iscah meal log 052317

 

 

May. 23rd, 2017 09:30 am remember the truth of love.♥

Breakfast= oatmeal, raisins, brown sugar, vanilla Greek yogurt, vanilla soymilk, vanilla Ensure, a blueberry PopTart, and earl grey tea. The PopTart was first, and its sugar-hard icing always makes me think of winter snow! Probably from those beloved old iced cookies we used to make. The filling tastes crystal-purple & sugar-sweet, but it's not sharp or overpowering, especially thanks to the crust! And today, I noticed it has a bit of a "pie crust" flavor, in that it has a touch of saltiness, and it's softened by oil. But lightly! Oil & lard have different effects on flour taste-- pie is the latter, PopTarts are the former. I really enjoy them now! ♥ Same with the yogurt; its cultured thick-cream texture, smooth but heavy & silky, and tasting slightly off-white from its soured tone? Maybe? Its delicate vanilla taste, and milk base, anchor it white, but that cultured through-tone... it's like, an "uppertaste" color, registering higher in the mouth? The color of my white pajamas! But I love it so. I put a tad of brown sugar in it earlier, just one bite, and that sugar-crystal brightness plus molassesy-brown warm tone was interesting in colorplay over that offwhite. A little too homogenous, maybe? But honestly it didn't "click," so I'll try again next Monday! As for the other vanillas? The soymilk's "soy" base taste is clearer than ever now, which is good because I really like it, BUT I noticed that its "warm" vanilla tone is actually like CAKE VANILLA? Really! Almost like Friday's strawberry cake! So I'll DEFINITELY have to compare them this week. And, again, the vanilla Ensure has a marked 'salt' touch, and a heavy creaminess, but it's NOT yellow-- it's that pale taupe color! And really... it's the sort of vanilla I'd associate with colder weather, NOT the brightly white ice-cream or floral vanillas of warm weather. This vanilla is like... maybe the bread pudding??? I didn't compare it last Thursday, so I will this week! But that "warm" complement of environment DOESN'T quite fit the actual Ensure?? It's surprisingly not a warm color!! I keep thinking, "coffee creamer," maybe? And yesterday's "vanilla tootsie roll" comparison does still seem legit enough. I just need to re-check last week's "banana" taste claim. So I'll get back to you on that! As for the tea? There is a LOVELY lemon-tea amber zip to the earl grey's bitter-nice base, a literal warm amber-gray taste itself. It's GREAT. But I also drank it very hot! And my taste skills still don't register through temperature well yet. So I do need to strengthen that, BUT I can't push too hard, either-- drinking superhot stuff isn't good for my teeth, throat, OR stomach! So no worries. Now, last up, we have the raisins and the oatmeal AND the remainder of the brown sugar... and, yes, I DID unite them all into a new song of taste & color & texture-- and it is BEAUTIFUL!!! ♥ Oh my gosh, here's ANOTHER Good thing I was missing by not respecting the sugar's desire for unity in its PURPOSE, and not indulging the raisins playful need AND strong wish to ALSO play with the oatmeal-- dried fruits ALL seem to want to play with other foods! Cereals, yogurts, salads, breads, even meats-- they really play well with others! ♥ Which is, fittingly, sweet. AS WAS THE OATMEAL. I don't know if the raisins, too, shared their sugars with it, but maybe they did, because they got plumper & less "burny sugary" and more fresh-grape-tart tasting IN it? They were WONDERFUL. ♥ And the oatmeal itself, thanks to the brown sugar, AND the almost fig-like (brownish?) sugar touch of the raisins, was not only warmed in flavor AND literal color-tone, but the sweetness-- already mellowed by molasses roundness & gentility-- used its lighter brown as a base, as well as its grain-typical cereal groundedness, that lovely comforting carbohydrate complexity, to anchor down and become almost gold in taste-- LEGIT gold, NOT yellow-gold!! I'm talking the crayon-tone, that browner shiny metallic, just a touch neutral but mostly gold. The color of the oatmeal DID match up! ♥ However, my FAVORITE result of finally letting that brown sugar work its magic was how it affected the TEXTURE of the oatmeal!! It added a non-tacky, flowy "stickiness" to it, making it smoother in the mouth, and a tad "gooey?" But NOT heavy!! Not like honey or syrup, not like jelly either... not like icing or frosting... oh come on, it just hit me. MOLASSES. Like actual molasses, just a bit in it! Flowy but sticky but unusually light. And not much of it, or it WOULD have a throat-burn! But in that bit of light brown sugar? PERFECT. ♥ Gentle but SO warmly happy, like a big comforting hug, not a squeeze. My only regret? Picking the raisins OUT, first, to taste on their own! So although I got THEIR data, I don't know how they play AS part of that whole, and I'm sorry. But now I know their own uniqueness, so next week? I'll know it as a unique part, too! ♥

