TGIF! Friday Fun!

"Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first."

Writer Ernestine Ulmer's famous quote is the only notable thing I can find about her. I'd love for someone to find out more about her, and the context of the dessert quote.

I don't disagree with this quote, in the larger view of enjoying the good stuff while you can. The idea of dessert being a "reward" for eating the "less pleasant" portions of a meal, however, really confuses me. If your main meal is really so bad that you need to give people a prize for eating it, then maybe you need to work on your culinary skills :)

You can start at my cooking blog:
The Lady Of Shallots

YUM!

My sister is awesome. She sent me a box of stuff from Cakes and Candies by Maryellen.

This is the company owned by her best friend, Maryellen, who also made my awesome purple wedding cake, which you can actually see on the page, sans the cake-topper, which was put on after the cake was transported here.

The chocolate she uses is absolutely delicious, and we also ended up with a batch of the best cookies ever. I've already noshed on a chocolate-covered pretzel that she rather innovatively covered in rice krispies. OH MAN. That was a good idea!

There's no way Brian and I could possibly eat all this chocolate, but we fortunately have frequent guests :)

I should have posted about this sooner, but the last week, well, you know. I apologize, sis and Mares.

The cost of foodphobia and nutritional obsessions

Most North Americans are accustomed by now to the frequent and excessive declarations by researchers that this or that food is now either deadly poison or an elixir of immortality. You know the routine: This week, coffee's good for you; last week, it was going to give you cancer of the eyelashes, and the previous week, those who didn't indulge were doomed to an agonizing, early demise. Wine, chocolate, tomatoes, broccoli, canola oil, butter, eggs, and many other foods have been the subjects of the unceasing flip-flopping of scientific opinion.

With each new "deadly" or "miraculous" pronouncement, of course, there are millions of obsessive, eating-disordered North Americans changing their diets to accomodate the fresh misinformation that fills every corner of every news outlet. I find it hard to blame them (but not impossible) when "New Study Says Drink Coffee To Live Longer" is a headline positioned higher and larger than, say, a few thousand brown people* dying of genocide and starvation in another country. Aside from the sheer self-absorbed, whiny nature of such prioritizing, it is obvious that people are being trained to fear some foods and revere others. And, after thinking about it, the reasons for this are pretty obvious.

Whenever we are fed another tidbit of food science, no matter how shaky the facts, the big food companies are on the ball, quite ready to cater to this new quirk. Low carb craze? Here's our brand new low carb bread for you to buy! Lycopene is a miracle substance? Let's make commercials reminding people to eat lots of ketchup! Wine has stuff that might be good for you, but wine itself gets you drunk, so, hey, here's some wine in pill form, with all the magic stuff to make you live forever.

Not only do they have these awesome new products to give you wine without the enjoyment of it, bread without actually being bread, and so on, but you'll pay extra for them to add a bit of something (that probably cost them a fraction of a penny per product) or leave out an ingredient. Our national eating disorder is not just big business for diet companies, it's enormously profitable for food manufacturers. Where else can you get away with paying more money to have less stuff put into a container, just so it can be conveniently marked as being a "100 calorie pack"? Give me a break.

We pay more money for special foods (fat free, sugar free, caffeine free, flavor free) that we don't even like to eat, because they taste like shit. They don't satisfy our hunger, so of course many people go and binge afterwards. I'm not going to comment on binge eating making you fat, because that isn't true for every person that binges, BUT the fact that you've spent money on the flavorless garbage, then go ahead and pay MORE money to eat something that actually assuages your hunger, well, that's certainly one hell of a way for the food companies to make a profit.

I wonder if many people have lost their ability to be guided by their palates toward satisfying meals. We get jerked back and forth by "science", suckered into buying the diet foods, and then binge on whatever is handy, which is usually NOT what we wanted in the first place. How would a person go back to a more intuitive way of eating after all that? I suppose the first step would be to ignore and dismiss each new food-related claim that is getting the news spotlight. The next would be to figure out what foods you actually DO like, and which DO satisfy your hunger properly, and then make and eat those foods.

