Sushi Taste and Techniques

I’m hoping at least on of these has a couple of good vegetarian recipes in them.

The library is a dangerous place to work. Every day I come home with at least 3-4 interesting looking books to add to my “To Be Read” pile. I don’t know why I keep bringing them home. There is no way I can actually read everything. However, the library is dangerous in another way. They offer staff a discount when we buy books through them. On most books we get a 40% discount off the retail price and don’t have to pay shipping. The downside is you don’t get immediate gratification. The books you order usually take a couple of weeks and sometimes a month to arrive. However, it’s very tempting to spend all one’s discretionary money on books when you can get a brand new hardback for around $16 and new paperbacks for $4.50.

I just got an email that two books I ordered have arrived. They are The Roasted Vegetable by Andrea Chesman and King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking. I originally checked out both of these books from the library and kept them for many months until I started to feel selfish (the library lets you renew an unlimited number of times unless someone else is waiting for them). Finally I decided that I really should buy them

I didn’t have nearly enough time to try out all the interesting King Arthur recipes so I’m excited by another opportunity.

A couple of weeks ago I bought some herbs from a nursery called The Flower Bin. I discovered them last year after being unable to find healthy looking basil anywhere else. They are amazing. They don’t just have basil, they have at least 6 different varieties of basil to choose from. This year, I started off by buying columnar basil, Thai basil, oregano and rosemary. It was occasionally still dropping below freezing outside so I kept them in our spare bedroom. Unfortunately, I was negligent one day and left the bedroom door open. Our cats discovered the plants and had great fun digging in the dirt. They completely uprooted the oregano and distressed the Thai basil and rosemary. The columnar basil was in another pot and seemed to survive the ordeal intact.

Today I decided it was time to move them outdoors. The rosemary and Thai basil still look distressed so I decided to go back to The Flower Bin today and pick up some more herbs. I originally intended only to get replacement rosemary, basil and oregano. However, it’s like a candy store in there Eventually, I bought rosemary, oregano, cinnamon basil (instead of the Thai), mint, coriander, lemon cucumbers and a tomato plant.

Last year my herbs did pretty well so I’m hoping they’ll grow this year too. I have a fabulous recipe that uses Thai basil so I hope it survives. Last year I also tried growing tomatoes and failed miserably. I’m going to try again this year but don’t have much hope. On the other hand, Jaeger now has a drip system in place so at least the tomatoes will be getting plenty of water

Today I made my second batch of bagels using a recipe from Rose Leky Beranbaum’s book The Bread Bible. The first time I tried to make bagels was more than 5 years ago and was a dismal failure. This time they turned out pretty decent. While Beranbaum’s recipes are fairly time consuming to make, they always seem to turn out well. If I were to make them again, I think I would boil them for a little less time (I boiled them for the maximum amount of time she suggested) and use tin foil instead of wax paper. In spite of my success with bagels this time, I probably won’t be making them again. Bagels at bakery shops are just as good (or better) than these and take much less time

My next experiment from Beranbaum’s book will be rye bread. I ended up with enough money last week to buy a couple of extra things that weren’t on my list. So, I went ahead and bought most of the ingredients for Veggie Reuben Sandwiches except for the rye bread. Assuming no great bread disasters, I’m planning to have Reubens for supper tomorrow night.

I recently started listening to the audio book You on a Diet: The Owner’s Manual for Waist Managemnt by Michael F Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz. Previously, I had listened to another of the authors’ “You series”, You: The Owner’s Manual. It was interesting to listen to but it seemed like their answer to everything was to take another supplement. I do usually take a multi-vitamin and calcium supplement. However, in general I feel that most of my nutrients should be coming from food, not pills. So, I started listening to You on a Diet more for commute entertainment purposes than expecting any great insights into dieting.

Around 4:00 today I started to get hungry. By 5:00, I was starving. I left work and started listening to the audio book as I drove home. It practically drove me insane. The problem is that when you’re hungry, the audio book authors seem to go into excruciating detail describing the foods that people often crave. About mid-way through the drive home I turned off the audio book. I am too suggestible and their descriptions of food were making me so hungry I would have eaten anything edible in the car (fortunately, nothing existed).

I had put a casserole in the oven and set it to time bake before I left the house this morning. So, I was able to eat supper within twenty minutes of getting home. I don’t like to think about what sort of binge I would have gone on if I hadn’t had pre-approved food handy.

I think I’ll probably still finish the audio book but maybe I’ll just listen to it in the mornings when I’m not already feeling famished

I’ve been keeping a grocery price book for 6 months now (see my current info).

I usually visit anywhere from two to three grocery store on my shopping day: Vitamin Cottage, Albertsons, King Soopers and/or Safeway. While my price book doesn’t keep track of what I buy at each store, I’ve started to get a feel for where I want to buy what. My observations below are only relevant for Longmont, CO. I don’t know how much this varies in other places.

