baked

when people find out i'm a vegetarian, especially if it's one of the first things they learn about me, they often think i'm some kind of healthy eater. the thing is, i just don't like the texture of meat. and last time i checked, french fries and ice cream aren't made of meat, and very few people would describe them as healthy.

my main vice, when it comes to vegetarian eating, is sweet baked goods.

i grew up the child of a baker, and so there was always something baked in our house. and i, the only son of my baker-mother, seemed to be the one who got the baking gene. not that my sisters can't bake, i just don't think they enjoy it as much as i do. when i bake, i'm at peace. i bake to relax - it's something i very much enjoy doing.

i'm by no means an awesome baker, but i would bake as a job, if it was offered to me. i'm the guy who spent a big part of his last trip to baltimore baking for a bake sale. i'm the guy who's biggest complaint about our current flat (which has bad floor boards, is way too cold, and sometimes gets an odd smell of grease and smoke in the hallway) is that the temperature knob on the oven is unreadable.

with that as background, it was very hard for me to do what i decided to do for the month of february - i decided to not take a single bite of any sweet, baked good. no cookies, no cakes, no pies (i did find some loopholes - pancakes and waffles are, technically, not baked). the month is coming to an end today.

i decided to do this because i thought it might affect my weight. i have been working out regularly since august and lost some weight, but then seemed to level off about 1-2kg above my goal weight. i thought giving up this vice of mine would do the trick.

on the last day of january, i had some digestive crackers, and then swore off baking for a month, and that was it.

i'm not the kind of person that has a hard time giving up stuff. i became fully vegetarian on a bet i made in 1999 - i gave up mammal in 1996. i gave up ice cream for the entire year in 2003, just because. this, however, was the toughest for me.

there was the office coffee break where someone brought in professionally made cupcakes and i had to just say no. there was the meeting i went to yesterday, where carrot cake was staring me down, but i stayed strong. there were those digestive crackers that look at me every time i opened the cabinet that has our plates and bowls, but i don't cave.

the month is now about to end. i think i lost about 1 kg, but i'm not the kind of person who keeps detailed track of my weight, so i might have lost it for other reasons, including that i have intensified some of my workouts.

as much as i may sound like the unhealthy guy, i think that extra 1 kg of weight is worth me eating baked goods; worth baking, which is when i feel most at peace. i've been losing sleep quite a bit over the past week - maybe baking will cure my insomnia.

i'm going back to eating baked goods tomorrow. in fact, as i'm writing this, i'm thinking of what to buy tonight, to bake tonight, to eat tomorrow.

in march, i've decided to give up movies. trying to see all the best picture nominees before sunday was a bit much.

'food for thought so get a buffet plate...

...the lyrics are so phat you might gain weight'

those are lines from digable planets' 'where i'm from'.

i've always liked that song, from the first time i heard it, back in the early ninties.

one of the reasons i like it, is because i can't really relate. i can't say that where i'm from we do this, or we do that, as the digable planets do in that song. there really isn't a 'we' in where i'm from; at least not a consistent 'we' that has been in the different places i've might say i'm from.

i think i get asked where i'm from at least once a week since being in this job, and it's such a tough question to answer, because i don't really think i'm from anywhere.

i'm most recently (sort of) from california. when i say that, people start talking about if i can handle the cold weather. then i have to say that i lived in michigan for seven years and the weather in edinburgh is not really that bad. this often leads to me going through where i've lived in the u.s. by saying i went to high school here, university there, worked there. then they ask 'but where were you born?'. when i tell people i was born in nigeria, that opens another can of worms, because i don't look, or sound, like a nigerian. at that point, i have to talk about where my parents are 'from', which is actually an easier question for me to answer.

all told, this leads to a multi-minute answer to a question that most people around here can answer in a word or two. throw in that i've been heavily influenced by my mother's culture, but have never lived in it, and the answer is even longer.

don't get me wrong, i actually like having this conversation with people, if they don't mind listening. i like talking about where i've lived, and i've liked everywhere i've lived, to some degree (De Kalb, IL isn't a place i'd recommend anyone go on vacation to), and brings back fond memories of those places.

in the end though, i feel like i never have answered their question because i'm not 'from' anywhere - i'm from everywhere.

maybe from now on, i should just say i'm from jeffersonia, then they'll think i'm some kind of nut.