For what it's worth, I have pretty much always rolled my eyes at these food pronouncements, and my spouse and I enjoy filling, home-cooked meals almost every day. Because my dinner is satisfying and delicious, I don't have the urge to go raiding the refrigerator later on. We are familiar with the things that we need in our meals to make them satisfying, such as a good balance of protein, fats, carbohydrates, and flavor. Fat-free stuff? Worthless--it leaves you hungry!

Eat what you enjoy, and what satisfies you. Ignore the screaming press, and don't cave in to things that say, "Buy our stuff, because it has this awesome thing in it that makes you live like, forever, dude!" Don't fear chocolate, coffee, or other items unless you have a specific problem with those items--obviously we are all different, and some are allergic to things that most people have no trouble eating. Don't buy into the hype :)

* I have, for most of my life, found it incomprehensible that people in the US seem to have absolutely no value for people who are not white. A few thousand die in an earthquake in India? Hey, they're just brown people. No biggie. Genocide in Sudan? Brown people. There's too many of them anyway, right? Thirty thousand children starving to death every single day? So what--they're not white, so their parents had no business breeding in the first place. Perhaps it is easier for people to dismiss them as "other" than to wrap their brains around the horrors in the world, but I don't find that to be a sufficient excuse.

Food is not medicine

One part of the U.S. National Eating Disorder that has always baffled me is the tendency to eat foods we don't like, or that upset our stomachs, just because we believe that these foods are healthy. I personally believe that a varied diet is a generally good idea, not just for health reasons, but for enjoyment of life, but why does that diet have to include things that actually taste bad to us? Things that make our digestive systems complain?

I suppose part of it is rooted in the mealtime conflicts, where children are threatened and cajoled into eating vegetables. Since these children were forced to eat things they actively disliked, they grew up thinking that a little culinary misery is necessary for a healthy diet. After all, if it isn't necessary, then that means mom or grandma didn't have a very good reason for doing what they did, aside from pure sadism, right? Or just not knowing any better, and it's difficult to view your mom that way.

I would wonder, how many people reading this (tell me, I do want to know!) were ordered to "fill your plate!" then ordered to eat the entire plateful practically at gunpoint? I was lucky enough that my mother rightly recognized this as a seed of later food- and eating-related mental issues, so she did not demand that we eat a particular quantity of food, nor insist that we eat particular items of food.* My grandmother, however, did and still does henpeck everyone at a family dinner if they have not piled high and subsequently eaten every bite, and she has never been respectful of my vegetarianism. Since I didn't get this treatment at home, I found it intrusive and offensive, and recognized that I was extremely lucky.

I was especially fortunate in that, because vegetables were not treated as a nasty medicine that must be eaten at all costs, I never viewed them that way. That, coupled with my parents' decent culinary skills, allowed me to enjoy vegetables, from Brussels sprouts to winter squash. I guess I was also a lucky child in that broccoli and Brussels sprouts did not taste bad or bitter to me; many children are sensitive to bitter flavors, making it more cruel when they are forced to eat vegetables that really do taste awful to them. Sadly, many parents do not know or care about this tendency, so by the time a child's taste buds have changed to tolerate broccoli and cabbage, they've been so traumatized by these items that they won't try them in adulthood.

Even so, many adults these days are conditioned to not just believe that it's required to eat food that tastes bad, but they feel guilty for enjoying foods that don't. Food isn't nourishment, it's medicine. You eat tomatoes for their lycopenes. Wine is consumed not for enjoyment, but because it contains reservatrol. Don't you dare enjoy that cup of tea, you're drinking it to get your antioxidants! Same thing for chocolate! And your birthday cake? You need to leave out the flour, butter, eggs, milk, and sugar--even if you aren't diabetic or suffering from celiac disease, because, well, because. Give me a break.

Can we stop this stupidity? If you don't like the way a food tastes, don't eat it. It's okay to have foods that might affect someone else badly--their medical conditions do not have anything to do with you. I'm allergic to peanuts, but millions of people eat them every day without a problem. So eat your peanuts if you can. I also can't eat bell peppers (although I will spare you the description of why), but you go right ahead and enjoy them. Meanwhile, I'll be having a slice of cake while taunting my friend A., who has celiac disease :)

Eat what you like. Don't eat what you don't. Stop using food as medication. Please?

