Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

We're off to the Bay Area for Turkey Day with the family, and then a long weekend of indulgence in San Francisco and the Napa Valley. Back on Monday... until then, happy eating!

Tues, Nov 25 - Lucifer's!

8.34am - Ezekiel cereal w/ hemp milk and fresh raspberry sauce, at home1.11pm - the head of the London office is in town and graciously took those of us who work on his accounts out to lunch. At Rock Sugar, with Lawrence, Rachel, Ryan, Frank and Cecy

1.22pm - Frank's Asian pear martini, with real fresh Asian pear juice - great!

1.22pm - Cecy's mojito (with cilantro!) and my sadly non-alcoholic but tasty pineapple tamarindo

1.24pm - the vietnamese crepe, filled w/ chicken and shrimp, shared family style as all the rest of the entrees

1.27pm - the green mango and papaya salad (with spicy green beans!)

1.28pm - very good bok choy, and amazing asparagus in black bean sauce

1.39pm - Vietnamese style halibut in a coconut tamarind curry soup with noodles

1.44pm - the pork vindaloo

2.19pm - the coconut doughnuts w/ passion fruit sauce that I'd been wanting to try forever. We ordered a whole bunch of desserts, but this was the only one I tried...

2.19pm - Lawrence's trio of ice creams - vietnamese coffee, calamansi and Thai basil

7.06pm - Lawrence, who is surely the nicest guy in the London office, brought each of us an oversize canister of the most fabulous English cookies: Fortnum & Mason's Lucifer's ginger and chilli buiscuits! Couldn't help myself from pointing out how much more fabulous these are than the old bar of Cadbury we normally get - and had to break the canister open pretty much as soon as I walked in the door at home and could share one with Ritesh...

7.46pm - leftover tuna spaghetti, at home

8.23pm - an apple, a pear, and some Lucifer's, at home

Mon, Nov 24 - work work work work work

9.39am - fresh pineapple and some Kashi hot cereal with almonds and dried cranberries, at work11.28am - sesame bar w/ molasses and cumin, at work

2.02pm - Annie Cheung's hot & sour soup, at my desk at work where I seem to be eating most of my meals these days

3.10pm - black sesame snacks, at work

6.55pm - a tangerine and some kale chips after collapsing on the couch, at home. Work is beginning to really get to me, and more and more days seem to end with a minor (or less minor) meltdown once I'm home. On top of that, I felt like I was coming down with something, so Ritesh decided I needed a vitamin boost... and then he proceeded to make the dinner I'd been fantasizing about all day...

7.53pm - tuna spaghetti!! thanks, love!

8.23pm - an apple a day keeps the doctor away, hopefully...

Sun, Nov 23 -rose oatmeal

11.13am - rose-raspberry oatmeal, made with vanilla rice milk, rose water and some exquisite French dried raspberries, at home, with Ritesh.

These are the dried raspberries that I picked up at the Grande Epicerie in Paris earlier this year. They were so exquisite that they cost 42.50 Euros per kilo (approx. $65 a kilo, or $30 a pound), so I skimped and only got a tiny amount. But they were delicious - should have gotten a little more...2.04pm - leftover ginger-turmeric soup, radish salad w/ leftover chipotle dressing from Mrs. Winston's, leftover potato chips and pita w/ tarama, at home, with Ritesh

7.46pm - Ritesh outdid himself tonight: he made a coconut-based Goa-style fish curry from scratch! This involved chopping up a fresh coconut and blending the meat (no canned coconut milk in Ritesh's cooking!) and so many other steps that it took him a good couple of hours of solid work to get it all done. And it was amazing! Thanks, love!
I did take a very sweet picture of him and the coconut, but he vetoed me posting it online :(

7.48pm - radish salad and coconut water w/ lime, at home, with Ritesh

9.53pm - a chocolate souffle from Paris (Comtesse DuBarry) that I stumbled across this morning in the pantry, with some hot home made raspberry sauce. The souffle collapsed very quickly and we think it wasn't altogether done yet either. Would be nice to learn how to prepare this properly and make it from scratch, too...

Sat, Nov 22 - chestnut oatmeal

11.09am - oatmeal made w/ rice milk, fresh chestnuts and apples, at home, with Ritesh2.52pm - Ritesh's great fried rice, using up all kinds of stuff we had in the fridge - pumpkin, sweet potato, tomatoes, chili, eggs... plus the rest of a pomegranate lemonade we had on Thursday night during the preview screening at UCLA, and which I didn't take a picture of at the time

4.18pm - chocolate cherry bumble bar, and some Californian November vegetation, at home

8.03pm - my ginger-turmeric soup w/ shitake mushrooms, kale and butternut squash, at home, with Ritesh

8.31pm - half of a whole wheat pita w/ tarama, at home

8.43pm - apples w/ hazelnut-coconut-chocolate butter, at home, with Ritesh

Fri, Nov 21 - Cecy's b-day, Bulan Thai

9.34am - oatmeal w/ nuts and dried cranberries, at work12.38pm - what a mess! But somewhere under the salad is a very tasty vegan Philly cheese steak, made with peppered seitan, grilled mushrooms and cashew cheese, along with a side of non-trans-fat fries, at Native Foods, with Cecy. It's her birthday today, and we were in dire need of a break from work, so I dragged her out for a b-day lunch.