Lunch= PIZZA TUESDAY! And I manifested last night's dream's ♥ choices by having chocolate Ensure and Ranch dressing (thank you Felicia, for saving me from doubt's fear! ♥ and thank you GOD for answering my prayer for wise choice through her! ♥), alongside the chocolate cake and side salad (1 tomato, 2 cucumbers, some julienned carrots & violet cabbage, and of course iceberg lettuce)! I have to say, the ranch dressing is really a beautiful unitive flavor for salads like this... its bright white sour-sweet creaminess-- which ALSO has a notable salty flavor!!-- lifts up the gentler, sweeter, mild & gentle plant-tastes of the vegetables. It adds a richness to the tomatoes with its saltiness and dairy-creaminess, NOTABLY its touch of sourness (which "widens" the taste profile; sweet tomatoes also go well with sweeter dairy, BUT salt will ALWAYS make 'em taste even better, I think)... it mellows & uplifts the cabbage's violet flare, making it brighter but less "sharp"... it also brightens the sweet carrots, its own "zing" adding a different amber/ yellow hue quality to them, warming their smile... and on the truly gentle lettuce, all water & pale green chlorophyll whisper, it uses that as a base and springboards off it in a truly joyful, but peacefully anchored, lively white-smooth but piquant-bright shine of flavor! I just wish I had a better way to describe that "sourness" of cultured dairy in color... actually? I think the issue is that it's NOT a color, per se, but an ACCENT?? Like, NOTHING is "JUST" cultured taste-- by its very definition, it REQUIRES a base color to be born from!! And that color is usually white, it seems-- an intriguing fact. So culture-sour flavor probably doesn't manifest as COLOR... but instead as LIGHT?? Maybe even SHAPE?? Dude those are NEW ways of perceiving taste and the very thought of being able TO perceive them now is AWESOME. But yeah, "accent" tastes! Sour-milk seems more like... well, it leans amber (OVER white, mind!!), but it changes the dairy flavor from round to triangular? Something like it. I won't get obsessive over it, just be aware of things coming in as THAT sort of data, too! And also be aware of HOW layers & accents & things play together, even potentially... because THAT is what tipped me off to a GLORIOUS combo today= CHOCOLATE CAKE AND RANCH DRESSING. I kid you not!! You've heard of mayonnaise in brownies & such; well here you go again! ♥ It's the same principle of yesterday's dinner thought-- dark, neutral browns work REALLY WELL with sour whites. And by golly, does it EVER!! The cake's cool, moist but light, airy "cake-y" (duh) texture, and neutral-tone chocolate flavor-- not bitter, not sugary, not milky, not salty; it's how the FLOUR base rounds it out?-- is LOVELY with the ranch, as that bright-sour uplifting taste PLUS the creamy milky base just sings with it. I don't care if I get funny looks next week; that dressing is legit going ON the cake!! But the icing DOESN'T go!!! It's too warm-toned, too sweet! You can TASTE the butter & sugar, clearly!! And the cocoa richness is again transmuted by it into warm brown. No ranch there! I'd have to play with taste-knowledge to postulate what it would go with, outside of accenting neutral brown-- but not now. Now, we'll talk about a different brown-- the warmer, tan-leaning-orange but white-base sweet wholesomeness of the PIZZA CRUST! ♥ I still love it so much. It's tough & a tad rubbery around the edge, but even there, its inside is so doughy, so wonderfully soft & airy yet firm, no mushy bits at all. Solid but gentle and ever so sweet yet grounded in the brown base tone! And that touch of warm-color-tone it has makes it sing SO well with the happy cream-yellow cheese & the rich red tomato sauce! The sauce has OREGANO in it! And basil, too, I think? And LOTS of pepper-- a little too much for me, admittedly; it overwhelms the other flavors. But it's not bad! Plus the tomato sauce is surprisingly sweet-- there's no bite to it at all, just the slightest tang at the edges. (Too much & it wouldn't sing well with the crust!) There is sugar in it, I assume, and THAT taste, too, harmonizes beautifully with the mild, milky, sweeter-but-still-salted taste of the cheese topping! I always like the pizza cheese-- melted, it's still different from the grilled cheese sort; it's not sticky or thick or soft & smooth like that-- it's a bit rubbery, it's chewy, it's firmer in texture and, like the dinner roll, it doesn't completely "smooth out" in the mouth. Which is fine; all experiences are to be treasured for their own gifts. And, yes, I ate the pizza WHOLE, in those little slices! It is very good that way, although I WILL admit, this is one meal that I like to deconstruct, so I can eat that spicy sauce by itself, and THEN enjoy the full, non-peppery flavors of the cheese & crust! But that feels unfair & unloving. I DO love the sauce. I LIKE its peppery, herb-kissed rich red taste! I really like how it plays with the grounding brown of the crust, and how it adds an extra boost of bright enthusiasm to the cheese. It takes those two more docile tastes by the hand and says, "let's go!" And the all bravely & bright-burning-heartedly present themselves UNITED, AS this pizza-- as a whole, wonderfully musical in its warm zesty goodness. Thank You God, for its existence AS IS! ♥

