The Last Days of Scotland

Only another day and a bit till I make it home!

Monday:

Breakfast - strawberries and yoghurt, a soft roll with apricot jam (very nice) and some orange juice.

Lunch - vegan banana cake. Later, a baked potato with cheese and a diet coke.

Dinner - piece of arctic char with broccoli and cauliflower, followed by a peach yoghurt and two squares of dark chocolate. The vegetables were overcooked, unfortunately, and I didn't have any butter, lemon or garlic to put on them, so they were bland to boot. Urgh.

I'm also on antibiotics for the previously-mentioned head cold, which is in danger of turning into a sinus infection. (Very bad for long-haul flying.) At least I've now got an excuse for eating lots of yoghurt!

Tuesday:

Breakfast - as yesterday.

Lunch - three-egg scrambled eggs with a little bit of cheddar. A banana. A piece of dark chocolate.

Afternoon snack - small packet of reduced-salt crisps.

Dinner - (interrupted by fire alarm) rather nice frozen pizza with basil and mozzarella. Should be, at the price! Some non-fizzy lemonande. An apple and a chocolate dessert thing at some points throughout the night.

Plus painkillers, decongestants and antibiotics at semi-regular intervals. Urgh!

However...next post from Oz!

Waiting, waiting...

I feel rather like life is on hold until I go home. Perhaps reflected in the sheer awfulness of my diet...

Friday:

Brunch - two slices rye toast, one with cheese and one vegemite. Small peach yoghurt and a large banana. Some orange juice.

Afternoon tea - scone with butter and jam. Hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream.

"Dinner" - bag of microwave popcorn, and orange juice.

Snack - after buying the latest Harry Potter, one orange and mango ice-block. Incidentally, I read the book in a smidge over an hour and a half. A decent finale, but 100 minutes worth of words after waiting several years is not a great pay-off. And the epilogue is cringeworthy.

Saturday: (in the rain and with a head cold. Grrr.)

Brunch - strawberry yoghurt drink, fresh crisps (straight out of the mandoline and into the hot oil, from the Farmer's Market). Followed by the delights of souvenir shopping in the rain. Bagpipes and kitsch galore.

"Lunch" - piece of gingerbread with orange and mango juicy water.

Dinner - two soft rolls with cheese, cucumber and lettuce. One banana.

Sunday:

Brunch - panini with brie, cranberry and meat, plus a bit of salad and some organic apple juice. (Again at favourite cafe, though less enjoyable due to unusual absence of newspapers.)

Snacks - 1 small bar chocolate cream, an apple

Dinner - broccoli and stilton soup (Baxter's posh range, and rather nice), a bread roll, lots of fresh pineapple.

My only consolation is the small portions. And now I'm not well - I'm not convinced there's no connection. Doubt I'll make up the vegetables, but will get back into the fruit over the next few days. Roll on Sydney.

The Final Countdown

OK, it seems I have no willpower left this week. Only six days till I go home, so as long as I don't go completely insane I'm not bothering with too much diet planning. No energy, no desire, just waiting to get back to Oz.

Anyway, a record of the dubious food consumption of the past few days:

Tuesday:

Brunch - ciabatta(?) roll with mozzarella, meat, lettuce and tomato from my local Italian deli, plus some organic apple juice and a lovely tiramisu to finish. Eaten sitting outside in the SUN!!!!!!!!! (Yes, such an event deserves an exclamation mark, since the next two days returned to normal and awful weather.)

Afternoon tea - fresh pineapple, eaten in Princes Street Gardens.

Dinner - pasta with poached salmon, dill, other random herbs and a bit of cream (thank you Sainsbury's), tortilla chips, an apple, lemon and lime water.

Post-dinner snack - two mini-bagels with vegemite.

Wednesday:

Breakfast - soy-lin cereal with milk and peach yoghurt, an apple, two slices of rye toast with vegemite.

