We talked about writing. Since that topic encompasses everything else that we both live and breathe, the conversation covered a lot of ground.

She talked about inspiration and the nocturnal activities of her particular muse. There was a voice that came to her one night to dictate notes for years’ worth of writing projects. I speculated about the creative unconscious, the unknown workings of the mute machinery of our brains that collects, organizes, catalogs, and stores images, sounds, smells, emotions, and abstract ideas and then assembles them into dreams, long-term memories, and all the wonders of fantasy. I wondered why she was so eager to give the credit for her brilliance to something outside herself.

I told her about the lessons I was learning from helping other people figure out how not to hide their lights under bushels. She remarked that I seem to get better and better at giving advice without wasting a lot of time listening to what I’m saying.

I told her a long-winded story about losing weight and finding discipline, and of my endless quest to apply what I’d learned to my writing practice. Simple rules. Do something every day. Everything counts. And the new mantra that I’d picked up from a fitness podcast called Fat 2 Fit Radio—If you want to be fit, emulate the diet and habits of a fit person. Don’t promise you’ll eat better tomorrow or that you’ll go back to the gym next week.

There’s a broader lesson in that axiom, I think, for the writer, the artist, or anyone who aspires to do more, to be better, to claim his gift and follow its implications. When do you want it? Someday, or now? I gave her a homework assignment—write 400 words on the topic of our lunch date. She dared me to do the same. I carried the assignment home, took it for a seven-mile run around the park, and tucked it under my pillow when I went to bed. When the next work day was nearly done, I wrote this blog post. But I could have written only this:

Start living your life TODAY as the person that you ultimately want to be.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Frittata is the perfect kitchen-sink dish for using up leftovers, for impressing your brunch guests without a ton of work, or for reheating out of the freezer for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I suggest accompanying it with some spring greens or arugula that you’ve dressed lightly with vinaigrette.

Ingredients

• 15 eggs (see below for notes on scaling)
• 1½ c half and half, whole milk, or cream
• ½ t salt
• ¼ t dried chervil
• ¼ t dried basil
• Generous grind of black pepper
• Generous grind of fresh nutmeg (or a large pinch if you’re using pre-ground nutmeg)
• 3–5 cups of various filling ingredients of your choice (see below)
• 3 T chopped fresh parsley, cilantro, and/or basil
• ¼ c grated Parmesan (or Romano or Asiago cheese)

Basic Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325° F. Grease the bottom and sides of a 13 x 9 pan with unsalted butter, or spray well with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Break all the eggs into a big bowl. Add the half and half, milk, or cream, nutmeg, salt, pepper, chervil, and basil. Whisk until the eggs are well homogenized, then set aside while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
3. Scatter all of the filling ingredients in the bottom of the 13 x 9 pan. Give the egg mixture a little more whisking, then carefully pour it over the fillings. If the fillings don’t seem to be evenly distributed through the eggs, stick your fingers in there and swish things around.
4. Scatter fresh herbs over the top of the dish, then sprinkle with the grated Parmesan.
5. Bake on middle rack of the oven until the moment the center is no longer jiggly, anywhere from 35 to 55 minutes, depending on which cooking method you use. (See below.) Do not overcook! If you like your eggs soft, you can even take the dish out of the oven while the center is still a bit liquid, because it will continue to cook for a few minutes and then firm up as it cools.
6. Cool at least 20 minutes before slicing. Serve hot, warm, or cold.

Cooking Methods

There are two ways (at least) to cook this dish:

1. Place the 13 x 9 pan directly on a middle rack of the oven and bake, checking frequently, until the center has just stopped being jiggly, about 35 or 40 minutes.
2. Cook the dish in a bain-marie (water bath). Place a larger, deeper pan in the oven and put enough water in it so that the water will come about halfway up the sides of the 13 x 9 pan when you place it inside. (Hint: Take a few moments to figure out how much water will be required before you place ingredients in the smaller pan or place either pan in the oven. You will be glad you did.)

   Put the larger pan in the oven before you turn it on, and pour in the pre-determined amount of water. Then preheat the oven to 325°. When the oven is hot and you’ve assembled the dish, very carefully place the filled 13 x 9 pan inside the larger pan containing the water. Bake until the center is no longer liquid. It will take considerably longer with this method. Start checking it for doneness at about 45 minutes, then every five or 10 minutes thereafter until the center has just stopped jiggling.

   Take both pans very carefully out of the oven, then very carefully remove the 13 x 9 pan from the larger pan. Allow to cool before slicing.

