Check out these beautiful cake forms based on industrial molds. I saw them in Metropolis.

My new favorite thing is cracking eggs into cooked rice. While browsing through Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone I came across a recipe for "Eggs and Rice" which is essentially that: cooking some rice, then cracking an egg into a bowl and beating it with salt, pepper and herbs, then dropping the frothy egg into the rice, stirring quickly, and voila! the egg cooks from the heat of the rice! This sounds pretty bland, but the variations are endless. You can add any veggies, cheeses, herbs, spices or fake soy meat you want. I am so excited about this because I am always in need of a quick meal to make after work or the gym, when I am starving and the allure of stuffing myself on Bearitos and salsa is overwhelming. So this fits the bill. Yeah!

My first attempt at this recipe, I used salt, pepper, herbs de provence, fresh grated romano cheese, butter and some chopped scallion for garnish. Mmm-Mmm. Then G cooked up a Boca burger and slapped that on top, and a meal was born. Yes, I see many evenings of eggs and rice in the future. Lets see how long this lasts before I get totally sick of it!

In terms of the Madison book, it's terrific, albeit a little on the fancy side. I'm more of a Moosewood girl, especially the low-fat favorites cookbook. My mom bought me Quick Vegetarian Pleasures years ago, and it's one of my favorite cook books. It has the best recipe for chocolate cake ever!

If it's Wednesday it must be Annie's

Just like I do 150 days out of the year, today I had Annie's for lunch. To cut down on the fat and calories, I made it with just water. Blech. This cut down on the flavor as well. I always throw stuff into my Annie's and today's mix'ns were green peas and tofu dog chunks, along with the requisite black pepper and dollop of dijon mustard. But alas, without butter, it just wasn't happening. Oh well. Luckily I made the whole box and have enough for tomorrow's lunch too.

To make up for this lackluster meal, I treated myself to a fresh carrot, orange and banana smoothie/juice at the local health food store. It was the perfect blend too, ie I couldn't taste the carrots at all!

Uggg...can you say "overindulge?" As G heads to his sisters on the shore for the weekend and I stay behind to get ready for school on Monday, we realized this was our last night to hang out until next Thursday. So we treated ourself to a pizza and carafe of house red at Arturo's, followed by espresso (for him) and a decafe hazelnut latte (for me) at Cafe Reggio. This place has a true European feel: lots of tiny tables; dark, wooden interior; omlettes and croissants on the menu; and you can plunk yourself down outside and a waiter comes rushing out within minutes. Great people watching too, especially this time of year with all the NYU students scurrying back to school. Oh to be 20 again and in a line 100 deep to get your school ID!

I go through phases where I latch onto one dish and eat it for days in a row. Right now I'm in a brown rice raman and broccoli phase. Besides the sodium, these aren't that bad as far as ramen go. Sure beats the calorie and fat content in Top Ramen. And adding a cup of broccoli florets gives you a serving of vegetables!

Subway just opened up across the street from my office, so I've been having my fair share of foot-long Veggie Delites. $6.13 (with a bag of Sun Chips) and I'm full all day. I'll pay for that. And once again the French language leaves me in awe for making even"7 under 6 menu" sound like poetry.