Mon, Sept 29

8.06am - Ezekiel almond cereal w/ coconut rice milk and fresh raspberries, at home10.36am - chocolate fruit nut bar, at work

2.03pm - another killer lunch from the Vista Cafe: grilled salmon w/ a butter lemon sauce, sauteed veggies and some pasta, at work

5.51pm - a snickers bar in the lunch room, before the employee screening of Tropic Thunder

6.11pm - a fuji apple, while getting my fleece and socks from the car, in anticipation of a ridiculously over-air-conditioned screening room

Sun, Sept 28

10.54am - French toast (or pain perdu, as the French would call it), w/caramelized pineapple and banana and some fresh champagne grapes, at home, with Ritesh.1.27pm - Italian samosas filled with mozzarella and spinach, but served w/ Indian chutneys, at Standard Sweets & Spices on Pioneer Boulevard in Artesia, with Ritesh.

1.28pm - the chole burger, a veggie potato pattie w/ chickpeas and chutney, at Standard Sweets & Spices

1.55pm - bhel puri, at Surati Farsan on Pioneer Blvd., with Ritesh

1.55pm - dhai puri, at Surati Farsan, with Ritesh

2.14pm - kulfi ice cream w/ faluda noodles, some black sesame, and way too much rose syrup

6.06pm - a berry star, the healthiest thing I could find at Starbucks, along w/ a cup of tea, while waiting for Ritesh to finish his shopping at Banana Republic

6.37pm - roast chicken flavored chips from the British store in Santa Monica, with Ritesh

7.28pm - leftover stuffed bell pepper, at home, with Ritesh

7.28pm - Cornish pie from the British store, at home, with Ritesh

8.03pm - McVitie's digestive biccies, at home, with Ritesh, while watching Running on Empty

Sat, Sept 27

9.30am - baguette w/ butter, jam, chocolate spread and fresh raspberries, at home2.04pm - my first attempt at a recipe from the Bouchon cookbook: this is the smoked trout salad, with fingerling potatoes boiled w/ garlic, thyme, bay leaf and black pepper, and a lemon vinaigrette made with the yolk of a boiled egg, two kinds of mustard and salted w/ minced cornichons and capers. The original recipe used endives rather than romaine lettuce which was all we had at home, but still - nothing I'd ever have come up with on my own. At home, with Ritesh.

2.26pm - still plugging away at that cherry-lychee-vodka sorbet, at home, with Ritesh.

8.05pm - Nadya, David and Mingus were planning to come over for dinner, but had to cancel as Nady got a sinus infection. So we postponed plans for a buffalo meatloaf and made stuffed peppers and garlic bread instead:

9.07pm - This is a Turkish recipe, which has the peppers stuffed w/ rice made w/ raisins, pine nuts and cinnamon. Bit heavy on the carbs as those peppers were huge, and needed some good spicy sauce, but overall very tasty.

Fri, Sept 26 - another bomb threat, plus first Presidential debate

9.50m - a sample cookie from Starbucks that Cecy brought for me from her coffee run (thanks, Cecy!). We had an oh so important meeting with Finance this morning that we were scrambling to prepare for - they decided an hour before the meeting that all of a sudden it had become necessary to have all our information in binders (instead of on the environmentally friendly shared drive, where we put it), so there was much fussing and swearing over tabs and copying and title pages until we got everything done, five minutes before the meeting - at which point Finance decided to postpone the whole thing. Ah well.
It ended up being a good thing though because at what would have been halfway through the meeting, there was yet another bomb threat and we had to evacuate. Who knows, we might have gotten left behind in the conference room, and missed out on that 3-h-evacuation lunch break...12.34pm - I'd already had a ramen lunch planned w/Nadya (below is the Mabo ramen at Asahi, plus some tsukemono - pickled cucumber), otherwise I would have joined the other MGMers either at Pink Taco for margaritas, or at the movies...

