You Are What You Eat: January 11 through January 31
Longest Streak of no restaurant - 320 days and counting.
Longest Streak for no takeout - streak ends at 141 days. New streak stands at 15 days.
New Recipes for the Year: 6
Well, with the life-changing arrival of Birdie since the last edition of You Are What You Eat, let's see what the impact was on the food front for the rest of January.
First off, we were in the hospital for six days / five nights, which I'll write about in more detail at some point. Since we're talking about food, what did that do to the restaurant streak? Well, we were basically locked in our room for the entire six days due to the pandemic, so our food was all delivered to us from the hospital cafeteria. It was like having room service in a really expensive but uncomfortable hotel. M, as the patient, got 3 meals a day from the hospital cafeteria as long as we ordered them before they closed. As a guest, I got one meal per day. I have to say that the food at the hospital exceeded expectations. None of the meals were terrible, and a few were actually quite good. My only real complaint was that the portions were clearly designed by a dietician who was counting calories, because they were minuscule. Fortunately, we brought a TON of snacks with us, including crackers, English Muffins, Cliff bars, trail mix and other delicacies. I actually ate pretty well, especially considering I wasn't doing anything physical and wasn't really thinking about food.
The only meal that really deviated from the cafeteria patterns was our celebratory "24 hours after Birdie arrived" meal. We got to choose between steak, salmon or pizza. We went with a cheese pizza because it promised to have the most food. It was not a bad pizza and even came in a box.
Given that we had room service, I'm ruling that the "no takeout" streak ended on our first day in the hospital after 141 total days, so basically it started right after our wedding cupcakes and ended with Birdie. Since we didn't have a sit down meal in the cafeteria or anywhere else, the "no eating in restaurants" streak continues and stands at 320 days.
When we returned home, our nascent takeout streak ended again almost immediately. M is still not super comfortable with the idea of food being delivered into the house because of the pandemic, so we turned down the many food offers we got (thank you) and have saved the gift cards my work teammates got us for food delivery services for a post-pandemic future. However, my work teammmates also got us a big box of cookies from The Salted Cookiery. After it had sat long enough to sate M's anxiety was devoured. They were still very good. Counting from when the cookies arrived, our new streak is at 15 days.
As far as cooking and new recipes go, from our return onward I cooked every night, but I had intentionally cued up all the best recipes that were "20 active minutes or less with pantry stable ingredients", and so no new recipes were made in January while we adjusted to Birdie's impact on our life. Crock pots and casseroles and other meals that generated leftovers featured heavily.
Longest Streak for no takeout - streak ends at 141 days. New streak stands at 15 days.
New Recipes for the Year: 6
Well, with the life-changing arrival of Birdie since the last edition of You Are What You Eat, let's see what the impact was on the food front for the rest of January.
First off, we were in the hospital for six days / five nights, which I'll write about in more detail at some point. Since we're talking about food, what did that do to the restaurant streak? Well, we were basically locked in our room for the entire six days due to the pandemic, so our food was all delivered to us from the hospital cafeteria. It was like having room service in a really expensive but uncomfortable hotel. M, as the patient, got 3 meals a day from the hospital cafeteria as long as we ordered them before they closed. As a guest, I got one meal per day. I have to say that the food at the hospital exceeded expectations. None of the meals were terrible, and a few were actually quite good. My only real complaint was that the portions were clearly designed by a dietician who was counting calories, because they were minuscule. Fortunately, we brought a TON of snacks with us, including crackers, English Muffins, Cliff bars, trail mix and other delicacies. I actually ate pretty well, especially considering I wasn't doing anything physical and wasn't really thinking about food.
The only meal that really deviated from the cafeteria patterns was our celebratory "24 hours after Birdie arrived" meal. We got to choose between steak, salmon or pizza. We went with a cheese pizza because it promised to have the most food. It was not a bad pizza and even came in a box.
Given that we had room service, I'm ruling that the "no takeout" streak ended on our first day in the hospital after 141 total days, so basically it started right after our wedding cupcakes and ended with Birdie. Since we didn't have a sit down meal in the cafeteria or anywhere else, the "no eating in restaurants" streak continues and stands at 320 days.
When we returned home, our nascent takeout streak ended again almost immediately. M is still not super comfortable with the idea of food being delivered into the house because of the pandemic, so we turned down the many food offers we got (thank you) and have saved the gift cards my work teammates got us for food delivery services for a post-pandemic future. However, my work teammmates also got us a big box of cookies from The Salted Cookiery. After it had sat long enough to sate M's anxiety was devoured. They were still very good. Counting from when the cookies arrived, our new streak is at 15 days.
As far as cooking and new recipes go, from our return onward I cooked every night, but I had intentionally cued up all the best recipes that were "20 active minutes or less with pantry stable ingredients", and so no new recipes were made in January while we adjusted to Birdie's impact on our life. Crock pots and casseroles and other meals that generated leftovers featured heavily.