Snacks - 1 mini-bagel with margarine, some barbeque and five spice chips

Dinner - homemade vegetarian lasagne (definitely too cheesy, which is quite something for me to say!), four squares dark chocolate.

Thursday:

Breakfast - croissant with butter and jam, strawberry and banana smoothie, hot chocolate with cream. (Leisurely, in favourite cafe.)

Lunch - malted brown roll (not so nice - remind me not to buy bread in Tesco again. Must learn to make my own) with cheese slices, lettuce and cucumber. Fresh pineapple

Dinner - (AKA breakfast) soy-lin cereal with milk and yoghurt, small bag m&ms, an apple

A truly awful diet by anyone's standards. The only positive thing is a) my weight is fairly stable (I only seem to have gained 1/2 kilo in London), and b) my portions are pretty small.

Roll on home, Dad's cooking, Mum's pampering and the exercise bike, plus the indoor pool in Queensland. (Although not before I visit the very nice patisserie at Edinburgh Airport...)

The Last Days of Gluttony

Well, sort of. I had a PhD progress assessment today (which went well), so I won't be back on the wagon properly till tomorrow. But still.

Anyway, when last we met I was about to go to the opera. Which was truly magnificant. Splendiferous. Wonderful.

My last night in London (Saturday evening):

chocolate ice cream (if you're going to eat it, the interval at Covent Garden's not a bad place to do so!)

Later:
Emmental pastry
Weight Watcher's chocolate and vanilla mousse.
1 banana and some orange juice.

Sunday:

Breakfast - two bowls of cereal with yoghurt. 1 banana. A bit of juice. Some cold meat (later, from a roll that I subsequently dropped and had to throw away.)

Lunch - smoked salmon, cream cheese and salad bagel. 1 packet of crisps. Some gingerbread. Some orange and mango juice drink.

Evening snack - more gingerbread. An apple. More juice drink. (Was frantically trying to finish up an article, and dinner got forgotten.)

Monday:

Breakfast - two cups of milky tea, 2 shortbread + cherry biscuits. (During my assessment.)

Lunch - 2/3 Brazilian cheese ball, enormous yoghurt, chickpea and salad baguette, and an acai and banana drink. An apple.

Dinner - something listed on the menu as spanakopita but which was really spinach and cheese crepes. Very nice though. Plus some chocolate cake, which was delicious but unfinishable (a very large slice).

I just realised I forgot to take my tablets today. Oops. But will start taking better care of myself tomorrow. And while healthwise the London visit was dubious, it was excellent for my research, great for culture (art gallery + opera), and wonderful to catch up with some old friends. I'll take the couple of kilos.

More London Largesse

With an emphasis on the large...

My doctors will not be happy. Neither will my clothes. And I'm back in Australia in a fortnight! I wanted to look good for my family, not like a whale!

Anyway,

Thursday:

Breakfast - cereal, yoghurt, banana. Some orange juice

Lunch - baked potato with cheese, mixed salad plate, pain au chocolat, apple juice. Followed by a rest, or at least an extended flop in a chair.

Dinner - beef canneloni (Sainsbury's, and completely tasteless. Urg.) Weight Watcher's chocolate mousse. Lemon and Lime water.

Friday:

Breakfast - cereal, yoghurt, banana. Some orange juice.

Lunch - smoked cheddar, chutney and salad baguette. Hot chips. Apple juice.

Dinner (with some good friends from Oz. Finally, human contact in London!) - various healthy nibbles (parsnip chips, celery and dip). Chicken curry. Four quarters from four seriously extravagant (and monumentally delicious) pastries from Harrods. 1 glass juice, 1 glass white wine. 1 cup milky sugary tea with a mint slice! (The taste of Oz...)

Saturday:

Breakfast - a trip to Borough Market, which was lovely. A freshly squeezed juice with orange, apple, pineapple, mango and other healthy things. One slice white buttered toast. 1 milky hot choclate. 1 portuguese tart (an excellent specimen). Bits of cheese, dip etc.