Both cooking methods have their merits. If you bake the dish without the water bath, you’ll get chewy edges and more browning on top. You may end up with some bubbles of cheese and lighter and darker spots. The center pieces will be more moist and tender, while the outer pieces will have more caramelization, but may tend to be dry.

If you cook the dish in a bain-marie, you won’t get as much browning, but the entire dish will be extremely moist, tender, and delicate, and it will look very smooth and lovely. It’ll also be more uniformly moist, which makes it ideal for freezing and reheating in the microwave.

Filling Ingredients

Potatoes. Take two or three potatoes, dice them, place in a saucepan with enough liquid to cover the potatoes, and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes. The liquid may be salted water; chicken, beef, or vegetable stock; milk, buttermilk, half and half, or cream. After poaching, drain the potatoes well.

Cheese. Use anywhere from eight to 16 ounces, according to the desired level of cheesiness. I like gruyere, fontina, sharp cheddar, Irish cheddar, asiago. Any reasonably hard, flavorful cheese will work. Grate the cheese coarsely, shred with a food processor, or cut into small dice. I made one recent batch of frittata with three kinds of cheese left over from a cocktail party: aged gouda, sharp cheddar, and some other hard orange cheese.

Vegetables. Try spinach, kale, blanched broccoli florets, green peas, sauteed peppers, onions, or garlic. If using firm greens, toss them with few pinches of salt while still wet, then wilt them in a skillet over medium-high heat with a small amount of olive oil or stock.

Mushrooms. Use white button or Cremini mushrooms, or any of the “wild” types you can get all over the place these days. Saute them in a little butter first. You can even use canned mushrooms. Just don’t tell me about it.

Meats. Try cooked, crumbled bacon or pancetta. Chopped leftover ham or pork chops. Shredded chicken or turkey. Cooked ground beef. Cooked, drained bulk sausage, or cooked sausage links that have been cut into bite-sized pieces. For one recent batch, I even repurposed some Armour frozen meatballs left over from a Christmas Eve spaghetti feast. (See details in the notes section below.)

Various and Sundry Notes

On Scaling

For smaller batches, adjust as follows:

• 8 x 8 pan:
  8 eggs
  ¾ c half and half, milk, or cream
  ¼ t salt (scale back other seasonings as appropriate)
  1½–2½ c filling ingredients
• 9 x 9 pan:
  9 eggs
  ¾ c half and half, milk, or cream
  ¼ t salt (scale back other seasonings as appropriate)
  2–3 c filling ingredients

On Milk

You can substitute two percent milk or skim milk, but the finished product won’t taste as rich.

On Nutmeg

Nutmeg is one of those spices that’s far better if you grind it right before you need it. It’s easy enough to do by buying whole nutmeg cloves (or whatever they call them, whole seeds, whole nuts) and then grating them as you need it using the finest screen of a box grater. Or you could use a fine microplane, maybe.

But nowadays you can buy nutmeg that’s crushed into small chunks and sold in a pepper-grinder sort of bottle. That’s the way to go, because then in an instant you can have freshly grated nutmeg without any hassle or cleanup.

I put nutmeg in almost any egg dish, or anything else that is going to contain cream as a major ingredient, like a béchamel sauce.

On Meatballs

I bought a big bag of Armour frozen meatballs to put in the spaghetti and meatballs that I made for Christmas Eve dinner. I made the sauce from scratch, but I didn’t have time to make meatballs, so I gave in to the temptation to buy frozen ones. They were kind of bland, but they tasted pretty good once they’d simmered for a few hours in my delicious marinara sauce. But I digress….

The bag I bought contained more meatballs than I could use in one batch of marinara, so I’d been trying to think of something to do with the leftovers. I decided to try putting them into a frittata.

I didn’t want to put the bland meatballs straight into the frittata as is. They needed some flavorizing first. So I placed them in a saucepan with enough water to cover, then added a packet of caldo de tomate (tomato bouillon), a teaspoon or so of Italian seasonings, and about a cup of red wine. I simmered the meatballs in the liquid for half an hour or so while I prepared the other ingredients. Then I transferred them to a colander with a slotted spoon and allowed them to cool for a few minutes. When they were cool enough to handle, I sliced each meatball in half and placed the pieces in the bottom of the 13 x 9 pan with the other fillings (three cheeses and diced potatoes).

The meatball cooking liquid ended up very tasty, so I also used it to poach the diced potatoes before I added them to the 13 x 9 pan.

Thirty-one days of talking about fitness and eating better are all well and good, but we must not neglect life’s simple pleasures. I have a busy day scheduled—a meeting with my business partner, two meetings with clients, and a big project that’s ready for finishing touches before it goes to the printer. But in the interest of setting a joyful tone for the day, I reserved half an hour this morning to get a batch of scones into the oven.

