This week’s box was supposed to come from GreenChef.com.  My expected delivery date was yesterday, but the box never showed.  FedEx’s tracking information shows the box made it into Texas, but it disappeared somewhere between a nearby shipping facility and my office.  FedEx no longer has an expected shipment date, so the only thing I’m sure of is that I’ll be running to the grocery store this evening.

This will make two missed boxes in a row (big sigh).  It’s becoming obvious that the most difficult part of a subscription box diet is getting my hands on the food.

My fingers are crossed for HomeChef.com, who I have scheduled for next week’s delivery.

Oh well.  I guess that gives me another week to finish the WordPress theme for this site.

I wanted to take a few minutes and discuss what subscription boxes are, and why they are a good option for me.  I decided to use a Q&A format, with an imaginary interviewer.

Are the subscription box companies paying you to write all this?

Nope.  I don’t get any financial remuneration.  I also don’t get free or discounted food.   If you read my posts you’ll see I’m sometimes critical of the service, and I plan to continue being critical when I see a problem.

What’s the basic concept?

Every week I order a box from one of the companies that delivers to my area.  The boxes usually contain recipes and pre-measured ingredients for three meals.  Each meal has two servings, so I get a total of six meals/week.

Which subscription box services do you use?

At present I use Plated, GreenChef, and HomeChef.  I’ve used HelloFresh in the past, and wasn’t totally happy with their customer service, but your experience may be different.  Since there are four companies shipping to my area (Central Texas) I don’t have to settle for lackluster service.

Every Sunday I check each company’s web page to see the week’s vegetarian menu, and I order the one that’s most appealing.  I do have to be vigilant — all the companies (except Plated) auto-schedule weekly boxes for me, so I have to manually go into each website and pause my deliveries.  On Sunday I double-check everything so I don’t accidentally get two boxes.

Wow — that sounds like it could be expensive.

I think it’s a reasonable price for the service provided.  My six servings range from $72/week to $59/week, delivery included.  You could certainly make your own meals for less money, but for a variety of reasons this is a good choice for me. I’m not saving money, but I’m making better choices.

What about the quality?  I don’t feel comfortable with strangers picking my produce.

So far I am extremely happy with the quality of the produce.  Everything has been equal to what I would buy in a grocery store with a good produce department.  As an added bonus I don’t have to worry about waste.  So far the ingredients survive a week in my fridge without too many problems.  I do try to cook anything leafy first since the leafy vegetables get slimed the quickest.

Why are you doing this?

A little background:  I’m 45 years old, weigh over 300 pounds, and have horrible eating habits dating back to childhood.  I love pizza, crackers, popcorn, bread, eggs and nuts.  I’ll eat fruit, but tend to gravitate to the high-sugar fruits, which isn’t good. And I don’t like vegetables much at all, unless they’re hidden in a pizza.  Veggies = gross.

I’ve tried to change my eating habits for about a decade now. I’ve made some strides, but I feel my progress is too slow.  Luckily I haven’t experienced serious health problems.  Statistically, I know this isn’t going to continue, so I need to make radical changes.

Since I’m so out of shape and overweight, I suffer from low energy. I would often go grocery shopping in the evening, and afterward I’d be too tired to cook so I’d drive through McDonald’s and shove an order of fries down my throat.  The fries would slowly equal more pounds, all of which I have to carry around my waist and hips every day.  This makes me even more tired — and demoralized! — so why the hell not eat another order fries?  Does it really matter?

I’m also not a smart grocery shopper.  There was also a lot of waste because I had trouble with meal sequencing, and because sometimes I would buy without remembering to scale the recipe first.  (I live alone, and most recipes have at least 4 servings.)  I was also overly ambitious, so despite knowing I have zero energy I would buy ingredients for several meals each week, most of which would also go to waste.

Picking recipes — oh gods, the hell of picking recipes!  I kept trying to pick things that had ingredients I liked, which didn’t help change my eating habits.  Decision fatigue would set in, and I’d realize the recipes I had chosen weren’t all that healthy anyway.  And it seemed like every recipe I chose required a new $14 bottle of spice or a new cooking implement.  Most of the time I’d toss my plans out the window and order a pizza.

