I woke up at the absurd hour of 5:30am with a headache and a thirst (I guess I drank too much wine the night before). I had my tea and an ibuprofen, pottered around a bit, and then went back to bed until 7am. I still had a headache when emerged for breakfast but that didn’t stop me from enjoying my morning’s Bircher just the same. It was particularly good – moister than usual, and somehow creamier.

I still had a headache and a hunger a couple of hours later. I was also incredibly tired. (“How pathetic,” I thought, “a small beer, two-ish glasses of wine, a big roast dinner, lots of water, and I’m still hungover.”) There was nothing to do but have a smoothie and some tea.

Tim introduced me to the idea of putting cocoa powder in my protein smoothie. I made the smoothie with whey protein powder, banana, flax meal, water, cocoa and lots of ice. It was incredibly good and didn’t even require extra sugar (though I’ve been told that my sweet tooth is much more subdued that other people’s, and I have a particular liking for bitter dark chocolate).

The tea and smoothie did wonders for my disposition. The headache vanished, I woke up, and was able to get on with some work.

I’m usually ravenously hungry by noon, but the smoothie was very filling, so I had a small lunch. I made a salad with mixed leaves, carrot, cucumber, tomato and red onion, dressed lightly with balsamic vinaigrette, with a slice of Heidi’s yeast-raised cornbread smeared with avocado.

I’ve mentioned the cornbread before, and its notable un-corniness and strong flavor of chives. This was, at first, kind of annoying (I was after CORN bread, after all) and I wasn’t so sure I liked it so I delegated the bread to the freezer for emergencies. But every time I dip in for a slice I find I like it more and more. The bread is very light and nice out of the toaster. I think I may use the remainder for a stuffing this Thanksgiving. The vegetarian stuffing at the bakingsheet blog looks yummy.

That reminds me, I must get my hand on a Tofurkey before the end of November. I’m not usually one for fake meat, but I actually really like those weird Tofurkeys. Plus, my dad (a carnivore) LOVES them and he is coming to visit us in London for Thanksgiving. I’ve been trying to get a hold of one through Fresh & Wild (London’s Whole Foods owned hippy store) but so far they haven’t come through. Any ideas? (By the way, leftover Tofurkey makes great veggie reuben sandwiches!)

I had a meeting at 2:30pm, which was just as well because I was VERY tempted for another slice of bread with avocado. My meeting went much longer than expected and I didn’t get home til after 6pm. The cycle ride revved up my appetite for dinner and my constant craving for Indian food. I made FatFreeVegan’s Red Lentil Dal with Panch Phoran with basmati rice and cabbage salad.

The cabbage salad is something I made up a while ago but I keep coming back to because it’s simple and refreshing. First, I slice the cabbage thinly and mix it with some fresh chopped cilantro. Then I heat up some olive oil in a pan, add equal parts cumin seed, coriander seed and mustard seed, plus 10-20 curry leaves. When the seeds pop, I pour it over the cabbage and toss with some lemon juice and a good pinch of salt. Finally, I sprinkle some coconut flakes over the top.

The Indian food hit the spot but I managed not to stuff myself silly (the nice thing about cabbage salad is that it takes some time to chew so it’s hard to overfill).

As I often do, I finished the day with a grapefruit.