Lunch - hot chips. Very nice soft roll with cheese, rare roast beef and rocket from the market. 1 apple.

Am off to the opera tonight, which starts at seven, so I'll have neither the time nor inclination for a full meal. Will try to find something suitable to nibble. I have yoghurt, fruit and another low-fat mousse in the fridge, but I think I need something a bit more substantial. Another sandwich, perhaps?

And I need to think about train food. Hopefully I can afford a decent bagel or sandwich, and some juice. I already have a piece of gingerbread and some fruit. I've got a lot of work to do on the train, so I'll need something to keep my brain going.

Then, on Monday, starvation rations must ensue. Hopefully I can lose whatever wait I've gained this week before heading home, though I won't be the svelte returner I hoped to be.

C'est la vie. The exercise bike, home cooking and someone to look after me should really help my health. Fingers crossed for a trimmer me come September.

Living large in London

That will be my size, if I continue this way. And the distinct opposite of my bank balance, which is looking very thin after everyday expenses in inflated London, as well as various extravagant purchases (a new french horn case and an opera ticket.)

Food for Wednesday:

Breakfast - cereal, yoghurt etc. Banana and some orange juice.

Lunch - in the National Gallery cafe, which is very nice! Smoked salmon, lettuce, tomato and potato salad with a bread roll, one glass old-fashioned lemonade.

Dinner - pasta cabonara, small bar green and black's milk chocolate.

Snacks - lemon and lime 'this water', packet of crisps, cheese straws and an apple.

I'm dreading the scales.

At least my work is going quite well.

Ah, gluttony

Travelling and library work play havoc with my diet, unfortunately. Must get back on track. My main problem is that when I focus on something, I forget to eat until I'm shaking and almost collapsing, and then I gobble too much. MUST FIND BALANCE!

Anyway, Saturday:

Brunch - two croissants with margarine and strawberry jam. Fresh strawberries with yoghurt. 1 glass orange juice.

Dinner - homemade lasagne with three cheeses, rocket, zucchini, mushroom and homemade sauce. Fresh pineapple.

Snacks - chocolate coated muesli bar, 1 apple, bits of cheese while preparing dinner.

Sunday: (on the road again)

Breakfast - cereal with strawberries and yoghurt.

Lunch - wensledayle, lettuce and caramelised carrot chutney sandwich. 1 packet crisps. 1 small bottle orange juice.

Dinner - mushroom and parmesan risotto, fresh pineaple, 1 glass orange juice.

Snacks - 1 chocolate and 1 yoghurt mini-muffin with rasberries. 1 apple.

Monday: (London - a very bad food day)

Breakfast - wheat-bitey-thing-cereal with yoghurt and milk. 1 banana.

Lunch - smoked chicken and mayo baguette. Hot chips. Apple juice.

Dinner - double chocolate frappe. Cheese puff straws. An apple.

Tuesday:

Breakfast - as yesterday, plus 1/2 glass orange juice.

Lunch - smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich. 1 packet crisps. 1 chocolate truffle dessert. Apple juice. (I felt rather unwell after all that...)

Afternoon tea - one glass hot chocolate

Dinner - roast vegetable pasta with blue cheese, blue cheese with baby carrots, fresh pineapple.

MUST GET BACK ON STRAIGHT AND NARROW! At least I've been walking a bit...

Oh, and a belated GO FEDERER!

Ho Hum

Two distinctly ordinary days when I managed to accomplish virtually nothing. Not good, particularly since I now have about 150 things to do tomorrow. Oh well. At least the tennis was exciting today! (Viva la France!)

Thursday:

Brunch: French toast made with the last of the rye bread and some of my fancy organic eggs, topped with a peach, some strawberries and greek yoghurt with honey. Plus a glass of orange juice.