Then the hell of cooking itself.  I’m not a good cook and cooking every day exhausted me.  It also left my kitchen a wreck, and it seems like there were always dirty dishes in the sink, and crap piled (and spilled) all over my counters.

Subscription boxes keep me accountable.  I don’t have as many excuses because the food is right there in the fridge waiting to be cooked.  Since the subscription price is a large part of my food budget, I can’t afford to order a pizza if I think I don’t like the ingredients.

Now I cook three days a week, eat leftovers three days a week and have pizza on Saturdays.  (My goal is to be healthier, not perfect.)  My kitchen gets a “deep clean” on the leftover nights, so chaos is kept at bay.

And best of all, I’m eating scary veggies!  I’m giving up control, and it’s paying back in spades.

Do you plan on using subscription boxes for the rest of your life?

I don’t know.  Right now I’m trying to commit to twenty-four weeks, which will hopefully help me find healthy recipes I enjoy while at the same time helping me lose weight so I’ll have the energy to take better care of myself.  I’m starting to worry I’ll backslide if I stop using subscription boxes.  What if I start ordering pizzas again?  (Note:  Knowing the names of all the drivers at the local Pizza Hut is not a good thing.)

Today is difficult. It’s one of those horrid weekends where I’m not only alone, but lonely. The only people I’ve talked to all weekend are the the McDonald’s cashier and the clerks at the grocery store. I don’t understand. When did I become Eleanor Rigby? Why am I all alone, sobbing into my wine glass while watching Walking Dead re-runs?

I need to feel positive, so maybe it’s time to take stock of my dietary successes.

• Weight lost to date:  12 pounds.
• Gross foods have been eaten!!  And some of them weren’t all that gross.  I have several dishes I’ll be putting in permanent rotation, which is the ultimate goal of the subscription boxes.
• I have more energy.  I used to go to the grocery store, come home, and collapse.  Now I can go to the grocery store and still cook something that same night.  And clean the kitchen afterwards.
• I haven’t had a frozen pizza in weeks, and I only breakfast at McDonald’s once a week.
• I’m spending less on food, even with the subscription boxes.

As you’d expect, though, it’s mixed success.  Losing twelve pounds isn’t a big deal. I’ve lost that much accidentally, without any effort. From here on out it gets tricky.

I have more energy, but I don’t always use it well. There are a million things I need to do around the house, but I’m too preoccupied with The End of Mr. Y to bother.

I’m still not getting enough protein in my diet.  My target is 20%, but I usually get about 14%. And I’m always hungry. In the mornings, for example, I eat granola and milk, but by 10:30 my stomach is growling. This never happened when I ate Egg McMuffins. Are lowfat people always hungry like this?  How do they get anything done?

While I really have made lots of progress, today I don’t feel like I’ve done much at all. We live in an Amazon Prime world, and I want my gratification NOW, damnit. I’m tired of being lonely. I want my life, now. Not Eleanor’s.

I’ve reached an odd place in my food adventures. I can eat a food, and enjoy it while at the same time gagging. This happened today with the vegetarian chili I made. It tasted just fine, but the texture — yuuuuuck!!!  I wanted to spit it out! The experience reminded me of learning about French kissing for the first time. Remember? How could that ever be a good thing? Sticking your tounge in some guy’s mouth?? YUCK. We all laugh at those memories, wise adults that we are, but it makes me wonder.

Is it possible that one day I’ll find chili as attractive as an intelligent man?

And if there is hope for chili . . . could exercise ever be interesting?

Naaaaa. Let’s not get carried away.

And what lead to this moment, anyway? What made me, despite my trepidations, attempt to eat chili? Which, as you know, is nothing more than mushy, disgusting vegetable slop. There are several metaphors and similes for that revolting sludge rolling around in my head, but they wouldn’t be polite to write, so let’s move on.

HelloFresh sent me a chili with my last box, and I never cooked it because the thought of all that mush turned my stomach. But then Plated.com sent me chili the following week, so I took it as a sign. The universe wanted me to make veggie chili.

