Eat "Real" food when you're hungry.

Food has become a source of social gathering. I'm sure Grok didn't celebrate surviving a winter by feasting with his family. He simply ate when he was hungry. Sometimes he didn't eat when he was hungry because nothing was available to eat.

Fast forward thousands of years. Now we live in a day and age where food has become a staple of entertainment. Not just survival. I will admit, living in the "now" has become something I struggle with in regards to technology and how I believe it is essentially decreasing the IQ of the world. But I don't struggle with living in the "now" when it comes to food. I love the stuff!! I love all the flavors, and the art behind making it. I have been told I am quite the exceptional chef, although my degree in culinary arts came from the school of hard knocks. I do love to cook, and I don't think I've made a bad meal anytime recently. This is to my advantage because I can take "real" food and make it awesome with very little effort.

Last summer on Monday June 1st, 2009 I decided I wanted to lose weight. Fast forward to Monday March 1st, 2010. I didn't do it. There are no real excuses. I do have to say that the second half of 2009 was the most interesting year of my life so far. Many ups and downs. Nowadays I am in school mostly to decrease the boredom I suffer during the earlier hours of the day, but most importantly, I am playing in my band again. They are the most awesome dudes ever and I want to be the best I can be for them as well as myself.

My birthday is in exactly 6 weeks. April 15th to be exact. That is also the week my unemployment will be ending (Thanks Jim Bunning!!) and I will have no choice but to find a job. One thing that I liked about the unemployment is that I could survive without working. I hate being in front of people when I am not happy with my self-image. I kept telling myself that I will lose weight and then I will feel better about getting a job bar tending or waiting tables. Well now I don't really have a choice. I will have to get a job overweight or... not overweight.

Last Monday I started going to a personal trainer named Bruce. I am going 3x a week and I think he's great. I was really sore the whole week, partially from my skiing adventures, but probably mostly from the exercises he had me do. Today I start my second week with him, and I would also like to drastically change my eating habits.

That gives me a month and a half, 45 days, 6 weeks or however you want to count it until my 25th birthday. Ahhhh!!!! It's kind of exciting in a way. I'm not going to make any crazy goals or anything, but it would be nice to possibly be able to wear one of my outfits I have in storage that doesn't fit anymore for my birthday party, so I don't have to buy anything.

I also have a fancy new HD Camcorder that I am excited to use to document this adventure. I am going to film some cooking as well as my experience with Bruce and put it up on my youtube.

I really should be getting some sleep. It's past 2 am and I have a big day ahead of me.

Until then

- Grok Star

Detox Day 1

My new drummer wanted to do this detox thing and I read into it a little bit and discovered it was very similar to a paleo life style except for taking supplements and drinking a fancy protein shake. It is 21 days long and I figured I could help support him in his detox quest and also see how it makes me feel. So today is my day 1 and I just had the shake for breakfast.

Time to go grocery shopping.

- Grok Star

Delicious Green Bean Recipe

Here in the south, we would almost always have "southern fried" green beans at meals at home. There isn't really anything fried about them and they are very simple to make, it just takes a little bit of time to cook them.

We always had a garden at home and my mom would can green beans so we would use those until we ran out, and store bought canned green beans seem to work just as well, they just usually have added sodium so watch out.

So take a pot according to the amount of green beans you are using and pour in the green beans along with all the liquid in the can.

Chop up a medium sized white onion into four parts and then break it up and toss it in the pot.

The secret ingredient is cut up a slice of bacon per can of green beans. I usually cut a piece of bacon into about 5-6 smaller pieces. Mix it all together and then turn it to high. When it comes to a boil, lower it to a healthy simmer and let it go for about 45 minutes. Don't ever stir it during this time. Alot of the liquid will have evaporated at this point. This is when you give it a little stir and then turn it back to high. You want all the liquid to evaporate and you want the green beans on the bottom to essentially start to burn. You don't want it to burn to where it's black, but just a good brown on the bottom. Once that has happened, stir it all together, remove and serve. I like to add a liberal amount of fresh pepper and a little salt. Some people like to eat the bacon even though it's a little chewy, and some don't, but I never remove it.

