3 posts tagged “food”
I decided to take my leave from 2 weeks before my due date. This seems atypical for most of my colleagues, who work right up until the due date, or until the baby makes its presence known, whichever comes first. I am lucky in that I have a lot of sick days saved up, as well as vacation days, as well as (and this is really the most important thing when you are a post-doc) an understanding mentor. From talking to an acquaintance who is on the post-doc committee at my institution, there are plenty of mentors who are vehemently opposed to their female post-docs taking more than a few weeks total off for maternity leave. Interestingly enough, many of these seem to be female themselves, and who have had children. The whole "I had to be back at the lab bench in 4 weeks, so should you" mentality. Per the US government, I have 12 protected weeks for maternity leave (they are of course, unpaid, unless one is in my situation with a lot of sick leave owing) and I intend to take every one of them.
That said, this whole two weeks before the due date thing seemed like a good idea at the time (I can make and freeze food, relax before the inevitable months of sleeplessness, do last minute baby-prep stuff), but I realise that it does lead me to do one thing: eat. I am a boredom-eater from way back and combine that with the hunger of the end of pregnancy and an incredible ramp up in my already quite high baseline level of sugar craving, and I'm left with a manic desire to go to the corner store and buy all of the candy bars in sight. Eating a lot of fruit has curbed the cravings, but it's just not the same as half a pack of circus peanuts.
This was our Thanksgiving menu:
Appetizers:
Cheeses, crackers
french onion dip, chips
bruchetta
Pumpkin soup, rolls
Main:
Roast turkey
Mashed potatoes
Roast vegetables (yam, parsnip, beet, fennel, rutabaga, scallions, carrots, garlic)
creamed corn gratin
winter salad
stuffing
gravy
cranberry sauce
Dessert:
blueberry bread pudding
pumpkin cheesecake
ice cream
blackbottom cupcakes
Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
Brooklyn Pennant Ale
Pilsner Urquell
Yuengling
2 malbecs and a pinot noir
*burp*
...belly...distended...send....help...
Last night, I went for dinner with two lovely women, J. and K., to celebrate J.'s birthday. We ate at Babbo. We ate a lot of food. A lot of food at Babbo. Actually, I ate a lot of food, because I am an idiot and forgot that I could just eat half of every course and get the rest packed up. Well, I didn't forget, my mouth was just enjoying itself too much (dirty!) and didn't let my brain register.
Here is the menu. And off it we ate -
Antipasti. J. - Lamb tongue, K. - tripe, me - octopus.
Primi. J. - Mint love letters, K. - goat cheese tortelloni, me - stricchetti with lamb
Secondi. J. - salmon special, K. - skirt steak, me - braised beef
Dolci. J. - a...blueberry tart I think? K. - formaggi (sensible lady) me - ricotta cheesecake
Yes, that was a lot of food. And cocktails to start, and champagne throughout. We ladies can eat. (Well, K. was clever and had half her stuff packed up.) And today my belly is taking one for the team.