2.13pm - a vegan rose-cardamom cupcake from Native Foods, shared with Cecy, back at work, getting ready for the final meeting this week

7.46pm - and the meetings are finally over! Hallelujah! Ritesh, who's a sweetheart and very pleased at the prospect of no longer having to hear status updates on my meeting prep every night, took me out to Bulan Thai to celebrate - thanks, love! Bulan Thai is mostly vegan, too, and this is their dairy free Thai Iced tea, made with soy milk - a treat, and a deserved one at that, if I may say so myself.

7.46pm - my camera battery was dying so I squeezed everything into one shot: green papaya salad, sauteed eggplant with fake peppered steak (made from seitan), green curry spaghetti with an impressive fake chicken (made from god knows what), and some pumpkin rice. Love Bulan, just wish it was closer to home - Cecy, this is not far from you though (Melrose and La Brea), you lucky girl!

Thurs, Nov 20 - more work

9.07am - a fuji, a pear, and some Kashi 7-grain oatmeal that I found in the pantry at work and threw in the microwave. That's what it's come to around here. Can' t wait for this week to be over. A lot of this craziness is due to two important meetings that are taking place today and tomorrow. So hopefully, maybe, there's a chance things will normalize afterwards...1.46pm - Indian leftovers from Ritesh's dinner last night, or the night before. Not sure which. Am so stressed days just blend into each other. At work.

2.19pm - the digital group had a Thanksgiving potluck, and some goodies leftover: a little cornbead muffin, some bundt cake, and half a coconut cookie is what I looted from the pantry afterwards. At work.

7.02pm - managed to get out early (early??? - it was 6.20pm for crying out loud) to catch a preview screening of Entre Les Murs (The Class - winner of the Cannes Film Festival this year and France's entry for the Academy Awards) at UCLA with Ritesh. Brought a salad from Mrs. Winston's for us to share as dinner. I'd also gotten a bag of popped potato chips, which I left right next to the fridge in the lab, where I'd stored the salad - but guess what, one of my lovely co-workers just took it, right along with the Mrs. Winston's bag they were in. I was a little peeved at first - the lab is not the pantry, after all. But then again, on some karmic level, it's an exchange for the oatmeal and the muffin etc. So it's all good.

Wed, Nov 19 - 10 hour workday

8.43am - yogurt, nuts&seeds, grapes, OJ, bright and early at the office12.59pm - a quick escape to the Krishna temple for some healthy veggie food. Getting out at lunch helps me keep my sanity, and makes me more productive (which is all that counts, of course)

1.22pm - Krishna disciples doing some decorating on the roof of the temple

8.11pm - Mexican black bean soup from Whole Foods, with toppings - tomatoes, avocado, green onion, cilantro, as well as some blue corn crackers, at home, with Ritesh, after another late night at work, if not as late as last night. Meanwhile, as I was to find out later, Cecy the trooper was at work until 11pm and had a rice crispie treat for dinner :(

8.22pm - these blue corn crackers are from fresh&easy, and they're great! Cecy - check these out next time you're there...

Tues, Nov 18 - 12h plus workday

8.50am - coconut-milk yogurt (blueberry) with walnuts, sunflower and flax seeds, at work. Where things are a bit on the challenging side these days, what with the economic crisis and all. We were called into an impromptu emergency meeting on Friday and got what might have been thought to be intended as a pep talk if it hadn't included somber words about the survival of the company and how we all have to chip in and work even more and extra hours etc. So I did, impressionable as I am. Came in early, stayed way late, and made at least a dent in some work that other people had managed to leave lying around for two years and which had suddenly become super important. 2.03pm - a rushed lunch outside work: turkey meatloaf sandwich from Coral Tree Cafe

5.43pm - grapes, at work

6.04pm - Indian leftovers from Ritesh's fabulous dinner last night, at work

8.03pm - an apple and a fruit nut bar, still working away, at work

9.39pm - finally home, and Ritesh had been waiting for hours with dinner: an amazing cucumber daal, and his signature chili cabbage - what a treat! And what did he get as a reward? An extensive tirade about the situation at work. Sorry, love - and thanks for putting up with me this week!