* Please note that later eating issues were absolutely NOT related to food or weight. Seriously.

omg vegans and vegetarians eat stuff that isn't meat! HOW DARE THEY!

Yes, yes, I know I should avoid Fark.com, but sometimes I find useful stuff in the discussions.

Their pissing and moaning about Tofurky, however, was just idiotic. Poor them, having to live with the knowledge that people are eating meatless meals in their own homes for Thanksgiving! In fact, there are people eating foods that these guys haven't tried, but KNOW are horrible and disgusting, and it's just plain wrong! That, and, omg, sometimes the people eating this disgusting Tofurky stuff are occasionally FAT! That's, like, even worse.

Because, y'know, it's totally their business what I want to eat, and whether or not I'm fat.

This kind of bitching and moaning leads me to believe that such complainers are not totally comfortable with their own choices. Many of those I know who aren't nasty assholes to me about being a vegetarian are people who are conscious about their diet choices, and have come to terms with them.

But, hey, let me answer some of the stupid-ass questions raised:
"If you aren't eating meat, why are you trying to replace it with meat substitute?" This to me seems like something they could figure out with a couple of brain cells, but let me answer it anyway: Because sometimes, people are vegetarian or vegan because they don't want to kill animals. Eating fake meat means they can have the easy, convenient source of protein without the whole animal torture and death bit. Duh.

"Why are people fat if they are vegans?" Because being fat isn't wholly dependent upon diet. Genetics, medications, and other factors come into play. Body fat can be made from all kinds of foods, not just meat and dairy. Also, see above about it being an animal rights thing for some people. Health may or may not be a consideration.

"But tofu tastes bad!" Okay, well, that's an opinion, you see, and not everyone shares that opinion. Besides, Tofurky is made from tofu, but it doesn't taste like tofu. Also, tofu can be prepared well, or it can be prepared poorly. Most people who have eaten my tofu like it.

"zomg lol plants are alive too!" People who bring this up are generally just being deliberately obtuse. If you cannot figure out that a squash is less likely to suffer than a cow, then I really can't help you. Of course, I will dignify this by also mentioning that each cow must eat many times more plants to process them into meat than if someone just eats the damn plants--and this becomes a huge problem when cows are fed grain instead of being allowed to eat grass (incidentally, grass is helped by proper grazing by cattle, so the factory farming process of stuffing them with corn has a bunch of problems that I won't go into here).

"But I totally knew this one vegan who was snotty to me about my diet, and stuff, so how dare anyone be a vegan!" That's nice. I hear this used quite frequently as an excuse for people to be assholes to vegetarians and vegans. How about this: Don't be a dick to someone who hasn't actually done this to you, regardless of your experiences with other people in the past? Why is that such a difficult concept? I'm not responsible for the actions of others. Maybe I should be an ass to you because a meat-eater who wasn't you was trying to sneak sausage into my lunch? Would that be fair? I have come to recognize this excuse for what it is: An excuse for intolerant, asinine behavior that the people would have engaged in regardless of their past experience. I make you uncomfortable, so you want to lash out at me, and this gives you what you believe to be a good rationalization for doing so. Only, it isn't. So stop being an asshole.

"I knew a vegetarian that only ate potato chips and candy!" Okay, and? For one, their dietary choices aren't any of your business. For another, they're someone else, not me, so why does this relate to me at all?

"BUT OMG WE HAVE CANINE TEETH!" Yes, we do. And even if humans are "supposed" to be omnivorous, some of us choose otherwise because of a desire to reduce the suffering of animals. Our teeth really don't have anything to do with it.

"BUT YOU NEED MEAT!" What people really mean by this is, they cannot imagine how THEY would eat without meat in their diet. Because it is incomprehensible to them, someone who does otherwise is frightening and/or disturbing. Remember, though, that just because something seems difficult or impossible to you, it doesn't mean that others find it so.

