gestation of a foodbaby... pt.5

(weeks 22 thru 28)

some would say i've been "slacking" others might use the term "working", either way i've fallen way behind on the bloggy stuff. since my next gig starts in another week or two, i am determined to catch up. currently, i owe: 7 foodbaby posts, 3 music reviews, and have started a real "think-piece" on rvp nominee sarah "nanny 911" palin. so, in the words of the great dana monteith, "let's get down to it."

once again here is your DISCLAIMER: if you're just tuning in now, these are more entries in a series entitled, "gestation of a foodbaby" which follows the development of a fetus that is temporarily living in my friend's body (NOT MINE). please refer to the original entry for the full story.

22 weeks / spaghetti squash
while i much prefer the hearty acorn squash, i have enjoyed many a spaghetti squash in my day. generally, you can't go wrong with a roasted squash on a cold autumn night. what's great about most squashes is that their preparation doesn't really vary too much. halve the thing, throw a tablespoon (or more) of organic butter, a scoop of light brown sugar, and a drizzle of maple syrup into the hollowed cavity- throw it in the oven and roast that baby (pun intended) for about an hour at 425'. magnifico!

the real difference spaghetti squash has over other squashes is that its insides don't mush up into a paste- it separates out into thin "spaghetti"-like strands that you can twirl on a fork and shovel into your mouth (be careful not to burn yourself). spaghetti squash isn't as sweet as acorn squash and so there are plenty of recipes out there to add some variety to your squash meal.


23 weeks / mango
while i enjoy fresh mangos, i'm not a fan of mango-flavored things, like candy or sorbets or that kind of stuff. is that strange? NO!

in most latin neighborhoods in nyc you can find the beautiful and tempting street "mango-on-a-stick" sold at sidewalk stands. typically you can smell the source of these fanciful summertime treats ("nature's candy" if you will) well before you see them. follow your nose (if you can get past the august-y smell of hot urine and mcdonalds)!



24 weeks / ear of corn
fresh corn is yummy. i like grilling mine still in the husk on the bbq- a couple of minutes on each side and it's fucking perfect!

one of my favorite breakfast treats has become the amy's bread corn muffin. it's more like a slightly sweet cornbread than a typical corn muffin, with the texture of the cornmeal and fresh kernels baked right into each little paper cup. holy fuck they're good.


25 weeks / a rutabaga
rutabaga isn't usually one of those vegetables you use to compare the size of things against ("it's about the size of... a rutabaga?"), which makes this fetal growth week laughable. seriously, though... when was the last time you had rutabaga? i can't recall my last encounter either.

what i DO remember is the swedish chef used to have a breakfast cereal called "croonchy stars", they were slightly cinnamon-y, star shaped puffy croonchy goodness (not gross like cinnamon toast crunch). i loved those things. anyways, on the actual box of cereal (i can't find a pic, sorry) were fun games: one of which was to count how many times the word "rutabaga" appeared on the box (and that one didn't count). i vaguely remember on the ingredients list the reassuring words every child wants to read about their beloved breakfast cereal: absolutely no rutabagas.


26 weeks / english hothouse cucumber
an english hothouse cucumber? you know what? no. fuck you and your hothouse cucumbers, england. here in america we grow our own, OUTDOORS, and they don't come shrink wrapped in plastic with smug looks on their faces (also, they have flavor). here's a plain old wonderful garden cuke from this summer, consider this artistic freedom.


27 weeks / cauliflower
omg i fucking love cauliflower. i could eat whole freakin' heads of the damn stuff. it's good. it's great. it's cauliflower!

it's amazing for veggie dip appetizers but it's even better as aloo gobi (gobhi?)- one of mine (and the foodbaby mama's) favorite indian dishes! it's a spiced mixture of cauliflower, potatoes, and if you're lucky, green peas. lots of spices, layers of flavors, stewtastical, hours of flavor. YUM. (i'll bet the babymama is reading this right now getting upset because she is now craving aloo gobhi- SUCKA!).


28 weeks / napa cabbage
i don't really consider cabbage a part of my everyday diet, but i DO like purple (red) cabbage (and put it in my salads) more than regular green cabbage (which i can enjoy in cole slaw). i wasn't sure if i'd ever had napa cabbage, but i looked it up and other names for it are 'chinese cabbage' and 'bok choy'. bok choy is yummy when prepared correctly. though i usually end up leaving the majority of it over in favor of other "real" vegetables (if i've offended you bok choy fans- good). one of the awful little tidbits of knowledge i picked up from researching at vh1 was cabbage-related and that is: sarah michelle gellar occasionally subscribes to the cabbage soup diet- which is she boils cabbage and water (she probably pays someone to do this for her), and subsides on that for long periods of time in order to lose weight and/or stay thin. cabbage soup for long stretches of time will leave your body malnourished and thusly, you'd probably be in a pretty bad mood- couple that with the fact that you stink like cabbage and can't stop offending the people around you with your bodily functions... i'll bet sarah michelle gellar's a real peach to be around.

i would like to again mention my friend (the foodbabymama) enjoys these foodbaby posts immensely, even as dark as some of them have gotten- but when she started forwarding me actual recipes to cook with the placenta- it was my turn to get pretty grossed out. this is no joke- people eat that shit.
so while a placenta lasagna or bolognese sauce might sound gross to any "normal" human being, perhaps this week two worlds collide as i recommend combining placenta and napa cabbage to create some good ol' fashioned placenta stuffed 28 week old fetus cabbage. who needs corned beef? in the words of the rabid rachel ray, "EAT THE WEAK!"