I've never been a fan of fresh green beans because they always seem squeaky to me and biting into them closely resembles someone scraping a chalk born with their fingernails. I have never tried this recipe with fresh green beans for this reason, but you could experiment I suppose.

Goodluck!!

- Grok Star

I Groked out.

Last night I did something I haven't done in awhile. I jammed with some like minded musicians. It was really fun. We sat up until 7 am playing. Perhaps my one late night hoorah before school starts. The chemistry was nice and I think we actually wrote a song! Even though we all agree the intro sounds like it could be the music for the credits of a TV sitcom like Full House or Step by Step haha. I am in the mood to cook something really spicy, almost painfully spicy. This proves to be a problem since I am without a single pepper.

With that said

Grok on!

- Grok Star

Grok didn't do door to door sales.

As much as I love being spontaneous and not necessarily having a day to day plan, it started to take its toll on me. I was collecting unemployment from my job in NYC. For a 24 year old male with no children or a significant other, there isn't much I have to be responsible to, so the unemployment was plenty. I was sleeping until the afternoon, and staying up late at night. I was getting my 7-8 hours of sleep, but at a totally different time the rest of the world was.

I was longing for something to send me into more of a regular routine. One of my favorite things in NYC (when it actually happened) was waking up while everyone was out and about heading to work. I would walk out on my stoop, coffee in hand and just take in the sights, the smell and the noises. It was always very refreshing. I liked to grab the paper and see what was going on in the world.

When you don't HAVE to do something, it becomes difficult to make yourself do anything. So I took a job as a door to door salesman for the cable company. I absolutely hated it. I wasn't any good at selling things to people. But it did keep me waking up at 7 am and being ready to sleep around midnight. A good bit of my depression really would sink in during the witching hours. When no one else was up, and I was left alone to over-think and over-evaluate whatever was going on in my life. And snack on foods I shouldn't be snacking on.

So now I am excited to be taking some classes I have great interest in starting next week. I am no longer selling cable door to door, but I will have to get up early for class, so that will help keep me in the swing of a routine. I am taking German, Political Science, History and Public Speaking. I'm not guaranteeing a degree out of this, but I do like to learn and give my brain a workout. To share a little secret about me. Everyone always says I have to have a backup plan to the music. I just kinda roll my eyes or shrug it off. There really isn't a backup plan. Anyone who knows what it is like to emerge yourself in your own art and want to see it take off, can understand the feeling. But if I did have to be something, I would enjoy a career in some sort of Government law enforcement.. Postal Inspector, US Marshal, FBI Agent, something of the like. Perhaps being fluent in German would spice up my resume a bit??

Grok out with your Rock out

- Grok Star

Ahhh! I took a month off

I haven't posted in a month. I was somewhat busy in July and have slipped up and down a bit. I got all my furniture back and visited Baltimore. I also have all my kitchen goodies back so I can cook with the best of everyone. If I can just figure out how to properly season my Wok. It has some stupid protected coating on it that I can't seem to get off. Anyway. Mark over at Mark's Daily Apple is hosting a primal challenge this month (August). I'm planning to get back on track.

Marks Daily Apple

Check out his site if you are not familiar!

I have to wake up in about 7 hours for work and I am gonna be tired!!!

Just wanted to drop in and update this thing but I'll get a little more detailed in the next day or so.

- Grok Star

One month down...

So today is July 1st. I started going primal on June 1st. I just got home from the gym. Getting ready to do eggplant Parmesan with almond flour and homemade marinara sauce. None of that store bought stuff loaded with corn syrup. Would the Italians ever thought corn would be an ingredient in making marinara sauce? I'm pretty sure all it takes is some fresh garlic, olive oil, crushed tomatoes and fresh basil and a good lengthy simmer to fill the house with that mouth watering aroma. Why add fillers??

Anyhoo. I am down 12 pounds. 18 to go and I will be enjoying a delicious ribeye from Ruth's Chris or comparable steak house on my friends dime, unless of course, he loses 30 lbs before I do. When are we going to see Public Enemies David??



- Grok Star