-------------------------------------------

I suppose I should be less bothered by them, I should be accustomed to it, but sometimes I just get overloaded with annoyance. I did read one book a while back that helped a lot, though--and the recipes in it are very good: Living Among Meat Eaters: The Vegetarian's Survival Handbook by Carol J. Adams. Some people are uncomfortable with her suggestion that antagonistic omnivores are likely subconsciously (or consciously, for that matter) conflicted about their meat-eating, and instead of dealing with it, lash out at people who have made the choice to remove themselves from the conflict. However, even if you do not agree with that idea, her suggestion to view antagonists this way is helpful in dealing with their unpleasant treatment of you. She offers excellent advice in dealing with a number of situations, prioritizing respect of others' choices, even if you disagree with them. I cannot recommend this book enough, especially for new vegetarians who are becoming frustrated with the way they are treated.

A wonderful Thanksgiving!

We had a small but wonderful Thanksgiving in our household. Our friend came to visit, and we had a lovely vegetarian feast, which I prepared. My parents had visited earlier in the week, and we had a good time hanging out, shopping, and playing with kittens. They brought their shiba inu, Kitsu, who was a good boy.

I've been reading library books and writing in my new diary, so I have plenty of material for blog posts once I am feeling a little less tired. I'm worn out from the visit, Thanksgiving preparations and celebration, and my volunteer stint at the Robin's Nest adoption clinic last night.

Speaking of the adoption clinic, I managed to play with and get to know many of the adoptable kitties in the adoption center, and I want to mention a few of them:

- Severin is a sweet black female who loves to be cuddled and held. She's also very smart, managing to escape from her cage when I didn't latch it properly.

- Foster is a gorgeous creamsicle-colored tabby boy who cries and cries if he doesn't get to come out and play. He's an instigator toward male cats, but was friendly toward the ladies.

- Sampson had to be let out by himself, as he does not like other cats, but he IS a big fan of catnip, and he enjoys cuddling with humans.

- Paint is a shy calico girl who enjoyed watching the other cats play, but didn't want to emerge from her cage.

- Luna the little tortie has been there far too long, which is strange, considering she's beautiful and sweet.

A good relationship with vegetables

For my family, Thanksgiving has always been the day to get the foods you love best. Mom's amazing potato recipe, asparagus with lemon butter, acorn squash, pumpkin pie, and the family recipe pasta salad (filled with broccoli, carrots, garbanzo beans, tomatoes, and other stuff), and home-made honey wheat dinner rolls. The menu fluctuated according to our changing tastes and adventurous palates, but there were always good vegetable dishes. Our daily life, too, saw excellently seasoned vegetables of all kinds, from buttery brussels sprouts that were green and slightly crunchy, not gray and mushy, to lemony, peppered broccoli that was always just the right amount of soft and crunchy. There were very few vegetables that I didn't like, and they were the ones that tend to be all or nothing anyway, like beets and sweet potatoes. My parents both have a knack for seasoning and perfect timing, so the vegetables I ate during my younger years were usually delicious.

Fast forward to my first marriage, and family gatherings with the in-laws: Thanksgiving dinners seemed more focused on quantity rather than quality; enormous bowls of cooked, unseasoned frozen corn, green beans, and peas were passed around. Mashed potatoes were, sadly, similarly uninspired. While I was urged not to bring anything to the meals by well-meaning aunts, I soon learned that if I wanted something that tasted good, I would have to ignore their instructions and prepare at least one or two items--and I brought home empty bowls every single time. I wondered, if these dishes were their "special" meal, what were they serving on regular days? And how many of their kids thought that vegetables were gross, boring, or practically inedible? My unfailingly disappearing offerings were proof that these people were not actually allergic to flavor; they just didn't have any clue about seasoning. If my parents had fixed me those items daily and hounded me to eat them, I'd have grown up hating vegetables, regarding them as a particularly weird form of torture--and, in fact, that is how my former spouse seemed to feel about them. He wasn't really even willing to try the vegetables I made, except for potatoes.