The experience started glossing surreal shortly after I realized the HelloFresh stuff was a week old, and probably needed to be thrown away. Much to my surprise, the ingredients were fine despite a week in the fridge, excepting the green onions. And — another sign from the universe! — I had a fresh bunch of green onions in the produce drawer!

Damn. That meant I had to actually make HelloFresh chili, since I couldn’t afford to throw out perfectly fine food. Plus the whole sign-from-the-universe thing.

In the midst of cursing this mushy abundance I realized I could make the chili, take it to work, and feed it to people who might actually enjoy vegetarian chili. And if I made the Plated chili too there would probably be enough for my entire office. So I pulled out the slow cooker, chopped a crazy lot of vegetables, and threw both recipes together. Black beans, chickpeas, poblano pepper, red bell pepper, chilie pepper in adobo sauce, red onion, white onion, butternut squash, a ton of spice, vegetable stock . . . extra cayenne from my spice rack since the boxers have to cook for the lowest common denominator (which sure as heck isn’t Texas) . . . oh, look what’s in the freezer!  Black bean quinoa leftovers I froze a few weeks ago. And that stewed okra dish I didn’t like.  The freezer’s getting crowded, let’s throw in the last of this frozen corn.

I let it cook overnight, untasted.

That’s right, I cooked the chili and never tasted it.

I could not force myself to taste something so disgusting! But that didn’t stop me from offering it up to my guinea pigs . . . I mean co-workers . . . along with some Beanitos, Fritos, cheese, and sour cream.

No one died. People even said the chili was good.

I reminded myself that I like and respect my co-workers. They aren’t delusional. And, with the possible exception of JM, they wouldn’t try to trick me into eating something vile. So I took courage from their praise.  I half-filled my tiny, tiny melamine bowl with Fritos, then ladled on some mushy slop. And took a bite.

It wasn’t bad.  It probably needed more cayenne because I could still taste the vegetables, but overall not bad.

Then I bit into a mushy chickpea, and shuddered. I waited, poised over a trashcan, until the goose flesh subsided. I chewed some more. And winced when my teeth sank through the squash. I worked through the entire bowl in a small series of shudders and pauses, trying to let the taste triumph over the texture. The Fritos were my dietary heroes. I never could have made it through the chili without their comforting crunch.

After I finished the entire super-tiny bowl the internal argument began. Did I like it? Did I hate it? Was it good?

I couldn’t decide, so much to my surprise I ATE ANOTHER TINY, TINY BOWL.

I’m still not sure if I liked it. Vegetarian chili, for the time being, will go on the “gray list.”  I’ll eat it (provided there are Fritos) but I don’t think I’d cook it voluntarily.

So, in the final analysis, no.

Chili is not equal to men.  Wrong kind of shudders.

——————–

Aside:  I’ve been writing code at work, so I want to write that as an equation.  Maybe attractiveness is a function, so the f(chili) < f(men)?

f(men)

hahahahahahahaha

So how does the Plated experience compare to HelloFresh?

