Summer Breakfast Two

I was unsuccessful at buying the little prepackaged HB eggs yesterday.  The Deli guy did try to be helpful and sell me a bag of "salad bar eggs" for $4.99 a pound.  The bag of twelve came to $8.99.  I don't mind paying $1.99 for a bag containing 6 cooked and peeled eggs.  But not $8.99 for 12.  So this morning's breakfast isn't a true Israeli commune breakfast.  Mine includes a ham and Swiss roll up.

The recent applications of diluted fish emulsion has been a wake up call to the sluggish production of cucumber pickles on my plants.  Yesterday I harvested FOUR little cukes.  My tomato production is also limping along.  I have tons of green tomatoes.  I have, perhaps, two or three a day that are "sort of" red.  I pick and they manage to ripen here on the kitchen counter.   I sort thru the recycled salad greens container each morning looking for the ripest ones.   I have tomatoes with every meal.  G does not.

When I was a small child, I ate raw vegetables out of the garden dirt while "helping" my grandmother in the garden.  She would pick something, brush the dirt off of it, and perhaps even peel it with her ever present small sharp knife.  I ate kohlrabi "pops" holding onto the stems and eating the crunchy sweet bulb.  My Gramma also carried a salt shaker in her apron pocket.  So I salt all the raw stuff I eat.

Later, when we moved far away from Gramma, my mother would serve up a plate of whatever was fresh from the garden alongside dinner.  We had plates of sliced tomato, plates of fresh dill refrigerator pickles, steamed baby green beans, radishes and pickled beets.  There was always a plate of sliced bread and butter to fill in any hungry places for three growing kids.  We also had steaming stacks of sweet corn that my dad brought home from the roadside stands.   In other words, I always ate plenty of fresh garden produce. Holidays brought the filled garnish plate of olives, radishes, celery and pickles.

G's mom opened cans and served corn, carrots and peas.  So you can see why it's hard for me to share my love of the fresh veggie with him.  I bring the veggies into the house and know that it's all mine.

Before Atkins (BA), I would have just opened the cupboard and filled a bowl with cereal for my breakfast.  Now, I have to find a suitable protein and fat combo.   Which isn't scrambled eggs or the now disgusting MIM.

I have on a pair of size medium LL Bean knit pants.  They aren't tight.  I still have saddlebags along the hip line but not as huge as before.  With a hip covering shirt, I could go out in public in these pants and feel comfortable.  Last week I went on errands wearing a "too big" pair of jeans that hung low exposing a muffin free area above the waistband of the jeans.  I even had to roll up the pant legs.  What I want to do from now until I die, is wear loose fitting jeans.  I don't EVER want to be encased in skin tight pants again.
I feel like Scarlett O'Hara vowing to never go hungry again.

I haven't had sugar in any form in nearly four months.  I have managed to NOT eat ANY bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, fruit or sugar.  Not even a spoonful.  I feel good.  I still have no food cravings other than a sudden desire for a banana.  I love bananas.  I watched a co worker eat a perfect banana on Saturday and I "lusted" for that banana.  I'd like some fresh mango and pineapple.  A wedge of watermelon.  Everything has too many sugary carbs.  But that banana.  I want that banana.