confessions of an oat-eater

so i woke up this morning at 530am and was unable to go back to sleep. why, you ask? because i was dreaming of a big bowl of granola with dried fruit on top... and then my mind drifted to carrot cake muffins with cream cheese frosting... and it was all downhill from there. i realized a few things:

1) i was not properly prepared for passover in my apartment alone. i didn't have any matzomeal, popovers, matzoball soup, etc. if i was going to be successful in staying "forbidden grain free" for 8 days i needed more supplies. that passover friendly coffee cake did me in. i was expecting it to taste like regular coffee cake and carry me through my finals days, and it tasted like ass.

2) this amount of stress is not what passover is about. monday i started suffering (i feel you Moses), tuesday i started stressing so much that i had a bad day at work all together, and by now, early wednesday morning, i couldn't even sleep. i never followed passover rules/restrictions as a child, wouldn't even consider it as a teenager, and never attempted it as a young adult for fear of failure. bread and bread products in general have always been my comfort food, the atkins diet would never have worked for someone like me (especially as a vegetarian). if someone offered me ice cream or chocolate versus a good slice of sourdough with brie on it, i would take the bread and cheese in a heartbeat; no questions about it; at any time of the day or night.

3) i think it's time for me too look up "emotional eating" on the internet.

4) i didn't crave the things i thought i would. i thought i would want things like cakes, cookies, pastas or even simply a slice of toast... but no. i have been craving pizza since day one. pizza! i don't eat a lot of pizza normally so that was weird to me. and, i was craving granola. every morning i eat granola with dried cranberries, blueberries and raisins on it. i really should have planned ahead and came up with a reasonable breakfast substitue. nasty bland coffee cakes, matzah with stuff piled on top of it, or rice krispies don't work for me by day 7.

5) rice in mass quantities (meaning for practically all 3 meals of the day) makes me feel sick and bloated. i can't even force down rice krispies anymore let alone steamed rice with any of my favorites (tofu, curry, veggies) on it. i am now starting to see why ashkenazic jews don't eat rice on passover. i don't think our bodies can process it the way sephardic jews can.

so, this morning at 6am i got out of bed and poured myself a small bowl of granola. i realized as i was watching the sunrise that it was the only way i was going to have a happy and productive day at work today. i am not thinking of this bowl of granola as the beginning of the end of my passover commitment, rather a little moment of cheating that helps me get all the way to sundown tomorrow... where you will be able to find me at 7pm at the Cheeseboard Collective (NOT co-op) in Berkeley.

so, i admit it, i ate granola this morning. there you have it. my passover confessions.

for my first time following a strict passover diet, i'm proud of myself for making it to day 7. i commend all of you jews out there who have been making it to day 8 for as long as they can remember (or since their bar mitzvah's, or whenever their moms made them start following the rules). it's a hard thing to do. i'm the first to admit that.

next year i will plan ahead a little more. i will look up more passover friendly recipies and get good ideas so that i can have things already available to me when the bread-panic sets in.

i hope my little story has touched a few of you... and i hope it's made those people out there who are cheating and eating their "bread product of choice" in the middle of the night (and simply not telling on themselves like i have) feel just a little bit better knowing they are not alone.