The 2013 Food Lover's Cleanse Diary: Day 6
Sara Dickerman didn't just write the Food Lover's Cleanse--she's an active participant. Follow along with her every day as she reboots her diet. (No juice fasts allowed.)
After dinner tonight, we're halfway there, and the caffeine headache is officially gone, the pants are less pinchy, and I've gotten into a bit of a rhythm with the cooking and the eating.
Commenter Slynnmx has had me laughing with her boyfriend teasing her about her "weird wine country salads." I may be channeling Michael Chiarello with all those lunchtime salads, but I'll do whatever it takes--goat cheese, persimmons, pumpkin seeds--to keep the veggies from getting too redundant.
I'm glad to see in the comments that some of you are enjoying the recycled grains at breakfast, including the bulgur and the black rice. I know it's not for everyone to mess around with breakfast, but I love recasting grains in a different light. Yesterday morning, however, I made oatmeal since my leftover bulgur was spotted with parsley and lemon, but I did add the orange zest to give it a little facelift. Chili and other spicy stews are almost universally better the next day, and lunch went down well. And then my daughter helped me cook dinner--we grated carrots together and she even helped me tweeze pinbones out of the salmon. After dinner, I was very glad it was a chocolate night, too; I'd forgotten to eat it the other night. Somehow that dark chocolate puts a period on a meal, blunting my desire to pick at the leftovers as I clean.
I am replacing some of that grazing energy with manic tea drinking. I've usually been starting the day with an tieguanyin oolong, the semi-fermented tea that you can steep and re-steep 4-6 times. Each brew yields a different quality--they're all yummy and soothing. Then, in the afternoon, I steep some green--mostly genmaicha, which has toasted brown rice for a good malty pop. And then if I'm feeling sad and lonely before bedtime, I brew a rooibos blend with chai-like spices--a little something sweet-ish to finish the day. I may have just put you to sleep with my tea geekery, but believe me, I'm only scratching the surface. Every time I visit a tea website, I realize how very little I know, and how very much time and money I could drop learning more.
I still pine for wine with dinner. But I do recommend splashing a few drops of bitters in a glass and topping it off with a lightly bubbly mineral water. If you squint, you might think you're drinking a nice bubbly rose, and the bitters give you a little complexity to hang on to when all that water you're drinking is seeming a little, well watery.