The picture above is bibimbap, or the closest I could come with the limited ingredients available to me. Real bibimbap would have rice as a base instead of rutabagas, and it would be served in a searing hot stone bowl. But these major differences actually bothered me less than the absence of sesame seeds and oil, soy sauce, and gochujang. The kimchi was nice, though it's quite fermented at this point, having been made last fall.
I picked this dish to make because it highlights most of the foods that I have available - rutabagas, of course, though they're tastefully hidden beneath the fried egg, carrots, onions, green beans, kale, and beef. The only significant food source that's missing is squash, though I also eat a good number of beets. For seasoning I have sage and dill and bags of a few other herbs, which are already proving incredibly useful in staving off boredom. I'm also up to my gills in insipid cider, which is better for cooking than drinking at this point.
In my last post I mentioned in passing that limiting the diets of livestock - most obviously cows to forage alone - can improve their lives, even if they would happily eat grain if given the choice. Similarly, I am hopeful that limiting myself will give me a greater appreciation for each new food as it comes into season. So far my sense of smell has gotten far more acute, but this mostly makes Alanna's morning coffee particularly enticing.
Broadly, I feel good, and I haven't lost a noticeable amount of weight. For anyone keeping score at home, I used the scale at my daughter's checkup on the seventh, and I weighed 174, which is in line with my historic average. Though I wasn't tracking carefully before or after, I'm certain my fat consumption has dropped a lot and my carbohydrate consumption has risen to (hopefully) compensate, though I take comfort in the fact that none of the carbs I'm currently eating are refined. I would definitely prefer to have more fat in my diet, but that will have to wait until we get lard in a couple months.
I'll leave you with this picture of my lunch I posted on facebook last week. It is a plate of squash, eggs, and kale with cured duck breast. The duck breast is now gone, but in a few weeks I hope to have some bresaola to take its place, and I hear Ed is doing something with a couple cow tongues, so we aren't devoid of variety by any means.