Moving into the present, I now have in-laws that can actually cook. Brian's mother tries out new recipes all the time, and we've had some pretty tasty and unusual dishes during holidays at his family's place. Consequently, Brian loves to eat vegetables. I have tried almost every vegetable on him, including the much-hated brussels sprouts, and he has not rejected any of them. I also have a feeling that his parents didn't hound him to eat everything on his plate--doing so can cause a number of food issues in the future, and I've really found that, if you don't actually make a big deal out of the food being served, kids are less likely to reject it. It also helps if you make food that tastes good. I don't blame most of these kids for rejecting their parents' unimaginative cuisine.

The sad part is, it actually isn't that hard to make food taste good. I believe that a steamer is an important tool for preparing delicious vegetables. Broccoli, for example, gently steamed, then seasoned with lemon pepper and a hint of butter, is delicious. Green beans are fantastic with a simple sauce of orange juice, soy sauce, ginger, thyme, and garlic--steam, then stir fry them instead of boiling them, and add some sliced almonds to the pot if you have them. Mashed potatoes are a great deal better with any number of mix-ins, including rosemary, garlic, bay leaf, and lavender (try steaming the potatoes instead of boiling them, and add the herbs to the steame in a cloth teabag or metal tea ball). The payoff of a good relationship with vegetables is more than worth the marginal time and expense it takes to make them taste good.

Note: I use this steamer, which is very simple to use, and it has a scenter basket that allows you to put herbs on a screen to flavor the vegetables. This is especially useful for herbes de provence, rosemary, lavender, and bay leaf. I absolutely love this item; it was a gift from my grandmother nine years ago, and it's still going strong.

I'm fat and I wear Crocs. Deal with it.

You'd think this guy was just kidding, but he's not.

Apparently, Crocs are responsible for people being fat. This is because, according to some guy who makes his money off of "boot camps for brides before weddings", kids "clop along" in Crocs, or shuffle their feet. It makes me wonder if he's ever 1. seen kids walk, or 2. worn a pair of Crocs. I've seen plenty of kids shuffling as they move; hell, I did it, and I remember it being part of an attitude, not because of the shoes I was wearing. If I wanted to run, though, I bloody well ran until the asthma attack happened (before you ask, I was a THIN child and teen--asthma is a disease of the lungs, not the result of adipose tissue). When I was in high school, I was capable of dashing up or down two flights of stairs in high heels.

Now that I'm older, and I've been stricken with this stupid disease, I can't wear the heels anymore. I'm not doing a lot of running. But, I do wear Crocs. I've worn them on hikes, and I've run short distances in them without trouble. In fact, they're much easier for me to wear for those activities than other shoes, because they are light, ergonomic, and fit me very well. Wearing Crocs has pretty much eliminated all plantar fasciitis pain, enabling me to be more active than I otherwise could be. "Athletic" shoes have caused me nothing but foot pain throughout the years; I've spent a great deal of time and money trying out different brands, and while a couple brands were less painful than the rest, none have given me the freedom from pain that Crocs have.

Perhaps the big name athletic shoe companies are feeling a bite in their profits due to the success of Crocs. How about, instead of planting little fitness fascists (like the weenies in this article) to insinuate that shoes are making kids fat, they develop competitive, comfortable products that serve the needs of the customers they are losing? How about recognizing that people want to spend money on shoes that don't hurt their feet, don't fall apart within three months, and are simple to clean and care for? Sorry, large shoe companies, but I've thrown too much money away on your products, only to have them give me blisters, not provide enough shock absorption to prevent knee and ankle pain, and to be unsalvageable if I stepped in something disgusting. Learn from your losses instead of badmouthing your competitors.

Here's quote from Junkfood Science:

Crocs are certified by the U.S. Ergonomics Council and the American Podiatric Medical Association and they’re designed to help with certain foot and circulation problems. Will anti-obesity initiatives be coming after nurses, elderly, cashiers, gardeners, diabetics, and those with foot problems next?

Also, the article included a quote from some doctor:

"I have seen 9-year-olds with type 2 diabetes," Hassink said. "Obesity is an indicator. It tells us about our environment, about our culture. It is the canary in the mine."

