October 1st, 2007
I got up in the morning thinking I had a free day with M_____ working all day. I put on my buckwheat porride as usual. It doesn’t bother me at all now. I’ve got my technique down to make it how I like it, leaving the buckwheat to simmer in the rice milk for at least fifteen minutes, and then turning off the heat for a good five or ten (while I have a shower, say). Meanwhile, I got on to read the Czech version of what I have now found is indeed translated into English (as how could it not be), “H.”: Autobiography of a Child Prostitute and Heroin Addict by Christiane F. I read a little to myself, and then a little more out loud, practising my pronunciation and frustrating myself in the process – Czech is a very difficult language to read out aloud since I find that I constantly anticipate the endings of words incorrectly and end up stuttering more than usual; in combination with the inherent difficulty of the pronunciaion for English speakers it sounds very bad indeed. Czech shot up my priority lists from this, as I’m sure it will as quickly fall down.
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May 27th, 2007
08:30 1 green tea
09:00 pear, banana and peanut butter buckwheat pancake
12:00 yoghurt oat flapjack!
13:00 green tea, home-made quinoa salad with red pepper, red onion, chopped broccoli, olive oil and lemon juice
17:00 salad, as above, with decaf coffee
I’ve felt fine all day, despite shopping and the horrible weather. I have been eating a fair bit of oats recently. Lots of flapjacks - some at work which are quite sugary, and others not so bad. I have felt no real ill-effects so far, and I am consistently telling myself that it is not too bad, since oats contain a lower amount of gluten than wheat, and indeed some people say that it contains a different form of the substance. Indeed, though I have not caught myself in this particular rationalisation I had a revealing reverie, a conversation in my head in Eat., the place we ate today at lunch, and where I asked if I could tuck into a home-made salad since I could not have anything they were selling. Before I asked this, I practised the question in my mind, as I do sometimes, and had a variety of responses from the imaginary employees of this chain. “We’ve got flapjacks,” “yeah, but that’s gluten,” “no it isn’t,” he denied the fact, and then stuck to this assertion. Still, I’ve as yet had no noticeable reaction to it. Which is good. Perhaps it can be an occasional treat.
I haven’t been consistent in applying the category “slips” to food diaries in which I have had caffeine, like today. This is due to the fact I find it hard to completely ween myself off, despite the repeated observation that it doesn’t do me any real favours - yesterday for example I had quite a few coffees, or, a green tea and a couple of coffees, and felt a little shaky. It is inconsistent but I suppose that if the category is to mean anything at all, I will have to exclude this most consistent of my failures for now and perhaps add it if I make any progress later.
Improvised quinoa salad:
quinoa, boiled in water until water absorbed.
red pepper, finely chopped
red onion, finely chopped } these three in a ratio of, say 2:1:1
broccoli, finely chopped
olive oil, liberal dribble
lemon juice, pepper to taste (I used the juice of one whole lemon for what would make three or four normal servings).