Dinner: four cheese tortellini with the last of the homemade sauce + extra cheese, plus a mini-bagel with lettuce, turkey, cheese and cucumber. Mini-chocolate muffin with rasberry, and an apple.

Friday:

Brunch: cheese scroll with lettuce, turkey, cucumber, cheese and rowan jelly. Several handfuls of popcorn (about 30-40g?). 1 glass of orange juice. 1 mug low-cal hot chocolate with milk.

Dinner: half a fillet of hot smoked salmon with new potatoes and broccoli. Strawberries with greek yoghurt. Mini yoghurt muffin with rasberry. A pear.

I also turned about a kilo of tomatoes into a roasted sauce, and grilled two zucchinis (one green, one yellow) to turn into lasagne tomorrow.

Market visit in the morning (assuming the rain's not too heavy), but I won't buy much since I'm away from Sunday, and going home a week and a half after I get back from London. I'm trying to eat up what I've got - which means rather more meat/fish than normal. We'll see how that goes.

On the Road

Have been in Manchester for two days, and am exhausted (three changes of train coming back, after a stressful and not particularly successful visit.)

Didn't do too badly on the 'healthy' plan while I was away - lots of walking around the city, and not too much junk food.

Anyway:

Tuesday

Breakfast - lots of fresh strawberries, small bottle of orange juice, mini chocolate and yoghurt muffins with rasberries (1 of each)

Lunch - some sort of toasted bread-y thing with goat's cheese, chutney and spinach. An apple.

Afternoon tea - cup of sweet milky tea with a biscuit.

Dinner - chicken and mushroom pie with chips and peas. One very large glass of white wine.

Wednesday

Breakfast - bowl of granola with milk and yoghurt, plus two pieces of brown toast with margarine. One glass of apple juice. 1/2 cup of sweet milky tea.

Morning tea - lots of assorted fruit (at least an apple, a pear, a small mandarin, and a few strawberries) plus a couple of crisps.

Lunch - half a caramelised carrot chutney and wensledayle cheese sandwich, half a smoked salmon and soft cheese sandwich, both on brown bread. Some cloudy apple juice. 1 Belgian chocolate brownie.

Dinner - other sandwich halves, more apple juice.

Not bad considering I had two long train trips and not that many regular meal opportunities. We'll see how I go in London next week...

---

SUGAR ALERT!

I've been having too much juice, I think. Juice consumption is a bit of a problem - I really love the stuff, but it's too sweet and too energy dense, even though I only drink non-concentrate, no added anything versions. I did quite well last week, since I made 1 litre of orange juice last 6 days by diluting each glass, but I have to watch that. Also, I've been drinking some lemon-and-lime flavoured water, but I didn't realise the new reformulated version had sugar rather than artifical sweeteners. So I have to dilute it even more than I have been, or else stop drinking it. Plus there's the problem that I like my tea very sweet. Must wean myself off that or get used to some sort of artificial sweetener again.

---

So not perfect, but I'm making reasonable progress. I'll try to hit the gym again tomorrow, or walk outdoors. Weather permitting, of course!

Rain, rain, go away

I got rather soggy today, but still managed to get a fair amount done. And I went to the gym! (Thank you Wimbledon, for distracting me on the exercise bike.) Over 40 min. decent activity, as well as the walk to the station for my ticket (and the wait long enough for me to get through the Independent. Twice.)

So, to the food.

Breakfast: soy-lin cereal with strawberries, greek yoghurt and milk.

Snack: 1 banana. 1 small hot chocolate (I deserved it given the wait at Waverly!)

Lunch (quite late - closer to five than four): bowl of cheese tortellini with homemade tomato and roasted capsicum sauce with most of a bag of green leaves (from market post)chopped and stirred through. Plus a sprinkle of parmesan. For dessert, half a piece of gingerbread with the last of the ice cream.

