Year 4, Day 47: Taxes

Well, tax time is behind us and I must say this was a frustrating year in many senses.  Ruby and Magnolia both had to pay taxes due to some weird transfer of something or other that generated 16 cents.  I actually had to file three income tax statements, and believe me, it wasn't worth it.  I am now just putting everything behind.  For most of my life I filed my taxes in early March--- lately I have been pushing up against the deadline, and having to pay.  Drats.

Breakfast

Kashi Go Lean

Heritage Flakes

Strawberries

Blueberries

Soy Milk

Coffee

Lunch: Chan Shin Yuan

Pork with Black Bean Sauce

Chicken with Asparagus

Snack

6 Sticks Beef Jerky

60 Pistachios (limit is 30)

Dinner

Salad with Tuna, Feta, Sunflower Seeds and Balsamic Vinegar

Dessert

2 Bites of a Healthy Choice Pop

Some fair trade chocolate covered bananas

1/2 square of Ghiradelli Chocolate

I thought I would have some dessert today, but I was fouled by Magnolia, who wanted my healthy choice pop (they usually don't like them because they're sugar free).  I usually don't like them to have it, because it contains chemicals.  So I gave her mine and took another one out.  But then, Ruby wanted the next one.  So I moved on to fair trade bananas. But they wanted those too. So I moved on to plain dark chocolate squares.  Again, I had to give them up.  So I probably ate three times as much dessert and was half as satisfied.  Makes you want to give up dessert.

Year 3, Day 164: Bad Snacks Ruin Afternoon

First of all, stay away from the almonds. Secondly, I have taken to eating my popcorn in a bowl. I know, that's how families have eaten it for centuries, but I was literally eating it off my legal pad. That's not very couth. Unfortunately, I added a second bag which was totally stale to my fresh popcorn, therefore ruining all. To save my snacks I turned to my Jazz apples but realized that I either bought the wrong apples (they were Braeburn) or Russo's played a trick on me. I tried one, but it was powdery and slightly mealy. After two bites and a philosophical argument with myself about whether or not to eat an apple whether you enjoy it or not, I chucked it and got another one-- it was also a Braeburn! Drat. For solace, I turned to the almonds, and you know how that goes.

Breakfast
Kashi Go Lean!
Heritage Flakes
Strawberries
Blueberries
Banana
Unsweetened Soy Milk
Coffee

Lunch: Russo's ($5.25)
Romaine, red pepper, feta
chicken, broccoli, mushrooms
balsamic vinegar, pepperocini

Snack
5 Sticks Beef Jerky
50 ALmonds
1/2 Braeburn Apple
1.5 oz Boston Lite Popcorn

Dinner:
Arctic Char
Bok Choy
Wonder Beans

Dessert
A few chocolate squares (Milk, natch)

Sometimes you just have to come home, and after a healthy dinner, eat a lot of chocolate.

Year 3, Day 162: Bad Day, Saved by Tennis

Today was just another typical 100-almond day that was going nowhere fast. I have been having trouble with the almonds because writing makes me want to do something with my mouth; chewing gum and eating jerky only go so far. I also ate all my popcorn. Things got worse when I got home and Ruby told me she was having 'chocolate' for dessert. "What chocolate?" I asked. "The bar" she said. I asked Emily what that was, and discovered a humongous Hershey's bar in the cabinet. "How much does she get?" I asked Emily. "Four Squares" she answered. Unfortunately for me, the four squares on top of Ruby's were cut in half, and you know the rule- you have to eat those, you can't just leave them there, all cut in half. Then I remembered I had recently purchased Consumer Report's best dark chocolate and I said "Ruby, do you want to try some really good dark chocolate?' She said yes. I told her that dark chocolate was better for you than regular milk chocolate. She was eating some and then asked me "What's in dark chocolate that makes it better for you?" I replied, thinking I was about to kick a soccer ball into an unguarded net "It's not what it's IN it, but what's NOT in it-- Milk." She paused for a moment and then said. "I thought you said milk was good for you." I replied "It is, but it's sugar and milk. Now don't be so smart." I gave Magnolia a piece of dark chocolate and just told her it was chocolate. I tried a piece of chocolate halavah I got at an Armenian store in Watertown. It wasn't very good, and being five days old, I tossed it.

Breakfast
Kashi Go Lean!
Heritage Flakes
Strawberries
Blueberries
Banana
Unsweetened Soy Milk
Coffee

Lunch: Russo's ($4.70)
Romaine, red pepper, feta
chicken, broccoli, mushrooms
balsamic vinegar, pepperocini

Snack
6 Sticks Beef Jerky
2 oz 50% jalapeno cheddar
3 oz Boston Lite Popcorn
100 ALmonds (Tamari & Regular)

Dinner:
Turkey Crumble & Lettuce LEaves

Dessert
Assorted Lite, Dark Chocolates, Chocolate Halavah

Then Emily suggested we play tennis at night, which I said yes to automatically, For the first time in years, I took the first set and she took the second set. 6-3, 4-6. I could have taken in her that second set, but it was not to be.

Year 3, Day 56: Again No Walk & Chocolate Followup

It was really bone-chillingly cold today; an effect that can only be had when Monday is 80 degrees followed by Tuesday at 70 degrees. Normally, a 60 degree day in April is a delight, but the rain came and to top it off our property manager goosed the A/C yesterday and so it was FREEZING inside.

