Holding pattern
I arrived back in Queens this evening. I believe I'll hold to $40/week for at least this week, minus one Easter jubilee bagel that I think is appropriate to exempt. But I'll work out the plan going forward so that by next Monday, I am working with a slightly different set of constraints.
Easter Sunday was a wonderful day where food descended like manna from heaven, including an amazing Polish brunch at a friend's house, with a sort of żurek soup to which we could add kielbasa, hardboiled egg, horseradish, ham, or a few other things I don't totally remember. There was also heavenly homemade bread on the side. I think it was the most comfortably full I had been in weeks. That evening another friend and I split a small steak and made some mashed potatoes. For both, I thought my couple weeks of constant cooking had paid off. My improvised pan sauce for the steak was really good despite using vanilla yoghurt, since that's what was there. I figured "sweet and sour" is a thing, so then I added soy sauce and red pepper, besides butter and salt, and it turned out really interesting but quite delicious. I almost want to try making it again. For the potatoes, I was able to use the "add some of the water you boiled them in" trick which seemed to be really helpful, and I added some vinegar, as I wont to do, which brightened them nicely. It did seem in that moment that I have actually taken some real baby steps towards some semblance of food adequacy.
This morning was my first time in forever waking up full. It was wonderful. I skipped breakfast and had Skyline chili for lunch. Skyline is a Cincinnati classic comprising meat, noodles, and TONS of shredded cheese. It already comes with a mountain of cheese but I'm in the habit, when in Cincinnati, of ordering more on the side.
My New Jersey-friend-in-Ohio and I got dispatched by mutual friend of ours to vet a "New York style" pizza place in Covington, KY, which we did, for a an early dinner before I went on to the airport. It was highly, highly decent; the crust was particularly good and could have been served in NY with pride, though to me, the best NY pizza is so greasy that you can pour the grease off when you pick the piece up, and this pizza was fresh fresh fresh... not a bad thing, but not New York, either. I would order it again... but only in Cincinnati.
I had a healthy supper of coffee, pretzels, and Biscoff cookies on the plane. I wasn't hungry but I was groggy and trying to read a dense book, and the coffee helped loads with that, and smelled amazing, and probably won't stop me from falling asleep as I'm pretty thoroughly tired already.
Flying is amazing. The times we live in, that views like this are commonplace!