• INGREDIENTS:  Both services provided top quality ingredients.  No complaints.  Plated gave me small disks of ginger, while HelloFresh sends me a tiny thumb.  I like the thumb because removing ginger peel with a spoon is a snap. Trimming the peel from the discs wasn’t as easy. Plated’s vinegars came in what looked like mini hotel shampoo bottles, with a label and the Plated logo.  HelloFresh usually sends me a tiny bottle with the manufacturer’s label, which I find enchanting.  It’s like eating dollhouse food.  But the quality, the most important distinction, is identical.
• PACKAGING:  Both services have good packaging.  Everything arrived cold.  I do have one equal complaint of both services — no information on how to recycle the tremendous amount of packaging.  I’m never sure what to do with the ice packs!  Is it safe to pour the liquid down the sink?
• INSTRUCTIONS:  Let me reveal bias:  I’m an instructional designer, so I write and review instructions on a regular basis.  I’m also a visual designer, so the visual appearance of the recipes is also very important.  To be honest, I’m not thrilled with either company’s instructions.  They both value the design of the recipe cards a little too much.  They’re beautiful, I’ll admit — thick cardstock, nice photos, clean design.  But they’re sacrificing content.  I’d appreciate more detailed instructions cooking techniques.  I’ve found it’s very helpful to visit YouTube and search for how to prepare specific ingredients found in each meal before cooking.  I wish the boxers included all these useful tips, so I wouldn’t have to spend time searching for and watching videos.  The recipe formatting could be much better.  Both boxers also group several steps into one tight paragraph underneath a picture, in only a few square inches of space.  The tiny font size and dense text makes it easy to overlook steps, or even fail to add ingredients as I did this evening.  HelloFresh has a slight edge here; they bold the ingredients, so I can skim each step to make sure nothing is left out.  I’ve fixed this problem with the Plated recipe cards using a highlighter.  (Grad school skills to the rescue!)
• EASE:  Both services have uncomplicated recipes, but I’d like to see more super-quick one-dish fifteen-to-twenty minute recipes.
• TASTE:  This is probably not the best area me to review, as I’m eating a ton of things I’ve never tried so I don’t have a baseline,  Maybe ALL Chinese broccoli is amazing, and I’m just discovering it.  Should that give Plated an edge?  I’m also an inept cook, and my lack of kitchen game could could be the reason a recipe flops instead of triumphs.  I feel each service has winner recipes I’ll cook again, so for now I’m declaring taste a tie.
• CUSTOMER SERVICE:  No problems with Plated so far.  One issue with HelloFresh, eventually settled after seven emails.  HelloFresh’s response times to individual emails could have been better, too.  On the plus side, when my plans changed unexpectedly, HelloFresh was able to send me a box even though the order deadline date had passed.  6 out of 10.
• MAGIC FAIRIES:  Neither company included magic fairies to clean my kitchen.  Darn.

It’s pretty much a toss-up.  I’ll re-evaluate in a few months.

Every week I order three meals from a meal subscription service.  Since each meal contains two servings and I live alone, I have to eat three leftover meals a week.

A new feature of this blog will be to find creative ways to use the leftovers.

Yesterday I cooked and consumed Plated’s Miso Ginger Pollock, so today I have some leftover potatoes, Chinese broccoli, and fish.  Since I had a filet and a half, I improvised two dishes:

• Mango Pollock Quesadillas with Sriracha Sauce
• Roasted Cauliflower and Potato Fish Cakes

Mango Pollock Quesadillas with Sriracha Sour Cream

I’m not 100% thrilled with the quesadillas.  They’re OK, but could be tastier.  I think more of the Chinese Broccoli would help.  I froze three of them, and plan to eat ’em at work this week.  Since no one reads this blog I’m recording the recipe, so I can experiment in the future.

Makes 3 – 4 fajita-sized quesadillas.

INGREDIENTS

• Half of one serving Plated’s Miso Ginger Pollock, breading removed (I threw the breading in the fish cakes.)
• One serving of the Chinese broccoli from Plated’s Miso Ginger Pollock
• 1 cup shredded cheese, Mexican mix
• 1 teaspoon jalapeno, diced (I didn’t use all the jalapeno Plated provided)
• 6 – 8 tablespoons mango pico de gallo
• Four fajita-size tortillas, corn or flour
• Sriracha sauce
• Sour cream
• Lime juice, a few squirts
• Butter, meltable margarine, or oil

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Mix the Sriracha sauce and sour cream in a small bowl.  Set in refrigerator to chill.
2. Flake or cut the fish into bite-sized pieces.
3. Butter one side of each tortilla.
4. Place a tortilla in a pan on medium heat.
5. Sprinkle a little cheese on half the tortilla.  You’ll add more later, this initial layer will melt and serve as “glue” to bind the other ingredients to the tortilla.
6. Arrange 1/4 of the fish, 1/4 of the mango pico, and 1/4 of the Chinese broccoli on one-half of the tortilla.  Add a squirt of lime juice.
7. Add more cheese to the tortilla half containing the other ingredients.
8. Carefully fold the tortilla’s empty half over the loaded half.
9. You will have room in your pan to repeat the process with the second tortilla while the first tortilla crisps.
10. Flip the tortillas over when the first side is crispy.  You’ll probably have to flip the first over a minute or two before you flip the second.
11. When both sides of the tortillas are crispy, remove quesadillas from pan and begin again.
12. Serve quesadillas with Sriracha/sour cream sauce as a dip.