With the encouragement of my friend and coach Gika Rector, I’ve been giving some thought lately to cooking as an art form. I’m overdue for grocery-shopping, so today’s performance started from the concept “What’s hiding in the pantry?” A can of yams and the last bit of a bag of crystallized ginger became my inspiration. (I also found some vacuum-packed salmon, but my artistic vision wasn’t bold enough for fish scones…yet.)

(Start with the basic scone recipe and instructions.)

Additional Ingredients

• 1 t cinnamon
• A dash each of allspice, ground cloves, and/or nutmeg (or more to taste)
• Optional: 1/4 t ground ginger (or more to taste), but only if you want the scones to be really spicy
• 3/4 c canned yams, drained
• 3 T crystallized ginger, minced
• Cinnamon sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

1. Proceed with the first four steps of the basic scone recipe, adding the cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, and ground ginger (if desired) to the dry ingredients before sifting.
2. At the point where the basic recipe calls for adding the dry and nearly-dry ingredients (step 5), add the crystallized ginger. Toss lightly to distribute through the dry ingredients.
3. Dice the yams into small chunks, or pass them once through a coarse slicer or a large-mesh cooling rack. The object is to break them into smaller pieces, but without smashing them into a paste. Add to the dry ingredients and toss very gently to distribute.
4. Continue with the basic recipe through the forming and cutting of the scone dough.
5. Sprinkle the tops with cinnamon sugar and bake according to the basic recipe. The yams contain a lot of moisture, so you may find that these require an extra two or three minutes in the oven.

We’re down to the last five days of the month. I woke up this morning thinking how easy it is to run out of steam right at the end of a project like this, and wondering what extra effort I might need to put forth to get the rest of the way to the goal, which was to give time and attention to this blog every day in July.

I was also thinking about how I’ve struggled for the last couple of months to get rid of the weight I gained while I recuperated after my eye surgeries. I’m close to that goal, but the last couple of pounds are hanging on tight. I’ve been banging away on my exercise routine as hard as ever, but with a lot going on in my work world, I’ve stumbled in the commitment to eat well. Too much snacking, too many poor choices, too many stray calories. Not enough veggies, whole grains, and lean meats.

So I asked myself, “What can I do with the five remaining days of July?” I have ideas for a few more blog posts. We’ll see if it’s enough to carry me across the finish line. But what else can I do in my sprint toward the end of the month? I decided to turn my focus to the practice I call “eating with intentionality.” For the last five days of July, I plan to pay more careful attention than ever to every bite of food or drop of drink that goes in my mouth. I’ll write it all down, and I’ll take my own advice about making sure that I eat only when I’m hungry. It’s a challenge. But we’re talking about five days. I know that I can do this for five days.

What’s the goal you’re working on? What could you accomplish toward that goal if you gave it everything you’ve got for five days? Ignore all the distractions—it’s only five days, after all—and give your time and attention to the facet of your life that needs them most right now. Five days of eating well, five days of exercising at your full capacity, five days of writing poetry, or making art, or doing yoga, or cooking nutritious meals.

Then come back here to the comments area and share with us what you’ve done.

There’s a flaw in the communication between the stomach and the brain—the gap between full and not hungry. We eat until we’re full, but we still feel the desire to eat. We eat some more, and later, we feel stuffed, overfed. We gain weight.

Maybe it’s not a flaw, so much as a legacy of our evolution. Before proto-humans developed the cognitive ability to plan and predict their next meal, when the food supply was uncertain and had to be chased down with spears and rocks, stockpiling calories was probably a good survival mechanism. Then some of them figured out agriculture, then permanent settlements, then cities, and the next thing you know, there’s a fast-food joint within 500 yards no matter where you go on the planet.

So now we’re wired to keep eating after we’re full. Scientists are hard at work on understanding the biochemistry involved. There’s a lot of research going on about the relationship between physical hunger and psychological hunger. Maybe some day there will be a pill you can take to make you feel like eating just enough, but no more. Until then, attention and intentionality will have to suffice.

You eat good food, and you’re careful about portion sizes. But when your plate is clean, you feel that ancient impulse telling you to forage for something more. You can avoid a lot of surplus calories if you bridge the gap between full and not hungry without more food.

Try this strategy: Get up from the table and take your dishes back to the kitchen. Set the kitchen timer for 25 minutes. Wash your dishes, tidy up, and find something to do for a while. Read, write, watch TV, pay bills, sort the day’s mail—anything but eat. The trick here is that the ticking timer offers some comfort. It says, “You don’t have to hang on until the next meal…just a little while.”

