Culinary week a la Omnivore’s Dilemma a la Caffe Macs

Four things happened recently

Covid – I gained 10 pounds
I read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Caffe Mac’s reopened partially for lunch
I came across a git repo of 700+ Caffe Mac’s recipes

A bit more context…

Covid – I gained 10 pounds

Around January 1st 2020, I started to follow what was basically a low carb / paleo diet. I had recently started weighting in at 200 pounds on occasion, which was a wake up call to try to get back down to 185, my unachieved target weight for the last few years. By the end of February I saw numbers in the 180’s for the first time in a while. Then the pandemic, and regular snacking, began. Combined with less exercise and more beer, I was back at 200 and now between 200 and 205. Time for a change.

I read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Like the 200 pound scale reading, this book was also a wake up call. I don’t have a ‘good’ diet, but I can claim to at least be somewhat concious of my eating choices, even if they aren’t the most healthful. This book though brought to light many of the agricultural processes, economic models, and heath impact of our global agricultural system for me. It was an interested read to say the least. This book has really made me consider all the things we have in our cabinets and refrigerator and what we’re feeding to ourselves and to Jane everyday.

Caffe Mac’s reopened partially for lunch

Having a freshly prepared, healthy lunch has always been a huge perk of working at Apple. While I didn’t indulge every day like many of my coworkers I lunched once a week or so for the last few years and have grown to appreciate the variety of ingredients and cooking styles available. Caffe Mac’s is open 2-3 miles from our office building now, and on the still rare occasions I’ve been in the office, I’ve been biking over to get lunch which has been nice. Recent highlights include a catfish Po boy sandwich, and some lentil cakes with capers and tomatoes (separate meals).

I came across a git repo of 700+ Caffe Mac’s recipes

While camping at Sunset Beach with our neighbors, Robert who also works at Apple mentioned to me that there is a repository of Caffe Mac’s recipes on our internal git server. I think this came to light after I mentioned how Caffe Mac’s had reopened and how I was hoping for a latin style tofu dish I had sometime in early 2020 for lunch. Our neighbors also happen to be vegans which is interesting to me so there was some discussion about food while camping.

Culinary Week

All of these things seem to have coalesced in the last 2-3 weeks, and so I’ve decided to have a Culinary Week. The week will consist of mainly just one goal: eat no processed foods. I’m starting with 2 exceptions: chocolate and beer.

I have a menu plan, much of which is derived from Caffe Mac’s recipes. Again, the goal is not weight loss or any specific dietary regime, just to not eat any processed foods. My hope is some weight loss comes along as a side effect.

*Caffe Mac’s

++Make extra for leftovers

	BREAKFAST	SNACK	LUNCH	SNACK	DINNER	DESSERT	PREP
SUNDAY (PREP DAY)							Bread, Jam, magic bars, Salsa, smoothie prep
MONDAY	Oatmeal, nuts, berries	*JB Green cleanse	PB&J	Bars	Fish bowl, *TA09 Crispy polenta cakes	Ice cream	smoothie prep, pot de creme
TUESDAY	Eggs, avocado, beans, salsa	*Sweet Potato Pie Smoothie		Home made chips	*Lentil Loaf	*Dark Chocolate Pot de Creme	smoothie prep, Salmon, dill caper sauce, marinate steak
WEDNESDAY	Oatmeal, nuts, berries	*AP Fitness Center Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie	Steak salad, *Avocado dressing++	Home made chips	*Salmon cakes, dill caper sauce, bean and tomato salad++	*JB Cinnamon Vanilla Porridge	smoothie prep, rub chicken
THURSDAY	Steak and eggs	*JB Green cleanse	Left overs	Veggies and dip	Smoked chicken, baked beans++	Ice cream	smoothie prep
FRIDAY	Eggs, avocado, beans, salsa	*Sweet Potato Pie Smoothie	Left overs	Bars	*Pizza		Prep and marinate taco meat
SATURDAY	Yogurt, granola, fruit, berries, honey	*AP Fitness Center Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie	*Al pastor tacos	Home made chips	*Crispy steelhead trout	*Coffee Ice cream
SUNDAY	Scones	*JB Green cleanse	PB&J or left overs	nuts, popcorn	Take out	Take out