Dinner: (midnight-ish - I'm too nervous to sleep given tomorrow's jaunt to Manchester for filming...) Rye sandwich with soft goat's cheese, turkey, lettuce, cucumer and rowan jelly, plus an apple.

Health-wise, a good day all round. Though I was exhausted enough to need a nap after the gym!

Half Year Resolutions

Well, the second half of 2007 is upon us. It looks like being a busy six months, with the next 26 days being particularly hectic. A trip to Manchester, London, a PhD assessment, and then a five week visit home. We'll see what sort of impact this all has on my health.

Today wasn't exactly an action packed day, but I haven't broken any resolutions. Yet.

Breakfast (rather late, but still a meal in its own right): soy-lin cereal with strawberries and greek yoghurt.

Lunch: a roggenmischbrot(!) sandwich with lettuce, cucumber, smoked cheddar, turkey breast and rowan jelly. Very nice. Plus an extra scrap of rye bread with margarine, and a handful of organic popcorn (salted but without butter). Half a piece of gingerbread with a miniscule scoop of ice-cream.

Dinner: half a large piece of hot-smoked salmon, a small head of organic broccoli, and some new charlotte potatoes. Followed by a nice ripe peach.

On the exercise front, my first attempt was thwarted by the rain. The sun started shining - I set off for the park - it started raining again - I scurried home. I had more luck after 8pm, when I managed a 40min walk round The Meadows before having dinner. Plus some assorted stretches. Must keep those up.

A promising start - we'll see how tomorrow goes. I've got a hundred and fifty errands to run, so at least I'll get more incidental exercise than usual.

To market, to market

No red hens were bought, however.

Woke up feeling like I'd been hit in the head, which was most irritating. (If I'm going to feel like I've got a hangover, I'd prefer to have had the enjoyment the night before!) However, I did make it to the Farmer's Market, and it didn't really rain (at least not compared to last week.)

Unfortunately the mushroom people weren't there, but I bought a lot of other interesting food:

* breakfast - an apricot danish and a strawberry youghurt drink

* hot-smoked salmon (expensive but delicious)
* rowan jelly (experimental, but it was from a venison stall and I've got some venison sausages in the fridge, so we'll see.)
* loaf of roggenmischbrot (slightly less heavy than last week's verion, being mixed with non-rye flour. Still looks good.)
* a nice white bread roll, to have with a lamb burger tonight.
* organic veggies - two heads of broccoli, fresh garlic, tatsui (sort of like pak choy), a head of unnamed but fancy lettuce, a yellow and an ordinary zucchini, and some plum tomatoes.
* six organic free range rare breed eggs. (They're blue! And the yolks are apparently lower in cholesterol.)
* a slice of gingerbread
* 2 punnets of strawberries

On the way home, I passed an interesting international market on Princes Street, where I picked up:
* some gorgeous-looking french tomatoes (will slow-roast some for sandwiches, and turn the rest + the scottish lot into pasta sauce).
* a mixture of very ripe and not-so-ripe peaches. (Some for eating, some for roasting.)

I would have liked to buy some salami, but I couldn't buy a half-serve, and there's only so much processed meat I can eat.

As a sort of mid-morning snack, I also had a serving of dutch mini-pancakes (thankfully NOT deep-fried) with sugar and lemon. Yum.

All this extravagance took some time, and more or less precluded lunch. I had a few strawberries and some orange juice, and will have an early dinner. At the moment, this looks like it will be a lamb burger with lettuce, tomato and cheese, followed by a peach.

I spent about 32 pounds today, which I suppose isn't too much for almost a week's food, but is not cheap for a single student. Especially since I still need to buy some yoghurt, fruit and meat for sandwiches. But I'm sure I had more fun and will eat better than my neighbours who budget shop at Lidl.

Anyone for tennis?

Not really, since the closest I've come to a tennis court myself is walking past a few people playing in the Meadows on Wednesday evening. However, I have been glued to Wimbledon, particularly since the telecast starts at lunchtime! (And I've now discovered the BBC's streaming - there goes the next week.)