FREEZE ‘EM

1. Loosely fold a piece of wax paper around each quesadillas.
2. Place quesadillas in freezer bag and freeze for up to two months.
3. Re-heat one or two at a time in a microwave for about 90 seconds.

Roasted Cauliflower and Potato Fish Cakes

Makes approximately 20 fish cakes

OK, I sort of failed here.  I forgot to take notes and measure the ingredients, so what I’m providing is really a list of ingredients and estimates.I’m saving this as “notes to myself” instead of an actual recipe.

My “fish cakes” are laughably irregular when compared to other people’s fish cake photos . . .

. . . and upon cooking, the cakes turned into more of a “fish crumble.”

Note to self:  Buy nicer dishes for food photography!  Also find camera!  Lighting wouldn’t hurt, either!

I’m sure there are people who would turn their nose up at the end result, but I quite liked it.  It was crispy, greasy, and salty — all my favorite flavors in one dish.  The next time I eat this I’ll need a salad to go along with it so I don’t feel as guilty about eating it.

INGREDIENTS

FOR CAKES

• One serving Plated’s Miso Ginger Pollock with breading, finely chopped
• One serving potatoes from Plated’s Miso Ginger Pollock, finely chopped
• 1 small cauliflower cut into bite-sized florets
• approximately 3/4 cup bread crumbs
• 2 cups cooked rice, cooled
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon butter or oil

FOR SAUCE

• 3/4 cup sour cream
• Sriracha sauce to taste
• lime juice to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

The Night Before:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Toss cauliflower florets in one tablespoon olive oil until lightly coated.
3. Spread cauliflower on a baking sheet.
4. Roast cauliflower until tender and golden, 25 – 30 minutes.
5. Set cauliflower in the refrigerator to cool overnight.

The Next Day:

1. Chop or food-process cauliflower into coarse crumbs.
2. Mix the fish, cauliflower, potatoes, bread crumbs, and rice in a bowl.
3. Mix mayonnaise, lime juice, and egg in another bowl.
4. Add mayo mixture to fish mixture.  Use hands to thoroughly combine ingredients.
5. Add panko breadcrumbs to a shallow bowl.
6. Using a scoop (ice cream scoop worked well) make a small patty by depositing scoop on wax paper and flattening.
7. Carefully pick up patty and roll in panko crumbs, flipping to coat both sides.  Repeat for all patties.  Stop here if you plan to freeze this dish, see FREEZE ‘EM below.
8. Blend sour cream, lime juice, and sriracha sauce into a creamy dip.
9. Add butter or oil to the frying pan over medium heat.  Cook each patty until golden brown, about five minutes.  (Remember, the cakes will absorb the oil, so be stingy!)
10. Serve patties with sriracha dipping sauce

FREEZE ‘EM

1. After Step #6 above, layer the patties in waxed paper and freeze.  Fish cakes will survive approximately six months in freezer.
2. To reheat, add a little butter or oil to a frying pan over medium heat.
3. Cook each patty until golden brown and warmed through, about 5 – 7 minutes.  (Remember, the cakes will absorb the oil, so be stingy!)

My reaction to the original recipe:

This is my second Plated meal, and I had high expectations after the wonderful pollock.  Sadly I was disappointed.  I found the empanadas bland, and only managed to eat them with the help of ranch dressing.  I’m also not a big fan of honey-mustard dressing, and Plated’s honey-mustard didn’t prove an exception, so I didn’t finish the spinach, either.

What do I have left over?

• 4 empanadas with ricotta corn filling
• 3 pieces prepared empanada dough (the recipe was for 6 empanadas, somehow I ended up with 7)
• 1 serving of spinach leaves (I threw out the serving I coated with dressing.)

What is the plan?