What she's not mentioning is that this is most likely due to the fact that prepubescent kids have a natural and temporary insulin resistance that is associated with hormonal changes and growth. This is normal and natural, allowing them to have the energy stores needed for growth and puberty. Remember, puberty? When girls get curvy? Remember when it was okay for women to look like women instead of prepubescent boys? Anyway, this (again, temporary) period of insulin resistance in growing children (remember, too, they're supposed to do that--get bigger as they get older) can lead to overzealous practitioners to label the kid with type 2 diabetes. This would be due to the fact that, in the past, no one really bothered checking for it, so kids sailed through that period of development without anyone knowing a thing.

Now, of course, they put on some fat layers as part of puberty, and everyone PANICS! because OMG ADIPOSE TISSUE OMG OMG! So we had to start testing them to prove that it's a bad thing--and of course, a healthy 9 year old kid is just the right age to start testing as insulin-resistant. Instead of waiting it out to see if it's normal puberty changes, we now have to medicate the hell out of the kid, put them on a treadmill, and enforce a 200 calorie per day diet so they don't become socially unacceptable. Because it's healthy, you know.

I'm so old that I remember when kids were allowed to do kid things, without having a mortal fear of food being programmed into them. We got to play, and physical activity was allowed to be fun. Our day wasn't scheduled from dawn to dusk, leaving plenty of room for creative activity. Reading a book was regarded as an acceptable activity instead of a fattening one. We played outside in the worst possible shoes (thongs, aka flip flops!), or even in BARE FEET. Mom gave us cookies, and we thought of them as a wholesome snack because they were fresh and mom-made. Those cookies gave us the energy to build our bodies, our brains, and our spirits, refreshing exhausted little bodies that had been busy and running around for hours; refreshing needy little hearts with mom-love; refreshing tired little brains with a boost of much-needed calories.

What happened to all that? What happened to childhood being fun? Can't we back things up about twenty years and stop this foolishness? I am SO glad I'm not having children in the paranoid climate we have today.

P.S. I highly recommend Sandy's take on this, as well as Big Fat Blog's.

Organizing Your Recipes

This idea was part Catt's, part mine. When she is looking at a magazine, and she sees a recipe that she likes, she'll tear out the page(s) containing the recipe rather than keep the whole magazine. Or, she'll cut out the recipe if it's small.

The result was a pile of snippets and pages, so I tamed the pile by hole-punching the whole pages and sticking them in a binder, then taping the snippets to either a full size sheet of paper that I hole-punched, or to an index card. I know that a lot of people intend to write the whole recipe out on the index cards, but who really has the time for that, especially if it's one that you haven't tried yet? Taping it to the card works just as well--you can wrap it around the side of the card if it's a long snippet.

The next step is to keep track of the ones you try. If it's a keeper, move it to a different binder marked "Keepers". If it was indifferent or crappy, rip the page out, throw it in the recycle bin, and be done with it.

Also, if you're trying stuff out in a cookbook, feel free to take a pencil to that sucker. I am merciless with my cookbooks, marking the recipes in a star-rating system, and commenting with adjustments or alternative ideas. I can never leave a recipe well-enough alone, so making notes right in the book helps me keep track of what I've done, what's worked, and what I shouldn't bother with again.

Blog flog

I've put up a new post at my cooking blog:
http://theladyofshallots.blogspot.com

I started Lady of Shallots in Livejournal, and I am going to eventually rewrite the existing material over there and post it in blogspot. The mashed potato article, however, is brand new. :)

Imagine, a cooking blog that isn't devoted to "How to make food with no calories at all! Use styrofoam and pencil erasers to fool yourself into being full!"

;)

Cooking artistry

I frequently entertain a guest or two for dinner; not so much in a planned fashion, but a, "Hey, you're already here, you might as well stick around and have some of what's brewing in the crockpot!" Naysayers are quite rare, as my meals are almost always pretty good. We do not cook meat in this household, but no one's had a complaint yet.

As such, I will probably start posting in my cooking blog more and more. You can find it here:
http://theladyofshallots.blogspot.com/

I guess I need to get my head out of the trough of Big Macs

So, you could have your paycheck docked if you're fat.

