The Definite Article

Good for you! Congratulations. I still haven't gained back the weight I lost at your place. For a girl who actually wants to gain a bit, any high calorie, good for you food suggestions? I keep remembering how many calories you said a banana has - I eat at least one a day, and usually two or three (among other things).

Heck yeah! Rock on bro. You're a skinny chump now. You only weigh ten or fifteen pounds more than I do! And I'm a scrawny tawny lion.

Wow! 3 stone! in 3 Months! wow. Stay healthy while you do this. That is a lot to lose in a short time. It took a lot longer to gain it. And I haven't lost any weight. Hurray for both of us!

It's so nice to actually have you post something. All too often, your blog shows recent activity and when I check it, all full of hope of hearing something, anything from you, there is nothing. I hate that. I feel so low, so deflated when it happens. Disappointed doesn't quite say it.

Hey, Mara!

For high-calorie but easy to eat food, I recommend blended cream soups made with real butter and heavy cream. Something like this:

2 lbs carrots
Bouquet Garni
2 cloves garlic
3 (Imperial, not American) pints of chicken stock. Boil an organic chicken carcass, don't get cubes.
4 tablespoons butter
1 English pint of heavy cream

Chop the carrots, throw all this in a pressure cooker and bring to medium pressure, hold it there for five minutes.

Remove the bouquet garni, ladle the hot contents into a blender until the blender is half-full. (You don't want to risk hot liquid splashing on to you.)

Blend at a low speed, slowly pouring in the heavy cream, occassionally shaking and stirring to make sure that the carrot chunks are evenly blended but not too fine. Salt to taste during this step, and I like to add a bit of cayenne too.

The cream has to be added slowly and carefully to prevent it from cooking; the soup will be hotter than boiling when it comes out of the pressure cooker. It needs to be cool enough to keep the cream from curdling but hot enough to allow it to thicken the soup a bit.

Ladle into bowls, stir a spiral of sour cream, top with grated pepper and a sprig of coriander.

This is a high calorie soup, very warming, and it won't make you feel so full that you can't eat anything. I'm sure I didn't invent the idea of a blended carrot soup, but above is my own recipe.

Another favorite of mine for calories is a kind of bread that I made when I was just out of the Marine Corps and trying to lose that prison camp look.

You'll need some wheat gluten flour and some pure whey protein (not flavoured weight gainer, just pure whey protein). Sift together three cups of gluten flour and two cups of whey protein. We'll call this "flour" from now on.

Use this to make bread according to any standard recipe that takes about five cups of flour. I do the following:

1. Heat 1/4 cup of water to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Add two tablespoons of flour, two teaspons of sugar and a thumb-sized chunk of fresh yeast. Mix well and set aside to proof.

2. Heat 3/4 cup of water to boiling and pour into your mixing bowl. Add two tablespoons of butter and let it melt. Stir in two teaspoons of salt and a cap of white vinegar. Add a cup of cold milk. The resulting solution should still be pretty warm.

3. Add some flour and mix it into a soupy mash. When it feels right, add the yeast. All of it. It will be really foamy by now. Scrape it all out into the bowl and turn it together.

4. Keep mixing and adding flour until it feels right. It will be really, really springy from the gluten.

Raise, beat, knead, raise, bake - I baste the bread with melted butter ten minutes before it's finished because I like a soft crust. You like crust? Throw an ice cube on the bottom of the oven ten minutes before it's done. Want a shiny coat? Brush with egg white.

Anyway, eat bread and butter with cups of hot chocolate. It goes down easy and will put on weight like nobody's business - and it's high in protein, so it's the right composition for a pregnant woman. Each 100g of bread will contain 20g of protein, so it's almost as good as fish.

Hey, Mensch!

Yeah, I'm following a Marine Corps Boot Camp routine: break it down, build it up.

I'm breaking it down starting Monday this week and building it up starting at the end of October.

I was aiming for 81 kilos (176 pounds) but I'm thinking I might stop closer to 88 or 89 and begin building from there. The idea is to be back at 93 kilos by the end of December, but with between 11 and 15 percent body fat.

Hey, Maman!

Lately, it's been hard to want to talk. To anyone.

Yeah, me too. That's when I call. Or don't.

By the Way, I have a B I G can of whey protein for anyone who wants it. Free! (yuck! Remember it in the Farina?)

My weight loss plan is to ride 180 miles on my bicycle in four days. Last time there were more hills but fewer miles. By the way- for anyone following the school shooting in PA- I totally road my bike through Strasburgh last May- went to the train museum, had a homemade icecream sundae (Strawberry), and stopped for a smorgusboard lunch.