My body is a temple to a dark and ancient god. Older than thought, its wisdom carved in my genes by a thousand and a thousand ancestors. It predates me, it will postdate me. It demands worship through cravings, through exhaustion, through pain. To sate its dark hungers I must move, I must rest. I must feed, I must fast. It craves the stillness of clear water and green things from the earth.
Suckling Pigs
Hobbit Meal 2025
During last year’s Hobbit Meal (which, apparently, I didn’t post about,) I ended up serving way too much bread. Don’t get me wrong. I like bread. But by the third or fourth meal of the day, it was too much. This year I’ve cut it down just to the biscuits in the biscuits + gravy, plus the stuffing which is technically bread but I think mostly doesn’t count. Without further ado, here’s the plan.
As far as I can tell this is Alton Brown’s journey: “No pasta.” Live and Let Diet, Good Eats S13:E13 “No white foods.” To the media at some point? I can’t find a direct reference, but AB mentions having said it in later episodes. “No white foods but Cauliflower’s good actually.” The Caul of the Flower, Good Eats S14:E21 “No white starch.” Various web sources, approximately 2015. Given that, I think he probably does intend to include most starchy potatoes, although I’d guess the problem has more to do with the way most potatoes are served and not the potato itself.
Introducing HealthOS
I believe it was roughly around this time of the year, several hundred years ago, third or fourth grade to be imprecise, that I declared in no uncertain terms that new years resolutions were stupid, and I would not be doing them. If you’ve met me, that anecdote probably doesn’t seem very surprising. Yes, I was always like this. No, I won’t elaborate. The reason I bring it up is that I’m about to talk about what to many people would in fact sound like a new year’s resolution, but is prompted approximately zero percent by the new year and entirely by the trip to Disney World staring me down from approximately two weeks in the future which I am clearly, woefully, physically unprepared for.
I really hated the Libre 2 continuous glucose monitor (CGM.) A friend asked for some detail about why, which lead me down a long-winded story about the last five years of my health journey. About halfway through I thought “this should be a blog post.” So…
Banh Mi Burgers Important Note #1 - This is a draft recipe. I made it somewhat improvisationally, so the amounts are in many cases a rough guess. Please don’t consider this a bulletproof tested recipe. Important Note #2 - I tend to think of most larger recipes as a series of smaller recipes that get assembled, so this is presented in that way. Important Note #3 - I almost never add salt and pepper to taste to recipes as an instruction.
I’m doing what any reasonable person who has not eaten food for the last 48 hours would do and watching nothing but cooking videos.
The first book I’ve read in one sitting in probably two decades. Like being hugged by a warm bowl of soup. A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot Book 1) by Becky Chambers 📚