• The leftover empanada dough is simple — I’ll combine it with some strawberries I have in the fridge to make the fabulous Empanadas de Fresa from Sweet Life.
• I’ve frozen the remaining empanadas.  I think I’ll try putting them in a quiche this weekend.  If I add some spice — maybe a jalapeno — and some bacon they may be edible.
• The spinach leaves are the easiest leftover.  Tomorrow’s lunch will include a simple spinach salad, with Parmesan cheese, hemp seeds, and Italian dressing.

Mason Jar Empanada Quiches

This dense, flavorful quiche has an almost biscuit-like texture.  It’s great for freezing then re-heating for a quick breakfast at the office.

Equipment Needed:

• 2 canning jars, pint size
• Baking sheet
• Mixing bowl

 Ingredients:

• 1 Plated.com Ricotta Corn Empanada, frozen
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup shredded cheese, preferably cheddar or a Mexican blend
• 1/4 cup skim milk (or cream or half-and-half)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 – 2 slices bacon, crumbled (optional)
• 1/2 Serrano pepper
• 1 – 2 tablespoons butter, cooking spray or oil

COOK ‘EM

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generally when making quiche in I remove my oven’s center rack, and place the quiche on the lower rack.  This gives the quiche plenty of room to develop its “head,” and ensures the head won’t collide with the rack above, necessitating removing and cleaning the rack.
2. Grease 2 pint-size canning jars using butter, cooking spray, or oil.  I chose Bell’s wide-mouth jars as the wide mouth makes cleanup easier.
3. Dice the frozen empanada into 1/2 inch or smaller pieces. Dice the Serrano pepper into very fine pieces.
4. Crack eggs into a medium-sized mixing bowl.
5. Add milk and beat with a spoon or whisk until well mixed.
6. Add cheese, empanada, optional bacon, Serrano pepper, black pepper, and salt to the egg mix, stirring until well incorporated.
7. Ladle mixture into canning jars.  The heavier pieces in the mix sink to the bottom, so it’s important to pour a bit into one jar, then a bit into the other.  This will prevent one jar getting all the “good stuff.”  If using pint-size jars, you’ll want to pour 1/2 of the mixture into each canning jar (about a cup per jar).
8. Place jars on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or foil (in case of spillage) and place in the oven for 35 – 45 minutes.
9. When the quiches have a good golden-brown head, remove from oven and allow to cool.  Don’t expect the body of the quiche in the jar to turn golden brown — waiting that long results in a tough quiche.

FREEZE ‘EM

1. After removing from the oven, cover the jars with a dish cloth and allow to cool for approx. 45 minutes.  For safety reasons, do not allow quiche to stand at room temperature for over an hour.
2. The quiches will still be warm.  This is OK.  Place the jars in the freezer and allow them to continue cooling.
3. Once the jars are no longer warm, place canning lids on the jars.
4. Leave jars in the freezer until frozen (I usually give them at least twelve hours.)

REHEAT ‘EM

1. Remove the canning lid from the quiche.
2. Place the quiche on a microwave-safe plate.
3. Microwave the plate and the quiche until hot.  Microwaves vary, so it is a good idea to check your quiche every 60 seconds.  My home microwave needs 2 minutes, but the microwave in my office only needs 90 seconds.
4. Carefully remove plate and quiche.  The plate may hold liquid that has bubbled out of the quiche.  (This is an excellent reason to use half-filled pint jars — they’re less likely to bubble over.)
5. Enjoy!

HelloFresh finally resolved my non-shipping food billing issue, after seven tedious emails.  I’m not completely turned off on them, but this week I’m stepping out and trying Plated.  I don’t see any need to be loyal to just one service, especially since none of them have a large range of vegetarian options.  By having memberships with all the meal boxers I can shop around, and choose whichever service has the best menu that week.  So in that spirit, next week’s box will be from organic boxer GreenChef.com.  (GreenChef is currently offering a free box if you pay $9 shipping.)  And, in the near future, I’ll be trying FreshChef.

But back to Plated.  Their service is a little more expensive, but the recipes seem a tad more sophisticated, too.  This week I get to eat

• Ricotta Corn Empanadas
• Smoky Chickpea Chili
• Miso Ginger Pollock (accidentally ordered a meat dish!)

