The closest thing I think I’ve experienced to an authentic pregnancy-related food craving occurred toward the end of my first trimester, when I felt that my happiness and well-being depended entirely on a steady supply of fresh pineapple. If I didn’t have one in the house, I became nervous, jittery. Now, though, exactly ninety-five days from my estimated due date, the pineapple passion has waned somewhat. I do still keep a pineapple around, but I am going through them at a much more reasonable rate and it’s rare anymore that I get up in the middle of the night to sneak a slice.

Pregnancy-related or no, for I have always been passionately pro-vegetable*, I have been in recent days utterly fixated on green foods. Last night I ate steamed spinach for dinner. Two days ago, it was a bowl of buttered peas for breakfast. Green foods, in addition to being fantastically delicious, just make me feel good. And they’re certainly not doing any harm to the acrobat in my belly, which adds to their appeal.

So yesterday I decided to take green as far as green would go. Inspired by one of the many wonderful recipes from 101 Cookbooks, these noodles came together quickly and more than satisfied my need for green.

I began by simmering slices of ginger and garlic in a quart of vegetable stock. I strained out the aromatics and added shredded chicken, sautéed asparagus, and spinach noodles from Nonna’s**. Basil, mint, cilantro, scallion, sesame oil, lime juice, and red pepper flakes comprised the garnish.

And now, though it is only a quarter to ten, I’m already thinking about today’s dose of green. Mint chip ice cream with candied kale, perhaps?



*I credit my parents for this—and acknowledge that it wasn’t always easy to get me to eat summer squash.
**Nonna’s Noodles: nom, nom, nom!

We tried again last year. I cajoled him into permitting me to take him to the buffet at Swagat. I have enjoyed the lunch buffet offerings at their NW Lovejoy location many times and together we reasoned that being able to see the food before selecting it might work better than the gamble of the chef’s choice lunch special. And there’s always Tandoori chicken, I said, suggesting that, even if he wasn’t won over by the food, at least he wouldn’t starve. Like a fool, I took him to Swagat’s Beaverton outpost, a new spot for me too. We both gave it two disappointed thumbs down and I promised never to ask him to eat Indian food again.

Yet, somehow, we had dinner at Vindahlo last week.

We had been watching Gordon Ramsay’s show, Kitchen Nightmares, on hulu.com and it had been a very pregnant-feeling day. I was hungry but didn’t want to eat, then I wanted to eat but nothing sounded good. [An admission: we're sort of on a Hell's Kitchen/Kitchen Nightmares kick. I watched them for the first time when The Squeeze was getting his geek on at the Apple Developers Conference last month and I thought it was just a sort of lonely, my-squeeze-is-out-of-town type indulgence. And now we're watching together, and loving it when Gordon throws undercooked scallops at the walls, shouts unintelligible obscenities at poorly motivated line cooks, and uncovers cockroaches and rotting bell peppers in nearly every struggling restaurant he visits. I don't want to love these shows, but I do. I'm also pretty sure that once I've seen all the episodes of Nightmares I'll be qualified to sell myself as a consultant to failing restaurants. Lesson numbers one and two: Don't serve rotten food and Make your menu smaller. End digression.]

Anyway, there was Indian food happening on the particular show we were watching on the evening in question. Gordon brought in a fancy Indian chef to remake the menu and there were some very, very pretty shots of pakoras and curries and tall, creamy lassis and I think I might have drooled a little. In any case, my interest was surely perceivable because The Squeeze paused the show and asked if he should go get me some Indian food. He is like this and I do my best not to exploit it. I believe he would have gone out into the night in search of curried lentils, if I’d asked, but since it was eleven in the evening and we were both in our PJs, I settled for a frozen naan from Trader Joe’s (a pathetic substitute flavorwise, but still better than eating a potato chip when you really want a naan). I ate happily and went to bed dreaming of the naan wraps I used to buy from India Clay Oven at the Monterey County Farmers Market.

Then the next day when he caught me oogling websites for Portland-area Indian restaurants, The Squeeze said only, So when are we going? And it wasn’t, I don’t think, in a resigned, exasperated kind of way. I swear, I was planning to take myself out to lunch at the Bombay Cricket Club, East Indian Co., and Vindahlo. I wasn’t even going to ask for company. Because, after Swagat, I promised.

• roast beef
• pizza, anything without meat
• pineapple
• watermelon
• enchiladas
• Mom’s tacos
• anything a character eats in a book I’m reading
• butter pecan ice cream
• chocolate, chocolate, chocolate
• millet, as a component of something trail-mixy
• bran muffins
• blueberry muffins
• morning glory bread
• fruit pie, any
• mint
• TLC original crackers
• black beans
• lentil soup and spinach pie from Nicholas
• Chaat House fare

What I’ve Actually Been Eating:

• pineapple
• watermelon
• yogurt
• mutli-grain Cheerios
• fish
• salads
• hummus + veggie sticks
• lentil soup and spinach pie from Nicholas
• bananas
• almonds

These are incomplete lists, of course, but you get the idea. In the last three months food has taken on yet another dimension in my head, my kitchen, and my guts. I’ve been queasy, then downright nauseated. My digestion has slowed, because that’s what happens; my eating habits have had to change. Some days I wake up starving, unable to get to the kitchen quickly enough. Some days anything I eat seems to sit in my stomach, like stone, for hours. Lately, it doesn’t feel like there is room inside me for a stomach, a bladder, and a baby. There is, of course, or there will be. It’s not like my condition is strange.

Some days I eat what I want, when I want, and I regret it. Some days I plan and choose carefully, proud of myself that I am giving my body—and the freeloader it carries—the material it needs to build the bones, skin, and eyelids of this inchoate being.

I am unused to denial, to discomfort, to frustration around food. I have always tried to eat responsibly, but now I am newly and powerfully motivated. I don’t always do my best, but every day I hold my belly and promise to do better. Eating for two maybe isn’t eating more, it’s eating better. It’s also eating what you can get into your stomach, because even a nutritionally-suspect snack is better than nothing at all.*

A few weeks into my second trimester, I can eat real meals most days, though carefully, and some days I can stay awake all day without a nap. I hear, from the few moms and dads that I know, that I have nothing but discomfort and pain to look forward to as we creep towards our November 16 due date, but for now I am celebrating the return of my appetite. I am celebrating also the fruits and vegetables that are coming into season, the mexican watermelons that I can’t keep out of my grocery basket; hawaiian pineapples, and tamales from Micro Mercantes at the new King Farmers Market. For now I am celebrating the notion that I might get to raise an Eater, that maybe I can teach my kid to love kneading dough as much as I do, and that maybe soon my body will adjust to it’s altered state and I’ll be in the kitchen again making pizzas and muffins, minty things and black bean soup—anything to satisfy the growling cravings and nourish the little beast.

*This isn’t nutritional advice; it’s just the opinion of a cranky, pregnant food writer. If you are pregnant, please consult a qualified caregiver for advice about nutrition. And good luck.

I was having a serious watermelon moment last week, sure that it was the only thing I would ever want to eat for the rest of my life ever. So I bought one. Didn’t feel good about it, but I was compelled, you know? And it was crap. I am still eating it, because I feel morally obligated, but, damn, damn, damn if it’s not worth the effort to chew and swallow. Then again, it’s just the beginning of May. So who’s the fool?