shaenon

andrewfarago

goraina

yaytime

Then on Tuesday, Shaenon and Andrew came to King Features and we went out with Brendan, and then they were bestowed with many King-Featuriffic Gifts. On Wednesday, we went out to the Carnegie Deli with their friend Jessica. On Thursday, we just got sushi and hung out, and Shaenon retired undefeated from Wii Boxing:

When questioned about her meteoric rise to Wii Boxing supremacy, Shaenon answered, “I have a lot of rage.” She then returned to pummeling her virtual opponents.

On Friday, Shaenon and Andrew left to go to Vassar! I had a quiet evening at home but I also decided, after playing Wii games for the first time in a while, that I really needed to make a more conscious effort to get in shape. I’ll tell you more about that in a different post.

Saturday was a quiet day where I ran some errands and worked valiantly on this week’s comic for thirteen straight hours. On Sunday, though, I rested! Well, technically, on Sunday, I went to lunch with intrepia and her boyfriend, Lawrence, and we chatted about comics and poetry and LJ and all kinds of things. They were totally awesome and I am super excited that they only live a few blocks away. Hooray new pals!

Me & Connie!

Then Shaenon and Andrew came back, and we went downtown, stopped in at Forbidden Planet for comics, and then went to Lombardi’s for pizza and Rice to Riches for rice pudding. They are seriously the best houseguests ever and I will miss them! They even left me an awesome card that was waiting for me when I got home at lunch.

Tonight, I went out to Long Island to watch my mom get recommended for tenure as principal of her school. Everyone there was so nice and so kind and had such wonderful things to say about her. It was really touching. I am so proud of my mommy! She is amazing.

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“I wouldn’t say that,” said my father.

That is because she was building this:

So that is pretty awesome!

Also, I wanted to share something that my friend serpentpixie made.  She made a video for her creative writing class that is just incredibly poetic and poignant and I love it. It is really inspiring me to think about ways I think about writing and multimedia.  Her LJ is mostly friends-only but she gave me permission to re-post the video so I could share it with you all!  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

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Sharon: On Thursday, I ate Caribbean beans and rice from a package and they were delicious and I realy enjoyed it. And I occasionally eat those for dinner when I get home late so that wasn’t anything unusual for me, but I was glad that I keep them in the house. Both Thursday and Friday, I was in interviews, so I ordered salads from a deli. It was a little hard, because all of their regular salads have meat or eggs or cheese on them, so I had to get them to make me a salad. So I ordred their regular spinach salad without bacon or egg. And with ceci beans. But when it came, it had kidney beans, because I don’t think they know what ceci beans are. Because the next day I ordered the same thing with chick peas and I got them. Both days I ate bananas– oh, no, actually. One day one of the other principals brought bagels from up the street, and I ate a plain bagel because I called the bagel place to find out and they said that they don’t use eggs or dairy in their plain bagels.

Friday night for dinner, I made fried zucchini with hummus and pita chips. And that was yummy. And I did the fried zucchini the way PC does the eggplant.

(PC is my friend, Paul Reilly, who is the executive chef of Encore in Denver, CO. Encore is a restaurant committed to using sustainable practices and local, green & organic products.)

That’s in half-flour, half cornstarch. It was really nice.

I thought the pizzas were good. I like to make unusual pizzas anyway. I do think both of those pizzas would have been beter with cheese on them. I thought they were both yummy.

I’m not likely to do it again for a week, but I would certainly do it on and off. I do think that it made me much more cognizant of what I put in my mouth. I used to be really careful about that stuff, and I’ve gotten away from it, so it was a really good reminder to me. I don’t normally eat food that has chemicals, but it did elevate my awareness.

Oh, and I lost weight, which I didn’t expect. It didn’t even occur to me, and when John said he expected to lose weight, I…

John:Yeah, but I got a swollen knee, that’s why I didn’t lose weight.

Sharon At the beginning of the week, I missed meat, and now I don’t miss it at all. I don’t even care about eating it. I do think that even though I don’t eat a lot of dairy, it’s a toss-up between cheese and eggs. But since I was hungry for an egg this morning…that was probably why!

Other than that I I just think that with all the focus there has been lately on things like trans fats, while I didn’t think that all of that was necessary, I do think that better labeling in restaurants and stuff is important. For anybody who wants to make any food choices should know what’s in their food and not have to be embarrassed or made to feel inconvenienced in order to find out what’s in their food.

I think [the idea that some companies are permitted to keep their "secret formulas" off the label is] just plain stupid. You should be able to keep the amount of the ingredient, but not the ingredients, secret. I personally don’t think that dyes should be allowed in any food products. That’s just part of my personal belief. There is nothing about dye that enhances the quality or taste of a food.

I think before someone does this, they should actually plan their meals for the week. I just went to the store and tried to find things that were vegan and that was stupid. You should get a cookbook or go online and plan the first three or four days and what you need. I think if you did it like that, you would be more successful.

My mom really liked both the tempeh and the vegan bacon we ate! She had never had either before and she thought the tempeh was really nice baked on the pizza because it got all crispy. She said that the vegan bacon didn’t really taste like bacon but had a nice flavor and nice crunch.

Here are some pictures from our vegan pizza feast on Saturday night.

Southwestern Pizza!

