HOME SWEET HOME

IT FEELS SO GOOD TO BE HOME. That flight was the most hellish experience of my life. In the end we ended up getting on standby and I slept the whole way there. By the time we got home it was already almost 10, and all we wanted to do was crawl into bed. But since there was no food in the house, we set out on a super quick grocery shopping trip to buy milk, yogurt, fruit, etc. and basically had breakfast for dinner.
I ended up unpacking before I went to bed, and we got up early this morning to go to the farmer's market, so I was really worried about not having enough energy for swim practice. I gotten about 8 hours of sleep in two nights, and i usually get more than that in a single night...
It felt amazing to be in my own bed, with space and privacy. this is the first time that this "new" (aka 2 years old) apartment has really felt like home.
This morning I yielded to my pumpkin cravings by adding some to oatmeal.
I also added half a banana for thickness, a little maple syrup, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, wheat germ, walnuts and pecans, and some crumbled graham crackers from the farmers' market a few months ago. they were too stale to eat plain, but perfect for this perfect-- it really was pumpkin pie in a bowl, and nauseated my mom to no end.
By eight, we were ready to go to the farmer's market in Lincoln Park. I don't think I can even explain my delight at seeing FRESH vegetables. The thing about Chinese food is that it's great, but unless you get extremely simple vegetable dishes, you really don't know where anything came from, and you know it's filled with pesticides.
OH, TOP CHEF WAS DOING A DEMO THERE! only 40 people could go in though.
On the way back we stopped at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's for useful things like cereal, trail mix, energy bars, hummus, etc. etc.
For lunch, we originally wanted to grill portabella mushroom sandwiches, but there was a misunderstanding about what bread we wanted to buy and we ended up buying just a fruit and nut bread, which would be disgusting with mushrooms. PLUS, the bakery changed from using whole wheat to white flour! CURSES!
We sampled everything, including farmer's market pickles, goat cheese, arugula, green zebra tomatoes, plus hummus, giant beans and pickled artichokes from trader joes. I had some apple cider on the side. This was an EXTREMELY light lunch compared to what i usually eat, so afterwards I had some Kashi Heart to Heart with peach, fresh berries and fresh buttermilk. THE BUTTERMILK WAS INCREDIBLE. We also bought milk (2% this time because it just tasted so good) and cream from the market because I plan on making ice cream this week. Indulgence time.
to sleep. I woke up tired but super excited. Luckily, practice was an easy one! We took team photos, did a 500 warm up, a few sprints, talked about the meet tomorrow (which i won't be swimming in), but then did a ridiculously painful cool down. We had to swim 600 yds of diving in at one end, swimming any stroke except for freestyle to the other, getting out, doing 5 up downs (like push ups, but you press your whole body to the ground), jumping back in and doing it all over again. We had to do this 12 times. It really wasn't that bad, but i got terrible bruises from all the dragging my elbows and knees up. After lunch my mom made me take a nap, since there was less than an hour and a half until swim practice! The problem was, I didn't get really sleepy until there were only 15 minutes left the side of the pool again and again. Mainly I was just so happy to see everyone, and I feel like I've really improved since my Chinese coach. It's pretty lonely training yourself, and it really motivates you to swim with other people. Tomorrow we have practice BEFORE the meet, so I'll be swimming then, and we have to do kick sets with shoes on. In the water. I will die.
After practice I didn't feel that tired, since we probably only swam for 50% of the time, but I was getting hungry. I had a Clif Mojo bar (peanut butter pretzel)! It was great, and possibly beats Luna bars, because it wasn't too sticky, and it was salty and sweet. It didn't taste that processed, either.
I did some other boring errands (bookstore, Radio Shack), and my mom, like the wonderful person she is, made dinner. She actually wants me to make a written schedule of our meals that I haven't gotten to yet.
For dinner we had Deborah Madison's roasted tomato soup with saffron quinoa (but we substituted turmeric and a bay leaf for the saffron), a swiss chard souffle, corn on the cob, and more arugula.
I helped a bit with the soup... it was a little overly complicated for what it was: you had to roast the tomatoes with onions underneath, then puree them and strain them, then cook the quinoa. At the end a bit of curry powder and Greek yogurt was added. It was incredible, though. I have yet to lose faith in Deborah Madison.
The souffle, on the other hand, didn't turn out so well. In addition to switching around the white-to-yolk proportions, my mom overcooked it so that it fell and was more like quiche filling. It was worth eating, but sadly the texture caused us to throw out the rest.
It feel so great to eat at home again... I'm eating so much lighter now that we're not eating in restaurants. The only problem is I find myself getting hungry again (Chinese food seems much heartier to me). I might go finish up that leftover pumpkin.