But you might be surprised to find that if you can keep your mind occupied with something else until enough time has passed, the brain–stomach communications will sort themselves out, and your psychological hunger will have subsided.

When the timer goes off, if you find that you’re still hungry, recognize it as a real signal that you might need something more to eat. Go ahead—hunt and gather yourself a wholesome snack.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’m an emotional eater. I’ve learned this about myself over and over again, but sometimes the realization doesn’t set in until 10 or 15 minutes after the food goes down. Here’s the process:

1. Experience mildly negative emotion—frustration, boredom, anxiety, irritation.
2. Seek comfort in food.
3. Later, realize that I ate for the wrong reason.
4. Feel disappointed in myself.
5. Repeat process starting at step 2, ad infinitum.

I’m trying to train myself to anticipate step 3 before I act on step 2. This is the heart of my philosophy of “eating with intentionality.” I try to evaluate every single impulse to eat by asking the question, “Am I really hungry?” Sometimes my awareness that the answer is no is enough to give me a push in another direction.

But sometimes the answer is “no, but…,” and then it’s important to consider the follow-up question, “Then why do I want to eat?” When I have the strength and the presence of mind to ponder this question, I’m often surprised by the answer:

• I want to eat because I don’t relish the next thing on my to-do list.
• I want to eat because I had a bad day yesterday.
• I want to eat because I didn’t get the phone call I was waiting for.
• I want to eat because I don’t know what else to do next.

And so on. (See more Bad Reasons to Eat.)

If you’re an emotional eater like I am, try to cultivate the habit of asking, “Am I really hungry?” And don’t beat yourself up when an act of impulsive eating gets past your vigilance. One snack isn’t going to ruin the progress you’ve made, and wasting your energy on guilt or shame will only reinforce the cycle you’re trying to break. Recognize the emotion that’s troubling you, give yourself a pat on the back for paying attention, and renew your commitment to the changes you want to make in your life.

Try this exercise: Drop in on a Chinese buffet at the height of the lunch rush. Take a quick visual survey of the first 10 adults you see. Notice how many of them are overweight. Count the number who could probably be described as morbidly obese.

Now turn around, walk out, and go eat somewhere else.

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I understand the arguments in favor of buffet dining: you don’t have to limit yourself to a single menu choice, it’s easy to feed yourself quickly, there are plenty of things that the kids like, and so on. I’m also not bashing Chinese cuisine in general—it offers plenty of options for eating well.

I’ve focused on Chinese restaurants because they’re the segment of the buffet market with which I had the most personal experience in fatter days. The people who run them have figured out that “all you can eat” (or “all you care to eat”) is a popular draw. If the model is profitable, that’s because it relies on stuffing diners full of cheap food—mountains of rice and fried stuff doused in sauces full of sugar, salt, and monosodium glutamate. The buffet setting encourages us to overeat by reinforcing our flawed perception that volume equals value. It’s hard to resist the drive to “get your money’s worth.”

I hope I don’t sound judgmental or dictatorial. People should certainly be free to eat at buffets if that’s what they want. But that’s not what you want, is it? You want to be healthy, and you want to make food choices that are about quality, nutrition, and genuine enjoyment.

Don’t sacrifice your food values in favor of speed or cheapness. Unless you have the self-control of a Buddhist monk, stay away from buffets except as an occasional treat.

I ate a wonderful meal tonight. On the advice of friends, my dinner date and I went to check out Divino, an Italian restaurant that’s somewhat more pricy than my typical dining choices.

Image: m_bartosch / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We started off with a bottle of Malbec and an antipasto classico. The platter contained a tiny portion of each of eight or nine savory treats—fresh mozzarella, chunks of aged Parmiggiano, several kinds of preserved meat, little slices of grilled polenta, quarters of baby artichokes, and pickled onions. It was enough food for each of us to enjoy a taste of everything, but not much more than a taste. We were disappointed that the waiter didn’t bring bread—or even offer to bring bread.

Then came the entrees: lasagne Bolognese for my friend and goat cheese ravioli for me. The menu was typical of restaurants in Italy, listing separate prices for the various salads and sides. So we weren’t surprised that neither entree came with any accompaniments. Still, my first reaction when the waiter put the plate down in front of me was to think, “That’s it?” Eight tiny pieces of ravioli were lined in two rows down the center of the plate and decorated with fried sage leaves and a scattering of pine nuts. We’d also ordered a side of roasted fennel to share. The dish contained four small wedges of fennel, beautifully browned and shiny with olive oil.