Breakfast
Kashi Go Lean!
Heritage Flakes
Strawberries
Blueberries
Banana
Unsweetened Soy Milk
Coffee

Lunch: Russo's ($5.17)
Romaine, red pepper, red onion, feta
chicken, broccoli, mushrooms
balsamic vinegar, pepperocini

Snack
4 Pieces Beef Jerky
1 Cameo Apple

Dinner
Fish
Cauliflower

FOLLOW UP FROM GUITTARD:

Fourth generation chocolatier challenges proposed FDA downgrades to
what makes chocolate what it is;
“Citizen’s Petition” proposal shortchanges consumers,
threatens taste, ingredients of America’s favorite food

(Burlingame, CA, April 11, 2007) – Forget the cola wars. The next struggle for American consumers’ hearts and minds is over a proposal to alter the “Gold Standard” for chocolate – the critical ingredients of what makes chocolate a food to die for.

A fourth generation maker of chocolate -- Gary Guittard, President of Guittard Chocolate Company of Burlingame, California -- is available for comment to discuss a grass roots fight against a proposal before the FDA to allow manufacturers of chocolate to replace cocoa butter – chocolate’s key ingredient – with chemically modified vegetable fats and still call it chocolate. The controversial proposal would allow
negative changes in the manner chocolate is made and the way it tastes, subverting a “Gold Standard” of manufacturing that has been in place for over sixty years.

Guittard is enlisting the public in a grass roots campaign -- “I want my chocolate to stay real chocolate” -- as the deadline for public comment to the Food & Drug Administration looms (April 25th), as he and his industry colleagues challenge a proposed number of content standards changes being considered by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These changes that would negatively alter the composition and
thereby the taste of America’s chocolate.

Gary Guittard is joining with other chocolate manufacturers in asking the FDA to reject the proposed food standard changes that will affect chocolate products and to have regulators enter into a broader public dialogue with the chocolate industry, consumers, consumer advocates, retailers, nutritionists, health experts, and others with an interest in preserving the quality, taste and content of traditional American “chocolate.”

Says fourth generation chocolatier Gary Guittard: “The chocolate industry prides itself on delivering to the consumer high quality products. The industry adheres to strict Federal Standards of Identity that were first established in the 1940’s and have only been changed since to reflect new manufacturing techniques in 1993 and again in 2002 to establish a Standard of Identity for white chocolate.”.

“The proposed FDA changes as they apply to chocolate [and] if adopted would allow the current “Gold Standard” for chocolate to be changed in a way that will ultimately result in short-changing the consumer and changing what we know and love as traditional chocolate,” Guittard says. “There are no clear consumer benefits associated with the proposed changes.”

“My family has been involved in the manufacturing of chocolate for 139 years,” notes Gary Guittard. “Chocolate is not just my business – it is my passion and these changes would lead the way to the manufacturing of something entirely different...that would not be the traditional chocolate that most of us know and love.”

“Beyond positive health benefits, chocolate has long been a food Americans have said ‘they would die for’ -- now this great food is being threatened by some in the industry who would favor replacing cocoa butter with far cheaper ingredients, which would in reality cheapen chocolate’s great taste, all in pursuit of shortchanging the consumer and putting that change in their own pockets.”

“We’re enlisting the public to step forward and demand that the proposed changes to the “Gold Standard” of Chocolate be stopped immediately,” notes Gary Guittard. “No one can afford to sit back and eat bon-bons while America’s great passion for chocolate is threatened. “We’re asking the public to sign /send an email petition or to phone or email the Food & Drug Administration.”


To contact Gary Guittard directly:

Gary Guittard
10 Guittard Road, Burlingame, CA 94010
Telephone: 1-800-468-2462

E-mail: Gary@Guittard.com
Web Site: www.guittard.com information also at:
http://dontmesswithourchocolate.guittard.com/whatsthisabout.asp

Note: The deadline for submitting public comment to the US Food & Drug
Administration on the Citizens Petition of the Grocery Manufacturers Association is
April 25, 2007. Consumers can learn more at the Web site:
http://dontmesswithourchocolate.guittard.com/

Year 3, Day 43: Date Night

Trying my hardest to move beyond political failure, I keep things in perspective by noting that Imus has been kicked to the curb by CBS. It's hard to understand if this is the right thing to be done. It doesn't necessarily feel like the punishment fits the crime, but in America there are second third and fourth acts, especially for those in the public eye. I thought a lot about Bill Maher, whose show Politically Incorrect, was ironically cancelled after remarks he made about the 911 Hijackers. He remarked that they were "stupid, but not cowardly" for staying in the planes as they hit the building. For my part, I ate nearly 500 calories of chocolate and a glass of wine and hope that tomorrow is a better day.

Breakfast
2 Slices of Jane's Whole Grain Bread (3 oz.)
Super Chunky Peanut Butter
3 oz 50% Jalapeno Cheddar

Lunch: Won Ton Kitchen
House Special Egg Drop Soup
Chicken & String Beans

Snack
4 sticks Beef Jerky
1.5 oz Boston Lite Popcorn

Dinner: Vela (Wesley)
Beef Short RIbs
Bib Salad with Pistachios and Raisins
Tuna with Whipped Cauliflower
Broccoli Rabe

Dessert
15 Squares of Milk Chocolate with Almonds
About 20 Chocolate Chips

Vela was an excellent restaurant. Emily and I split a few appetizers and then I ordered the broccoli after the entree had hit the table. Since we generally go out at around 6pm on a Thursday we are often the first, only or one of just a few people in the restaurant. So far this is really good in terms of staff attention (except for Sabra, where they didn't seem to care that any customers had shown up) but it makes for really quick dinners—when you're younger and go out on dates on the weekend you have no idea how much time is wasted just waiting for things to happen, like waiting for the salad course, or the sorbet course. Upon my return home, I broke open a chocolate bar I had foolishly purchased at whole foods. When I found the strength to put that away, I took out the chocolate chips. Really the sign of a desperate man.