I’ve just discovered a wonderful thing, a lifesaving, marvelous, adorable thing: Leechblock.

This gem of a Firefox plugin allows me to block myself from viewing certain sites at certain times of the day. (Leeching away my valuable writing time.)

It’s simple: when I sit down to write, I enable Leechblock by selecting “Lockdown” for a certain amount of time. I can still get to Wikipedia to look up that all-important street name I need for a scene, but I can’t get to Gmail or News of the Weird or IMDB YouTube or any of the blogs I follow.

Voila! The best thing about this plugin is that it’s smart. It has options to disable its own options while a block is active (! get your head around that!) so that my very tech-savvy inner procrastinator doesn’t do a system runaround and turn the internet back on when I’m jonesing for a fix.

Check out the plugin author’s site to get a full list of the many terrific options.

Are you getting sick of pictures of leeks? Then you can imagine how I felt when I awoke this morning to yet another cup of hot leek tea. (The “soup” concept? Pshaw. It might psychologically help those who just loooove spooning up soup, but I’m a tea drinker. Put that broth in a mug and I’m happy.)

Lessons learned from yesterday, day one of my all-leek diet:

1. Pepper is the spice of leeks. Put some fresh-ground pepper on mashed leeks or even into a mug of hot leek tea and you’ve done yourself a favor.
2. Dried tarragon doesn’t develop its flavor fully enough when added to the leeks; don’t bother with it.
3. Celery seeds ditto. They add crunch, but not worth it.
4. Lemon + olive oil = yum. So to recap: the suggestions Mireille Guiliano makes in her book are the best ways to eat leeks. I haven’t been able to top her. <sheepish grin>
5. I’m a fan of variety, but I’ve also been known to eat nothing but Mexican food for days on end, or to content myself week after week with corn tortillas and slices of cheese every day for lunch. The key to successful repeat-mealdom? You have to like the meal the first time. A lot.

So based on lesson #5, here’s my advice. Before trying this diet, try having leeks as part of a meal. Experiment with the various ways you can make them delicious. Enjoy them. Then maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to look forward to two days of nothing but leeks. I didn’t have that attitude, and though the leeks aren’t tasting horrible or making me ill, I’m not tap dancing on the walls.

Will I ever do this again? Maybe. I’m not going to shout Never! and stomp my feet, but it’s a bit tortuous. Day two is better than day 1, probably because the “oh my GAWD I’m hungry” stage has passed. And on day 2 I got to wake up having lost 4 pounds, which started the day off right.

I’m looking forward to a real meal this evening, though!

Yesterday I posted about leeking off some poundage. Today is day one of my leek-only diet. (Don’t worry, it’s only a two day diet, and tomorrow night I get to eat food again, so it ain’t going to take over this blog.)

This morning I woke to the smell of French Roast wafting through the house, teasing me into getting out of bed and into the shower before Termite Inspection Guy showed up. Alas, I am not allowed to drink coffee today—so I trotted downstairs to boil me some leeks.

I must admit it’s been years since I’ve eaten anything leek-inspired at home, and I don’t think I’ve ever handled a leek myself until this weekend. I learned things! Did you know, for instance, that over half the weight of a leek is in the green leafy part? Yep. This is a two-pounds-of-leeks recipe, but after I chopped off the dark green bits (leaving the recommended ‘suggestion of pale green‘) the little white stubs weighed less than a pound. Was this okay? No idea. I moved ahead and put them in a pot, covered them with water, and boiled.

The concoction then simmered for 25 minutes. The rich scent of brewing coffee disappeared into clouds of oniony-leeky steam that permeated every dusty nook of the house.

Drawn to the smell of my only allowed food, I plucked out the three stubs of leek and chopped them up, then dumped them and the leftover leek juice into separate Tupperware. I prepared my first half-cup of mushy leek, and seasoned with a tiny bit of salt and pepper.

(I have to apologize to Mme. Guiliano, as yesterday I raved about not being able to use any herbs or spices in this soup. Rereading her recipe and the surrounding instructions, she does allow a sparing use of salt and pepper when eating the mushed up leeks. Whew!)

I ate. And you know, it ain’t half bad? Boiled leeks taste like sweet, very mild onions. I also drank a small cup of the hot leek juice; not so good. Hot leek juice has a slightly oily consistency and tastes like—yep, you guessed it. Leeks.

We’ll see what types of herbal mischief I can inflict on my poor foodstuff later this afternoon.