Anyway, not a top-notch day, health wise. I woke up unbelievably groggy and then had a fairly upset stomach, which meant I didn't have time for breakfast before heading off for a haircut.

Lunch: a grainy roll with turkey, cranberry sauce, brie, lettuce and cucumber. Very nice! Followed by a failed attempt at some blueberry yoghurt that appeared to have gone off, a yoghurt mini-muffin, and a banana. And a low-cal hot chocolate while I channel-surfed between Janko Tipsarevic/Fernando Gonzalez and Jelena Jankovic/Lucie Safarova. (I'm not normally one for tattoos, but Janko's is from Dosteoevsky (sp). And he's not a bad looker at all..)

Dinner: an interesting pizza-like thing that's been lurking in the freezer. From the Tesco Whole Foods range, it's got a soy-linseed and other seed base (I discovered a few pumpkin seeds as well), and is topped with red capsicum (lots), mushroom (not much), and a few stray sun dried tomatoes, along with a feeble amount of cheese. I stripped off the stray tomatoes, removed the mushrooms, and covered the whole thing with my slow-roasted tomato concotion from yesterday. Then I redistribute the mushrooms more evenly, and covered everything with a mixture of smoked cheddar and parmesan. Very tasty, and not too unhealthy (well, for a pizza...) I will really have to start making my own pizza bases - perhaps when I'm home in August.

Dessert was the last two peaches, roasted as usual and served with a bit of ice-cream. Pleasingly, the 100g mini tub is still not quite empty - I'm saving the last spoonful to have with some farmer's market gingerbread tomorrow. (Assuming I brave the weather, that is.) However, I forgot to turn up the oven after cooking the pizza, and the missing twenty degrees did seem to make a difference - the sugar caramelized as usual, but the peaches weren't as soft. Was still yummy, though.

Am pleased with the way the week's gone, food-wise, although my activity levels and general health was ropey. (And let's not even talk about the amount of work I've got done on my PhD...) Tomorrow's the last day of June, and also marks 2007's halfway point. Since I've more or less got a handle on my eating, my half-year resolution is to work on my exercise. I know I can't do much, but I HAVE TO get moving more. Even if it's just for a stroll. I'm seeing various doctors in just over a month, and I'd like to get a good response to my efforts for a change, instead of a "yes, but..." We shall see.

Late Night Snacks

And the rest of the day's food, as well.

Rather a slow day - I blame Wimbledon. Oh Tim! It was a good effort, though.

Anyway, breakfast: 1/2 cup of soy lin cereal with strawberries, yoghurt and milk. Last of the Farmer's Market strawberries until Saturday.

Morning tea: cup of milky tea with sugar

Lunch: leftover 1/2 tin of cream of tomato soup, 1 home-made mini-bagel with margarine, and a large and rather odd salad comprising baby leaves, a chopped apple, a carrot, and the tail end of the Peculiar Blue cheese, with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. A bit of salad left, to be eaten with dinner.

Followed by some lemon tea with honey.

Dinner: I'd spent much of the day slow-roasting with orgeano some baby plum tomatoes I picked up at the market last week. I really don't like eating raw tomatoes, so this was an attempt to make them edible. It worked, though they weren't kidding about the slow. It took six hours! I fried most of the tomatoes off with onion and garlic to use tomorrow for...something, and then used the rest to make a sort-of-spanish two-egg omlette, with added mushrooms, scraps of cold meat, and two boiled and sliced new potatoes. Plus the rest of the salad. Not too bad, but a bit heavy.

Evening snack: a banana, and a homemade chocolate mini-muffin with rasberries.

Hmm. Might be eating a bit too much considering my activity levels at the moment. I know it's all fairly healthy, but still...will ponder this further.

Today I ate...

