Midnight Munchies and the Ode to Carbs

I know. Me of all people. Mistress of forgot-to-eat-fulness. I actually had an appetite a little bit ago. And I wanted to be bad. I wanted to be a frozen taquito ho. My body said yes, yessss, YES! And I actually got out of bed and went to the kitchen. I stood in the darkness in my bare feet in the center of the kitchen. It was 1:14am in the morning and I was humming a few bars of "Ode to Carbs".

Ode to Carbs

They slither here through quantum dimensions of cold
Through the magic of cupboards, now nearly bare
Which call in the night to their playmates of old
Come pasta, tortillas, and chocolates so rare!

I hear subtle shuffling of boxes and bags
The cellular memories are filling my room
'To all of the cookies I've loved before'
--and anything frozen I ate with a spoon

My body is yearning for thick pizza crust
For garlic bread toast and fresh cookie dough
For waffles with light powdered sugar as dust
And frozen taquitos you nuke till they glow

Oh, carbohydroxilatechemicalstuff!
Ingredient glories I cannot pronounce
You're still somewhere deep in my heart.

You fuzz up my brain so I fail to remember
All the good reasons why just last September
I emptied my household of starch.

But how I recall when we were still lovers
Oh pasta, your flatulence moved me so!
Your gluten ensured not a pound would desert me
For 10 minutes high and a 2 hour low.

O carbs how I long for the thrill at my peril!
I lust for eclairs though my oversized heart
Beats quickly while insulin slithers into me
And says 'I'm ready! Last dance in the dark?'

It's night. So quiet.
Clock clickedy-ticking.
I'd abandon my diet
For canned frosting-licking.

I want me some CARBS!
In the MILLIONS! Sounds GREAT!
So I foraged, house-wide --

...but I only found steak.



Friggin low carb.
Thanks to this stupid eating plan,
I might actually live another day to whine about it.

-- PJ

I seldom suffer carb cravings. Or any appetite at all for that matter. Must be hormonal!

Sweetbread Bowl (aka 'Mock Danish')
version 162 out of at least 1.7 million. Ideal midnight munchie.
(original 400+ message recipe/variant thread is here.)

1 large egg
1-2 oz cream cheese
1/4 teaspoon fiberfit powder (or 2 tsp sweetener equivalent)
some kind of extract or flavor (tonight I used vanilla & blueberry)
some kind of LC jam or berries (tonight I used frozen wild blueberries)

Use a cheap round plastic microwaveable bowl.
Nuke cream cheese till soft (if it isn't already).
Mix up well with egg, with fork.
Add all the other junk but leave some jam/berries out, mix with fork.
(There'll be little chunks of cream cheese. That's fine.)
Nuke it for about 1.5 minutes.
Add jam/remaining berries to middle, nuke another 30 seconds.
Let cool slightly.
Eat.
Live another day.

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Painted Gardens

I totally forgot one of the main things I wanted to talk about last post!!

But it turned out so long I'll make a new one.

Cinderblock for your garden has good and bad qualities.

On the good side:

• it is insulating weather-wise, as it is essentially a double layer of cement with air between


• it has holes which will grow many things as well as the space you have in the beds. I once by accident grew a small bell pepper plant in one that went deep, and basil in a couple!


• it is more affordable than most any other building material


• it's heavy enough not much will mess it up even if you don't mortar it but just stack them neatly in cross pattern (the larger 8x8x16 anyway)


• and they stack vertically so standing gardens for people with 'limited mobility' - whether from age, disability, overweight, or whatever - are very cool


• If you have some obnoxious wall from a neighbor's yard, just put a row of brick 2-4 feet away from it and it'll become the other side of your garden, rather than the neighbor's ugly wall. :-)

On the down side:

• it tends to absorb water a little, so the soil around the edges is prone to get dryer


• bugs especially spiders just LOVE LOVE LOVE the "holes". Here is my advice: fill them to the top with SOIL and plant flowers in them rather than leaving them 'open'


• I've heard rumor that cinderblock "leeches cement chemical into the soil" but you know what, I haven't had the slightest problem with plants growing amazingly, so either that is BS or the amount is simply too small and too near the very edges, which are constantly 'rinsed' as the watering happens, to matter. But in case it's true I should mention it here.


• It's heavy as hell, so the initial setup is work.


• Grey is not very cheerful. Ok that's trivial, but still. ;-)

There is one redeeming factor about having four "walls" on every garden bed though: they are PAINTABLE.

There is a product called Killz that is white paint that will cover and stop just about anything you can imagine, on just about any surface. But it's expensive, so just go to walmart and ask them for the local no-name equivalent. ;-) It's just as good it seems and it's vastly cheaper.

After that, you can paint anything you want on it, using outdoor paint or whatever. If your teenager is into graffiti, tell him to show you a beautiful picture design demo on paper, and you'll let him spray paint it on a garden wall. ;-) If you have small kids, have a Garden Party and say with the invitation to wear paint-clothes and that every kid gets a brick to paint their own a picture on. If you have anybody artistic around, they can make each brick a tiny work of art, or make a 'mural' on a whole wall. -- No more boring grey! It's a whole canvas of creative opportunity that your average garden-in-the-ground doesn't offer.

I'm hoping to do a little of this, this year. Er, either with templates or other people, because I have ZERO artistic talent. ;-) I'll post pics eventually!
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