1.46pm - we were supposed to call the emergency hotline at 2pm to see if it was safe to return to work, so I I had some time to kill and went home for some cherry-lychee-vodka sorbet for dessert

4.35pm - the hotline wasn't updated until 2.40pm, so I didn't get back to work until 3.10. And honestly, nobody got much work done for the rest of the day, what with the bomb threat adrenaline, the resentment of actually having to come back to work afterwards, the anticipation of the first presidential debate tonight and, oh, the sky falling down economy-wise. I'd had only half of my soup for lunch (took the rest home for Ritesh), so I got hungry again and went for a little stroll over to Breadbar to pick up some baguette for tonight, and look what I found there: a fabulous, excellent rhubarb tart! To think that I could have missed it!

7.25pm - Korean pancakes, at Greg and Phinney's, watching the debate, w/ Ritesh

7.25pm - some white wine from the neighborhood

7.27pm - grapes, brie, and a buckwheat baguette from Breadbar

7.28pm - some bruschetta w/ olive tapenade

7.45pm - the next bottle - Ritesh got French wine to match...

8.09pm - ...the pates I'd brought from France (pork-hazelnut on the left, duck w/ green pepper on the right). The wine was good but pate I can live without. Reminds me a bit too much of the liver sausage I had to eat as a kid in Germany. Brrr....

9.00pm - ha!

10.14pm - mint ice cream sandwiches for dessert, while agonizing over Obama's perceived weaknesses (lecturing! too much complexity! going off on dissertations! and why oh why did he have to keep telling McCain that he was right?). But the polls look better than we expected, so phew.

Thurs, Sept 25

8.28am - Nadi's mom's jam and some German fair-trade coconut-chocolate spread, on some decent multi-grain bread roll from Gelson's, at homecan't get over how great these rolls are...

9.28am - two donut halves, courtesy of Frank, in honor of Cecy's return from the Bahamas, at work

12.37pm - Ritesh's black eyes peas w/ brown rice, at work

1.45pm - some lemon cappellini from Whole Foods, at work

2.25pm - coconut milk yogurt with a bunch of seeds, at work

7.29pm - chicken asagio pizza and Italian apple soda from Whole Foods, at home, with Ritesh.

8.16pm - a tres leches cake w/ fresh pineapple and raspberries, shared with Ritesh

Wed, Sept 24 - what's up with the shoes on this blog?

7.36am - Silver Palate oatmeal w/ blueberries, at home11.25am - fruit nut bar, at work

1.332pm - the salmon cobb salad from Wolfgang Puck Express at Gelson's. They forgot to add the applewood smoked bacon, but I guess it's better that way.

4.24pm - an allegedly calming plum-honey-lavender yogurt, at work.

5.53pm - now check this out: does this look like a German bread roll or what? Found it at the bakery at Gelson's and made myself a nice cheese sandwich with some of that peppered brie from Germany. Before heading over to UCLA for meditation class.

9.55pm - some ginger-orange almonds from Whole Foods, with the new boots that arrived in a huge package from Paris today, courtesy of Laurence (merci, Lolo!), at home

10.01pm - champagne grapes, at home

Tues, Sept 23

8.42am - blackberry sheep milk yogurt w / a mix of seeds, at work. What was I doing at work this early? 10.26am - my last strawberry soy milk from Germany, in front of the Fox theater in Westwood12.43pm - kung pao tofu w/ a bit of beef pasta, from Whole Foods, at work12.57pm - fire-roasted eggplant w/ cucumber and sun-dried tomatoes, from Whole Foods, at work 1.10pm - brussel sprouts w/ shallots and pecans, from Whole Foods, at work2.11pm - a free sample of chewable co-enzyme Q10, in three different flavors, from Whole Foods, at work6.30pm - chips and salsa, at Monte Alban Oaxacan restaurant, with Ritesh

6.45pm - pollo asado, at Monte Alban, with Ritesh