How long before I tire of photographing my Bircher muesli every morning? The recipe is pretty much always the same: oats, raisins, apricots, almonds, apple a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Sometimes I mix it up with a little prune or a few hazelnuts. But for the most part it’s the same.

I’ve been letting my reading material creep into the photos, as a sort of side-blog of the books I read. I’m a slow reader, though, so the books will only be slightly more changeable than the breakfasts. At the moment I’m reading my first Charles Dickens novel EVER: Great Expectations. I thought I’d struggle with the language, but it’s actually a very easy and enjoyable read. Funny! A large part of it is set in London, and reading about his characters running around places like Temple and Cheapside back in the days of the “Big Smoke” gives me a bit more insight into the “roots” of this neat old city that I live in.

But back to food. It was a fairly simple food day. My appetite wasn’t its usual ravenous self, thanks to my recent rest from exercise. I miss being constantly hungry, as distracting as it was. I can’t wait to get back into the game so I can eat as much as I want!

The Indian/beer bomb from the night before put me in the market for a bit of liquid comfort. So, in a rare turn of events, I had a cup of fully-loaded hot black tea with milk. This was my second caffeinated beverage since going caffeine free so many weeks ago. It didn’t give me the same buzz as the coffee, but I could still feel the caffeine coursing through my veins.

Lunch was a bit unusual, but satisfying. I sauteed some onion and celery with some leftover Camargue red rice
and pan-fried tofu. On the side, I had some chard with pine nuts and garlic, inspired by a recipe in the New York Times. This was a bit different from my usual lunches, and I think the unexpected nature of the meal is what prompted Tim to say “this is weird”. But he ate it really fast, and I thought it was very nice!

Dinnertime came but my appetite lagged behind. Tim cooked one of his famous “spag bowls“, a vegan version of spaghetti bolognaise made with TVP. I’m not sure what he does to it – something with bay leaves, garlic and onion – but it’s really yummy. A true comfort food. Since I wasn’t very hungry, I opted to fill up on greens – I LOVE broccoli – but they sure made the spag bowl part look a bit measly on my plate. That’s okay – it all ended up in my tummy soon enough.

Appetite or not I could not resist an after-dinner grapefruit, a bit of a ritual of mine. I’m a grapefruit addict! This one was fine – a bit sour, but refreshingly cold straight out of the fridge.