Dinner= chicken with the skin, bread stuffing & gravy, a sweet potato souffle, a dinner roll, a butter pat, vanilla soymilk, vanilla Ensure, and a vanilla magic cup. I'm a little bummed out, because I used to really love the magic cups-- they have beautiful textures & flavors, BUT they're super sweet to the point where they burn my throat AND turn my stomach? Honestly, even when I used to have them for snack, they would turn my stomach by the time I started the second one! I wonder why? Either way, it's worrisome because they-- and maybe the mini-sundaes-- are the ONLY foods on the entire COPE meal plan that legitimately make me nauseous enough to WANT to vomit. And that is NOT GOOD. So I'll tell Team tomorrow, but for now, let's just focus on data. The magic cup is an almost buttery sweet vanilla? It IS salty somehow! And, compared to it, the vanilla Ensure tastes LIGHTER! That confirms it's not yellow-leaning, but more neutrally brown. And the soymilk today tasted especially tofu-like, which was super welcome (as its a very neutral taste) after that sugar-shot. The dinner roll was WARM and that moistened it and made it doughier, which I love. I noticed that it doesn't "completely" turn into smooth when you chew it-- it keeps little doughy bits. But it still tastes of bread, all lovely with maybe the slightest yellow-butter tone. When you DO put the butter on it, though, that breadiness is a base, and the butter is a creamy cool pale yellow with a round, sunshine-golden-yellow mellowness that honestly "glows" all around your mouth, that salty oil-cream spreading itself all out among the roll's soft mouthful. I always enjoy that pairing! I ALSO enjoy this entree! The bread stuffing is almost entirely mushy, thanks to the heat & gravy-- although there are tasty bits of the crust, even those are soft, and-- even more surprisingly-- ALL of the stuffing is "STICKY!!" Like wet-dough sticky, all supersoft & dense-though-spongy! TOTALLY different from the bread pudding, which is WET but not sticky (from the alcohol-vanilla?), and firm-- not so the stuffing, which, due TO its doughiness, isn't "wet" in the same way, because it ABSORBED all that water & gravy INTO itself! But it's good! It tastes more doughy than bready, too, but it has HERBS-- I think parsley & basil??-- and LOVELY cooked pieces of celery, rich in olive green flavor & subtle crisp-firmness, softened by heat. And the gravy tastes RICHLY of chicken fat & salt, getting a lovely "skin" on it as it cools, and also speckled with herbs. I ate most of it alone, BUT! I DID save a little for the stuffing-- AND I saved a little of BOTH for the chicken!! Now THAT was LOVELY. ♥ I left the skin & top-gravy on, too!! It's moist and falls apart when you try to cut it, and there was no fat in it-- which worked out fine, as there was a lot on top & around it, so to speak! The skin is ALL chicken-fat flavor, chewy yet soft & firm, a but "squishy," and actually really nice paired with the pink-kissed white meat. And, when you pair BOTH with that golden-rich gravy, strong in its happy fat flavor and salty potency, working so well with the soft & bready heart of the stuffing, so full of flavor and so gentle in the mouth-- milder in its base neutrality than even the dinner roll, but as such, being the perfect peacekeeper for the sodium-punch of the gravy and the lovely round fat flavors... when all of that is added to the fatty skin and tender chicken, both so mild on their own as well, but full of good white-meat taste softened & gentled by pink, and fat in its pure off-white natural glory blanketed by the unique brown-gold thickness of skin, kissed with the gravy and enriching the meat it was born to embrace... all of it together, is WONDERFUL. It's SUCH a great taste combination, all brown & golden tones, with off-white & olive-green accents! It's not just a harmony, it's a painting! ♥ And I cannot wait to be able to experience it with now-clearer, deeper love & appreciation next week! ♥ That's the best thing about this fixed meal plan: it fosters SO much hope & determination for healing & it demands TOTAL loving attention & gratitude for EVERY precious, prudently timed bite. ♥ God is Good, and I can TASTE it!! ♥

Snack= three bags of plain Sun Chips, just like Sunday, and fittingly so-- not only are they still so nice & soothing after a tiring (but good!) day, but also? ELINOR IS BACK. ♥ She's okay and she's recovered and I am gonna PRAY in all Love & joy that she has a BEAUTIFUL day tomorrow, and that her treatment progresses smoothly, lovingly, and with PROFOUND & quick healing! ♥ God, bless her & keep her.. and, if YOU so will, help me to help You help her, too. ♥