Monday, August 31, 2009

Feeding Oneself: Harder Than You Think


True confession: tonight was the first evening I made myself a real meal.  Granted, I boiled pasta last week and poured store-bought Italian sauce over it, cold, and over the weekend I attempted guacamole with limited Scandinavian vittles.  But tonight, I calculated how much I'd been spending on food, how many more lattes I could afford if I stopped, and did round two of food shopping.

Things turned out much better than expected.  Let it be said that I lived without a meal plan or my mother's awesome cooking for a few weeks back in January '09, but Ohio is cheap when it comes to take out, and I'm not sure I turned on the stove more than once.  (I seem to remember a lot of toast, from-powder scones, and rickets.)

Three ingredients never to underestimate: olive oil, garlic, and salt.  So that my pasta wasn't entirely devoid of nutrients (but hey, high on flavor!), I added some fresh yellow peppers to the garlic-and-oil saute.

It was SO good.  I made way too much, especially because I wasn't that hungry to begin with (had splurged on my first sandwich in Denmark earlier today, and had had two buttery, sugary baked goods on my walk to and from class), but maybe I can eat the rest later tonight or for lunch tomorrow.  SUCCESS.

I even took pictures.  The glass bottle in the back is Gronne Gaarden Granataeble juice, also known as Green Garden Pomegranate concentrate.  You add four parts water to one part juice, and it's epically delicious.  (So far, this is my favorite way to drink the tap water, which I find kind of gross.  It's full of "minerals."  So they say.)


2 comments:

  1. So apparently I find it necessary to compare everything you do to what I did in Norway. Feel free to ignore, but...

    When my friend and I were in Norway we also had a very difficult time with food and ate a lot of apples and bread and bananas and nutella and yogurt. One night, however, we decided hot food was in order, and we, too, made pasta and we put zucchini on it to add a semblance of nutrition.

    Congrats on your food extravaganza, and eat some good cheese and bread for me.

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  2. Katherine, I absolutely don't mean to ignore it! I just don't get emails when people comment, so I didn't see this until JUST NOW, two sorry months later. Why did you have a tough time eating in Norway? The expense? How long were you there?

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