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When I called, they were eating dinner, which was Vegan pulled pork from “It’s All Good,” a company that makes ready-made vegan products. I have had their beef skewers and thought they were delicious.

Sharon: This wouldn’t be my favorite meal. Daddy likes it more than I do. I don’t like the texture. It’s kind of rubbery.

John: Pork is rubbery!

Sharon: I’m counting down. I’ve kind of had enough. It was fine. But I’m basically eating the same things every day. I would be more adventurous, but I don’t have time to be more adventurous.

John My food today was similar to my food yesterday, but I’m saving the world and doing greater things for everybody so I feel good.

Mary (a family friend) asked us to go to dinner tomorrow and have birthday cake for their son tomorrow night and I said, “we are so screwed.” I explained to her that I was vegan for the week. I told her that I would come over, but I just wouldn’t eat any cake, and she said, “but we’re getting Baskin Robbins ice cream cake, are you sure you don’t want any?” And I told her I couldn’t eat it.

I think it’s good. I think it’s delicious. It’s got pulled pork sauce, so it’s nice and tangy. I think your mother is turning religious, she says this is like Lent.

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To start out, my mom sent me a beautiful photo of her dinner from last night:

Orecchiette with olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, broccoli rabe, and ceci beans

My dad sent me an email again today!

John: OK- so on the third day it seems like any other diet I have been on. However, i can’t just eat anything, I have to comply or my superpowers will be stripped away by animal gods.

I am looking forward to mounds of popcorn for dinner- Remember that book? Not even close to how much I will be eating!

The comment about “that book” is a reference to a book I used to love when I was a little kid, Popcorn, by Frank Asch. It was about this little bear who accidentally popped so much popcorn that it filled up his whole house!

I talked to my mom when she got home from work. She ate rice cakes, fruits, and veggies for lunch, and was going to eat her leftover pasta for dinner. This is what she had to say about her day:

Sharon: Eating sucks. So I had to go to a meeting this afternoon and they served food at the meeting. So, and everything had either cheese or meat. So, you know, that’s– that becomes interesting because then you realize how difficult it is for people in public social settings. I told the people I was with at the meeting, I said, I became vegan for a week. They all laughed at me, said what are you, crazy, vegetarian’s one thing, but vegan’s impossible.

I asked her if she had considered taking anything and removing the cheese or meat, and she said it just didn’t seem worth it. She said this is harder than she thought it would be.

My dad does not seem to think it is as hard, but he also has a different perspective on it.

John: Today was pretty much as expected. Looking forward to popcorn feast, with lemonade it will be divine. Tomorrow morning I work out again. I will be Mr. Trim, Slim, and my body will have nothing bad in it.

Some guy in Florida opened a pizza parlor. This guy went to Gold’s Gym and wanted to offer free pizza to all the customers. The people at Gold’s Gym said, you’re welcome to try to give them free pizza, but no one’s going to eat free pizza if they’re trying to lose weight. So this guy ate only pizza for a month. He lost weight, his cholesterol went down, and his heart rate was better.

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He emailed me at about 8 am.

John:Day 1 was relatively simple (on the plane) and even though we went out, I pre-planned exactly what I would order.

Oh, I am now forced to read labels- Good News- the $1 bag of pretzels from Shaw’s are have zero animal products so they can easily fill a belly without violating my contract.

I got another email around 11:30.

John: It was 11:30 before I felt a hunger pang. For a historical perspective, Most of my eating takes place between 11:00 am and 6:00 pm. In the evening I would generally prefer no dinner (on workdays) and popcorn or peanuts for a snack around 8:30.

I imagine that around 5 I will either treat myself to baby carrots OR green grapes. As a super special treat I may freeze the grapes and pretend to be eating ice cream!

And how did my mom do? Well, she had a close call, which was the first thing she told me when I got on the phone with her this evening!

Sharon: This morning when my secretary came in, she brought me coffee, and she brought me a box of munchkins. So I took one without thinking about it, and then I realized I didn’t know what was in them.

I went to a vegan site that listed what is in Dunkin Donuts. Raised donuts are vegan. Cake donuts have egg yolks and powdered milk in them. You just don’t realize how many things…And the differences, too, between the fact that some are fine and some aren’t, and you don’t ever know. That kind of stuff should be labeled. They’re so worried about trans fats, if they’re going to legislate that, why not legislate all ingredients be published all the time?

We talked a little while longer. For lunch, my mom had peanut butter on rice cakes, plums, and tomatoes, and she was about to make dinner: fresh tomatoes from the garden, pasta, and ceci beans.

She says that she thinks she would get bored if this were her diet all the time– she wouldn’t want to have to turn down new and exciting foods if they were offered to her, and she thinks she’d be missing out on a lot, but she said, “the cool part of it is, it does make you think about what you’re eating all the time.” My mom has been checking all her food labels and yesterday, on the plane, discovered that Mott’s tomato juice, though completely vegan, has 890 grams of sodium in it! Which is kind of horrible.

My dad, on the other hand, said that he wouldn’t be heartbroken if, for example, a doctor told him that this had to be his diet for the rest of his life. He didn’t eat the carrots or grapes he mentioned in the earlier quote, but he had crunchy style peanut butter and ripe tomatoes for dinner. He said he’s looking forward to eating the carrots!

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