Sunday (and Saturday)

Prep day(s). I went to the farmer’s market Saturday with Jane to get some veggies, and honey sticks for Jane of course. I got the basics as well as some grass fed, pasture raised top serloin beef (1.5 lbs @ $14 / pound), and pastured pork which was fed barley and oats. The meat guy indicated they have a local place do the processing, though I forget the name. I also picked up a dozen eggs ($10) which were pastured and fed a ‘natural’ (non corn) diet. The guy said bugs, but he was a bit off so I’m not really sure.

Sunday I went to Whole Foods to get the remainder for the next few days. It was an ordeal considering I haven’t actually been grocery shopping for a while. Over the past few years my grocery shopping has been:

Done by Megan
Done in a panic at the start of the pandemic
Done online

I spent about an hour and a half in there, getting mostly veggies and some other random things. In the end I came out with 2 regular size bags, and considering I only got stuff for the next 2-3 days I was surprised by the $150 bill.

I didn’t do any real prep. Megan and Jane had made some version of magic bars and we had the jam and bread already done (also Megan).

Sunday morning we cheated a bit and cracked open some of our fancy pastured organic eggs. I did a side by side with some ‘free range organic’ eggs we already had. Neither Megan or I could taste a difference, but its nice thinking that I could.

Monday

I’m typing this at 10:30 pm with a full stomach. Oatmeal for breakfast was good. It had blueberries, peaches, and cinnamon. Jane calls it Oap…meal and she liked it too.

I ate 3-4 of the magic bars / cookies throughout the day and had a PB&J for lunch. The bread is very good, and the jam was strawberry which Kathy made on her recent visit. Its strawberry season and we got a case of them from a road stand coming back from the beach the other day. Our normal peanut butter has hydrogenated oil so that is out. In lieu I had some mixed nut butter we got from Costco a while back. Its very expensive ($15 / medium sized jar) and it turns out, way too runny for good sandwiches. As a side I had pistachios.

For dinner we ended up eating leftovers from Sunday. Luckily this was in line with Culinary Week’s goals in that it was lentil and veggie soup. Today’s schedule with Jane was a bit messy.

After dinner I prepped for tomorrow. One hour to cut potatoes and roast them, and then make the pot de cream. I cut the dessert recipe in half but should have done a 1/4. 500g of cream??

Tuesday

A work day for Jon. Megan and Jane at home.

I planned to work in the office today. Breakfast was as scheduled: eggs with heaping amounts of spicy pico de gallo and avocado. I neglected to freeze the sweet potatoes for the smoothie but they were refrigerated so I just added some ice. Off to work.

I got hungry around 10:30 and found the smoothie to be much thicker than when it was fresh out of the food processor. I assume the potato adsorbed additional water from the mixture, but adding some more and shaking made it quite good. Lunch was Caffe Macs, a poke bowl with salmon, pickled cauliflower, seaweed and some other fixings.

Dinner was made by Megan and it was good. The lentil loaf was a bit heavy and slightly mushy, but I think this is just inherent in the meal given the ingredients. I made the gravy, which contained balsamic vinegar which isn’t my favorite flavor but in went well with the meal.

The pot du cream was delicious and had set up very well.

No prep work was done in the evening for Wednesday. I was tired and Megan had had enough cooking after the lentil loaf.

Wednesday

Work from home day, with Megan in the clinic and Jane at Nona’s.

We all had oatmeal (oap meal as Jane calls it) for breakfast and I snacked on nuts and left over bars in the morning.

Grilled steak and arugula salad for lunch. Working from home has its perks. This was the first freshly grilled steak I’ve ever made myself during the workday. The salad was big with sprouts, arugula, broccoli, carrots, and some other random veggies. I surprised myself by avoiding the dressings in the fridge and whipping up the planned avocado dressing which I had failed to prepare the night before. It was a bit thick but very tasty and I’m glad I made it.