Tonight’s dish was the pollock. I thought I had ordered all vegetarian meals, and when the recipe card arrived I thought “Hmmm . . .  what kind of vegetable is a Pollock?”  I had to Google it to find out Pollock is a fish.

I’m not a strict vegetarian, so the fish is OK, except I don’t like cooking meat of any type.  I’m afraid it won’t cook through, and I’ll end up with a terrible disease.  (Note:  Buy thermometer.)

The pollock was wonderful, but the one-inch fillets fed my irrational fears, so I couldn’t bring myself to finish eating it.  I also undercooked the potatoes, I think, but since the only way I normally eat potatoes is french fried I’m probably not the best judge.  But, oh, the Chinese broccoli was a revelation!  SO GOOD.  MORE.  NOW.  PLEASE.

I’m going to try Plated for three weeks total, and then write a comparison of the two services.  By that time I should have a good feel for the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Recently I watched Beautiful Losers.  It moved me, as I think it moves anyone who wants to be more creative, but constantly struggles with the conflicts between creativity and self.  These artists are true to themselves, and it’s what makes their art great.

Aaron Rose said something in the film that seemed to strike at the heart of all my problems.  “You’re not really starting over, you’re just editing out all the crap that was holding you back.”

Being the person I want to be is an editing process.

I have to edit food — remove the pizza, remove the chocolate, the Goldfish crackers.  Food is the one place in my life where I’m adding, too.  Expand the palette with more vegetables.

I edited my closet recently, and threw out anything that made me feel old and frumpy, even if other people complimented the outfit.  I gave six bags to the Goodwill, filled with expensive wrap dresses, full skirts, long skirts, and button-down blouses.

I’m editing my spending.  Less crap, more savings.  Less crap, less debt, less anxiety, less stress.  Less cleaning and less stuff.

So, yeah, back to the film — the quote spoke to me, and I made this series based on the quote.  I’m not sure I’m finished with it.  The transition between the 5th and 4th seems too abrupt, as does the transition between the 6th and last.

Creating this was fun.  I did the entire set on an iPad, using about ten different apps.

Today I did something I find very difficult.  I wrote code.  I spent five hours sitting at my desk, trying to brute-force 15 measly lines of code to do my bidding.¹

I’m not a good coder.  I’m so horrible that I have romantic fantasies about dating a guy who codes, and who loves me enough to write my 15 lines of JavaScript on his lunch break.  I’m so horrible that I have to show up at work an hour early so I can think while it’s still quiet, and once my boisterous office-mates arrive, headphones and white noise become my fashion accessory of the day.  Writing code is not easy!  And writing code once or twice a year doesn’t do much improve your skills, let me tell you.

So I wrote code, I was successful and I did a happy dance.  Later, at lunch, I sabotaged my Number One Life Priority — my diet lifestyle change.  I drove through Fazoil’s and ate a double slide of pepperoni pizza, two breadsticks, and a Dr. Pepper.

WHY????????  What happened?  What knocked me off the wagon this time?

After kicking myself all afternoon I read a fantastic article on Lifehacker that may have the answer.  It’s possible our mental reserves for willpower and cognitive effort are located in the same place.  So when I’ve spent five hours concentrating, researching, thinking, and feeling like a failure (It’s 15 freaking lines of code!) it’s possible I’ve depleted the cognition/willpower well.  After all that mental effort it may be very hard for me to decide on a healthy dining choice, and even harder for me to avoid my old fat-filled fallbacks.

My takeaway from this experience is that I need to avoid going to work without a lunch bag.  If I’ve made the decision in the morning, when I have plenty of willpower, then I’m not leaving myself room to make bad decisions at lunch.

I’ve been very focused on dinner lately, due to the subscription boxes, but it’s time to regroup and focus on the other 2/3s of my daily caloric intake.

¹In case you’re interested, I managed to export a Unicode CSV file from Google Sheets, then import the file into Articulate Storyline, where I used a JavaScript library to parse it and save the data into Storyline variables.  It worked!  Go me!