I actually would LOVE to have someone follow me around for a week and see how I actually eat. Hint: It doesn't involve McDonald's, a gallon of ice cream per day, or mountains of chocolate bars. :P

Breakfast today: a 6-oz container of yogurt

Lunch today: about 5 oz. of "Gimme Lean" brand vegetarian sausage, cut into pieces and sauteed in about a half tablespoon of olive oil

Dinner tonight: Mini pizzas made of English muffins, Boboli sauce, and a little bit of aged provolone. I'll probably have two, each of which is half a muffin with toppings. And I might have a scoop of ice cream for dessert because I LIKE IT. I usually make some vegetarian dish with fresh vegetables and eat that with rice, but I am low on fresh stuff right now (Saturday morning necessity: The Farmers Market).

At some point, I'll have a snack of grapes, a plum, or whatever kind of fruit is lurking in the fridge (Brian went to the store yesterday, so maybe we have PEACHES!)

This is fairly normal to me; I sometimes am not feeling well enough to eat breakfast, and sometimes not even lunch.

I AM SUCH A PIG!

Edited to add: I just realized that the headline was "being unhealthy* could cost you money"--NOT "being fat". Oh, the powers of assumption.

*emphasis mine

Edit #2:
Edited to add: If they truly believed in weight-loss as a health issue, and they really believed that it could be accomplished with traditional methods, then the docked pay would be made available to the employee if they applied it toward weight-loss (gym membership, Weight Watchers membership, doctor bills, medication). Since they're not doing this, it really and truly looks like a money grab to me.

Kitchen confessional

I entered a contest here:
http://ge.rachaelraymag.com/contest/

My entry was based on my use of garlic, and while I was limited to 50 words there, I will not limit myself in this entry.

I gave up on fresh garlic a long time ago. It's annoying to peel, garlic presses are a pain to clean, and garlic goes bad too quickly to keep enough on hand for the amount that I use.

Instead, I use minced or crushed garlic in a jar, the wet kind. It really tastes the same, is cheaper, it's easy to load up in a dish (spoonful after spoonful...mmmm!), and it keeps for a long time. No one has ever noticed the difference, and it's light-years tastier than garlic powder. It's saved me a lot of time, money, and aggravation. I also use ginger in the same format; we are ginger addicts here, and I never disappoint a guest with my cooking.

If you really want to find inexpensive garlic in a jar, try the Asian market. I pay a lot less for many ingredients, including coconut milk, canned specialty vegetables (bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, baby corn), dried mushrooms, produce, fresh mangoes, and sauces (tamari, vegetarian oyster, stir-fry). Some of them are up to 50% less than in the standard grocery store, and there is little to no difference in quality. We hit up the Indian grocery for staples like basmati rice, dried chickpeas and lentils, and spices (cardamom is especially inexpensive, and it's a great place to get pre-blended spices like garam masala).

Good food is important in our household. We eat a LOT of vegetables, and our friends really enjoy visiting for dinner. Because we're fairly poor, our food budget does not allow for much dining out, and fast food places are not vegetarian-friendly anyway. Lunches usually consist of leftovers, and snacks are cheap stuff like yogurt, dried fruits, cheap pretzels, and bulk nuts (almonds, walnuts, cashews, pecans--I am allergic to peanuts, but okay with tree nuts). We're definitely not "junk food vegetarians"; we couldn't stand to eat so unimaginatively!

Allergy free peanuts?! Hooray!

Peanut and tree nut allergies are the most severe of all food allergies, affecting approximately 3 million Americans, and causing 100 -- 150 deaths from anaphylactic shock annually and many more hospitalizations. In industrialized nations, the allergy has been rapidly increasing in children, for causes that are not entirely understood. One study showed that between 1997 and 2002, peanut allergies in children doubled in the United States. Today, an estimated one percent of all children suffer from the allergy.

I developed a peanut allergy a couple of years ago. I didn't figure it out at first--I was having horrible asthma attacks that inhalers were not helping. I would take a Benadryl, and eventually, the attacks would subside. After a few of these in a relatively short period of time, I realized that it was the peanuts. I learned that each exposure makes the next one a little worse, so figuring out before it became life-threatening was very lucky.