Again no prep was done and so I didn’t have any chips but mostly ate nuts and veggies in the afternoon. By the evening we were all tired and opted for leftovers instead of making the salmon cakes and given the pot du cream was still plentiful in the fridge this was dessert.

Thursday

Eggs, pico de gallo, and avocado again for breakfast, I don’t really get tired of this combination.

I didn’t end up making the smoothie and we had some leftovers again for lunch.

Again, a lack of planning messed up dinner. We didn’t have the chicken defrosted and didn’t have time to smoke it anyway. We ended up ordering out from a sushi place nearby. I think this still qualifies since it was all plain, fresh ingredients, with the major exception of the imitation crab (kani) in the California rolls.

Pot du cream again for dinner, this stuff is rich.

!! Processed food !! The imitation crab, aka fish hot dog, is about as unnatural as it gets, but its tasty.

Friday

More or less stuck to the menu here, with the exception of beans with breakfast.

One note on the pizza. Friday has become a somewhat traditional pizza night for us and we have used Trader Joe’s pizza dough for some time. With the realization that there is such as a thing as pizza flour though, I think we’re going to change for the long term to making our own. Its so tasty. The store bought stuff is good, but I find it gets too crispy and cracker like. Our homemade (Caffe Macs) version is just the right amount of thin and crispy but still with a bit of the bread softness. I had also picked up some parmesan cheese which was excellent on top.

!! Processed food !! I didn’t even think ahead of time but we had pepperoni on the pizza, though cured meats could be argued to be more of a traditional processed food relative to more modern creations.

Saturday

We’ve fallen off the menu and planning wagon a bit more. Megan made blueberry lemon scones for breakfast. Being Saturday, I took Jane to the farmers market for a honey stick and picked up two vegan mushroom tamales from a stand claiming to grind their own grains. We had these for lunch in addition to some leftover pizza.

Dinner was salmon cakes. I made these. Prep started around 4pm since there are several steps and each requires cooling post cooking in the first phase. By 5pm Megan mentioned to me the house was smelling great and by 6pm we fried them up in the pan and then indulged. They tasted great. We had them with no other sides given the quantity of veggies inside, but we did add a tarter sauce Megan mixed up from mayo spices and pickles.

We’ll definitely be having these again.

We had planned for ice cream for dessert but again lack of planning got in the way and the custard wasn’t fully setup in the fridge so it was postponed for Sunday. I had told Jane we were going to have ice cream for dessert earlier in the day but thankfully it seems to have slipped her mind, otherwise we would have had to come up with something for her, she can be a bit demanding.

Sunday

The final day.

I woke up a 5 and went mountain biking so breakfast was a bit weird. Fruit and coffee, and some eggs.

A local bike group does a ride to Het Sey on Sundays, which is a local vitenamese popup run out of a lady’s house. I took Jane on the ride and we picked up lunch. I’m not certain what it was aside from chicken and some coconut things but it is delicious and very much home made.

For dinner Megan made crispy steelhead trout and root vegitable puree. This would be our last Caffe Macs meal for the week and it was a good one. The trout was substituted for another white fish avavalible here since after two trips the store didn’t have trout, but all in all it was very good.

I declare cuilinary week a success.

While there were some major deviations from the original planned menu, and the kitchen has been routinely a disaster zone this week, we ate a lot of delicious meals, all of which save for the pizza were new to our standard rotation of menus.

The week saw me cooking more meals in a week than I have in a long time and I actually enjoyed it for the most part. Several stand a good chance to be added to the regular rotation.

And importatnly, it got Megan and I thinking about what we eat and feed to Jane, and where it comes from more than we have in recent memory.

I don’t think any weight was lost, and based on the quantity of empty cream cartons in our trash this week it may be the opposite but its fair to say the experiment served its purpose well.