Rather variable day today for everything, including the weather. Bits of frazzlement over travel plans for the rest of the summer (when to go to London, when to go home); problems booking train tickets; severe irritation at the pub quiz, when we got the jackpot questions right only to be pipped to the money by a team who had done slightly better in the main round. *sigh* At least they bought us drinks!

Anyway, foodwise:

Breakfast - 1/2 cup soy-lin cereal with rasberry yoghurt and milk, followed by a banana

Lunch - leftover pasta with extra cheese and almost a cup of broad beans, the last few scraps of roggenbrot, toasted (about 2 1/2 slices) and a bowl of sliced strawberries with a miniscule scoop of ice cream.

Afternoon tea - a chocolate chip cookie from Millie's. Quite nice, particularly after a frazzled time at the station. And the advantage of buying from a stall is that you only get one. After that, it's gone. My willpower's too weak for a packet. Or for home-baked. Biscuits are something I really only bake when I have someone to share them with. Otherwise it's just too easy to polish off half a batch.

Dinner - half a tin of tomato soup (Baxters, and though purists may sneer, I rather like their products, particularly when I'm tired/in a hurry/not very hungry) with a home-made mini poppy-seed bagel. An apple.

In the pub - a pint of Addlestone's cider.

Thus endeth the menu.

Today in the Kitchen

A fairly boring day, food wise, although Tim Henman's victory at Wimbledon was anything but! (Hey, my television's in the kitchen. Surely that counts?)

Anyway, breakfast was three very small slices of roggenbrot, toasted with jam, followed by a bowl of strawberries with Greek yoghurt. There's something rather appealing about slicing a very small loaf of bread - you're eating the same quantity as with a normal Jumbo-Loaf, but the increased number of slices feels almost luxurious. I probably could have eaten less, but I didn't have anything mid-morning.

Lunch was a homemade mini-bagel with baby salad leaves and a bit of blue cheese, a homemade wholemeal yoghurt mini-muffin with rasberries, and a banana. The bagels were from a batch I made last week and froze, the muffins were frozen the week before. Even small batches tend to last a while round here - I made two lots of mini-muffins, twelve in each tray, gave away four when they were fresh, and popped the rest in the freezer. The act of defrosting does tend to stop me overeating, which is probably a good thing. I just wish I had more people to share cakes with. Then I could make them more often!

Dinner was use-up-the-leftovers pasta, with some more fried exotic/wild mushrooms, the last bits of a head of broccoli and cauliflower, the last few baby spinach leaves, and some scraps of meat, and some smoked cheddar. The cheese was delicious, although it overpowered the veggies a bit. Probably not such a bad thing, since they were rather bland. Would have benefitted from some garlic or lemon.

Anyway, there's a few leftovers for tomorrow, which I might liven up with some extra mushrooms and some broad beans. We must eat more vegetables. Fruit, on the other hand, has never been a problem, as witnessed by the baked peach I had for dessert. I splurged today on a very small tub of vanilla ice-cream, and had about three small spoonfulls with the peach. It's certainly cheaper to buy bigger tubs, but if it's there it gets eaten excessively. Best not to keep it around too often.

Minor irritation: after weighing out my pasta, and castigating myself for eating too much cheese, my neighbour made an enormous amount of pasta, and then someone down the corridor deep fried some chicken! It's not that I begrudge others the ability to eat what they want, but I get tired of having to be so careful myself. Unfortunately, my medical condition leaves me little leeway. (A moment on the lips, several generations on the hips, springs to mind.) And this is when I'm at a normal weight!

On the upside, the non-cookers who share my kitchen often comment on my healthy diet. Hopefully my insides are fitter than the rest of me!

Monday's Menu

Anyone who made it through my rather lengthy 'manifesto', I salute you. As well as being incurably long-winded, I am rather prone to tangents, but I promise any discussion of politics, sport, my research or other random topics will be clearly marked.

Right. Today's food (or rather, yesterday's.)