My companion remarked on the modest size of my dinner. His comment prompted me to tell him about this blog project, and how just the other day I’d written about dividing my restaurant meals in half. I laughed and said, “That practice will not be enforced tonight!”

Can you see where I’m going with this story? Wouldn’t you think that having figured out that most typical restaurant portions are excessive, I’d be able to recognize an appropriate serving when it was staring me in the face? But I guess I’ve been conditioned always to want more, so I looked at the meal and couldn’t help wondering how soon I’d be hungry again.

But by the time I’d worked my slow, relaxed, attentive way through eight pieces of ravioli—the tangy goat cheese perfectly balanced by buttery pine nuts and crisp, fragrant sage—and a few mouthfuls of sweet, spicy fennel, all washed down with the mellow Malbec, I was utterly satisfied. Sure, I could have put away another dozen of those ravioli, but it wouldn’t have improved the quality of the experience the tiniest bit.

I left Divino recalling the Exploring Mindful Eating workshop in which I took part in March. The presenter, chef Adam Miles, emphasized choosing food carefully and giving it the time and attention it deserves. I’ve spent the last several years trying to craft a similar philosophy and psychology of food for myself. I’ve dubbed my collection of tactics, tricks, and mental exercises related to food “eating with intentionality.”

I’ve learned that although you don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money to get a wholesome meal, you do have to invest something: the time to locate and buy good ingredients, the effort to prepare and cook the food, and your attention to appreciate what you’re eating. Tonight’s divine dinner reinforced this lesson about eating with intentionality:

What we choose to eat is ultimately a reflection of what we value. What do you want from your food? If your goal is to consume the most calories in the least time for the smallest amount of money, you might want to try a strip-center Chinese buffet, or any place that offers to “supersize it.” But if you want the experience of eating fine ingredients that have been prepared with care and attention, it’s going to cost you something. But it will be worth the price.

Nearly a week, and all I’ve managed to talk about so far is exercise. Diet is a more difficult subject to approach. Food means a lot more than sustenance, more than just the source of energy to keep the body running. Food is laden with emotional context.

Image: Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We’ll come back to that context another day. Today, I’ll ease into the topic with one of the simplest weight-loss tips I can offer.

Do you eat in restaurants? I love to dine out, but restaurant portions are out of control. Restaurants seem to be engaged in a competition to see who can pile the most food on a plate. I’ve never worked in restaurant management, but I can only suppose that an economy of scale is at work here. Maybe an oversized plate that sells for $13.95 is more profitable to serve than a right-sized portion at $9.95. An overloaded plate certainly creates the perception of increased value for the consumer. But where’s the value in consuming hundreds of surplus calories when you’re already full?

No one was more surprised than I to realize that you don’t have to eat everything the restaurant serves you. When the server lays a super‑sized meal on the table, make up your mind at that instant to take half of it home. If you doubt your self-control, ask the server for a to‑go box the minute she bring your plate, and don’t start eating until she returns with the container. Use your knife and fork to isolate a reasonable portion of food to eat now, and put the rest straight into the box to take home.

If you’re concerned with presentation, ask the server to have the kitchen split the meal in half for you, and to put the leftovers in a to‑go box before he even brings it to the table. The worst he’ll do is say no. He’s working for tips, after all.

The first few times I followed this practice, I felt sorry for myself, a little deprived. But I found that I wasn’t going away hungry. Too much is too much, and all I needed was to train myself to pay attention to being served too much. Later it dawned on me that I’m now getting two meals for the price of one! I’m a cheapskate, so that realization made my new habit taste even sweeter.

I came up with this recipe and made it for the first time this morning. I’ve only eaten one of them, but I’m ready to call this an “instant classic,” a candidate for my scone hall of fame.

(Start with the basic scone recipe and instructions.)

Additional Ingredients

• 1/4 c cocoa powder
• Additional 1 T granulated sugar
• 3/4 c semisweet chocolate chips
• Heavy cream (or half-and-half, or more buttermilk) for brushing the tops
• Sugar for sprinkling (Turbinado, Demerara, or white granulated sugar would be fine, or use a prepared sugar flavored with cinnamon or vanilla.)

Instructions

1. Proceed with the first four steps of the basic scone recipe, adding the cocoa powder and one extra tablespoon of sugar to the dry ingredients before sifting.
2. At the point where the basic recipe calls for adding the dry and nearly-dry ingredients (step 5), add the chocolate chips. Toss lightly to distribute them through the dry ingredients.
3. Continue with the basic recipe through the forming and cutting of the scone dough.
4. Brush the tops with cream, then sprinkle with the sugar of your choice. Bake according to the basic recipe.