I had started off having indigestion after eating peanuts, but didn't really think about it too much. Just when I'd forgotten about the last bout of indigestion, I would eat them again and feel yucky. When I finally sorted out that I was having a much more severe reaction, peanuts were banned from my life--and I haven't had a single asthma attack since, even during allergy season.

So, this article really made me happy. A hypoallergenic peanut? I miss peanut butter. The soy alternatives just don't taste right, and it's a very easy source of protein. I hope that they find a way to grow them inexpensively so that the majority of peanut-based products can be switched over. I'll celebrate with a Butterfinger!

Today at the Farmers Market!

Click thumbs for full size pics :)

Baking with Apples

By special request from my friend E.L., who is awesome.

There is an absolutely enormous quantity of stuff that I could write about apples. Baking with apples narrows it down somewhat, but not terribly much. So I'll just take a slice of that topic and offer the best of baking with apples that I have rolling around in my brain.

Apples are a great subject for baked goods. They're tasty, they're cheap, and they can be used in a lot of ways. The only real problem I have with apples is the chore of coring, peeling, and slicing them. This is extra difficult when your hands and wrists are in a lot of pain from arthritis, fibromyalgia, and/or carpal tunnel problems. My difficulties were eliminated with one great little piece of equipment, however:


This is an apple peeler. You stick it to a smooth, clean surface, impale an apple, and turn the crank. It peels, cores, and slices the apple all at once. You're left with a spiral-cut peeled apple. I usually then quarter the apple and use a paring knife to trim away any missed core bits (they're unpleasant to bite into, especially in baked goods). You can also choose to leave the peel on while doing the slicing/coring, or peel the whole apple and leave it whole and uncored. The resulting sliced apple pieces are absolutely perfect for baking, and it takes very little time to get through a lot of apples.

Once you've got your apple slices, you're going to want to do something with them, right? Whether it be pie, crisp, or bread, there is a basic recipe that I use to get the apples ready for use. For every 5 medium apples, I use 1/2 cup flour, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, and 1/4 teaspoon cardamom, about 1/2 cup brown sugar*, and the tiniest dash of cloves. If you really want to get spicy, add in some ginger, fresh or ground (don't go overboard--a teaspoon is usually enough). I then use my freshly scrubbed hands to mix the mess together. Using a utensil to mix is just inefficient and annoying, and if you don't like the stuff in your hands, you can toss on some disposable gloves.

After mixing it up, I taste a slice to see if it needs a bit more of this or that. Some apples are less tart, sweet, or flavorful than others, so you can adjust the ingredients to get the flavor you like. If your apples are particularly juicy, add in extra flour to absorb the moisture so you don't have a liquidy mess. Before throwing on the top crust, be it for crisp or pie, dot the apple mix with pats of butter.

Apple selection is relatively important. There is a lot of information online about which varieties are best suited to different purposes, so I won't go into it here. I'll just briefly say that, while it's easier to start with a good baking variety, you don't always get to choose. A lot of my baked apple stuff is for the purpose of using up the last of a bag of apples, and apples that are good for raw eating aren't always ideal for baking. So, be aware of the texture, sweetness, juiciness, and tartness of the apples you are baking, and add extra flour, sugar, or lemon juice to make up for it.

Partnering apples with other fruits is a good way to bring out flavor. Cranberries are my personal favorite apple partner. You can use dried ones, which are fairly inexpensive, or pick up fresh cranberries in season. An awesome thing about fresh cranberries is that they keep for a pretty long time in the freezer, so you can stock up a bit when you find them available. You can also use raisins, especially for very tart apple varieties; they add sweetness and texture. Just be aware that not everyone loves raisins, and they tend to look like little bugs in the pie. Cranberries are much prettier.

The best thing you can do is, start with these basic tips and just run with them. Be creative. Don't be afraid to try new things. If you're in doubt about an idea you have, make a tiny version of a pie or crisp in a small tart tin, using only one apple. Enjoy :)