Monday wasn't a brilliant day, energy-wise, which meant breakfast-at-lunch. But it was a rather good one - three slices of roggenbrot topped with mushrooms fried with baby spinach and some Peculiar Blue Sheep's Cheese. And a side baby-leaf salad. Followed by chopped strawberries with greek yoghurt. The mushrooms (mixed wild and exotic), cheese and bread came from the Edinburgh Farmer's Market on Saturday, which I braved in the pouring rain and then needed a nap to recover from. Oops! But not atypical.

Dinner was a piece of oven-cooked Arctic char (the fish was frozen), with new potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower. Followed by two peaches roasted with a bit of butter, sugar and cinnamon at the hottest oven setting for about fifteen minutes, served with the last two spoonfuls of lunch's yoghurt. Yum.

Let's see how the rest of the week pans out. I have quite a full fridge/freezer right now, and a research trip planned soon, so I'm going to try to eat as much of what's already there.

So here I am

I've been wanting to start a food(ish) blog for some time, ever since I started lurking on other people's. Perhaps this will also force me to get out there and comment!

The blogsphere is already full of wonderful cooks, photographers and writers, presenting recipes and pictures to tantalise the tastebuds, and essays on food to boggle the brain. That's not really what I'm here to do.

My aim is simply to discuss shopping, cooking and eating from my perspective. Which is that of a food-loving single student, in a city, on a tight budget, with some long-term health problems.

What does that mean?

The bad: No matter how good my intentions, there are times when I just can't get to the farmer's market or even the supermarket. Sometimes I can't afford the tastiest cheese or the organic beef. Occasionally I'm too tired to eat breakfast until lunchtime. Now and then boiling pasta is too much work. Or a general state of unwellness will have me eating lots of toast.

The good: There are also times when I come back from the market with a backpack full of delicious things that I can't wait to cook. There are days when I can make three sets of cupcakes, bagels and a dip, and then go to a party. Or leave pastry chilling in the freezer while I run off to a movie, and then come back to make a tart. Sometimes I will run away from my research to have lunch in a cafe, and I love to amuse my parents when I describe the latest new-to-me food that I've just tried.

That's my life. And that's what I want to describe. In an ideal world, I'd have an organic box, a horde of eager tasters for every dish, the energy to go across the city to find the perfect sausage, and the health to not worry too much about weighing every dish of pasta I cook. But real life's not like that. Maybe Hugh Fearnley-Whatshisname in the Guardian can suggest putting your head in the oven if you buy out-of-season fruit vegetables (my admittedly petty response was to throw the otherwise inoffensive magazine across the room). When I'm not feeling too well, in a student flat in Scotland in winter, and have Tesco Metro round the corner, I'm not going to munch on a turnip and go miles on a bus to find purple sprouting broccoli. The local supermarket, and the pick-me-up from some out of season pineapple, will leave me with enough energy to enjoy what I eat, and to get out of bed to face the world the morning after. That's enough for me.

And I'm happy.

Even within these limits, there's plenty of room to be a foodie. Most of my weekly budget goes on food. I share my kitchen with six other people, and cook more often than five of them. I waylay hapless passers-by with cupcakes. I brag about the quality of my market strawberries. In my tiny little room I have a stack of food magazine. (Delicious features the most.) In my limited cupboard space I have more pots, pans, baking tins and utenils than any sane person needs. I dream of knives and saucepans that don't come from Ikea. Oh, and I hate washing up. (But one advantage of student living - there's a cleaner to mop the benches and floors. Yippeee!)

My complete inability to be concise has surfaced again. Hmmm. Where was I? Oh yes. What I buy, cook, and eat, and why. To what ends? Partly to make my health easier to monitor (don't worry - I don't expect much public interest in my food diaries!), and partly to demonstrate the difficulties of balancing disability, good food, and environmental concerns. And to show that packaged meal, skipped meals, low-calorie meals, or other wonky combination of edibles, aren't the end of the world.