gestation of a foodbaby... pt.4

21 weeks, a carrot (the "length" of a carrot)

DISCLAIMER: if you're just tuning in now, this is another entry in a series entitled, "gestation of a foodbaby" which follows the development of a fetus that is temporarily living in my friend's body (NOT MINE). please refer to the original entry for the full story.

carrots are yummy. i am pretty picky and only buy organic carrots. this is because i can taste the difference between a carrot that tastes like carrot and a carrot that tastes like a bucket of pesticides burning my tastebuds- chemically.

if you are not eating organic carrots, you ain't l-i-v-i-n-'. so pick yourself up a bag today. i enjoy peeling, chopping, and boiling carrots for a couple of minutes til they are slightly tender. i save some of the carrot water to mix with organic butter and salt to create a yummy sauce for the carrots. it's truly a taste sensation overload.

at 21 weeks old a fetus is roughly (very roughly, i'd venture to guess) the length of a carrot. there are many different types of carrots.

there are the carrots we are most accustomed to seeing:

but there are also purple carrots:

also, really gross carrots* (this popping out of my friend would be just as bad as the lizard baby from "V"):


oh the wonder of life and art in nature. live it up, peoples.




* yes, it's a carrot top joke. fuck you.

gestation of a foodbaby... pt.3

DISCLAIMER: if you're just tuning in now, this is another entry in a series entitled, "gestation of a foodbaby" which follows the development of a fetus that is temporarily living in my friend's body (NOT MINE). please refer to the original entry for the full story.

20 weeks, "a banana".

a what? how do you go from 3 consecutively ball-like items (turnip, bell pepper, tomato) to a fucking banana? i mean, barring the fetus being stretched out all week (is it trying to look taller? buy beer?), it makes NO SENSE.

regardless. a 20 week old fetus apparently is the size of a banana.

there are certain ingredients you can substitute for in baking (ie: buttermilk = milk + lemon juice), but if you tried to substitute banana with a 20 week old fetus, there would be considerable damage done to any recipe. banana bread would taste more like a tender meat loaf. you wouldn't want to dunk that in your coffee, but it would probably still taste good lightly toasted and covered with butter (what doesn't?).


the only other thing bananas and 20 week old fetuses have in common is that both start to smell if left in the garbage too long (too far?).

20 weeks old, a banana.

gestation of a foodbaby... pt.2

19 weeks, heirloom tomato

if you're just tuning in now, this is another entry in a series entitled, "gestation of a foodbaby" which follows the development of a fetus that is temporarily living in my friend's body (NOT MINE). please refer to the original entry for the full story.

this week's entry posed certain specific challenges. the first of which is that according to this crazy website (weekly update via my friend), a 19 week old fetus is the size of a "large heirloom tomato". but there's like 100's of types of heirloom tomatoes, plenty of them are large and i had to choose one.


which brings us to the 2nd challenge of this week's post. my personal battle with this entire series to put it bluntly has been: how many posts/weeks could i get through before i finally started making jokes about eating fetuses? see, the problem here is firmly rooted in the fact that this weekly comparison is of FOOD and FETUSES. so this isn't me being weird, i mean, if you keep comparing a fetus to food, one day i'm gonna start salivating when i walk past a planned parenthood clinic. it's classic conditioning.

what's worse is that I LOVE TOMATOES! my grandfather used to own a tomato-packing warehouse, we've grown tomatoes in our home garden since before i can remember, and i have been known to eat them as anyone would eat an apple or a peach (or a fetus) BECAUSE THEY ARE REALLY YUMMY (tomatoes that is).

so i tried to be strong. i did. i actually explained to someone last week that it was my friend's baby and i probably shouldn't make jokes about "real baby back ribs" because it might get weird and i didn't want to scare her so i needed to behave myself. but now with the tomatoes... you've got me. i'm weak.

19 weeks, heirloom tomato, looking oh-so-juicy and tasty


19 weeks old ala vodka


19 weeks old caprese salad


19 weeks old gazpacho shooters


so that's the answer to the nagging question which was- how many weeks would it take before i broke down and started making jokes about eating fetuses? the answer is: exactly 1 week...

oh, what the hell? one more!

(this is one of our garden tomatoes from a few years back- amazing-- possibly a brandywine?)

gestation of a foodbaby... pt.1

last week i had dinner with a couple of my oldest/dearest friends and one of them revealed to the rest of us that she is with child (over empanadas- the best kind of announcement food). there is some sort of creature growing inside her. typical of this friend, everything revolves around food. a tiny asian, i've spent my life watching her eat whatever she wants in massive quantities whenever she wants (without any negative implications). so it was only fitting that she first described the size of the fetus in terms we could all understand... "right now, it's the size of a turnip." "a turnip???" i grew squeamish and slightly confused as i've never compared a fetus to turnips before (and from now on will possibly think of fetuses each time i encounter a turnip). she sensed this and chased me around holding up her hands forming the correct size and screaming, "TURNIP TURNIP TURNIP!"

so, the following day i got my sweet revenge by sending her an artist's rendering of her foodbaby... it turned out well and i've decided that (with her permission) i will be posting weekly updates of the gestation of her foodbaby. she did request that i wait until this week to start posting them because she hasn't told everybody yet. "wait until it's a bell pepper." "okay, well, you let me know when that is, but i'm still posting the turnip... you filthy turnip-breeder."

it is now with great pleasure that i present to you, the first of many posts in a series entitled, "gestation of a foodbaby."

17 weeks, the turnip (last week).


18 weeks, the bell pepper (this week).


what will the foodbaby look like next week? stay tuned to find out!