• Vitamin Cottage – Best place to buy bulk food items such as oats and nuts. The produce section is organic and, depending on the season, can sometimes beat the prices of non-organic produce at the other stores. If one is specifically looking for organic produce, Vitamin Cottage often (but not always) has the cheapest prices). They also have the best prices for the type of eggs I like buying and organic yogurt. Somewhat surprisingly, King Soopers usually sells Silk Soy Milk cheaper.
• Albertsons – The non-organic produce they sell tends to be the cheapest of all the grocery stores. Unfortunately, it’s also often not in very good shape. Usually has the best prices on non-specialty grocery items such as canned beans and vegetables. I also usually buy my whole wheat pasta there because they seem to be the only ones that carry my favorite brand, Bella Terra.
• King Soopers – This is my favorite general purpose grocery store. The prices are usually reasonable and even their specialty organic products are sometimes affordable (Muir Glen tomatoes are ofter twice as expensive at Albertsons as they are in King Soopers). Also, dairy products, specifically milk, are often the cheapest here. The only big downside is their French Bread contains two items that I’ve been trying to avoid: hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup.
• Safeway – I usually don’t buy much at Safeway. While their produce and other grocery products are usually the best quality, they also cost more. Safeway has organic equivalents of almost every product they sell but you pay for it. I usually don’t buy anything at Safeway unless they have a good sale on items I need that week or I’m buying French Bread. Of the three major grocery stores, their French Bread is the only one that contains neither hydrogenated oil or high fructose corn syrup.

I’ve worked on Sundays ever since starting work at the library. While in the reference department, I worked Sundays to compensate for never working Saturdays. However, I grew to like the schedule. While I liked working Sundays, it was difficult finding a good weekday to take off. Originally, I tried taking Fridays off. This had the advantage of my two days off being side by side. Unfortunately, the library district likes having meetings on Friday since we open later that day. So, I was showing up on about 1/3 of my days off anyway.

Initially when I moved to IT, I had a normal Monday through Friday work week. However, I had gotten use to having a weekday off. Also, there are certain maintenance tasks I have to do on a routine basis that take the system down for several hours. My normal practice was to do this Friday morning. However, we have one library that opens at 7 AM on Fridays. So, I decided to change back to working on Sundays. The library doesn’t open till 1 PM on Sundays so I have 5 hours in which to tinker with the system before everything has to be working again. This time, I decided to try to take Monday as my day off. While I no longer have two days off in a row, meetings are rarely scheduled for Monday (too tired from the weekend?).

I’ve had this schedule for several years now and have been quite happy with it. However, working on Sundays means that Jaeger and I have only 1 common day off. To rectify this deficiency, I have decided to start taking the second Sunday of every month off (and work the following Monday instead). I considered celebrating this change of schedule by Jaeger and I going out and eating brunch on Sunday (I try to avoid commerce on Saturday so we very rarely eat brunch together). However, it just occurred to me that this Sunday is Mother’s Day so the restaurants will probably be mobbed. Hm, maybe next month . . .

I’m very unimaginative when it comes to food I eat for a normal breakfast/lunch. Unless it’s my day off, I don’t spend nearly enough time enjoying the meal to care about it deeply. Thus, for breakfast I eat oatmeal combined with various fruits and nuts and for lunch I alternate between a Toasted Peanut Butter and Jam Sandwich or Yogurt (depending on the fat content of the rest of my meals) followed by a Luna bar.

Today I got a little more creative than usual with my yogurt and concocted a Chocolate and Raspberry Yogurt combination. It turned out a bit better than I expected. I think I’m going to add it to my normal lunch rotation.

It’s almost time for another Fest. Since food somehow ended up being a critical component of Festing, I’ve started thinking about what dishes I might make. I mentioned to Jaeger that I might try being a bit healthier than usual and he suggested we have vegetarian sushi. This seemed like a good idea to me but while sushi can be served by itself, it seems more like an appetizer than a main meal.

After pondering this for a while, either Jaeger or I came up with the idea of recreating Tokyo Joes’ Boulder Veggie Bowl. I was a little dubious about recreating the sauces but Jaeger informed me that we could buy these separate from Tokyo Joes.

So, tonight I made my first attempt at creating the Boulder Veggie Bowl. It turned out pretty decent except I included about twice as many vegetables as I should have. Based on Jaeger’s feedback I refined the recipe and you can now see it’s current incarnation here. I think the trickiest part is steaming the vegetables so they’re cooked but not limp.

Jaeger and I are contemplating tackling the sushi experiment Sunday. However, I suspect that Jaeger is first going to insist we pick up a genuine sushi mat.

I have recently become addicted to the Nutz Over Chocolate Luna protein bars. They taste pretty good, are just under 200 calories and have 10 grams of protein in them. However, I have a hard time justifying paying $1/bar.

I’ve found many recipes for energy/protein bars. However, almost all of them have more than 200 calories a bar or the serving size is minuscule. Today I tried making my own protein bars. The results were not pretty. Part of the problem is I used organic puffed brown rice. I was thinking it would be a “purer” substitute for Rice Krispies. However, the puffed rice gets downright soggy when combined with my chocolate mixture. Maybe I should just stick to my expensive Luna bars.